Rereadathon the Third: Part two - Saturday 26th - Wednesday 30th March

Saturday:

I finished American Gods yesterday, and although I've read it several times now, I'm feeling a hint of a book hangover; I can't get Shadow and Laura, Wednesday and Mr Nancy and all the rest out of my head. I spent the evening yesterday at a 50th birthday party, which was a really lovely evening, and read most of the stories in Through the Woods, a collection of gothic fairy tales in comic-book form. I left the last one until this morning, however. I remembered being really creeped out by one of the illustrations, and didn't really want that to be the image left in my mind after lights out. Yes, I'm a wimp.

And today I've got stuck back into Anne of Green Gables. If I must buy lots of different editions of my favourite book since childhood, it's only right that I read each one, and I've got a lovely collector's library, pocket-sized with gold edges and illustrations. I know that book inside out. If I found myself in the dystopian world of Fahrenheit 451, where books are banned and live on only because people memorise them word for word, Anne would be mine. I don't know it word for word,  and yet I can identify it from a half-glimpsed sentence on an e-reader screen. I can tell if the wording is slightly different from one edition to another. This copy I'm reading today has Marilla saying she didn't want a "Barnardo boy" instead of "'home' child," which was the wording I knew from my existing three copies. When was this changed?

It really struck me today how little legal protection orphans had back in the nineteenth century, when Anne of Green Gables was set. For one thing, Marilla and Matthew just decided the night before, that if Mrs Spencer was going over to the orphanage in Nova Scotia to adopt a child, she might as well pick one up for them too at the same time - like she's running grocery errands for them. There's no paperwork, they don't even need to go to the orphanage themselves to be assessed (hence the mix-up when they wanted a boy and got Anne instead.) Yes, Matthew and Marilla are good people, but they could be anyone. Mrs Spencer doesn't even take Anne all the way to Green Gables, but drops her off at the Bright River railway station in a strange place where she knows no one.  There's no follow-up; once Anne's off the hands of the orphanage trustees, we never hear from them again. If it weren't for Marilla's change of heart, she could have been fobbed off onto the awful Mrs Blewett and worked half to death, and no one would have any record of where she went or what happened to her. It's all rather sombre to think of what could have happened, if the story had gone differently.

Saturday Stats

Books read from: Through the Woods - Emily Carroll

Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery

Pages read: 202

Books finished this week: 2

Favourite reread so far: American Gods. 

On the menu: tuna couscous pot, apple, easter egg

Sunday and Monday

Although it's currently quite sunny, the last couple of days have been very temperamental weather-wise with Storm Katie hitting yesterday evening. (I had nothing to do with it, I swear!) So the usual Easter walk has been postponed, and I spent most of yesterday afternoon finishing Anne of Green Gables. What makes Anne stand out from the other children's books of the late 19th and early 20th century, is the way that L. M. Montgomery captures the spirit of childhood in a rural community. Anne is neither sickeningly good, nor do the scrapes she gets in read as though written as a moral lesson to the reader. Montgomery gently laughs at Anne's eccentricities, but does not diminish the soaring highs and crashing lows that might seem mundane but are important to the child. Anne is one of life's optimists, but you read enough sorrow between the lines to keep the sweetness from becoming cloying; the down-to-earth humour keeps Anne's precociousness from becoming twee. She's a bright, sparky child who has survived a tough life - having to care for her former foster mother's eight children (with twins three times in succession) while little more than an infant herself - through the escape of books and imagination. So it's heartwarming to see her delight as she discovers the simple pleasures: eating ice cream, sleeping in a spare-room bed, and to finally discover people who love her unconditionally. 

I've no idea how many times I've read Anne. As a child I would read the same books over and over and over again, and a family friend's enduring image of me is reading that book, with my hair in pigtails and wearing a straw summer hat. But it still has the power to make me laugh and love and cry. I cried twice yesterday, once when the uptight, repressed Marilla half-grieves that Anne has to grow up, and the other time - well, you know which part!

Today, (Monday) I switched off my alarm and let myself sleep as late as I liked (which was pretty late) although the weather outside gave me some strange and frightening dreams. As I've already said, I've been getting into a routine even on days when I'm not working, but bank holidays are different. Today I ought to take a break from the rereadathon to catch up with The Stand for this week's readalong segment with Judith (which reminds me, I need to type up last week's notes.) But I also want to get started on my reread of The Charioteer. 

Sunday Stats:

Books read from: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery

Pages read today: 267

Total books finished: 3

Favourite reread so far: American Gods and Anne of Green Gables tie

On the menu: hot cross buns, Easter egg (seeing a theme here?) apple, sour cream and garlic Graze crostini snack

Monday Stats:

Books read from: The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Pages read today: 220
Total books finished: 3
Favourite reread so far: American Gods and Anne of Green Gables tie, but The Charioteer is up there too. Look, they're all excellent! That's why I'm rereading them.
On the menu: Bit of Rocky Road Easter egg, caramel shortbread, apple, Graze snacks.

Tuesday and Wednesday:

It's the last evening of the rereadathon, but I could quite happily do another week, and maybe I will, unofficially; I've still got Monstrous Regiment and Miranda Hart's autobiography, as well as others which got added to my mental list after the books I did read - notably, Anne of Avonlea and Anansi Boys. Yesterday (Tuesday) I spent the evening away from the rereads, as I was a bit behind on my reading of The Stand, although I came back to The Charioteer for another chapter before bed, and over breakfast this morning. The problem with having two books on the go at once - especially when they are two good books - is that you can't choose which one to pick up. But for now, I think I'll aim to finish The Charioteer by the end of today. I'm feeling a little sleepy, however, and might fall asleep quite early.

(Later)

I finished The Charioteer at about 11PM, and I think I'm more satisfied with the ending on the second reading. Although I've concluded it is a happy ending, I find myself wondering about how the story will continue past the last page, and how much of a rollercoaster ride the characters are in for when the book is closed. I don't think that their problems will go away as easily as they, or we, would like. But they will endure the storms together, of that much I'm sure.

I am writing about these ink-and-paper people as if they are real, alive today, and that the next page is tomorrow, despite The Charioteer being written in the 1950s and set in the 1940s. That's the power of books, and why we like to return to books we've already read - to reacquaint ourselves with old friends, and try to know them better. When I was about 17, I read an author's afterward for a novel I studied at school, where they wrote something along the lines of, "People keep asking me what happened to the characters after the events of the book. Nothing happened! It's a story! They don't exist off the page!" I'm certainly misquoting this author's words, and probably misrepresenting what they were trying to say, but it was the message I took away, and I've never quite forgiven that author since. 

