‘Cooper Bartholomew is Dead’ by Rebecca James

 Received from the Publisher 

From the BLURB:

Cooper Bartholomew's body is found at the foot of a cliff.

Suicide.

That's the official finding, that's what everyone believes. Cooper's girlfriend, Libby, has her doubts. They'd been happy, in love. Why would he take his own life?

As Libby searches for answers, and probes more deeply into what really happened the day Cooper died, she and her friends unravel a web of deception and betrayal. Are those friends - and enemies - what they seem? Who is hiding a dangerous secret? And will the truth set them all free?

‘Cooper Bartholomew is Dead’ is the new YA novel from Australian author Rebecca James.

I’ve been excited for this novel since 2010. That’s when I read James’s debut ‘Beautiful Malice’ and first saw the title of her work-in-progress, ‘Cooper Bartholomew is Dead’. No synopsis or release date, let alone information on if the book had even been sold to a publisher … just that title, and I was hooked. Four years later and ‘Cooper Bartholomew is Dead’ is Rebecca James’s third book – after loving ‘Beautiful Malice’ and making herself an automatic-buy author with ‘Sweet Damage’, her third book lives up to that initial intrigue and is going down as a 2014 favourite.

‘Cooper Bartholomew is Dead’ is split between THEN and NOW. In the now, Cooper Bartholomew is indeed dead (sorry, the spoiler in the title is true) having committed suicide – his friends Sebastian and Claire are reeling, and his girlfriend Libby is numb. In THEN, we read how Libby and Cooper bumped into one another at a bottle shop – they were part of the same graduating high school class, and even worked on an assignment together once, but Cooper’s ex-girlfriend Claire warned him off striking up a friendship with ‘the backstabber’ Libby. When they meet again there’s tension and hesitation, but an unmistakable ‘something’ has both of them wanting to reconnect …

In the NOW, Libby is becoming less and less convinced of Cooper’s committing suicide. Something is not adding up: they’d made plans to move to Sydney together, and Cooper loved her – they had a future together.

The novel’s timeline flips, as does narrative POV, and we hear from Libby, Cooper, Seb and Claire – we wade through their memories of Cooper and hidden agendas since his passing as well as Cooper’s own accounts leading up to his death and pivotal relationship with Libby. Rebecca James really needs to be commended for the pacing of this plot – especially since there’s a give-away in the title that could have hindered the suspense. It’s teased out beautifully to feel like YA-noir and the short, sharp chapters leading to the denouement are wonderful.

But the real strength of this book lies in the central character of Cooper himself. Maybe it’s because I started reading this when the whole ‘Twin Peaks’ second season talk started, but I couldn’t help but think of Cooper Bartholomew having hints of Laura Palmer to him, and Rebecca James’s latest novel as a head-nod to David Lynch in exposing the seedy underbelly of a perfect life. It takes a special character to be dearly departed for a good portion of a book, and still come across so charismatic and downright loveable, that readers mourn his loss along with the characters:

I dream of Cooper. I dream that he climbs through my window while I’m sleeping and slips into my bed. I wake up and find him next to me – warm and very much alive – and cry with joy. He laughs and tells me that his death was all a stupid joke. I hug him tight and am so overjoyed, so glad to see him, I don’t even care that he played such a cruel trick. 

But a police siren screeches through my open window and I’m pulled from my dream with a vicious jolt. I’m awake, alone in my bed, feeling as though Cooper has been ripped away from me. And the shock of this reality – Cooper is dead and gone and I will never see or speak to or touch him again – is like a kick to the stomach. The pain takes my breath away.

Libby and Cooper’s romance is teased out in parallel to Libby’s investigation into Cooper’s death – almost making the romance as much of a mystery as the mystery itself. And that romance is so gorgeously realised that when the inevitable happens, it does hurt.

‘Cooper Bartholomew is Dead’ is another fabulous novel from one of Australia’s favourite YA authors. It’s a slice of ‘Twin Peaks’ noir for young readers to get wrapped up in – and that it hurts so much is part of the novel’s charm and Rebecca James’s talent.

