My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece, Annabel Pitcher (audiobook)

Five years ago, Jamie’s sister Rose was killed in a terrorist attack in London. He doesn’t really remember Rose, because he was only five at the time, but his family has never recovered. His mum left just a few weeks ago after having an affair with Nigel from the support group. Jamie’s dad drinks all the time and hates all Muslims. Rose’s twin sister Jas – now fifteen – has dyed her hair pink and got her nose pierced, an act seen as a betrayal by their parents, because she doesn’t look like Rose any more. It’s like Jas and Jamie are less visible than the urn on the mantlepiece, less present than the hole where Rose ought to be, the gap around which their whole family revolves.

After Mum’s desertion, Dad, Jas and Jamie move to a small village in the Lake District to start a new life. At his new school, Jamie doesn’t fit in. His teacher always seems to ask the very questions he can’t answer, and is frustrated by his reticence and apparent stupidity. The other kids call him “freak,” with the exception of sparky, mischievous Sunya, who recognises in him a kindred spirit, a fellow super-hero. But Jamie dreads to think how his father would react to his friendship with a Muslim girl, when he blames all Muslims for Rose’s death.

Jamie is a bright, unusual child with a vivid imagination. His narration is full of bright similes and metaphors which fit perfectly:

“I was more nervous than the most nervous person I could think of, which right now is the lion from The Wizard of Oz. My tummy had something bigger and scarier than butterflies inside it. Maybe they were eagles or hawks or something. Or, come to think of it, they could have been those monkeys with wings that kidnap Dorothy and take her to the witch that's scared of water.”

Jamie doesn’t really remember his sister Rose. Every day he sees the effect of her death on his parents, but for him that’s normal. He doesn’t remember when life was any different. For the outside reader, it is clear that something is very, very wrong. I felt intense pity for Jamie’s parents – one could never get over the loss of a child – but they are unreasonable in the way they treat their surviving children, so wrapped up in their own pain that they resent Jas and Jamie for not being Rose, or for not letting their lives revolve around her absence. When Jamie had to write a school essay about a hero, and chose footballer Wayne Rooney, his mother made him rewrite it about Rose, dictating the memories he didn’t have. Then, at a birthday party, when Jamie asked for food, his dad filled a plate – to put on the mantlepiece beside Rose’s urn. Jamie is such an optimistic child, but his hope is painful to an older, wiser reader (or listener listener) because of the awareness of the crushing disappointment that is to come when his wishes don’t come true, or if they do, they aren’t what he had hoped. At times the story just seems to be disappointment after disappointment, and Jamie has to learn the difficult lesson that adults don’t always get it right, don’t have all the answers and do let you down. But they get there, slowly, until Jamie concludes:

If OFSTED inspected my family, then I know what grade we'd get: Satisfactory. OK, but not brilliant, but that's fine by me.

I downloaded the audio version of this book when I was struck by a bad migraine attack. I couldn’t sleep for the whole time but wasn’t up to reading, so I let David Tennant read this to me instead. Although he is a talented voice actor, seemingly able to imitate any accent he tries, in this case his reading is simple and understated, letting the story do the work, narrating with the right amount of innocent hope, eagerness and subdued sadness. I bought the audiobook from Audible.co.uk, but was quite disappointed that it came as one six-hour track, so I couldn’t burn it to CD to wake me up in the morning. In future I think I’ll stick to buying  audio books as CDs.

The Truth About Forever, Sarah Dessen

Since her father died, Macy has been struggling to hold everything together. On the surface everything looks perfect: perfect grades, perfect boyfriend, perfect life - but underneath she's falling apart. It's the summer before her last year of high school, and everything counts towards going to a good university. Her boyfriend's gone away to "brain camp" and left her his job at the library - but she hates it. Her colleagues sneer at her, and at home her workaholic mother is too busy with her job as some sort of estate agent/party host who shows off the new houses. At one of her mother's functions, she befriends the kind-hearted but chaotic caterers and takes on a second job with them. Her new friends help her to see that life is not to be feared but embraced, while Macy finds herself growing closer to Wes, the boy with a Past.

