Caroline B's Choice

A monthly blog about YA fiction and other literary findings

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Caroline’s Choice June 2016: One by Sarah Crossan

Following Crossan’s recent success with her newest book One, in winning the YA Book Prize, I felt that this had to be the choice for this month’s review. 

One is the story of conjoined 16-year old twins Grace and Tippi, who have survived against the odds to face the trials of teendom in the micro-society that is school.  With two separate bodies, they are joined from the waist-downwards with one pair of legs and Crossan doesn’t shy away from writing about this with exquisite frankness and realism. 

The first thing that strikes you is the writing.  It is clean, sharp and direct and for a lot of readers, like nothing you’ve read before.  Writing in free verse, the story’s poetic resonance helps to convey the intensity of emotion experienced by Grace and Tippi, not only as conjoined twins, but as teenagers developing new relationships. 

It feels like you’re reading Grace’s diary and this book has captured just a snapshot of her reality, which commends the level of research Crossan has undertaken.  Once you’ve embraced the writing style, you become completely immersed in their lives, their views and the how they stand the constant scrutiny outside home.  Then, there’s the silent decay at home characterised by their sibling Dragon and the relationship between their parents.  No-one speaks of it as such, but it’s present like a silent, giant elephant.

Whilst this is a quick read, it creates a dramatic impact with the reader.  As Peter Florence, judge and director of Hay Festival, said: "We've got a book that breaks every rule and would enthral any reader; a book that gives you the gift of reading in a new way and loving every page."* You hang onto hope that the girls will experience love despite the difficult odds and you marvel at their unerring courage throughout.  You relate to their new friends Yasmeen and Jon and how feels to be the new kid at school.  You become fearful when Grace faints...and you hold your breath as things reach crisis point when it is Tippi that collapses.  I felt a rollercoaster of emotions from happiness, disgust, anger, nostalgic remembrance of the first fumbling steps of love and utter sadness.  

I was left with a feeling of deep admiration and some scrap of understanding for those people like Grace and Tippi for whom this is their everyday.  As I write this some time on from reading the book, I can still recall certain lines and passages with such vivid emotion that brings tears to my eyes.

This is what awaits you when you get your copy of One - the chance to be immersed in someone else’s life so completely for a time, that you miss them when you re-surface at the end gulping for air, and they’re gone.  

I would urge anyone to do more than read the press and blogger reviews like this, and actually buy it and read it.  It reaches into your soul and leaves an indelible mark.

*sourced from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-36434302

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YA Fiction Week - Caroline’s Choice: Q&A with Rosie Rowell

I aspire to be an author one day, and I, like many readers relish any opportunity to speak with authors and discover a bit more about the people behind the books. I was delighted to pose a few questions to Rosie Rowell following my review of her new novel Almost Grace.

On with the interview…

Caroline: Do you prefer paper and pen/pencil or the computer for writing?

Rosie: I have a deep attachment to unlined Moleskin notebooks as I can stuff them in my bag and I find ideas flow more easily in long hand. However, as I was writing Almost Grace to a fairly tight deadline, I found myself going straight to the laptop. I do find that I can’t edit my writing on screen – I have to print it out, which makes me feel bad about the trees.

Caroline: I love the idea of the main protagonists living with you as fully formed characters. Do you write a character profile about them first and then let the story grow from there?

Rosie: No, I’m not that organised! I find my characters reveal themselves through dialogue. My scenes tend to start with snatches of dialogue that I play around with in my head initially and grow from there. The trouble with fully-fledged characters is that they are very opinionated and often refuse to go along with what you want them to do!

Caroline: Your book deals with many issues faced by adolescents with particular focus on eating disorders, anxiety and suicide. Why these issues? Do you see them as most prevalent for young adults?

Rosie: I think that young adulthood is characterised by change – internally and socially. Suddenly you are expected to be able to make adult decisions, and this can cause a great deal of anxiety. My character expressed this distress through her eating disorder but there are many other ways we behave when anxiety becomes overwhelming. I wanted to write about eating disorders because it is a particularly difficult mindset to understand from the outside.