5 /5

'The Hook Up' Game On #1 by Kristen Callihan

From the BLURB:

The rules: no kissing on the mouth, no staying the night, no telling anyone, and above all…

No falling in love. Anna Jones just wants to finish college and figure out her life. Falling for star quarterback Drew Baylor is certainly not on her to do list. Confident and charming, he lives in the limelight and is way too gorgeous for his own good. If only she could ignore his heated stares and stop thinking about doing hot and dirty things with him. Easy right?

Too bad he’s committed to making her break every rule… Football has been good to Drew. It’s given him recognition, two National Championships, and the Heisman. But what he really craves is sexy yet prickly Anna Jones. Her cutting humor and blatant disregard for his fame turns him on like nothing else. But there’s one problem: she's shut him down. Completely.

That is until a chance encounter leads to the hottest sex of their lives, along with the possibility of something great. Unfortunately, Anna wants it to remain a hook up. Now it’s up to Drew to tempt her with more: more sex, more satisfaction, more time with him. Until she’s truly hooked. It's a good thing Drew knows all about winning.

All’s fair in love and football… Game on

Drew ‘Battle’ Baylor is star quarterback on his college football team, winner of a Heisman Trophy and frequent topic of conversation on ESPN for future draft picks. There is no reason for him to fall so fast and hard for Anna Jones – buxom redhead, former high school wallflower now one half of the most gossiped about hook-up at their college.

‘The Hook Up’ is the first book in a new contemporary romance series (do I have to say ‘new adult?’) from Kristen Callihan – author of the wonderful fantasy/paranormal romance series ‘Darkest London’.

So, I was a huge fan of ‘Friday Night Lights’. On occasion, I get totally bummed that it’s not on anymore (and hasn’t been since 2011 – where has the time gone?). I miss not being able to return for new stories with my favourite characters in Dillon, Texas – and sometimes not even re-watching the box-set always appeases me (though having Connie Britton’s hair return in ‘Nashville’ helped a little). Point being: I miss stories around the small town mythology of school football. I miss stories about young demi-football-gods and how playing the game they love sometimes creates moral and ethical conundrums for them – and all this without me knowing jack-all about American football! I just love the stories, and have done since ‘Varsity Blues’ – but ‘Friday Night Lights’ was really just the ultimate for me. But I have found that what the box is lacking in providing me football stories as gritty and romantic as ‘Friday Night Lights’, contemporary romance books more than make up for. Case in point: Kristen Callihan’s new series ‘Game On’ and this first book in particular.

In this football story, our female protagonist is Anna Jones – a young woman who is still haunted by the emotional bullying she experienced in high school, particularly concerning her appearance. When Anna bumps, quite literally, into Drew Baylor in their philosophy class, sparks fly – but Anna has a hard time believing that infamous ‘Battle Baylor’ (star QB, local hero) would be interested in her and is determined to keep their relationship casual, despite Drew’s protestations.

Drew knows that he wants Anna – and not just as a one-time only hook-up. The trouble will be in convincing her that he’s in it for the long-haul: despite what may be coming his way with a promising football career. Because Drew knows a thing or two about going after what you want – his parents dying when he was 18 gave him some serious perspective on not taking anything for granted, and going after what you want. 

My mother once told me that the most important moment in my life wouldn’t be when I won the National Championship or even the Super Bowl. It would be when I fell in love. 

Life, she insisted, is how you live it and who you live it with, not what you do to make a living. Given that she told me this when I was sixteen, I basically rolled my eyes and worked on practicing my pass fakes. 

But my mother was insistent. 

“You’ll see, Drew. One day, love will creep up and smack you upside the head. Then you’ll understand.”