Grief treats everyone in different ways, and Macy and her mother bury theirs deep inside, pretending that everything is fine. Macy's mother loses herself in her work, while Macy's coping mechanism is her pursuit of "perfection," for only when she's perfect, she reasons, will she have control. But she is not happy. Although she claims to be in love with her boyfriend, Jason, it's clear the lady doth protest too much, and that Jason is not good for her, being more interested in his university applications and that Macy covers his job adequately.

I found The Truth About Forever to be much more a character-led book than plot-driven. Dessen does a great job at bringing Macy's new friends to life: accident-prone, pregnant caterer Delia - UK readers may be amused by her name, being very unlike another Delia in food! - bickering brothers Wes and Bert, lively Kristy and her sister Monica "Monotone" whose vocabulary consists of "Mmm-hmm/Nuh-uh," "Don't even..." and "Better quit."

I wasn't so convinced by the "villains" of the piece, if I may so call them. Jason acted more like he was Macy's middle-aged, humourless boss than her boyfriend, and her mother was a monster. Yes, I know she was grieving and stressed, but the way she treated Macy was disgraceful. One evening she came home to find Macy had invited her friends in to watch TV - whatever next? Offering them coffee? Playing music? - and she acted as if Macy had staggered home drunk at three in the morning and thrown up over the new carpet. If Macy's aim of perfection was unhealthy, her mother's pushing her was far, far worst. Any time Macy spent on her summer holiday not studying or working - and only the library job counted - just wasn't good enough. Only perfect was good enough. She's seventeen years old! Let her live!

But what is the truth about forever? The subject popped up throughout the book, but I wasn't quite sure what message Dessen was trying to get across. Kristy contradicts herself by saying at different times, "Life is long," and "Life is short." In short, nothing lasts forever. A few weeks of summer might feel like forever at the beginning, but it's gone before you know it.

Although I quite enjoyed this book, it took me a few days to get through as it was quite similar to some other books for teenagers, and not a lot ultimately happened. I felt the need to read something a bit more challenging; this was nice but too light and fluffy for my taste at the time of reading.

If you enjoyed this you may like:

Fixing Delilah - Sarah Ockler

Artichoke Hearts - Sita Brahmachari

The Sky Is Everywhere - Jandy Nelson

Tiger Eyes - Judy Blume

Artichoke Hearts, Sita Brahmachari

Mira Levenson has just turned twelve and her world is becoming a strange and unrecogniseable place. Her Nana Josie, always so artistic, passionate and full of life, is dying; she can't stop thinking about Jidé Jackson, whose confident, joky manner hides a tragic history and a sensitive soul. Mira is changing. Sometimes she catches her mouth saying what she didn't intend to say, speaking out when she's always been so shy, or alternatively keeping secrets to herself. Nothing particularly drastic, she just doesn't feel like sharing everything with everybody.

There are a lot of books for teenagers that deal with the aftermath of the death of a loved one. Artichoke Hearts actually seemed to be targetted at the younger end of the Young Adult range (11+) but is unusual in exploring a terminal illness, and the feelings of helplessness of those who can only watch as a relative approaches death, and Brahmachari writes this with simplicity but a great deal of maturity. Nana Josie is early on established as a vivacious, artistic woman, a former hippy and passionate protester. Early on, there is a moment of dark, uncomfortable humour, as she embarks on her big artistic project: to paint her own coffin. It is heartbreaking to watch such a lively person fade.

The artichoke of the title refer to a charm given to Mira by Nana Josie, a symbol of the human heart, and how with age and experience, a heart which may seem to break grows tough layers to protect it, like the layers of an artichoke. The novel is a sweet, beautiful coming-of-age story, showing a child starting to learn who she is. Mira is a quiet girl, artistic and thoughtful, but through the sadness of seeing her grandmother die, the strangeness of early adolescence and the sweetness of a first romance, she grows in confidence and self-awareness. The characters are all very-well rounded individuals, and I think that Jidé Jackson is one of the loveliest boyfriends I've encountered in a kids' or teen book for a long time - and he's only twelve.

