Patrick Ness’ latest book, The Rest of Us Just Live Here, is beautiful, funny and moving. It’s definitely one of my favourite books of 2015 and one that will stick with me for a long time. Patrick Ness just seems to be getting better and better. You can read my review of The Rest of Us Just Liver Here on the blog.
Thanks to everyone who entered! The winners are Helen, Lynley, Stephanie, Margaret and Aimee. Happy reading 🙂
So many young adult novels are about ‘the chosen ones,’ those teens who are special and they’re going to change their world for the better. What if you’re not ‘the chosen one’ though? What if you just have to live your life when everything around you is falling apart? Patrick Ness asks this question in his latest book, The Rest of Us Just Live Here. Patrick Ness is my favourite author and I know to expect something different (and amazing) every time he writes a new book. He’s one of those authors who always tries something new. As soon as I started reading The Rest of Us Just Live Here I knew I had a very special book in my hands.
What if you weren’t the Chosen One? The one who’s supposed to fight the zombies, or the soul-eating ghosts, or whatever this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death? What if you were like Mikey? Who just wants to graduate and go to prom and maybe finally work up the courage to ask Henna out before someone goes and blows up the high school. Again. Because sometimes there are problems bigger than this week’s end of the world and sometimes you just have to find the extraordinary in your ordinary life. Even if your best friend might just be the God of mountain lions.
The Rest of Us Just Live Here blew me away! It is an incredibly beautiful, funny and moving novel. The premise of this book, that not everyone is the chosen one, works so well. There are two parallel stories happening – the story of the Indie kids and their battle with the Court of the Immortals (which plays out in the chapter headings), and the story of Mikey and his friends who aren’t the chosen ones. Mikey, his sister Mel, and his friends just want to go to the prom and graduate without their school being blown up again. All of the strange events that happen in their town seem to involve the Indie kids, who have names like Finn, Satchel and Kerouac. Their town has seen soul-sucking ghosts and vampires (amongst other ‘beings’) but the ordinary kids like Mikey and Jared are never part of that story. They just want to live their lives the best way they can. I love how we, as readers, know what is going on with the Indie kids and their battle with the Court of the Immortals, but Mikey and his friends and family don’t have a clue. It’s very clever storytelling!
I love the characters in The Rest of Us Just Live Here. They all have their own problems or are ‘messed-up’ in some way. Mikey has anxiety issues that come and go. When he gets especially anxious he gets himself stuck in loops, where he has to count things or wash his hands over and over again. His friends are all going their separate ways after high school and he worries that he’ll get stuck in a loop and not be able to get out of it. Mikey’s sister, Mel, starved herself to death with anorexia and died for 3-4 minutes. She’s on an eating plan but Mikey still worries about her. Mikey’s friend, Jared, has problems of a different nature. Jared is a god of cats so he has cats (both small and large) following him and a special gift that he uses to help his friends. Even though they’re slightly messed-up they still count themselves lucky that they’re not one of the Indie kids. This is a book that makes you feel that it’s OK just to be you, no matter how messed-up you are. I love the way that the story ends and the decision that Mikey finally makes.
One of my favourite quotes in the book not only sums up the story perfectly, but also catpures teenage life:
‘Not everyone has to be the Chosen One. Not everyone has to be the guy who saves the world. Most people just have to live their lives the best they can, doing the things that are great for them, having great friends, trying to make their lives better, loving people properly. All the while knowing that the world makes no sense but trying to find a way to be happy anyway.’
Patrick Ness is an author that can’t do anything wrong in my eyes. I’m constantly amazed by his incredible writing and I can’t wait to read what he writes next. Drop everything and read this amazing book!
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, the movie directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon based on the young adult book by Jesse Andrews is out in cinemas now. I think it looks great and I can’t wait to see it.
This is the funniest book you’ll ever read about death.
It is a universally acknowledged truth that high school sucks. But on the first day of his senior year, Greg Gaines thinks he’s figured it out. The answer to the basic existential question: How is it possible to exist in a place that sucks so bad? His strategy: remain at the periphery at all times. Keep an insanely low profile. Make mediocre films with the one person who is even sort of his friend, Earl.