Caroline: Despite these weighty issues, there is a feeling of optimism at the end. However this is reliant on Grace discovering the ability to accept responsibility for her choices. This is a recurrent theme across the history of children’s literature whereby the author conveys a degree of moral ambiguity to their characters. Was this the message you were hoping to convey to your young readers? That society is about accepting responsibility for your choices and discovering that the adult world offers moral ambiguity rather than moral certainty?

Rosie: Yes, I think that’s important. Accepting responsibility for your actions is a tough life lesson and many adults struggle with it their whole lives. But ironically you open yourself up to a wonderful degree of freedom when you can take that responsibility on and decide to navigate your own way through life.

Caroline: What is your definition of a YA novel?

Rosie: In some ways I struggle with the YA ‘concept’ because I think it pigeon-holes a wonderfully diverse range of books. Adult readers were all once young adults and many of us still feel adolescent in some way! I suppose my definition would revolve around the protagonist’s age and the specific issues they are facing. What I do think marks out many YA novels is the wonderful honesty and straightforwardness about the characters and I love that in the YA books I read.

Caroline: I really enjoyed the Sweet Valley High series when I was in my early adolescence. What did you read during this period?

Rosie: I adored the Sweet Valley High series! I had to sneak them home because my mother thought they were trash and banned them from the house. I was a rather naïve teenager and fell in love with every book. Judy Blume was another favourite. As I grew up in South Africa pretty much all the books available then were set in the US so there was an added sense of sophistication that I longed for.

Caroline: Do you think it had a significant influence?

Rosie: It did. I had a sense that my very normal life was horribly lacking because we didn’t meet up for milkshakes after school and have wonderfully torrid love lives. It took me a long time to see through that veneer and stop wishing I was somebody else, living a more exciting life. It also instilled in me a rather embarrassing love of romantic comedies.

Caroline: There has been the long-held view since children’s literature became a recognisable genre that authors have a responsibility to their readers and how they play a part, however small, in shaping the reader’s literary tastes and views of the world around them. Do you agree with this?

Rosie: I think that as writers we have a responsibility to write the truth in the best way that we able. It annoys me to find books that are dumbed-down to a perceived ‘age-appropriate’ level. Young adult readers are powerfully perceptive and intelligent and thoughtful and deserve to read books written in this way.

Caroline: You’ve written two books so far, what’s next? Do you have any more characters living with you at the moment?

Rosie: I have a grown-up character knocking about who keeps annoying me so I may have to let her out! I’m due to start a creative writing PhD in September at Goldsmiths College, which will keep me busy and hopefully produce another novel in the next few years.

Caroline: Lastly, if you were sat at that isolated campfire with Spook, what tinned food would you eat?

Rosie: I’m with Grace on that one –  I find the concept of tinned spaghetti gross. Perhaps a spicy tinned curry to disguise the taste!

My thanks to @rosierowell for taking part and supporting the @bookprojectblog during #theweekofya.  Her novels Leopold Blue and Almost Grace are available in all good bookshops.

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YA Fiction Week - Caroline’s Choice: ‘Almost Grace’ by Rosie Rowell

I first heard of this book via hotkeybooks on Twitter.  Their enthusiasm was infectious and I felt that I had to read this offering put forward by this bold South African writer.  We got in touch and they very kindly sent me a copy to review.  Thanks hotkeybooks!

The novel documents a week in the life of the main protagonist, Grace, and her friends, as they enjoy a week away on the coast to celebrate the end of their exams and the beginning of adulthood.  But it is so much more than that.  Against this light backdrop of these teenagers enjoying the freedom of a holiday on their own, this novel tackles some difficult issues head on.  The white elephant that is ever present is Grace’s eating disorder.  Rowell presents a rounded view of this condition from the various perspectives and gives insight into how this affects everyone around her as well as how it affects Grace herself. 

Things change dramatically when Grace meets an older guy at a house party.  For Grace, Spook epitomises what it means to be free.  He is a surfer living out of his car who drifts into her life and out again through the course of a week, but the impact of this connection affects everyone Grace knows with lasting consequences.