Read for the Support Your Local
Library Challenge 2011

One way that Mira grows in her understanding is in her extracurricular creative writing class, which is led by writer Miss Pat Print, and consists of herself, her best friend Millie, Jidé and his friend Ben Gbemi.  In the classes, Miss Print (an unfortunate name for a writer!) helps the children to understand themselves and their world through writing. The novel is written as being Mira's diary, in the present tense which itself is highlighted early on as helping reader and writer feel the immediacy of the narrative. On occasion, after a short writing exercise, the children start to feel empathy for others in a way that they hadn't before. I found these writing sessions fascinating, and they summed up what is, to me, why literature is so important: Fiction (or poetry, theatre, film, TV) helps to make sense of the world and cultivates understanding of other people.

Artichoke Hearts is a pensive, sometimes sad read, but ultimately it left me feeling uplifted, a celebration of life, youth, a loving family and good friends. I would recommend it for Judy Blume fans and older readers of Jacqueline Wilson, who are maybe looking for something a bit more grown-up. So far, Artichoke Hearts has quietly slipped onto the bookshop shelves with little fanfare, but it deserves to be widely read and talked about.

My Best Friend's Girl, Dorothy Koomson

When Kamryn Matika wakes up on her thirty-second birthday, her only plans for the day are to dress up in a spangly gold dress and high heels. One birthday present she does not expect is the responsibility for 5-year-old Tegan, the daughter of her former best friend Adele - and Kamryn's ex-fiance Nate. But Adele is dying of leukemia, and begs Kamryn to adopt her daughter. Kamryn had never intended to have children and struggles to forgive Adele and Nate for their betrayal of her, but she can't abandon Tegan to live with Adele's cruel father and stepmother.

I've always had the idea that Dorothy Koomson was a chick-lit author, which is a genre I rarely indulge in, and tend to be disappointed with when I do. Judging by the covers in pastel pinks and yellows, her books are certainly marketed as such, but reading My Best Friend's Girl got me thinking about what Chick Lit really is. Light, popular fiction by and for women? Sweet, shallow, fluffy romance? Sex and shopping in London, New York or LA, or perhaps a holiday in Paris or Venice?

My Best Friend's Girl is certainly a women's book, with its emphasis on relationships between friends, family and romantic partners, but I think to class it as "chick-lit" is too simple. "Chick-lit" always has negative connotations to me, though at the same time I acknowlege this to be unfair. Books certainly shouldn't be considered inferior because they are about women's issues, while books about men's issues are just called "general fiction." Unfortunately, I've found many books in the "Chick-lit" genre to be somewhat shallow and unoriginal, though that ought to be put down to the individual writers and not a judgement on the entire genre. My Best Friend's Girl uses many of the conventions of "chick-lit," such as a pastel-coloured cover, a love triangle and an overuse of adjectives, especially describing clothes and hairstyles, but Koomson creates sympathetic, well-rounded characters and explores issues of trust, forgiveness, friendship and parenthood with tact and sensitivity. Adele is a bubbly, outgoing rich girl, genuinely kind and friendly, but whose seemingly perfect childhood was in fact one of neglect and abuse. Kamryn, on the other hand, appears to be a tough, independent woman, but is full of insecurites. After years of bullying, she refused to let people come close to her - and those who she did let in betrayed her, undoing all the hard work. Though Adele's story was more obviously tragic, I really felt for Kamryn, as I could identify first-hand with the damage caused by the more commonplace betrayal.

Read as part of the Support Your Local
Library challenge



I did, however, enjoy the first half of the book better than the second, wherein we were introduced to Kamryn's new boss, Luke. Kamryn denies that she hates him because she secretly wants to sleep with him - but from that moment on I had a good idea where the story was going. Koomson left enough twists and questions to not make the ending predictable, but the addition of romance didn't interest me as much as the story of Kamryn, Adele and Tegan.