This plan works for exactly eight hours. Then Greg’s mom forces him to become friends with a girl who has cancer. This brings about the destruction of Greg’s entire life.
To celebrate the release of the movie Allen and Unwin have kindly given me 2 double passes to give away.
Thanks to everyone who entered. The winners are Megan and Eibhlin and Saoirse.
If you haven’t seen the trailer for the movie check it out here:
Rachael Craw’s addictive sequel to Spark, Stray, was released yesterday and I had the pleasure of helping Rachael to launch it in Christchurch last night. It was a great launch with heaps of Spark fans! You can read my review of Stray here on the blog.
Thanks to Walker Books Australia I have 5 copies of Stray to give away, and thanks to Rachael they are all signed. To get in the draw to win a signed copy of Stray just email bestfriendsrbooks@gmail.com with the subject line ‘Stray’, along with your name and address.
Competition closes Wednesday 9 September (NZ only).
Rachael’s Spark Trilogy takes us in to a world of genetically engineered humans and the sinister organisation that rules their lives. In Spark, Rachael introduced us to Evie, an ordinary teenage girl, whose life changes dramatically when her mutant DNA is sparked. Evie is overtaken by the urge to protect her best friend Kitty. We learn that she is a Shield, the result of a decades-old experiment gone wrong, and bound by her DNA to defend Kitty from the Stray. Evie develops special abilities that help her to carry out her role, including increased speed, strength and attractiveness. These abilities are only heightened by Jamie, Kitty’s striking brother. Spark follows Evie as she hones her abilities in the hope that she is ready when the time comes to defend Kitty and take out the Stray. Rachael reveals tantalising details about the sinister Affinity Project and its aims, but it is not until book two, Stray, that we discover more about them and the people behind the organisation.
It’s hard to remember hating anything as much as I hate Affinity; a bone-deep loathing for the faceless unknown and the concrete walls of my own DNA. Evie is a Shield: designed to kill in order to protect, and the Affinity Project have finally come for her. But Evie isn’t ready for the sinister organisation to take control of her life, her body, her mind. She isn’t ready to follow their rules about who may live and who must die – not when it condemns the innocent. She has one option: risk losing everything and everyone – including Jamie – and run.
Spark and Stray are incredibly addictive stories! I got totally swept up in the stories and had to read every second that I could so that I could find out what happened. As a librarian and a huge book lover I read so many great books but there are only a few that really stand out, and Rachael’s books certainly have for me.
The second books in a trilogy often lack something and can seem like they’re just filling in time before the dramatic conclusion. Stray, however, is an epic sequel! Rachael had me hanging on for dear life on this roller-coaster ride. The action is almost non-stop, with Rachael giving you the chance to catch your breath briefly (with a touch of comedic relief), before racing ahead again. Spark was full of plenty heart-stopping moments but Stray takes it up a notch. There were times when I couldn’t take the suspense. It’s this feeling that just keeps you reading so you can know the answers. It was the science fiction aspect of the story that grabbed me with Spark and we delve more in to the shady world of genetic engineering in Stray. Rachael takes us inside the Affinity Project and we meet the men and women of questionable ethics that are behind the organisation.
It’s not only the action of the story that I love about Rachael’s books, but also the characters. You know that when you can both love and hate a character that they’re very real. While a lot of Rachael’s readers are swooning over Jamie, I myself have a crush on Evie. Evie is quite simply HOT! I’m sure Rachael puts Evie in a Lara Croft costume just for her male readers. Looks aside, there are times that I marvel at Evie’s actions and times that I want to shake her by the shoulders in frustration. Evie’s relationships change quite dramatically in Stray, and not just with Jamie. Rachael also introduces us to some great new characters who are part of the Affinity Project, including Knox and Tesla.