Almost Grace is an evocative and thought-provoking read that doesn’t shy away from the challenges that teenagers and young adults face.  I feel it speaks to its young adult audience in a way that is honest.  Rowell really attempts to connect with the audience and present the rite of passage into adulthood as a period of self-discovery where Grace and her friends learn more of themselves and their place in society. 

Throughout childhood and into adolescence, we learn about responsibility and making choices.  As this book demonstrates, as we move into adulthood, we learn about accepting responsibility for our choices.  We also discover the moral ambiguity of the adult world rather than the moral certainty of a child’s world. 

This is a good, quick read, which is fast-paced and does the job every book should - transports you away from the here and now.

Rosie Rowell has also kindly agreed to take part in a Q&A for Caroline’s Choice at the bookprojectblog and this will follow tomorrow.  Check it out - it’s well worth a read.

In the meantime, enjoy YA fiction week!  Feel free to post any comments or make any suggestions for book reviews too.

Caroline

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Q&A with Louise O'Neill - author of Only Ever Yours

Hi everyone,

Following my recent review of Only Ever Yours last month, I am delighted to share with you my recent interview session with the author, Louise O'Neill.  Louise very kindly took time out to answer some questions posed by myself and Georgia Dalton and share some insight with our readers.

So, on with the interview…

Caroline: Thank you for agreeing to take part in a Q&A for the Caroline’s Choice Book Club at the Big Book Project.

I really enjoyed the book and I couldn’t leave it alone!  I’ve read Mortal Engines and also His Dark Materials recently as part of my university study into Children’s Literature, but your book was an interesting hybrid of the dystopian fantasy and the traditional girls school genre, it was so different to what I’ve read before, which was refreshing.

Georgia: How did you think of the idea for Only Ever Yours?

Louise: It was a cold January day in New York and the subway has broken down.  I was sitting in a Starbucks waiting for the trains to start up again, reading a trashy gossip magazine.  As I looked through photos of celebrities in their bikinis, red circles of shame drawn around muffin tops and cellulite, a vision flared in my mind.  It was if a young girl, standing in her underwear, while a nun-like figure walked around her.  The teacher had a red marker in her hand and began to draw circles around the young girl’s ‘defective’ body parts while the rest of schoolgirls chanted 'fat, fat, fat’.  It was such a vivid image and it became the basis for my novel.

Georgia: Have you always wanted to be an author since childhood?

Louise: No, I wanted to be an actress!  I loved to read though, I couldn’t go anywhere without a book in my hand.

Georgia: Who is your author inspiration?

Louise: There are so many!  I always say that I love John McGahern for the deceptive simplicity of his writing.  It takes real confidence to pare your writing back the way he does, he never needs to show off and his writing is all the more powerful as a result. 

Georgia: What would you tell your younger self if you had the chance?

Louise: I would tell my younger self to care less about what other people thought of her and to think a little more about how she felt about herself.  I would tell her to just be herself - that not everyone is going to like her but the people who matter will.

Caroline: I read this book as a cross-over fiction, one to be enjoyed by both young adults and adults.  Was this your target audience?

Louise: I wrote the book in the way in which I felt it needed to be told, trying not to think too much about any possible readers.  I did want as many women as possible to read it as I believed the message was important, regardless of their age.

Caroline: What kind of message, if any, were you looking to convey to your audience?

Louise: I wanted to encourage the reader to question the way in which our culture treats women, particularly in the media.  I hope that after reading Only Ever Yours, they might have the courage to stand up against any sexism they might encounter.

Caroline: Having read a recent interview, I noted that you wrote this book because you were tired of how women in particular are judged by their body parts.  Do you think that the level of satire in Only Ever Yours not only conveys this, but can be understood by your readers?

Louise: I believe it can.  I don’t think anyone who readers Only Ever Yours would ever assume that I’m advocating that women continue to be objectified and sexualised without their consent.