If you enjoyed this, you might like:

Boys Don't Cry - Malorie Blackman

TV: Single Father

A Gate At The Stairs, Lorrie Moore

Twenty-year-old Tassie Keltjin yearns to escape her provincial home. She moves to the college town of Troy to start university and takes a job as a part-time nanny to a glamorous couple. Tassie is drawn into their life and that of their newly adopted toddler. As the household reveals its complications, Tassie is forced out of her naivety, and the past and the future burst forth in dramatic and shocking ways.

I’d had my eye on this book for quite a while, after seeing it on a display stand for some literary award or other. I’d read passages at random, and was intrigued enough to eventually buy a copy. The reviews on the front and back covers declared it to be “the novel of the year” and the author to be “one of the very best American writers working today.” Sometimes you read a popular book and disagree with the general consensus. For me, A Gate at the Stairs left me wondering not only whether I was reading the same book as the blurb-writers and award panel, but whether I was reading the same book every time I picked it up.

Right from the start I found it difficult to concentrate on this book for more than a few pages. Maybe it didn’t help that I came to this book with its six long chapters stuffed with description, from Poppy Shakespeare which was written in London colloquial language, quickly-flowing with chapters of only a few pages. But what really kept me from enjoying the book was its incessantly bleak atmosphere. First of all I likened the writing style to that of Dickens, where you really felt the griminess. There was a sense of foreboding from the start, where little things that weren’t quite right, like the absence of the adoptive father through many important processes, or Tassie’s college roommate who seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth. Tassie’s employer Sarah seemed a very unlikely adoptive mother. Like a wealthy Victorian mother, it seemed as though she employed Tassie in order to ensure that she saw as little of the child, Mary-Emma better known as Emmie, as possible, which led to me wondering why she was adopting at all.

But there wasn’t the natural humour of Dickens. Moore attempted regular jokes and wordplay, but they felt forced and uncomfortable. A writer, especially a literary author, sets the work’s tone by the description. Moore, through her narrator Tassie, regularly commented on the ugliness of nature, or neutral nature in ugly terms, with special mentions of dead birds and squirrels, and the amount of mould throughout the novel verged on the ridiculous. Added to this, I never sensed I could know the characters. Not only did Moore emphasise the “phoniness” of people, but they seemed to change, not by character development, but as if they were arbitrarily replaced by people with the same name and different personality. All in all, I found that a sense of depression and hopelessness pervaded the novel, and did not want to live in Tassie’s world. To quote my sister when describing a gloomy train guard, Tassie’s world sounded like “the worst place imaginable, where the sun never shines and everyone is dead.”

Not a lot happened, plot-wise, for the first two thirds of the novel, and when plot did begin, it was very disjointed and unlikely. One criticism you can’t make of this book is predictability. Of the three major, dramatic plot twists, two came without any warning, out of the blue and then ended just as abruptly. The third involved Tassie’s family, who were featured briefly at the beginning and then, again briefly, about halfway through, as if Moore had forgotten all about them, before playing their crucial part in the last few pages of the book. And when the story happened, it happened all at once and was so melodramatic and relentlessly miserable that I revised my description of the work from "Dickens without the natural humour" to "Hardy - Jude The Obscure era."

Aside from the story, it also felt as though Moore was trying to tackle some major issues: race, parenting, family, identity and politics, but despite sometimes almost putting in arrows to say “Look! This is an important issue!” and having some scenes of unlabelled dialogue reeling off snippets of opinion, these were never really explored enough to call them “themes.” I found myself at a loss as to what Moore was trying to say, which wouldn’t have been as much of a problem if this was a story-based book. But story, here, takes a back seat amongst the issue-highlighting and the mould.

