A BIT OF EARTH BY REBECCA SMITH

A Bit of Earth opens, tragically, with the death in a car crash of Susannah Misselthwaite, the wife of botany professor Guy and mother of little Felix. Guy is left wondering why Susannah was in a car with another man and Felix has to grow up without a mother to take care of him. Guy has troubles coping with the death of his wife, and retreats into the botanical garden at the university for most of the time. Felix, too, seeks comfort in the garden, liking to sit in the trees and watch the students go about their business. But just when Guy and Felix start to get their lives back on track, the garden is threatened by developers.

The book features the two main characters, Guy and Felix, and a host of other lovable people including Erica, a PhD student at the university, Judy Lovage, another professor, a range of students and Felix's teachers. These characters all help Guy and Felix get through the tough time they have after Susannah's death and also the subsequent years.

The book ends without tying up all loose ends in great detail, which is both infuriating and nice. The characters were well-developed and the setting was believable and quaint. Not knowing much of England, however, I had troubles understanding the distances between and the locations of certain places in the book, and the book was VERY English, so a little hard for an Aussie teenager to relate to.

Overall it was a very pleasant read, touching and heartfelt.

Butterflies: 7.5 out of 10
Recommended for: it's an adult book but could be read by teenagers. 14+
Warnings: a tiny bit of swearing and references to sex

intertextual references (be proud English teachers!)

I have decided I love intertextual references. Not because we are learning about them while learning about Lord of the Flies (I'm so over it!!!), but because they are just so CLEVER.

If you don't know what they are, they're references within a text to another text. So, for example, lots of books refer to classic novels like Pride and Prejudice or to Shakespeare.

The book I am reading right now is called A Bit of Earth by Rebecca Smith, an English book that my grandmother got for me from Jane Austen's house in England. The book makes direct references to The Secret Garden (by Frances Hodgson Burnett), a book I have not read for years but have very fond memories of (at least, I have fond memories of our old video tape of the movie!). One of the chapters of The Secret Garden is called 'A Bit of Earth', as Mary asks for a bit of earth to grow things in, and the book is about a father who neglects his son, as is A Bit of Earth.

I love these references. I love the fact that literature inspires new literature. I love that old ideas can become new ideas simply when another person uses them.

I think intertextual references are even more clever than appropriations, as often they are very subtle and can even just be how a character is named or one of their mannerisms. But if you pick them up, it can make you feel all excited that you did, and can bring back memories of the other text, and maybe encourage you to read it if you haven't!

Then again, that may just be my opinion, as a fully-fledged book nerd :-)

THE TRUTH ABOUT FOREVER BY SARAH DESSEN

(I said I'd not write reviews without telling you I'd started a book, so I'm sorry, but I read this book rather speedily on the weekend - started Saturday night, finished Sunday night - so I need to quickly review it because I'm speeding through my next book! I'll write a more topical entry soon, I've got a few ideas...)

The Truth About Forever is the story of Macy Queen. She's about to start her last year of school, but before then she's got 8 weeks of summer to get through. And it's eight weeks without her perfect boyfriend Jason, who is super-smart and very goal-oriented. But Macy's got an even bigger problem: dealing with the shock death of her father. Macy is pretending she's fine, but it takes meeting new friends and a heartbreaking email from Jason for her to realise that she's not actually fine, and that no matter how hard she tries she'll never be perfect. And the most important contributing factor to her realisation is Wes, Jason's polar opposite and exactly what Macy needs.

Sarah Dessen is clever. She knows what teenage girls dream about (boys, being perfect and a happy life) and what they struggle with (boys, impossible standards and family problems) and she's managed to turn her knowledge into a book with a likeable, realistic protagonist. I think that's why books like this do so well: girls have problems, and they wish the solutions to their problems were as romantic/easy/exciting as the solutions in books like this one.

This book is, really and truly, cute. Wes and Macy play a game together that is really quite gorgeous, and there are moments in the book that just make you say 'awwwwwwwwwwwww...'. Again, Sarah Dessen is playing on the desires of girls to have amazing encounters like that in real life in order to appeal to her market. And it works. I found the book very likeable and easy to read.

The best thing is that, despite the book being teenage chick lit, the characters are really not 2-dimensional or predictable. Macy is slightly cliched, but her new friends have really interesting back stories and they are nicely flawed, giving the book a certain maturity.

All in all, a really nice read, and very easy. It's not challenging or particularly deep, but it's sweet and it was a great antidote to both Wuthering Heights and The Piper's Son

Butterflies: 7.5 out of 10
Recommended for: girls over 14. (Or boys, if you want to pick up some tips on how to impress girls! Seriously, this book is full of them.)
Warnings: very very minimal swearing

THE PIPER'S SON BY MELINA MARCHETTA

I guess I should start by saying that Saving Francesca, to which this book is a sequel, is one of my favourite books ever, so I went into this book with high expectations.