Tuesday Stats:

Rereadathon books read from: The Charioteer - Mary Renault

Rereadathon pages read today: 31

Other reading: The Stand - Stephen King

Total books finished: 3

Favourite reread: Anne, American Gods (see above)

On the menu: Apple, Bit of Easter egg, Graze cheesey corn snack

Wednesday Stats:

Rereadathon books read from: The Charioteer - Mary Renault

Rereadathon pages read today: 168

Other reading: The Stand - Stephen King

Total books finished: 4

Favourite reread: See above

On the menu: Special K cereal, chocolate brownie bites.

Final summary:

Books read: American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Through the Woods - Emily Carroll
Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Pages read: 1592
Best reading day: Sunday (267 pages)
Average: 159 pages per day

Thanks again to Bex for hosting the rereadathon. I've really enjoyed it. Another one in the autumn perhaps? 

Mini Book Reviews: The Rental Heart by Kirsty Logan, Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins

The Rental Heart and Other Fairytales - Kirsty Logan

Kirsty Logan's first novel, The Gracekeepers, was one of my most memorable reads of last year; a haunting, hypnotic tale set in a watery future world. When I bought it on one of my London bookshopping trips, the chatty bookseller told me that it had originated from one of the short stories in Logan's award-winning collection. The burnt-out doll's house on the front cover represents well the unsettling nature of the stories. These are not cosy tales; many are about longing and disappointment, making do and wanting more. Each sentence is carefully crafted, made up of what is said and what is left unspoken, and I had to linger a while after each story, taking in what I'd just read, before I could move on to the next.

Some of these stories are more obviously fairytales: the tales of witches in the woods, clockwork men, children with antlers and tails. Others borrow familiar tropes and imagery, and twist them around to make you rethink. The settings are contemporary, historical, and fantastical: France and Scotland, Australia and New Orleans, a blending of the magical and the mundane,

I wonder what it is about the language of fairytales that is so appealing to the adult reader. Some of
Writers have reclaimed the storytelling form, rejecting the sugar-sweet sanitised fables that the Victorians, and later Walt Disney, marked out with their own style. Kirsty Logan uses the fantastical settings and techniques to explore darker themes, primal fears, the shadows that lurk at the edge of sight.

Harriet - Elizabeth Jenkins

Elizabeth Jenkins' 1934 novel Harriet was another Bookshop Crawl purchase, one of two books republished and sold by Persephone Books.  The titular Harriet is a wealthy thirty-two year old woman sought in marriage by Lewis Oman, an unscrupulous cad who is quite clearly only interested in her money. Harriet has an unspecified learning disability, and she takes little convincing that Lewis is in love with her, but no one else is fooled for a moment. Yet Harriet has no legal protection: she may have a child's mind, but she is an adult of independent means, and if she chooses to marry an unsuitable man, there is nothing to prevent her from doing just that. With Mrs Ogilvy, the reader has to sit back and watch disaster unfold.

Elizabeth Jenkins raises a lot of uncomfortable questions in her narrative: what can Mrs Ogilvy do? To meddle in her daughter's affairs will set her new son-in-law against her, and yet for her to submit so easily when she knows Lewis is manipulating Harriet, to conclude with her husband that "Lewis is a most objectionable young man, no doubt, but many people's daughters do much worse," seems defeatist, almost callous. What could Mrs Ogilvy do?

Harriet is a disquieting read, for the insight given into the minds of Lewis Oman and his family, as their manipulation of a vulnerable woman slips into neglect and abuse. Jenkins never shows the family planning their cruelties, just how they excuse their increasingly brutal behaviour. Her skill is in letting the reader work out for themselves what will not be explicitly spelled out by the narrative or admitted by Harriet's husband and in-laws, even to themselves. The more they shut Harriet out of sight and put her out of mind, the more excuses they make to themselves, because, to them, Harriet is an inconvenience, an embarrassment, not a full human being. And with such an attitude, the consequences seem inevitable. Jenkins took the facts from the reports of a real-life trial, and spun a tale that could attempt to explain how seemingly-ordinary people could be capable of great evil. An understated but chilling and important read.

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet - Becky Chambers

When Ashby, Captain of the Wayfarer, takes on a new clerk, not all of the crew think he's made the right decision. Rosemary is young and inexperienced, and this is her first time off her home planet of Mars. But Rosemary is efficient and friendly, if reserved, and does not take long to settle in among the Wayfarer's varied crew. And if she has some secrets she'd rather keep in her past, well, doesn't everyone?

The Wayfarer is not a military ship, nor a diplomatic one, or a rag-tag bunch of crooks evading capture. It's a construction ship whose main job is to build wormholes. The latest job is the biggest yet: a tunnel from an unknown part of the galaxy, to aid an alliance between the Galactic  Commons and a somewhat volatile and dangerous tribe. But first, they have to get there...

As the title suggests, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is the story of a journey, a character study of a small cast in a confined space (with the occasional stop along the way.) I enjoyed it as a leisurely read, taking my time over the book, and enjoying getting to know the characters and the universe portrayed. The different species are really diverse, not with just one "hat" to mark each one out as different, but with a wide variety of cultures, appearances, beliefs and language styles. This is not an Earth-centric setting; the Humans (from Mars and from the Exodus Fleet outside the Solar System - Earth is all but deserted) are fairly new additions to the Galactic Commons. Dates are measured in tenday periods, which add up to Standards (and I'm pretty sure a day is not the twenty four hours of Earth. Why would it be?) The universal language is Klip. As well as five humans: the Wayfarer's crew includes Sissix, of the very tactile reptilian species Aandrisk, the ship's doctor and cook known as Dr Chef, who is Grum, a near-extinct people who change gender over the course of a lifetime, Ohan, a Sianat Pair, short-lived joined species (comparable to Star Trek's Trill) who are always described in the plural. And Lovey, the AI, who tends to get overlooked but is a much-valued and loved part of the team. 