Wintergirls, Laurie Halse Anderson

At the beginning of Banned Books week in September, the Speak Loudly internet campaign reminded me that among the rubbish, there is a lot of important and good-quality young adult fiction about, and I returned to Speak, one of my favourite books when I was about sixteen. Anderson's mixture of humour and tragedy, poetry and really serious issues that made you think, and I was excited to read another of Laurie Halse Anderson's novels.

I found Wintergirls to be a much more disturbing and difficult read than Speak, full of poetic and creative imagery, but lacking the latter's humour. Its central character is Lia, an eighteen-year-old girl who is trapped in a dark, cold world of anorexia and self-harm. Cassie, the girl who was her best friend since third grade, has just died, killed by her own eating disorder, and added to Lia's troubles is the knowledge that Cassie had tried to call her that night, not once but thirty-three times.

Unlike Speak, whose sad, lonely protagonist was one I could recognise all too well in myself, I found it difficult to identify with Lia, and found myself baffled and frustrated to read her thoughts and know all too well where she's all wrong. A few years ago, I was with a friend of a friend who was stick-thin and counting calories on the back of a pot of pasta salad. I could see she had a problem, but I felt helpless, knowing that I couldn't get through to her telling her that someone of her age and size shouldn't even know what a calorie was. Reading Wintergirls provoked the same reaction, and I felt quite baffled and adrift in Lia's thoughts. It was clear from early on that her goal of losing more weight wasn't about looking slim to be pretty, but a target to aim for, and keep aiming for. When she achieves her goal of losing five pounds, she sets herself five more to lose.

"The number doesn't matter. If I got down to 070.00, I'd want 065.00. If I weighed 010.0, I wouldn't be happy until I got down to 005.00. The only number that would ever be enough would be 0. Zero pounds, zero life, size zero, double-zero, zero point. Zero in tennis is love. I finally get it."

Now, I'd always been told that "eating disorders are mental illness," and "it's not about losing weight, but control," but I'd never really been able to understand this. Books I'd read as a teen exploring the issue, tended to be rather two-dimensional: girl (because they're always girls in the books) thinks she's fat, girl goes on a diet, girl keeps pushing to lose a little more weight, family starts to worry, girl thinks they shouldn't worry, girl admits she has a problem, girl gets treatment.

Wintergirls has many more dimensions. As an outsider I found Lia difficult to fully sympathise with: she knows she's got a problem, why doesn't she want to be helped? At the same time, as an insider - reading her thoughts in first person - I found her hard to understand. Then I realised, Lia was trapped, didn't understand her own thoughts. Anderson uses a great deal of poetic imagery, which could be very effective but I couldn't always understand what she was trying to say. Again, perhaps this was a deliberate decision - to portray a messed-up mind, where madness and reality mix and mingle to create a new reality. Wintergirls evoked in me pity more than empathy, and I think I will need to read it more than once to pick up on what I missed the first time around.

The Sky is Everywhere, Jandy Nelson

What kind of girl wants to kiss every boy at a funeral, wants to maul a guy in a tree after making out with her (dead) sister's boyfriend the previous night? Speaking of which, what kind of girl makes out with her sister's boyfriend, at all?

It wasn't the brief book blurb that caused The Sky is Everywhere to leap off the bookshop shelves, onto the counter and beckon to my purse, but the unique style and format of the book itself. About the size of a small paperback, but squarer with a cover that is not-hardback, not-paperback but a kind of stiff, rough-textured card. The text inside is blue - like ink, perhaps, or the sky of the title - and the book held shut by a strip of elastic, like a decent notebook, or a journal. This book promised secrets.

I resisted this book's charms for a while, as I had read other books dealing with the subject of grief, (Hold Still, Twenty Boy Summer,) and I didn't think that I would like the main character, Lennie. What kind of girl does want to kiss boys at her sister's funeral? But in the first sentences I couldn't help warming to Lennie. Her elder sister, Bailey, who Lennie adored, died suddenly at the age of nineteen, leaving Lennie devastated. But in the wake of her sister's death, Lennie has started to come alive and discover who she is without Bailey's shadow to hide in. And it just so happens that at the exact same time, she starts to notice boys.