Yes, this is total fantasy contemporary romance – a really intriguing flip in which the female protagonist wants casual, while the male yearns for forever. This, even though Drew admits that young women are constantly throwing themselves at him and his teammates. But Callihan gives Drew enough dark back-story to actually make this dynamic seem halfway credible – losing his parents at a young age, an ex-girlfriend who told relationship lies to the media … it all adds up to Drew getting quite serious about Anna very early on and liking the idea of starting something serious and long-haul with her.

I also really liked Anna as a protagonist (the story actually flips between both their POVs) – she’s a curvaceous young woman who has only just recently started embracing her feminie body, but still struggles with a lack of confidence because of her particularly hellish high school years. I loved that Callihan doesn’t actually write Anna body-shaming herself (no endless diatribes about fat thighs, or bulging tummy) – we read Anna disbelieve or brush aside Drew’s comments about her physical beauty, but that’s really it. On the flipside, readers get Drew’s interiority about how much he appreciates Anna’s body – and it’s for all the reasons we can imagine she’d consider flaws.

This book is H-O-T. Callihan, as she did in ‘Darkest London’, writes really beautiful sensual scenes – in this contemporary romance there’s a lot more sex on the page, but Callihan never lets it get tiresome or repetitive. And she integrates Anna and Drew’s physical intimacy with their emotional really, really well.

I was about two chapters into this book when I started recommending it to my romance reader friends – it was that good! (and they concurred). I’m going to call this a favourite book of 2014, which is kind of great considering I bought it on a whim based on the strength of Callihan’s totally different paranormal romanceseries, and because I was having ‘Friday Night Lights’ withdrawals. This was a wonderful romance and I can’t wait for the next two books in the ‘Game On’ series.

5/5

Nepotism, bullying and stalking: When online reviews go bad

New column up on Kill Your Darlings today:

Nepotism, bullying and stalking: 

When online reviews go bad

Yes, it's about Kathleen Hale's Guardian piece. 

Sorry. 

Full disclosure: I am a book blogger and Goodreads member - the latter I admit in the piece, the former is in my byline.  

And another great post on this topic is 'Hale vs Harris and the breach of online ethics' by Alex Hurst - which came out after I'd submitted this for edits but is well worth a read! 

'Leaving Time' by Jodi Picoult

Received from the Publisher

From the BLURB:

Alice Metcalf was a devoted mother, loving wife and accomplished scientist who studied grief among elephants. Yet it's been a decade since she disappeared under mysterious circumstances, leaving behind her small daughter, husband, and the animals to which she devoted her life. All signs point to abandonment - or worse. 

Still Jenna - now thirteen years old and truly orphaned by a father maddened by grief - steadfastly refuses to believe in her mother's desertion. So she decides to approach the two people who might still be able to help her find Alice: a disgraced psychic named Serenity Jones, and Virgil Stanhope, the cynical detective who first investigated her mother's disappearance and the strange, possibly linked death of one of her mother's coworkers. 

Together these three lonely souls will discover truths destined to forever change their lives. Deeply moving and suspenseful, Jodi Picoult's 21st novel is a radiant exploration of the enduring love between mothers and daughters.

Jenna Metcalf’s life should have been very different. She should have been raised at the Elephant Sanctuary that her father, Thomas, started and ran alongside her mother, Alice Metcalf; a brilliant scientist whose seminal work was on grief among elephants. Jenna should have been raised by the village behind the sanctuary, fellow keepers Nevvie, Grace and Gideon. Jenna should have been raised to be her mother’s shadow, the little miniature of her with pink Converse shoes and a bright mane of red hair.

Instead Jenna’s childhood was railroaded when she was just a baby, and never got back on course. At thirteen she now lives with her guardian grandmother because her father is institutionalised and her mother disappeared a decade ago after the trampling death of a fellow keeper at her parent’s sanctuary. But Jenna has never stopped hoping that her mother is alive, and that her cold case will lead to a missing person who has either forgotten about her past life or has been searching as desperately for Jenna as she has for her mother. 