Caroline: I admit that I felt a bit unsettled by the book in that it magnified all those fears and insecurities teenagers and young women have that we don’t fully relinquish in adulthood.  Was this one of your aims - to encourage readers to question why we have these insecurities created by the society of our peers and the society at large?  Could you tell us more?

Louise: For me, the most powerful experiences that I have had while reading a book is when I read about something that I thought was unique to me.  Usually it’s an experience or a thought that I will feel ashamed of and will be reluctant to share with someone else.  When I see that same experience explored in fiction, I have a feeling of being seen, a sense that I am not alone.  I wanted Only Ever Yours to start a conversation amongst women about those insecurities that we share and realise that they have implanted within us by a patriarchal society.  Only then can we finally overcome them.

Caroline: Finally, you have Asking for It due out in September.  I would love to read and review it.  What can you tell us about it?

Louise: Asking for It is about an eighteen year old girl called Emma O'Donovan who lives in a small town in West Cork.  She wakes the morning after a party with no memory of what happened the night before until she sees photos of her sexual assault all over social media.  It deals with issues of rape culture, victim blaming, and female sexuality.

Strong stuff…but then we wouldn’t expect anything less from this stirring Irish author who, though her textual worlds, is able to convey her feminist ideals to bring questions to the fore about the perception of women in Western culture. 

Thank you once again Louise for taking the time to take part in this interview.

Follow Louise O'Neill on Twitter @oneilllo and read her blog at www.louiseoneillauhor.com. 

Thanks for reading and feel free to comment below.

Caroline

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[carolinebschoice]

Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill

<p>Hi, my name is Caroline.  As a Children’s Literature student, I have a particular interest in YA fiction, which is a relatively new genre in this field.  Each month I will be reviewing one YA title chosen from a selection of five by our team.  So, on with this month’s choice - Only  Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill. </p><p>Louise O’Neill is a young Irish author and this, her debut book, has already received high praise and critical acclaim from all quarters.  Since publication, it has won the first Bookseller YA Book Prize and Newcomer of the Year at the 2014 Irish Book Awards.  And quite rightly so.  I have never read anything like this before and thoroughly enjoyed O’Neill adaptation of the high school genre blended with the science-ficiton genre.  This is a fresh, visceral look at femininity and the fragility of self-esteem in both young and adult women delivered with a scathing and satirical edge. <br/></p><p>Set in a dystopian futurescape following a worldwide catastrophe, men rule the world and women are no longer born, but rather designed.  This story follows the journey of Frieda and the other eves, who, at sixteen, are in their final year at school.  Here, as the pressure to be perfect mounts and the girls prepare for adulthood, Frieda is desperate to be chosen as a companion and to do so, must be ranked in the top ten.  Companions go onto become the perfect wife for powerful and wealthy men, living to serve them and produce sons until they too old (at just 40 years of age!), or too dated when they’re sent to the pyre.  The alternatives - concubine or chastity are too awful for Frieda and her friends to contemplate, although as the boys are introduced to the schoolgirls and the “Heavenly Seventy” sessions begin, clear lines are drawn.  However, this desperation forces Freida to make terrible choices with life- changing consequences.  Isobel, her life-long friend becomes more and more distant whilst jeopardising the very thing she was designed for - her beauty and perfect body.  Frieda cannot understand this and becomes exposed to the full scrutiny of her peers and this only heightens her desire to be accepted and valued as she constantly compares herself with the other eves. <br/></p><p><br/> Appearance, beauty, body weight and ranking within the confines of the society of school are all held under the magnifying glass. With a devastatingly sharp style and use of language, O'Neill brings these issues, that can erode a child’s self-esteem, into sharp focus with a deliberation that causes discomfort.  Satirical and subversive, this book is part of a growing list of contemporary YA fiction books that challenges both the child and adult reader and raises interesting questions about contemporary societal views.</p><p><br/> I could not put this book down.  It was an interesting and enjoyable, if somewhat unsettling read that won’t be easily forgotten.</p><p><br/> Look out for a Q&A with the author herself - read about it on the Big Book Project soon.