Despite its sad themes, The Sky is Everywhere is full of humour in Lennie's narration and a quirky cast of characters who are much more vivid than most young adult books. Lennie is the protagonist, seventeen years old and clarinettist in the school band. She seems to be drifting apart from her best friend Sarah, an outgoing, outrageous girl who changes her style every day, and the two girls really long for their friendship to be what it was before Bailey's death changed everything. Lennie lives with her Gram, an extraordinary flower gardener, and her Uncle Big - "arborist, resident pothead and mad scientist," wannabe Casanova - he's been married five times and trying for a tidy half dozen. The narration is full of quirky little observations - music teacher known as Yoda, for example or a fit of hysterical laughter compared with "a crazy relative who shows up at the door with pink hair, a suitcase full of balloons, and no intention of leaving."

Music, flowers and romantic novels, especially Wuthering Heights, are recurring motifs in this novel, and it presents a different picture of California and American high schools to what I'm used to seeing in books and film. Instead of the usual cheerleaders, cliques, locker-lined halls, cafeterias and the occasional biology lab, for Lennie the heart of school is the band, and somehow this felt more like high school as I knew it. We didn't have cheerleaders or lockers in the corridors (too narrow!) and the school canteen was best avoided. We did have music though, a jazz band (and was there an orchestra? Must have been!) a choir and various dramatic productions going on.

As well as the music, Lennie writes poetry, scribbles it down on any surface handy - at one point the narrative describes her attempting to write a poem on the sole of her shoe. She jots down her thoughts, memories of Bailey and remembered conversations, putting her thoughts onto paper (or shoe, or bathroom wall...) to try to straighten them out and make sense of the world. This is something I do myself - I carry a notebook in my handbag at all times, even post-its and a mini Sharpie if I don't have room for anything else - so it made me warm to Lennie further. Unlike me, though, Lennie lets her writing go, hides it all around the town, and between the chapters are included photographs of her poetry and a note where each piece was found.

Lennie's two romantic interests are Toby, Bailey's bereaved boyfriend, who gravitate towards each other to try to fill the Bailey-less hole, and Joe, new boy in the school band, who gets to see Lennie without the spectre of Bailey hanging over her. This was a love triangle that didn't feel forced, didn't seem to be put in to liven up a dull romance, or just because Love Triangles Are The In Thing. Although it was clear that Lennie was in too deep and heading for trouble, you could understand what got her tangled up in the situation she found herself in. An accessibly arty novel, with vibrant characters and rich, poetic language.

The Crying Tree, Naseem Rakha

Nineteen years ago, Daniel Robbin was found guilty of murdering fifteen-year-old Shep Stanley, and sentenced to death. Now, the execution date is set. The Crying Tree is written in two strands of the same plot: following Shep's bereaved family over the agonising years as they try to find closure to their grief and get on with their lives, and prison Superintendent Tab Mason, the man in charge of carrying out the sentence.

I was expecting this book to fit firmly into the category of Crime Novel, and reading the synopsis on the back of the book I found myself thinking of a John Grisham novel. I bought this book in a two-for-one offer on Richard and Judy's Book Club, but to be honest, I expected it to be a little bit dry, with lots of legalese and moral philosophising. In fact, this book reminded me more of a Jodi Picoult novel, exploring serious issues but with characters one can really feel for, and a plot full of surprises and twists.

The bulk of the book is from the perspective of Irene, Shep's bereaved mother, and to a lesser degree her husband Nate and daughter Bliss, as the family tries to put the past behind them and get on with life. A major theme of the work is the lines that should not be crossed, and yet how easy it can be to step over: the line between wanting justice and wanting revenge, between offender and victim, prisoner and guard. Rakha explores how hatred and forgiveness affect both giver and receiver, and leads us to question whether in fact some lines should be crossed. I would find myself supporting one character in an argument, but at the same time understanding exactly where their opponent was coming from.