So Jenna is employing the help of two unlikely people – once internationally renowned television psychic (with a high success rate) Serenity Jones has been out of the public eye for a number of years, ever since her psychic abilities dried up after a disastrous child abduction case. Then there’s Virgil Stanhope, the detective who worked the elephant sanctuary death case and still feels partly responsible for Alice Metcalf’s disappearance. 

This unlikely trio will set out to answer Jenna’s most burning question once and for all – what happened to her mother?

‘Leaving Time’ is the new novel from Jodi Picoult.

I had so been looking forward to this novel – I am a huge Jodi Picoult fan, and proudly display her backlist on my bookshelf. I’d count ‘My Sister’s Keeper’ and ‘The Pact’ among my most enjoyable reads of the last decade, and last year I thoroughly enjoyed her novel ‘The Storyteller’. I classify Jodi Picoult as one of my ‘tried and true’ authors – I know I’m going to get suckered into her novels, and I rarely care how outlandish the storylines are because I enjoy the journey so very much. So I’m a little bit heavy-hearted to report that ‘Leaving Time’ wasn’t the steadfast read I’d been hoping for …

The story is told from four perspectives. Jenna Metcalf is the precocious thirteen-year-old narrator, admittedly too smart for her own good and so unlike the other kids in her class that she’s often labelled a freak. Jenna’s voice does feel out of touch with her age, but we can assume that the traumatic history around losing her mother (and, in many ways, her father) has left her a wise and scarred old soul in the body of this adolescent;

I know that I used to be a girl whose hair was strawberry blond, who ran around like a wild thing while my mother took endless notes about the elephants. Now I’m a kid who is too serious for her age and too smart for her own good. And yet as impressive as I am with scientific statistics, I fail miserably when it comes to real-life facts, like knowing that Wanelo is a website and now a hot new band. It eighth grade is a microcosm of the social hierarchy of the human adolescent (and to my mother, it certainly would have been), then reciting fifty named elephant herds in the Tuli Block of Botswana cannot compete with identifying all the members of One Direction.

Jenna pours over her mother’s old scientific research on elephants, and it’s in these segues that we also get first-person narration from Alice Metcalf explaining her life’s work – studying grief among elephants, how she came to this thesis working in Botswana where she met Thomas Metcalf and made the journey with him back to America to work at his sanctuary and marry him, after discovering she was pregnant after a one-night stand in Africa. Alice is narrating the events and circumstances leading up to her disappearance, all of her chapters are set in the past and hurtling towards a terrible night that Jenna is still reeling from the repercussions of.

“Ten years isn’t a cold case, it’s an ice trail. There’s nothing still here now that existed back when your mother disappeared.” 

“I’m here,” I say. 

Then we have Virgil and Serenity – each carrying their own demons and personal reasons for helping young Jenna sift through the sands of the past to get to the truth. 

“I used to think I saw my mom all the time,” I say softly. “I’d be in a crowded place and I’d let go of my grandma’s hand and start running toward her, but I was never able to catch up.” 

Serenity is staring at me with a strange look on her face. “Maybe you are psychic.”  

“Or maybe missing someone and finding someone have the same symptoms,” I say. 

There’s a lot going on in ‘Leaving Time’, but that’s not unusual for Picoult who prefers multiple narrators and stringing loose threads together to make an intricate pattern. The pattern of ‘Leaving Time’ is not hard to discern either; elephants, memory and grieving, with heady doses of the matriarchy/ allmothering aspects of elephant life – the mother/child connection. And that’s what worked the most for me – the research into elephant memory, particularly relating to traumatic events.

Picoult, through Alice, does write beautifully and tenderly about elephants – from their grieving process to a mother’s patience for her calf and the way a herd plays together. These descriptions are gorgeous, and even without reading Picoult’s acknowledgements at the back of the book (where she cites the work of people like ‘Elephant Whisperer’ Lawrence Anthony) and speaks about ivory trade, I’d know how deeply moved she was in the process of researching these animals for this book. 