Thomas Mackee, one of Francesca's close friends in the previous book, has finished school and has fallen off the rails after the death of his uncle in the 2005 terrorist attacks on London. Thomas has been involved with drugs and drinking and has had a variety of one-night stands but all he can really think about is Tara Finke, the girl he loved at high school, and his friends that he left behind and his family who all fell apart and are now scattered all over the country.

It's only when Francesca saves him from a difficult situation that he starts to move back towards his family and friends, and starts to wonder if maybe he can fix his life and start again and get back Tara Finke.

Saving Francesca was brilliant, and although I didn't enjoy On the Jellicoe Road I had high hopes for this book. For starters, every character in Saving Francesca was brilliantly developed with just the right amount of intrigue, so a book about any of them would have been brilliant. I'm glad Marchetta picked Tom to focus on, because there were so many unanswered questions about him at the end of Saving Francesca. The book also answered questions about other characters too, such as Francesca and Tara.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. Again, the characters were brilliantly developed, particularly Tom's aunt Georgie (a new character) and the back story was both moving and realistic.

It was a great book and Melina Marchetta deserves praise for following up Saving Francesca with such a wonderful new novel.

Butterflies: 9 out of 10
Recommended for: people over 15 who have read Saving Francesca. Although the book can be read as a stand alone novel, I think it will be better appreciated if you read Saving Francesca first.
Warnings: sex, swearing, drugs and alcohol, but the story is brilliant so please don't let that stop you if you think you're old enough to read it!!

movies vs. books

I was talking to my friend Lizzy in roll call this morning and we got on to talking about books that are turned into movies and how some people read books before seeing the movie and some people do it the other way round.

So she suggested I write a blog entry about this... so this one's for you Lizzy!

I was in PIP in period one this morning and I decided to ask some other people about their opinions before I give you my own. So firstly, I asked Lizzy. This is what she said.
"Well I always read the book before the movie. What I then usually do is sit through the movie and complain about what is and isn't in the book to the person next to me. (I, Liz (as in sheepishlyliz, the author of this blog), can't definitely attest to this!) Books can give you a different perspective and a clearer picture."

I really like her point about movies not being a good representation of books. I read a book called 'The Tale of Desperaux' a few years ago (by Kate DiCamillo), and a few months later I saw the movie. It was COMPLETELY different to the book and really not that great. Desperaux, a mouse, was nothing like how I imagined him. What had been a whimsical, gorgeous fantasy story had been turned into a fairly boring, run-of-the-mill talking animal kids movie. My sister and my dad were particularly annoyed!

I also asked my friend Nick about his opinion. He said: "Books, because they are always better than the movies."

Thanks Nick, such a great input... Although I do like this finality of this statement. It's great that he can say books are ALWAYS better than movie adaptions. He must have only ever read books that have awful movie versions!

So there you have it! My friends think book THEN movie.

And I tend to agree with them. Books are the original, after all, so you should get the original idea the author was trying to portray before seeing an adaptation.

If you disagree, or have any other point to make on this topic, tell me in the comments! I'd love to read your opinions!

I'm still reading The Piper's Son but I'm nearly finished so that review will be up soon, so stay tuned!

real life in books

I LOVE history, there's no denying it. I get intrigued about the way people lived in the past, and secrets that were covered up, and the way what happened before I was born has shaped my life today.

At the moment I'm reading The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta, and I'm really enjoying it. It's the sequel to one of my favourite books, Saving Francesca, but tells the story of a different character, Thomas Mackee.

Lots of the story is about two horrific events: the bombings of the London Underground in 2005, and the Vietnam War. Two of Tom's relatives perished in these events.

Both these events were tragic, but I actually love the way they are used in the book. Real life events have been woven into the story of this novel, and both have shaped Thomas Mackee. I LOVE it when books have aspects of real life in them, such as suburbs or shops I know, or references to celebrities or public figures that I know of. It makes them feel incredibly realistic.

Marchetta is very good at this. She also incorporates song lyrics, including referring to a song that I love by Regina Spektor called Sampson, and saying that Tom secretly loves it (I don't blame him, it's a great great song, look it up!)

So what books have you read that made you say "oh I know that place/song/person!" and made you feel like the book was really believable? Tell me in the comments, I might like to read the book! :)

WUTHERING HEIGHTS BY EMILY BRONTE

Wuthering Heights is one of the most well-known novels of the Gothic genre. Emily Bronte only ever wrote one novel, but if your one novel is something like Wuthering Heights, you shouldn't be too worried.

Catherine Earnshaw is growing up at Wuthering Heights, the child of a wealthy landowner. One day, her father Mr Earnshaw brings home a young waif, who he names Heathcliff. Catherine and Heathcliff grow up together, like brother and sister, with Catherine's brother Hindley hating Heathcliff for being favoured by his father. Catherine and Heathcliff start to fall in love. Mr Earnshaw dies, and Hindley inherits Wuthering Heights. He marries, but his wife dies shortly after giving birth to a child, Hareton. Hindley becomes violent and abusive towards Heathcliff. Catherine starts to spend time with her neighbors, the Lintons, and is attracted to Edgar Linton, a young man around her own age. She tells the housekeeper, Nelly Dean, that she wishes to marry Edgar so that she can be rich and comfortable in her life, but Heathcliff overhears the conversation.