Interestingly I found the condemned Daniel Robbin to be the most intriguing character, about whom I wanted to find out more. This could stem from a conversation I recently had with a friend whose mother works in a prison, about how "When a felon's not engaged in his employment, (his employment)" he can seem quite ordinary, like anyone else. Throughout the book, Robbin is a rather enigmatic figure, and I found myself wondering, could he really be guilty? He seemed so placid and sane that I thought it impossible that he could shoot dead a teenager in cold blood. Yet, if he was innocent, why did he not appeal the case? Maybe his outer calmness was the mask of a disturbed mind. I sensed early on that there must be more to Daniel than met the eye, and that, more than anything else, is what kept me turning the pages, in a way that would no doubt appal the Stanley family. After all, this man killed their son. Surely we shouldn't be trying to understand what makes him tick?

The Book of Tomorrow, Cecelia Ahern

Cecelia Ahern is best-known for her romantic tear-jerker, P.S. I Love You, which was made into a film starring Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler. I enjoyed the book, well enough, and also the film, but they were what I classed as Chick Lit, a genre I tend to investigate about once a year. The pastel covers of her other books did nothing to rid me of this impression, and although some of them were pretty, I didn't bother with them.

Then The Book of Tomorrow appeared on the shelves, and what a beautiful book! I am an incurable cover-judger, and this elegant purple volume with its glorious golden shinies could not keep me away. But enough of the swooning, onto the story.

When spoilt Tamara Goodwin's father dies, leaving her and her mother bankrupt, she has to leave her Dublin mansion and move to the middle of nowhere, to live under the watchful eye of her aunt Rosaleen and uncle Arthur. Tamara's mother, catatonic with grief, is confined to her room, and Rosaleen is twitchy and constantly checking up on Tamara. But is she being overprotective of Tamara, Mrs Goodwin, or of her own secrets? With nothing else to do, Tamara explores the ruins of the nearby castle, befriends a bee-keeping nun, and discovers a mysterious journal, whose entries are written in her handwriting, dated the following day, and describing events which have not yet happened.

On my second reading of The Book of Tomorrow, I felt that it would be a good companion novel to Lauren Oliver's Before I Fall. Like the latter, it shows two alternative versions of a day, depending on the choices made by the individual. Tamara feels full of guilt that the last time she saw her father they had fought bitterly, and she wishes she could recall her final words to him. The diary's offering of a glimpse into the future offers her insight into the consequences of her actions, and turns her from a thoroughly unpleasant little madam into the more thoughtful and considerate young lady who narrates the story. The Book of Tomorrow is filed in adult fiction in the bookshops, perhaps containing stronger language than you'd find in most teenage novels, but with a sixteen-year-old protagonist, I don't think it holds anything new to readers of the same generation. The setting, tone and mystery of the novel took me back to my own teens, reminding me of some of the best children's and young adult novels, compulsive, with a sense of adventure and a setting I really wanted to explore. I particularly loved the character of Sister Ignatius, the wise old nun with a sense of humour, who refused to get offended by Tamara, despite her best efforts. My favourite scene depicts Sister Ignatius and her fellow nuns avidly discussing a Mills and Boon novel as if it were great, or at least good, literature.

I have since read one or two more of Ahern's novels, but this is, for me, easily her best so far. One of my great discoveries of last year.

Twenty Boy Summer, Sarah Ockler

I probably would not have heard about Twenty Boy Summer if it had not been brought to my attention a couple of weeks ago during the Speak Loudly internet campaign against book censorship in schools, so I have Wesley Scroggins to thank for this recommendation.

Twenty Boy Summer is a thoughtful and original novel about grief, friendship, love and being a teenager. A year after Frankie's brother Matt dies suddenly, she, her family and her best friend Anna take a holiday in California. Trying to put aside all the memories the place holds for them both - although Anna has never been there before she knows all about it from Frankie and Matt - Frankie decides to use the time in order to set Anna up with a boy. Anna is less willing but goes along with Frankie's plan, but she has a secret. Just before Matt died, she had just discovered that her years-old crush on him was reciprocated, and they were just working up to making their relationship official. She had promised not to tell Frankie before he did, but he never had the chance. A year later, Anna is still holding on to that promise, trying to reconcile her loyalties to Frankie and Matt.