Rachael’s books are young adult sci-fi at its best and they can stand proud beside the likes of Hunger Games, Divergent and The Maze Runner. Rachael’s fan base will grow hugely with the release of Stray, and like me they will be desperate to read the conclusion of the trilogy when Shield is released next year. Get your hands on a copy now.
David Levithan is one of those authors whose books I always pick up (I don’t always get round to reading them). I love his writing style and his books stand out as being quite different. Every Day is one of my absolute favourite books. It’s one of those few books that has had a real affect on me and has stuck with me. In Every Day, A is in a different body each day, so it has to get used to being a different person (on the outside) and acting like that person. You can read my very gushing review here on the blog.
Another Day is a companion novel to Every Day and tells the story from Rhiannon’s point of view. I know it will be very different from Every Day but I’m curious to see the story from Rhiannon’s perspective.
Another Day is published by Text Publishing and is available in Australia and NZ now.
Bestselling author David Levithan (co-author of Will Grayson, Will Grayson with John Green) tells Rhiannon’s side of the story as she seeks to discover the truth about love and how it can change you.
Every day is the same for Rhiannon. She has accepted her life, convinced herself that she deserves her distant, temperamental boyfriend, Justin. She’s even established guidelines by which to live: Don’t be too needy. Avoid upsetting him. Never get your hopes up.
But one morning everything changes. Justin wants to be with her for the first time, and they share a perfect day—a perfect day Justin doesn’t remember the next morning.
Confused, depressed and desperate for another great day, Rhiannon starts questioning everything. Until a stranger tells her that the Justin she spent that day with—the one who made her feel like a real person—wasn’t Justin at all.
Piranhas Don’t Eat Bananas by Aaron Blabey
Hey there guys. Would you like a banana?
What’s wrong with you, Brian? You’re a piranha.
Brian is a piranha. He is also a vegetarian. But do you think he can convince the others to join him?
Quakey Cat Helps Out by Diana Noonan and Gavin Bishop
Quaky Cat, five years on … It’s been five years since the first big Christchurch earthquake, but some of Tiger’s friends still have broken homes – or none at all. Kind-hearted Tiger rounds them all up for a gathering of friends.
300 Minutes of Danger by Jack Heath
George is trapped in a falling aeroplane with no engine and no pilot. Milla is covered with radioactive waste and her hazard suit is running out of air. Otto is in the darkest depths of the ocean, where something hungry is circling . . . 10 dangerous situations. 10 brave kids. 30 minutes to escape.
Dragon Knight: Dragons! by Kyle Mewburn and Donovan Bixley
The terrifying cyclorgs want their gold back – NOW!
If Merek can’t outwit the evil Lord Crumble, the village is doomed.
Star Wars Jedi Academy: The Phantom Bully by Jeffrey Brown
It’s hard to believe this is Roan’s last year at Jedi Academy. He’s been busier than ever learning to fly (and wash) starships, swimming in the Lake Country on Naboo, studying for the Jedi obstacle course exam, and tracking down dozens of vorpak clones (don’t ask). But now, someone is setting him up to get in trouble with everyone at school, including Yoda. If he doesn’t find out who it is, and fast, he may get kicked out of school! Why can’t middle school just be easy?…
Flip Flap Jungle by Axel Scheffler
What do you get if you cross an monkey with a armodillo? Why, that would be a Monkadillo! And a Leopard with a Frog? That would be a Leopog, of course! With its sturdy, split pages and spiral binding, 121 possible combinations, silly names and animal noises to make you giggle, this hilarious rhyming flip-flap book in a fun format is perfect for pre-schoolers.
The Mystery of the Haunted Farm by Elys Dolan
The three little pigs are the best guys for the job, a specialist team of Ghosthunters equipped with the latest in ghost-hunting gadgets. But when the Phantom Finder 5000 fails to recognise any paranormal activity AT ALL, the pigs realise all is not quite as it seems. . . and there’s certainly something suspicious about the mysterious chicken coup up on the hill . . . could that be a werepuppy?