Once Catherine and Edgar marry, Heathcliff becomes jealous and angry because of all-consuming love for Catherine. He marries Isabella Linton, Edgar's brother, out of spite towards the Lintons, but cannot deny his feelings for Catherine, and their passionate love has effects for years to come.

Bronte has undoubtedly written an amazing book. It is incredibly complex, with all the characters, so much so that I found referring to a family tree very useful (you can find one here however I warn it spoils the story). But it's clever, oh so clever, and haunting and terrifying and really quite amazing.

I think it is strange, though, that people refer to it as a great romantic novel (EDIT: I do mean romantic in the 'lovey dovey' sense, because people do actually say that, not the style of romanticism, just to clear that up). It's romantic, yes, but it's terrifying too! There are ghosts, references to demons, violence, and some seriously scary weather, and the relationships involved are so turbulent and abusive that I really don't understand how it could be considered "romantic" in the same sense that books such as Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice are considered "romantic". Sure, it was passionate, but romantic? Not exactly...

That said, the book is quite incredible, and very different to the conservative novels of Jane Austen with which I am more familiar. It was quite riveting in some places, though in others, a bit slow, but if you choose to read it, stick with it, because it's worth it in the end!

Butterflies: 7 out of 10
Recommended for: people over 14 who can endure difficult language and will not be too disturbed by the supernatural and abusive aspects of the novel.
Warnings: a bit violent, but not too bad. A hard read!

LORD OF THE FLIES BY WILLIAM GOLDING

It's done, and once this review is posted, let us never speak of it again because I have to study it in English at the moment and it is NOT FUN.

Lord of the Flies is the story of  the survivors of a plane crash on a deserted island in the Pacific. They are being evacuated from England sometime during WW2. The only survivors on the island are boys, none older than 12, some as young as five or six.

Amongst them is Ralph and Piggy, and the book opens with these two characters meeting for the first time. Ralph is quickly established as being leadership potential, though not necessarily very enthusiastic about that possibility. Piggy, a fat, smart boy, discovers a conch shell. He tells Ralph they should use it to summon the other boys and try and work out how they are going to survive. Piggy is probably one of the wisest characters in the book. So the boys all meet, and Ralph is made chief, with Jack (the head of a choir involved in the crash and an arrogant, bossy boy) in charge of a group of boys who will hunt for feral pigs on the island and keep a signal fire going.

But things don't go smoothly. Some boys are lazy, and Jack and Ralph start to fight. There is also something lurking on the island, scaring the littleuns, and while Ralph and Jack try to brush off their fears, soon they too are afraid of the beast on the island.

Only one boy seems to know what is going on: Simon, a very wise young boy, suggests that the beast is perhaps inside them, rather than an actual beast.

But it's too late. The beast is already rearing its ugly head.

Lord of the Flies was published in the 1950s, so the language is complex and at times difficult to read. However there are some excellent descriptions of the landscape on the island which makes up for this.

The real issue in this book, for me, is the reason it is so widely studied. Lord of the Flies is an allegory for how, when unchecked, human cruelty (particularly in young boys) can get out of hand. However, the brutal events in this novel seem... perhaps... a little TOO extreme. The boys are twelve, but they are capable of murder. Although real life events prove that this is true, the circumstances under which the deaths occur are, in my opinion, not extreme enough for the boys to have been driven to murder. Some may disagree, but in my experience of boys, they are not the cruel beasts that Golding depicts them as.

Almost all the characters were, for me, pretty unlikeable. They were all a bit pompous, thinking that because they were British they'd be able to sort everything out (how wrong they were!) and were hasty in their decisions, arrogant, self-centred and immature (Piggy and Simon being the exceptions, although they too have faults that ensure that they do not save the book).

On the other hand, while the characters made immature decisions, I think sometimes Golding depicted them as TOO mature for their age. At twelve, I would not know many boys who could organise a (while admittedly dysfunctional and ultimately doomed) society of sorts and survive for weeks on a deserted island. Also, what twelve-year-old speaks like they speak? None these days, and probably none back then either! (Well I don't know that for certain, but judging on how kids speak today, I think we can safely assume that.)

So while the book had some good points, I just found the situation, characters and dialogue a bit tiresome and unrealistic, so I can't give it a good review. Apologies to all those who think this is a classic!

Butterflies: 5 out of 10
Recommended for: Year 10 English at my school, so you pass! Also to people over 14 who will be able to appreciate the descriptions and also understand that this is not just an adventure story.
Warnings: complex language, and fairly violent. Not a light read, in any way!