What struck me as remarkable in Small Angry Planet was that this really is a civilian ship. When did you last see an unarmed spaceship in science fiction? Star Trek's Starfleet may claim not to be military, but follows a strong naval tradition, and its exploration starships are heavily armed with phasers and photon torpedoes, which are regularly used. Star Wars is full of lightsabers and blasters. Battlestar Galactica and her fleet are engaged in a desperate fight for survival against the Cylons. Firefly's rebels are armed and fight dirty. But the Exodan humans are pacifists, and Ashby refuses to allow weapons aboard his ship, even for self-defence. It struck me as shocking and sad to realise that violence is taken for granted even in the Utopian futures, and Small Angry Planet is revolutionary just by not arming this tunnelling ship. And it shouldn't be. But being unarmed doesn't always protect them. 

What happens when the Wayfarer reaches its destination, while tense, twisty and shocking, is not really the point. It's about the journey, both the long physical voyage in space, and the changes in each of the characters as they change and grow, confront secrets, challenges and dilemmas. They don't always make the right decisions. Some choices will reverberate past the end of the book. 

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is a really fresh, intelligent and fun science fiction novel. As Stephen King's 11.22.63 affected the way I view time-travel, so Small Angry Planet set a new standard for space-travel stories. And there is a sequel on its way later this year. I usually prefer stand-alone stories to series, but Becky Chambers' universe and characters are too vast, too rich, to be contained within 400 pages. It feels as though we've only just scratched the surface.

January mini-reviews: The Tree of Seasons, Galaxy Quest, Pride

I took a trip to nearby Ryde a couple of weeks ago to explore the big bookshop there, and spent a good hour browsing all the rooms and nooks (and being plunged into darkness at one point when the electricians didn't see me hiding in a corner.) I'm sure I've written about Ryde bookshop before. The front part houses the new books, and then you go through a door to the labyrinth behind: three stories of second-hand books: genre fiction and travel at the back, general fiction lining the halls and stairways, and several rooms for children's books and non-fiction of every genre imaginable. I always feel that you can get lost in "L-Space" in a shop like that, take a wrong turning and you might end up in another bookshop in another town. After much deliberation, I bought A Place Called Winter new, and a couple of science fiction novels. 

On the way back to the bus stop, I wandered into a charity shop where I found myself confronted with another name from my childhood: my first celebrity crush, Boyzone singer Stephen Gately, with whom I was embarrassingly besotted during my early teens (don't judge me!) Although I hadn't thought of him for years, it still came as a shock in the autumn of 2009 when Stephen died at the age of just 33. (You might remember  that marking another landmark in the "how low can they go" history of the rag known as the Daily Mail when they published a really hateful article insinuating that instead of suffering the hitherto unknown heart condition diagnosed by the coronors, Stephen basically Died Of Gay.) Anyway, he was writing a children's book at the time - I read somewhere that he was very much against the use of ghostwriters, although the book was ultimately finished off for him from his notes and probably edited a lot - and it was this book, The Tree of Seasons, which I found in the Cancer Research shop on a 2 for £1 deal.

The Tree of Seasons is a rather charming fairy tale, evoking the feeling of endless summer found in Enid Blyton, Narnia, The Hounds of the Morrigan and others. Three siblings, Josh, Michael and Beth Lotts, go exploring in the forbidden woods behind their great-aunt's house, and find within a tree a portal to four magical kingdoms, each controlling a season of the year. But all is not as it should be; the ruler of the autumn kingdom has been overthrown by an evil witch whose influence is spreading out into the world beyond. It is up to the Lotts children to stop her. The plot is a fairly conventional story of the genre, a McGuffin-hunt, with good and evil characters, peril and unlikely friendship. But the world-building is immersive, atmospheric and poetic, the book a joyful celebration of nature. 

On the subject of famous people I like dying, 2015 was a notorious year, with the loss of Leonard Nimoy, Sir Terry Pratchett, Sir Christopher Lee and the actor who played "Gilbert Blythe," Jonathan Crombie. We're only at the end of January but already 2016 is almost matching last year, adding David Bowie and Alan Rickman to that list within about three days of each other, and yesterday I woke up to the news of TV and radio personality Terry Wogan's death as well, all three from cancer. My local radio station has been playing even more Bowie songs than usual, and of course that week I rewatched one of my favourite films from my teens, Labyrinth. It was harder to choose just one of Rickman's films to remember him by: Harry Potter or Robin Hood? Die Hard or Sense and Sensibility? But I went with Galaxy Quest, the affectionate Star Trek spoof described by George Takei as "a chillingly realistic documentary," in which a once-great sci-fi cast, who relive (or endlessly suffer through) their glory days on the convention circuit, get mistaken for real-life space heroes by a race of aliens in desperate need of help. Rickman's performance as the self-loathing thespian (who is never without his alien prosthetic headgear) is a thing of beauty, the film is gloriously quotable, poking fun at all that is ridiculous about the likes of Star Trek, while also celebrating what has made it endure for half a century. As an  honorary entry in the Trek canon, I'd rank it second only to The Wrath of Khan (tied with The One With The Whales.)

After Ellie emailed me to tell me she'd bought and watched one of my more recent favourite films, Pride, I got so excited about her discovering it for the first time that I needed to rewatch it again. And again (twice in two nights.) I could quite easily reach the end and go straight back to the beginning yet again, if I didn't stop myself. It's quite rare for me to find a film so good I don't want it to end; no matter how good a movie might be, normally once it's passed the 90 minute mark I tend to find my attention wandering a little until the climax. Pride is one of those British comedies about unlikely people achieving big things against all the odds, like Billy Elliot and The Full Monty. It's set during the miners' strike of 1984-1985, and based on true events, when a group of gay men and women from London pledge their support for a Welsh mining community. Strong friendships are built between these two very different groups of people. The script is spot-on, uplifting, with a ready wit, and acted by a stellar cast of big names, such as Imelda Staunton, Bill Nighy and Paddy Considine and relative newcomers like Ben Schnetzer, George MacKay and Faye Marsay. It is an absolute joy to spend a couple of hours in the company of these warm-hearted characters.* We see them grow and change as we become acquainted with them, from activist Mark Ashton, to still-closeted young Joe ("Bromley") to Bill Nighy's character Cliff, on first appearances a rather uncomfortable, stern gentleman but who, we come to discover, has a poetic soul, a deep abiding passion for the coal that is at the heart of his homeland, and secrets he's held for decades. Imelda Staunton as matriarch Hefina is magnificent (she must surely banish any thoughts of Professor Umbridge in this role.) Andrew Scott, who you might know as the gleefully evil Moriarty from the BBC's Sherlock, shows a contrasting subtlety in his portrayal of gentle bookseller Gethin, while Dominic West plays Gethin's partner Jonathan, a flamboyant but not cliched actor with secret battles of his own. The film ends with captions of "What happened next," a bittersweet mixture of sadness and triumph, and one simple sentence about Jonathan is particularly sweet.