This Broken Wondrous World by Jon Skovron
A year ago, Boy, the son of Frankenstein’s monster, had never even met a human. Now he’s living with his human ‘family’, the descendants of Dr Frankenstein, in Switzerland. That is, until the maniacal genius Dr Moreau, long ago banished to a remote island for his crimes against humanity, asks for his aid.
Moreau wants Boy to join his army of animal/human hybrid creatures and help him overthrow human society. Boy must choose: side with the twisted doctor and save his fellow monsters, or try to defend the humans who run the planet?
Boy will do anything to save this broken, wondrous world from the war that threatens to split it in two. But how much will he have to give up? And is the world worth saving?
Concentr8 by William Sutcliffe
In a future London, Concentr8 is a prescription drug intended to help kids with ADD. Soon every troubled teen is on it. It makes sense, doesn’t it? Keep the undesirable elements in line. Keep people like us safe from people like them. What’s good for society is good for everyone. Troy, Femi, Lee, Karen and Blaze have been taking Concentr8 as long as they can remember. They’re not exactly a gang, but Blaze is their leader, and Troy has always been his quiet, watchful sidekick – the only one Blaze really trusts. They’re not looking for trouble, but one hot summer day, when riots break out across the city, they find it. What makes five kids pick a man seemingly at random – a nobody, he works in the housing department, doesn’t even have a good phone – hold a knife to his side, take him to a warehouse and chain him to a radiator? They’ve got a hostage, but don’t really know what they want, or why they’ve done it. And across the course of five tense days, with a journalist, a floppy-haired mayor, a police negotiator, and the sinister face of the pharmaceutical industry, they – and we – begin to understand why.
Today I’m super excited to host an interview with Leah Thomas, author of the wonderful Because You’ll Never Meet Me. It is one of the most extraordinary books I’ve read in a long time. You can read my review here on the blog. I had a few questions about Because You’ll Never Meet Me and Leah Thomas has very kindly answered them for me. Read on to find out what inspired Leah to write her wonderful story, where her characters came from and her favourite books and movies.
Thank you, thank you! I love hearing “I love”! And I love hearing “anything quite like it.” But in truth, so many things inspired this story that to me it feels more like “everything quite like it.” Parts of it were inspired by my homesickness while living abroad, parts of it draw directly from the comics and superhero stories that informed my childhood, parts come straight out of working with kids and in schools, with being raised by social workers (like Liz, yes), and a huge chunk of the story comes from the conviction that distances don’t matter so much when you can share words with people, in stories or in letters or in music.
Ollie was easy. Ollie demands to be heard, and I’m pretty sure he was hollering noisy things in my ears for at least a few years before I finally let him holler at other people. There are certain characters that really fight to exist, and he was one of them. I am often captivated by good people who put on a show of being happy even when they may not be, because they care more about how those near them feel than they care about themselves. This is, to me, a very selfless but sad way to live life, and with Ollie, he can’t quite pull it off, because he does value himself.
Moritz is the natural foil to Ollie: he’s very introverted and the front he puts up is that he couldn’t care less about the world, but the opposite is actually true. His self-loathing is so apparent but also so wrongheaded.
Both these characters are approaching their lives with whatever coping strategies they can, and when they contact each other, discover new possibilities for managing the crappy hand life dealt them.
I think these two boys really need each other. They are each other’s hope.
Of course research goes into any kind of writing, and where medical issues are concerned this is a must, but I’m going to reiterate: this is by no means a factual book, or at least was never intended to be. Yes, I very much wanted to write about characters with disabilities (and will continue to, because representation is everything!), but in my mind I was doing so within a science fiction framework. On a personal level, an immediate family member has epilepsy, and certainly my experiences with that informed the book, and as far as research into echolocation – it’s true and truly amazing that some people who are visually impaired adapt in remarkable ways, but in the book this is hugely, hugely exaggerated.
Because You’ll Never Meet Me falls very much in line with the spirit of superhero stories – just with a realism aspect that I hope is empowering, if a bit odd.
I feel like I already lived the life of Ollie! I grew up in the woods of northern Michigan, at the end of a dirt road, and so did a lot of my friends. It’s funny how many people from my hometown recognize aspects of our childhood in the book.