The novel is told from Anna's point of view, and superficially she reminded me a little of some of Jacqueline Wilson's narrators: a shy girl who follows her more glamorous best friend into situations that she doesn't really feel comfortable with. The two girls' friendship is more balanced than it seems at first glance, however. Anna is no broken reed, but shows remarkable strength in supporting Frankie in her seemingly superior claim to grief - losing a brother rather than just a "friend" - without betraying her own emotional turmoil. Although we don't see it in the novel, Anna tells how Frankie went to pieces after Matt's death, and a friendship between two very different individuals, which in some books seems unlikely, is given life as Anna expresses relief that Frankie is out of despair, even if she has changed drastically. If the Twenty Boy challenge makes Frankie happy, then Anna will go along with it.

Despite the book's title, which no doubt to Scroggins screamed, "PROMISCUITY!" Frankie and Anna only meet a few boys, and only two are given character. Frankie immediately strikes up a flirtation with Jake, while Anna becomes drawn towards Sam. At first she struggles against her feelings for Sam out of loyalty to Matt:

If I kiss someone else, the spell will be broken, and my memories of Matt and everything I wrapped up in them will be erased. No, thank you.

The novel explores the complexities of moving on from a love cut short unnaturally, and allowing the past, present and future to co-exist, neither one invalidating the other.

But is this book suitable for the teenage market, or should we go to all the high schools and remove every copy from the libraries and classrooms? My answer is of course it is suitable. Yes, sometimes the girls are irresponsible and make wrong decisions, but no more so than in every other young adult book out there. Who would want to read about good little boys and girls who always do the right thing, anyway? Not only would it be deadly dull, but you would learn nothing from it. Even the March girls of Little Women mess up sometimes.

Life on the Refrigerator Door, Alice Kuipers

As its title suggests, Life on the Refrigerator Door is a novel written entirely in post-it notes between a mother and her daughter. It begins very ordinarily, quick scribbled messages, beginning with a shopping list. Because most pages contain only a few lines, it is a book that is very quick to read, and indeed I had flicked through a good chunk of it it Borders three or four years ago. Knowing what was coming meant that the earliest, smallest little bickerings felt desperately sad, as both fifteen-year-old Claire and her mom feel the frustration of living in the same house and yet hardly seeing each other due to their different schedules. Claire comes across as a little bratty at first, and yet you can sympathise with both sides of the story: the single mother with a busy job as a doctor, and her daughter who feels a little neglected when Mom cancels their plans together.

When Mom leaves notes asking, casually but repeatedly, that they have a talk, you know something bad is coming, and eventually she writes down what she'd rather say in person:

"...I've got a doctor's appointment today. I've been trying to tell you. It's nothing to worry about, but I would feel strange if you didn't know. I found a lump in my right breast..."

Writing a novel entirely in fridge notes reads simply, but it must have been incredibly difficult to tell the whole story this way without it seeming contrived. There are a couple of places when I found myself thinking of Claire's response to her mom's message.

"I can't believe you'd leave me a note telling me something like this!"

Later on, though, any doubts about this choice of format are relieved when Claire admits that,

"It seems easier sometimes to ask you stuff on paper."

Besides, much of the tension in Life on the Refrigerator Door comes not from what is written down but what is not said: the irritable note followed by several pages of single line messages while in life away from the fridge Claire and her mom continue in uncomfortable silence, foreboding a disaster to start the messages up again.

Life on the Refrigerator Door is another quick read that nonetheless stays with the reader, using a minimum of words to tell a powerful message about the value of spending time with loved ones. Be warned: with all its cleverly crafted simplicity, it is a strong tearjerker.