Pride was an instant addition to my top films of all time; it is perhaps as close as you can get to the perfect film. It tackles difficult subjects with an illusion of ease, is by turns moving, inspiring, and hilarious. You'll laugh, you'll cry tears of sadness but more of joy and mirth. The ultimate feel-good film. Oh dear, I might have to go and watch it again.

*because, although many are based on real people, some of whom were interviewed in the extras and extraordinarily well cast, by nature of being written into a drama, they are characters nonetheless.) 

A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara

One of the books shortlisted for 2015's Man Booker Prize, A Little Life appeared to be the favourite to win but ultimately lost out to Marlon James' History of Seven Killings. Hanya Yanagihara tells the story of a group of friends living in New York, starting out as college graduates beginning their careers, and seeing them through several decades. Charismatic but unpredictable artist J.B. and architect Malcolm, but really focuses on kind-hearted actor Willem and most of all Jude, who never speaks of his past, and is something of an enigma. The first section gave a very relatable depiction of people in their late twenties still trying to figure out what it means to be an adult.

Yanagihara uses an interesting mixture of narrative voices: first and third person, with a touch of second as well, to give a variety of perspectives of Jude's "little life." When shown from Jude's own point of view, he is not named - which can prove a little confusing when he is only identified with a shared pronoun "he," although for the most part it is kept fairly straightforward. This technique indicates his lack of self-regard, self-importance or even sense of a personal identity. Jude and his friends are a tight-knit circle but not an exclusive friendship. As the years go by, relationships between the quartet change, get strained and fixed, drift apart in adulthood but always share their bond. Yet J. B. Malcolm and Willem can't figure out what to make of Jude, no matter how much they love him, for he never speaks of his past. And it emerges he has a very good reason for not wanting to speak about it.

A Little Life is an emotional rollercoaster, between the heights of the love of the people in Jude's present, and the crashing lows, all the different kinds of self-destructiveness that comes as a souvenir from fifteen terrible years of his childhood. You come to really care about these people, feel their sorrows and their frustration when Jude just won't admit he needs or deserves help. At other times, you revel in the relief and joy that things are finally going well - but always, hanging over your head, is the threat of another relapse. And every so often, Jude reveals a hint of the trauma in his backstory, and it's harrowing stuff, but for the most part I think, tactfully handled.

However, near the end of the flashbacks, I found myself questioning how plausible that every adult in Jude's life for fifteen years was a complete monster. Of course I know there are some really evil people out there - but for one kid to encounter so many, everywhere he went, and no one else, brought me out of the novel to ponder if perhaps Yanagihara had gone a little over the top with Jude's tragic backstory. Then, with one shocking plot twist in the last hundred pages, I felt more and more fearful of the ending. The love and goodness of Jude's friends and adopted family wasn't enough to keep the book from leaving a bad aftertaste. The penultimate section of the book would have been a fine and satisfying note to end on, although as hard as I tried to resist the fact, the ending was always inevitable. But how I wished it wasn't. It's been nearly two months since I began writing this review, and over that time, the dismay and disbelief from the last hundred pages or so have been my lingering impression of the book, quite overshadowing all that impressed me through the majority of the book. A Little Life is a book that stays with you long after you put it down, which is a point in the favour of any book, surely. But it's a shame that what I remember after I finished the novel was not the same as what drew me back to its pages through the reading process.

Mini Reviews: Terra, The Miniaturist, That's Not A Feeling

Terra: Mitch Benn

On a routine expedition to Rrth, Llbp discovers what seems to be an abandoned, unloved child, so he does what any decent being would do: takes her home to his own planet and raises her as his own daughter. Terra grows up knowing that she is an alien, but is accepted by her peers. But when she starts school, she has to confront the differences between herself and the people of Fnrr, as well as their similarities.

I found Terra to be a really lovely science fiction novel, easy to read (once you get used to all the names that look like keysmashes) and refreshingly optimistic for the genre. If the story's conflicts were a little too easily resolved, that is a small criticism. The world of Fnrr is a society evolved quite apart from ours, even perhaps a utopia, but one which reflects so much that is to be celebrated about people (whether human or not.) I came away from Terra smiling.

Shelve next to: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Key Quotes:

"I guess I'm just wondering if everybody hates the G'grk because they're so angry and violent, or whether they're so angry and violent because everybody hates them."

"There's no point knowing something if you don't know WHY you know it."

"A bad scientist tries to prove himself right. A good scientist tries to prove himself wrong, and only when he fails does he conclude he's right."

"The cleverest of the scientists and astronomers admitted - privately at least - that any really intelligent life would be smart enough never to allow its presence to be detected by the human race. It wouldn't have cheered these scientists and astronomers up one bit to now that they were right."

The Miniaturist: Jessie Burton


Amsterdam, 1686. Nella Oortman arrives at her new husband's house to find a frosty welcome. Her sister-in-law and servants seem to have made up their mind to dislike her, while her husband Johannes wants nothing to do with her. On one of his rare attentive occasions, Johannes buys Nella a lavish wedding gift of a doll's house cabinet, and when Nella decides to furnish it, the miniaturist sends unsolicited and disturbing additions: items and characters which show too much knowledge of Nella's family, home - and future.

The Miniaturist explores the role of a woman in the seventeenth century, the expectations of a merchant's wife, and Nella's quest to make a place for herself in this unfamiliar new world. Set against the backdrop of the sugar trade, The Miniaturist takes the part of those who do not conform to the expectations of an oppressive society, that even the privileged classes find their own prisons. The cabinet plot is eerie and full of foreboding; there is a sense of a fate neither escapable nor quite understandable until it is too late. I grew emotionally invested in the family and ached for a happy ending, but tragedy is a foregone conclusion from the very first chapter. An extraordinary debut (and a beautiful cover.)

Shelve next to: The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Key Quotes:

"It is not a man she has married, but a world."