Having said that, I’d love to live in Germany. There’s a distinct lack of diskotheks here!
Oh, gosh, what a huge question! Have you got time to read another book? Because this could go for so many pages. I’ll try to name a few things, in a random blob of text:
Harry Potter, Kurt Vonnegut, Discworld, Wes Anderson, His Dark Materials, MT Anderson, Fullmetal Alchemist, Nancy Farmer, Hannibal (Bryan Fuller), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Coraline, Ray Bradbury, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Tim Burton (the older stuff – you should have SEEN my wall collages in high school), Steven Universe, Patrick Ness, Harold and Maude…
Seriously, do people find ways to answer this question?! INTERROBANG?!
Yes, yes, yes! (Sorry; I’m still excited by the fact.) The sequel to BYNMM, hesitantly titled Nowhere Near You, was actually drafted back in 2013, and will be released in early 2017! And following that, Bloomsbury’s also bought the rights to a work-in-progress called Birds and Other Transdimensional Things, which tells the story of a mother and daughter who have trouble with parallel universes, but more trouble with their relationship.
Thanks so much for having me aboard! I’m still pinching myself.
Sometimes I find it really hard to express what I think of a book. This usually happens when I’ve read a book that is amazingly wonderful. I do love it when this happens but I can’t quite explain why I loved it so much. This has happened with The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly. Please bear with me as I try to explain.
The Kevinian cult has taken everything from seventeen-year-old Minnow: twelve years of her life, her family, and her ability to trust.
And when Minnow rebelled, they took away her hands, too.
Now the Kevinian Prophet has been murdered and the camp set aflame and it’s clear Minnow knows something. But she’s not talking. As she adjusts to a life behind bars in juvenile detention, Minnow struggles to make sense of all she has been taught to believe, particularly as she dwells on the events that led up to her incarceration. But when an FBI detective approaches her about making a deal, Minnow sees she can have the freedom she always dreamed of; if she is willing to part with the terrible secrets of her past.
The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly is an amazing book and I absolutely loved it! It’s a powerful, harrowing and haunting story that had me gripped from beginning to end. Minnow’s story is a compulsive read and Stephanie Oakes had me hanging on her every word. From the very first page you want to know Minnow’s story and how she ended up standing over a blood-soaked body. Through her story that she tells to Dr Wilson and her cell-mate Angel, we piece together Minnow’s life. I love the way that Stephanie Oakes draws out the story, giving us pieces of the puzzle right to the very end.
Minnow is an really interesting character, who shows determination, resilience and bravery in a horrible situation. Spending most of her life in The Community, Minnow must follow the rules and edicts laid down by The Prophet, the leader of the Kevinians. Minnow sneaks out of The Community and meets a boy called Jude who helps her to discover that the world isn’t exactly how The Prophet has portrayed it. Minnow starts to doubt everything she has been told and when she refuses to marry The Prophet and runs away, she faces the horrific consequences. Stephanie Oakes’ description of Minnow’s hands being chopped off by her father with a hatchet is harrowing and will stick with me. I could picture quite clearly what was happening and it made me physically cringe. Even though Minnow has no hands she has the strength to carry on and make her life her own.
I also loved the relationships that Minnow had with the other characters in the book. Minnow’s cell-mate Angel is a friend and confidante to Minnow. Although Angel doesn’t reveal much about herself and why she is in the correctional facility, Minnow opens up to her and tells her her story. Angel spends most of her time reading and when she learns that Minnow can’t read she helps her to learn. Another character that helps Minnow learn to read and shares her passion for books is one of the teachers, Miss Bailey. Both Miss Bailey and Angel help to open up a new world for Minnow. Dr Wilson, Minnow’s psychologist, is the most intriguing characters because you don’t quite know what his motives are.
The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly is an amazing story that ends with a sense of hope. It’s a book that I won’t forget and I’m sure to keep thinking about Minnow and what her life might be like after the story has finished.
My Best Friends Are Books 