"Growing older, Nella realises, does not seem to make you more certain. It simply presents you with more reasons for doubt."

"Everything about this cabinet was indeed distracting. So much happened while I was looking the other way. I was sure I'd been standing still, yet look how far I've come."

 

That's Not A Feeling: Dan Josefson

That's Not A Feeling shows a year in the life of Roaring Orchards School for Troubled Teens, seen through the eyes of newcomer Benjamin, who was abandoned there by his parents after attempting suicide. The novel has an air of surreality from the start, which could perhaps be attributable to Benjamin's fragile mental state. I have read other books that gave me the same distorted view of the world, but at no point could I actually believe in Roaring Orchards. The creation of a man with unique ideas about the treatment of "troubled" children, there was a troubling lack of distinction about whether it should be viewed as a psychiatric institution or a reform school. There was a regular administering of medication, but no medical staff unless you count the school nurse and counsellor, mentioned only in passing. The school's regime is full of ridiculous jargon, useless and sometimes abusive therapies, staff with no idea of boundaries, and, as the title suggests, the students/patients/inmates are never listened to, only told what the staff want to hear. That's Not A Feeling reads as a parody of alternative therapies, or teaching, or reform schools, but the lack of depth or understanding of the mental health issues touched upon meant that I could not fully engage with the text. Disappointing.

Key Quotes:

"Seeing us as objects of fun let the faculty imagine we were somehow protected, I thin, as comic figures are able to survive all kinds of harm."

"I didn't like the feeling of separating myself in two: the Benjamin who was doing the thinking and the Benjamin that was being thought about."

Bout of Books 10: Days 1 and 2

Day 1: Monday 12th May

It's been a while since I've taken part in a readathon - in fact, it's been a while since I've blogged at all. I've been reading and watching plenty, but been in a bit of a reviewing slump and haven't been able to think about much to say about my books. Hopefully, writing a little bit about my reading each day for the readathon will help me get into that frame of mind again. But it will be only a little bit, for two reasons: firstly, I'm working full-time this week. (This is a good thing: I am only on a part-time contract, and overtime has been scarce in the past few months. But why did it have to be this week?) Secondly, Ruby, my faithful red laptop, has developed a screen condition and due to the aforementioned long week, I shan't be able to see my computer-doctor cousin Jeremy until Friday at the earliest, so will have to rely on borrowed computers for all blogging purposes. Still, this has its benefits in that most of my readathon time will be spent, well, reading, rather than internetting the day away.

My Books

I've selected a range of books to choose from this week and do not expect or intend to read all of them. My target is 3 or 4.

1. Blood and Chocolate - Annette Curtis Klause

This will be a reread. I first read Blood and Chocolate about ten years ago, when I developed a soft spot for werewolves (for which we can probably thank Remus Lupin.) This predates the current version of human/non-human romances, and the protagonist is the female werewolf who falls in love with a human boy. I don't remember a lot about this one. I bought this copy from Ellie's shop last year.

2. The Lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch

This has been on my radar since its first publication, and last year a lot of my blogger friends started raving about it, pushing it right up my wish list. Around the same time, it turned up in The Works on a 3 for £5 offer. It was a no-brainer.

3. From A Buick 8 - Stephen King.

This is a King I have no foreknowledge or preconceptions about, except that presumably it involves a car. Another The Works find.

4. The Player of Games - Iain M. Banks.

I tried the first of Banks's "M" novels about the Culture during a Bout of Books last year, and to be honest I struggled somewhat with it. I've since found out that The Player of Games is generally considered a better introduction to the series, and so I'll give him a second chance. (I also have one of his "M-less" novels on my to-read pile, though that has not made the readathon shortlist.)

5. The Charioteer - Mary Renault

I'd never heard of this one before its striking cover caught my eye earlier this year. Apparently yellow covers are the way to go! The story of a gay soldier during World War 2, apparently this was quite a daring and groundbreaking novel when it was published in 1953. I'm really looking forward to this one.

6. Goodnight, Beautiful - Dorothy Koomson

I love Dorothy Koomson. Her books are marketed in edible-looking pastel covers, but they prove that feminine does not mean fluffy, and they can be hard-hitting and thought-provoking. The Rose Petal Beach was a thriller on a par with Gone Girl. Read Koomson, but don't expect a "light" read.

7. The Cuckoo's Calling - "Robert Galbraith."

Interesting how, when the first Cormoran Strike book was believed to be penned by an unknown, its RRP was £16.99, and now it is known to be written by J.K. Rowling, the publishers have put a price of £20 on the sequel. Huh. I bought this on special offer after "Mr Galbraith's" true identity was revealed (incidentally, on the same week as the paperback of her Casual Vacancy) but did not want to read it at the same time as my Harry Potter reread. It's been kind of forgotten since then. Maybe I'll correct that this week.

9PM: What I've been reading

It made sense for me to start the readathon with the book I was most excited to read, The Charioteer. The hero, Laurie Odell, is a decent, good-natured and slightly eccentric young man, who we meet first as a small child and then as a schoolboy, before launching into the main plot which commences after he has been wounded at Dunkirk. He befriends Andrew, a conscientious objector working at the hospital where Laurie is convalescing, and the narrative is brimming with tension as they grow closer, not daring to speak of or act upon their feelings for fear that they have misinterpreted the other's. The Charioteer is proving to be a thoughtful, intelligent and compassionate work of art that is way ahead of its time, and I'm enjoying spending this time with Laurie.

Monday's stats:

Number of books started: 1.

Number of books finished: 0.

Books read today: The Charioteer

Number of pages read today:  202

Favourite book so far: The Charioteer

Quote of the day: "When you feel less superior it seems you feel more lonely." - Laurie, page 85.

Day 2: Tuesday 13th May

Today has not been a good day. My very first customer at work was a woman who on her last visit made such a nuisance of herself that I ended up close to having a panic attack, and in a voice like poisoned honey, she referred back to that incident, not buying anything, apparently coming in for the express purpose of reminding my supervisor and myself of how unpleasant she was. My second customer wasn't much better...

I've only had one day off in the last week, and it's two more days until the next one. I am tired, and when I get tired, that's why I let my defences down and the negative, destructive thoughts creep in. Why can't they make way for something more positive; a silly crush or ridiculous daydreams, for a change? Why are positive emotions so much more hard work than the negative ones? It was my ex's birthday last week, and getting in touch with him again, even just to say "happy birthday" via Facebook reminded me of all the things that even five years on have power over me. Memories - good and bad - still pop up out to jab at my brain and hurt me as if they were brand-new. I should be long over it by now.

At least I have my book. I'm aiming to finish The Charioteer this evening, although it feels like a book I really ought to take my time over. Still, I've no doubt it's a keeper. Our hero Laurie is finding himself caught between two worlds; not a love triangle precisely, but he is divided between the close friendship with the innocent Andrew, who is still on the verge of figuring out the potential of their relationship, and the older, more worldly Ralph Lanyon, who had been a prefect at Laurie's public school, and a bit of a hero to him. I really hope this story has a happy ending.

Tuesday's stats

Number of books started: 1.

Number of books finished: 0

Books read today: The Charioteer

Number of pages read today:  180 

Favourite book so far: The Charioteer

Quote of the day: "I'm not prepared to accept a standard which puts the whole of my emotional life on the plane of immorality." - Alec

Tell The Wolves I'm Home - Carol Rifka Brunt

Sometimes you only have to pick up a book to know it's going to be something special. I'd never heard of Carol Rifka Brunt's novel Tell The Wolves I'm Home when I found it at work the other day, and yet I knew before I even read the cover blurb that it had the potential to be a good friend. Maybe it's the wistful dreaminess of the title, or the striking, bright green cover design. I prefer to think that it was some kind of magic inside the book itself, calling out to me, knowing that it had found a kindred spirit.

I returned to look at this book several times while working in the bookshop, and when I found a shiny new copy in the library a few days later, I knew it was meant to be. Tell The Wolves I'm Home is the story of an introverted teenage girl, June, dealing with the death of her uncle Finn, who was her closest friend and confidant, from AIDS. Through her grief, she strikes up an unlikely secret friendship with Toby, Finn's partner, and gets to know her uncle better through Toby's memories. 

Tell The Wolves is a story about love and loss, but also of finding, growing up, death and life, loneliness and jealousy, but at its heart, it is a tale of family. The book brings the reader into June's family, and gradually, although the primary relationship is between June and Finn - both living and dead - it becomes clear that the bond between June and her sister Greta is as important, or, I would argue, even more so. The sisters were close as children, but in their teenage years have grown apart. Greta appears at first as that familiar figure, the mean elder sister; the grumpy, rebellious teenager who can't help but pick on her shyer younger sister. But the reader comes to realise, long before June does, that Greta is lonely too. Greta starts off as a background figure in the novel, which is how June sees her; while she is so preoccupied with the absence of Finn, she misses the sister who is right beside her, trying in a clumsy way to reach out to her. June and Greta echo the fragile and fractured relationship between Finn and their mother Danni, who was his sister. Once close, they had let secrets, jealousy and resentment come between them, never to be fully resolved. 

Finn was once a famous artist, but one who disappeared from public life some time ago. His final work is a portrait of June and Greta, which is the object at the centre of the novel. The painting lives on as Finn's legacy, and is added to by all those who loved the artist most, becoming a collaborative work containing parts of each of them. Tell The Wolves I'm Home demonstrates how each person's life touches many others, how we are formed by the relationships we make and the people we meet. After Finn's death, June discovers that many of his quirks and traits had originated from Toby, and in turn, she sees much of Finn in Toby. Perhaps because of this, I found it a bit difficult to view Toby and Finn as separate characters, and wondered whether June was looking for a substitute Finn in her new friendship with Toby, an issue that is addressed in the novel.

June is a thoughtful girl and mature for her age, so it would come as a bit of a shock whenever I was reminded that after all, she is still very young. Fourteen is a strange age when one is part child, part adult, and sometimes the two parts don't sit well together at all. The busyness of June's parents make it easier for her to take the train from the suburbs into New York City without their knowledge, and a couple of times I wondered why the secrecy? Surely it would be better to discuss Toby, Finn and all the unresolved issues between the families as adults, though they may have to get through some unpleasantness first? And then I remembered that they aren't all adults. I remembered how powerless you are at fourteen. If adults say no, they won't discuss something, then you can't make them. They can stop you seeing someone, going somewhere, doing anything. Finn (and later Toby) was the exception in treating June as an equal.

Tell The Wolves I'm Home touched me close to the heart. June reminded me of myself as a teenager - shy and always an outsider, though I think that despite her quietness she had more confidence in herself as a person than I did at her age. The story, too, reminded me of the stories I would write in my teens - which is not in itself a recommendation, as I was inclined towards the sentimental and the morbid. Carol Rifka Brunt avoids crossing the line into sentimentality with her lyrical prose and strong characters and relationships. Tell The Wolves I'm Home is a very beautiful, very human story, and I closed the book with reluctance. The best new book I've read this year so far. I will be buying my own copy of this book, and it will take its place on my "favourites" shelf.

If you enjoyed this, you might like:

When God was a Rabbit - Sarah Winman
A Place of Secrets - Rachel Hore
Paper Towns - John Green

Eve Green - Susan Fletcher
The Earth Hums in B Flat - Mari Strachan

Olympic Readathon mini-reviews: Ray Bradbury and Sarah Waters

Something Wicked This Way Comes – Ray Bradbury

One strange wild dark long year, Halloween came early. One year Halloween came on October 24, three hours after midnight.

When Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show comes to town in the middle of the night, best friends Will and Jim sneak out of their homes to investigate – but once in, the boys are ensnared in the carnival’s dark secrets, and it doesn’t want them to leave.

Though only 260 pages, I found Something Wicked… quite a slow read, because Ray Bradbury works his words hard: telling a story, making poetry and music, capturing snapshots and philosophy, evoking terror and joy and exploring just what it means to be human. Stunning and extraordinary, Something Wicked… is full of memorable characters and rides: Cooger and Dark, the Illustrated Man, the Dust Witch and the Seller of Lightning rods, the mirror-maze and the carousel that ages its riders up or down with every turn. There is something terrifying in the manipulation of time on the body: I was reminded of the creepiest parts of Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, Harry Potter’s Department of Mysteries, and the Master’s torture of the Doctor in Doctor Who. Bradbury has created a circus that will trouble the mind long after the pages have closed, and I suspect I’ll never feel quite comfortable visiting a fairground after dark again.

Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Waters

 When oyster-girl Nancy Astley falls in love with a male impersonator on the stage of the music-hall, her greatest dream comes true when Kitty asks her to come with her to London. After spending time employed as Kitty's dresser, Nancy is asked to join in her act, and it soon becomes inconceivable to think of one without the other, whether on or off the stage. But after the dream comes the waking, and when Kitty abandons Nan for a man, Nan finds herself a single woman having to make her own way in the harsh world of Victorian London.

Though nearly 500 pages, Tipping the Velvet is a quick read, a page-turner. Sarah Waters keeps the story fresh by changing Nan's situation regularly and introducing a cast of memorable characters, both lovable and awful. The story is told in stunningly authentic period language, and enlightening about the underground gay and lesbian cultures of 1880s and '90s London. Tipping the Velvet is hilarious and heartbreaking, more than a little saucy, but I felt that there was a sad, sordid feel to it in the middle sections - a sense that Nancy doesn't value herself and lets others take advantage of her - before she finds a place for herself among the socialists, feminists and "toms" of the East End.

Tipping the Velvet is a brilliant exploration of sexual and gender identity, but more, it is a gripping story. Ms Waters writes with confidence and poetry, and this book is all the more remarkable for being her first novel. It is a masterpiece from one of Britain's greatest contemporary writers.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson/Dash and Lily's Book of Dares

Will Grayson, Will Grayson: John Green and David Levithan

I'd read a lot about John Green on young adult book review blogs, and the general consensus was that I ought to go out and buy all of his books! So, gift card in hand I wandered down the road to the other bookshop and perused the shelves. Should I go for An Abundance of Katherines, about a boy who only dates Katherines - because guess what? Katie is short for Katherine. Or Looking for Alaska? In the end I was won over by Will Grayson, Will Grayson's shiny cover and the novelty of the idea of two main characters with the same name - Will Grayson.

The book is written in the first person, alternating between the two Wills, with each author taking on a particular Will Grayson. Both Wills are quite lonely individuals. The first tries to live quietly and unobtrusively, his two rules being "Don't care" and "Shut up," out of fear of getting hurt. To his dismay, his best friend, Tiny Cooper - who he isn't even sure he likes very much - is the exact opposite, big, loud and flamboyant, falling in love every other day and the writer, director and star of a school musical - about his own life!

The other Will Grayson is clinically depressed and trapped in a state of self-loathing, putting up barriers between himself and the world. I've read a lot of reviews where people have found Will 2 to be moody and unlikeable, but I felt that he was a very real character who I could identify strongly with. The two Wills meet by chance in Chicago, and their lives change and take on new directions, in a rollercoaster of a story that is at times hilarious, heartbreaking and really, really corny - but in such a way that you can't help but grin.

Despite the title of the book, it is really Tiny Cooper who is the central character, and plays a crucial role in both Wills' lives. At first seeming to be a lovable but somewhat stereotypical "gay best friend" supporting role, gradually you come to realise that this boy has a huge heart beneath all his posturing, someone who genuinely lives to try to make other people feel better about themselves. He was truly lovely.

Because both Wills were written by different authors, I found it interesting to see how the characters were alike, and how they were different. In many ways, their "journeys of self-discovery" echoed each other's, but not in a self-conscious way. There were two authors, each writing their own version of a coming-of-age story, so their characters had both similarities and differences that came across more realistically than if a single author were to assign different characteristics to the different narrators.

While reading Will Grayson. I was surprised to find a little handwritten note inside, from somebody named Alicia, advising me to look at John Green and his brother's vlog site at Youtube, and recruiting me into their "nerdfighters' army." I was ridiculously excited that someone was passionate enough about her favourite author to want to share her love of reading with random strangers in a bookshop like this, and it led me to think of reviews I had read of one of David Levithan's other co-authored books:

 Dash and Lily's Book of Dares: Rachel Cohn and David Levithan.

Dash is browsing the bookshop one Christmas vacation, when among his favourite author's books, he finds a little red notebook with messages in code from a girl named Lily. Instead of merely contacting her with his personal details, he leaves a dare for her in ret
urn, and so the game begins.

Like Will Grayson, this book is written in alternating chapters: one narrated by Lily, the other by Dash. It's a light-hearted, cheerful and hilarious festive read - I kept laughing out loud on the train and ferry - and a sweet, heartwarming romance. Dash and Lily are loveable, nerdy characters - he is a word nerd, she's a strange, lonely girl, both more or less home alone for Christmas. Their dare game takes them all across New York: through the bookshop, Santa's grotto, nightclubs and Madame Tussauds, with the aid of  friends and relations working in each place. Yes, there are a lot of unlikely coincidences and contrivances, but it is another cosy, feel-good novel for the Christmas season.

Affinity, Sarah Waters

Upper-class Margaret Prior, after recovering from a long illness, takes on a position as “Lady Visitor” to the women’s wards at Millbank Prison. There, she meets Selina Dawes, a professing medium, imprisoned for fraud and assault. Margaret becomes fascinated by Selina and as the two women grow closer, she finds herself drawn under Selina’s spell. But is Selina a clever fraud, or does she really possess unearthly powers?

I’ve read two of Sarah Waters’ novels before this one: The Little Stranger which I loved, and The Night Watch which left me cold. Although ser in the Victorian era, Affinity has a lot in common with The Little Stranger, with its eerie atmosphere and possibly – possibly not – supernatural elements. Waters’ prose is beautiful, immediately drawing me into the story, creating an atmosphere of suspense and perfectly recreating the language of the era, so that I could quite believe I was reading a contemporary of Charles Dickens or Wilkie Collins. The novel is written in two plot threads: the main story being presented as Margaret’s private journal of 1974, interspersed with entries from Selina’s medium’ log book from a year or two previously, which showed how she came to find herself in prison.

Much of the story takes place in Millbank prison, which is where the two women meet and interact. Waters describes the harsh, dehumanising conditions of the Prison, again, in a Dickensian manner. Margaret’s role as “Lady Visitor” is to befriend the prisoners and exert a good influence over them, to encourage them to repent of their crimes and reform their lives, yet the contrast between her and them seems too big for this to be more than wishful thinking on the part of the prison authorities. Margaret’s first encounter with Selina highlights the seemingly insurmountable differences between Visitor and prisoner – yet, in many ways, she is not so different from them after all. Margaret is outwardly a dutiful daughter, sedate, proper and genteel, but beneath that veneer she is frustrated, imaginative and highly-strung. Ultimately, Selina is the character with the influence.

Waters’ exploration of Victorian Spiritualism made a fascinating novel. The common conception of the Victorian age is rather a puritanical one, everyone being prim and proper and with the urban myth of people covering their piano legs for modesty! But it was also an era of discovery, and people found the world as they knew it quite turned upside-down. Anything might be possible! Affinity, like the two aforementioned classic, is a proper gothic novel, creepy and eerie, with seemingly clear lines blurring, between life and death, madness and sanity, real and imagination. I did not quite trust Selina through this novel and racked my brains trying to work out how she managed her “tricks,” or whether she was a genuine medium. There seemed to be no natural explanation for her accomplishments.

But were my suspicions of Selina right? In The Little Stranger, Waters leaves the ending ambiguous, and I wondered whether she might do the same here, to leave the reader to work out for themselves what had happened. Does Waters answer all the questions? Well, Affinity is such a wonderful read, I couldn’t possibly spoil it for you – you’ll just have to read it for yourself. All I will say is that there was a wonderful twist at the end, one that Waters has set the plot up for, and yet you shouldn’t see it coming. Affinity is a gorgeous and very satisfying tale, and I’m keen to get my hands on the rest of Ms Waters’ work. An excellent novel.

 

If you liked this you may enjoy:
The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters
Little Dorrit, Charles Dickens
The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins,
Film: The Illusionist

Boys Don't Cry, Malorie Blackman

It must be fourteen or fifteen years ago I first read a Malorie Blackman book. Operation Gadgetman was the first, and Hacker and Thief. One contained all sorts of computing references (almost certainly Hacker) and "modems," which I had no idea what they were. This was a few years before the Internet could be routinely found in homes; our computer was the old Atari with a dot-matrix printer. We didn't even have the Internet in school.

A few years later, when I had moved into the young adult age group, I discovered Noughts and Crosses, a dystopia which was heartbreaking and brilliant, probably the first book I read which ends in a particular way for a main character - to say more would be spoilers galore. Noughts and Crosses found its way onto the shortlist for my A-Level English coursework for comparison with Nineteen Eighty-Four, but I didn't think teen fiction, no matter how good it was, would be considered by teachers. (I now suspect I might have been wrong.)

After three sequels in the world of Noughts and Crosses, Blackman returns to the recogniseable world to tell a powerful story about teenage single parenthood, and is unique in taking the viewpoint of a seventeen-year-old father whose ex-girlfriend shows up with a baby, informs him he is the father, pops out to the shops - and runs. I've read quite a few books about teenage single mums: Mary Hooper's Megan books and Dyan Sheldon's And Baby Makes Two are the ones that stick in my mind from my teen years. Blackman wrote Boys Don't Cry realising that the issue has been covered entirely one-sidedly, and that teenage fathers are just expected to do a runner. Blackman shows another side to the story. When Dante gets up one morning, he's expecting his A-Level results and an acceptance into university. Instead he finds himself the father of little Emma, and in just a few moments he has to rethink his entire life plan.

Boys Don't Cry is also about what it means to be a man, and we see this through Dante, his younger brother Adam and his father. Dante's mother died several years before and the family don't like to talk about their feelings. Adam is openly gay, but that is Not Something They Talk About. Dante feels enormous frustration that no matter what he does, it never seems to be enough for his father to show pride or love. Something terrible has to happen before the three will open up to each other.

In previous works by Blackman, there are a mixture of male and female narrators, and it is interesting to see a female writing from an exclusively male perspective: mostly Dante but with some chapters from Adam's point of view. She captures the boys' voices well, and reading Dante's story I found myself transported back to high school - he could quite easily have been one of my classmates. Adam is a slightly arrogant, obnoxious yet likeable younger brother, and the dynamics between them were of an entirely believable sibling relationship. In the later scenes, when the family start talking to each other about what's on their hearts, I did find myself wondering whether this was really how a family of men would interact or if it was a female writer shaping the world to how she thinks it ought to be.

Boys Don't Cry did not take me very long to read, but I know it will take a long time to forget. There seems to be quite a high teenage pregnancy rate on the Isle of Wight, where I live, and Blackman challenged my thoughts and prejudices about teen parents, and evoked sympathy and compassion. Boys might not cry, but this girl certainly did.

Pink, Lili Wilkinson

When Ava Simpson transfers to private school, she takes the chance to make a new start, change her image and try to be "normal." She is quickly befriended by popular girl Alexis who persuades her to try out for the school musical. After a disastrous audition, Ava decides to help out behind the scenes and join the stage crew. However, her teammates are a group of quirky misfits who do nothing for her image as one of the popular girls. Who in turn are not the people Chloe, Ava's intellectual and stylish girlfriend, would approve of. Ava finds herself trying to fit in to three different worlds and be three different people, but she can't keep these three lives separate forever.

The title refers, first, to the jumper Ava wears to school, a pink cashmere sweater after years of nothing but black. For Ava, this jumper, and the colour pink represents being an "ordinary" girl, feminine, dressy, interested in gossip and proms and magazines - and boys. Despite her relationship with Chloe, Ava finds herself drawn to one of the boys in the play, Ethan, and as she befriends the stage crew it becomes clear to the experienced YA reader that her friendship with another boy - named Sam, of course! - is something a bit special too.

The plotline was fairly standard modern school-story, and one subplot involving Alexis's former friendship with science fiction nerd Jen was taken straight out of Mean Girls. Just for once, I would like to read a modern school story where the popular kids aren't the evil, manipulative, two-faced queen bee that is so prevalent in the genre! But Alexis has another, secret side to her personality that adds a little characterisation to the stereotype. Certainly, the best-realised characters are the stage crew misfits: Jules, Jacob, Sam, Kobe and Jen, and the book shows the other side of the high school musical. The author shows that she knows her subjects, and I was tickled by some of the references to science fiction geekery - in particular Alexis' use of Battlestar Galactica expletives and Doctor Who's timey-wimey detector. (It goes ding when there's stuff.) I would have loved to have seen the characters go to see Rocky Horror, though.

There are a lot of stories out there that explore the ideas of popularity, identity and being true to yourself in a high school setting, but this one is a bit different in that its overall message is that being you doesn't have to mean categorising yourself and putting yourself in a neat little box.*

*After all, you'll end up in a box given enough time.