It was the human connections that were harder for me to enjoy. Indeed, it wasn’t until halfway through this book that I even felt I was semi-hooked, interested in Jenna’s story and how it would all end. Where Picoult in the past has drawn readers in with moralistic “what would you do?” premises, ‘Leaving Time’ felt murkier for leaving readers out of such conundrums – we’re very much along for the Alice/Jenna ride, and little is asked of what we’d do in their shoes – which is so often how Picoult’s books work.

**MAJOR SPOILER – do not read until you’ve finished the book – but I can’t write a review without saying it** highlight to read 

[I guessed the ‘twist’ about 100 pages out from the end. And I was guessing in a “oh, I hope that isn’t what she’s been doing here…” kind of way. Because, let’s be honest, M. Night Shyamalan and ‘The Sixth Sense’ have spoiled that twist for everyone – I think it will cross a lot of people’s minds because by now it’s not really a twist at all. It’s been played, and it felt that way in ‘Leaving Time’ I’m sorry to say.]

I felt a disconnection in this book, and maybe that’s me missing some of my favourite Picoult staples: heart-warming (though complicated) romance, courtroom drama and moral grey-area. ‘Leaving Time’ was okay, but I’m used to being consumed by a Jodi Picoult book instead of the limp-along way I read her latest.

3/5

Race, growing up and 'Nona and Me'

My new column for Kill Your Darlings is an interview with Clare Atkins, author of new YA book 'Nona and Me': 

Race, growing up and 'Nona and Me' 

'The Rosie Effect' Don Tillman #2 by Graeme Simsion

From the BLURB:

The Rosie Project was an international publishing phenomenon, with more than a million copies sold in over forty countries around the world. Now Graeme Simsion returns with the highly anticipated sequel, The Rosie Effect.

Don Tillman and Rosie Jarman are now married and living in New York. Don has been teaching while Rosie completes her second year at Columbia Medical School. Just as Don is about to announce that Gene, his philandering best friend from Australia, is coming to stay, Rosie drops a bombshell: she’s pregnant.

In true Tillman style, Don instantly becomes an expert on all things obstetric. But in between immersing himself in a new research study on parenting and implementing the Standardised Meal System (pregnancy version), Don’s old weaknesses resurface. And while he strives to get the technicalities right, he gets the emotions all wrong, and risks losing Rosie when she needs him most.

The Rosie Effect is the charming and hilarious romantic comedy of the year.

'The Rosie Effect' is the sequel to Graeme Simsion’s 2013 internationally best-selling novel 'The Rosie Project', which I enjoyed immensely (as did Bill Gates). 
I had been very excited to read its sequel and revisit Don and Rosie – and I said as much in my 'Rosie Project' review. 

But now I have read the sequel, and I did not care for it. 

Allow me to try and relay the things I did not enjoy about this book, and assign them some sort of quantifiable value. I shall list what I did not like, and use a percentage marker to indicate how much their inclusion annoyed me and affected my enjoyment of 'The Rosie Effect'. 

• The Baby Project – 5% 

'The Rosie Project' was about geneticist Don Tillman concocting a scientific survey to find the perfect wife. He found an imperfectly-perfect wife in Rosie Jarman, who failed at his Wife Project but succeeded in the hands-on role. 'The Rosie Effect' begins when Don and Rosie are happily married and living in New York – Don is a professor at Columbia and Rosie is completing her PhD. It is not a good time for them to “get pregnant”, but that’s exactly what happens … which triggers The Baby Project – which sees Don attempt to prepare for impending fatherhood by conducting extensive research into everything from suitable diet for Rosie to child-rearing techniques. Don is particularly keen to conduct such research because of an altercation with a friend-of-a-friend, who states that Don would make an unsuitable parent. 
It follows that after The Wife Project comes The Baby Project (as indicated by famous rhyme: first comes loves, then comes marriage etc, etc, etc…) but this storyline quickly falters, and the book started to feel like the nine-month gestation period itself. Or, as Alfred Hickling for The Guardian noted: “it fulfils a formula familiar to many sequels of bestelling novels in that it is twice as long and only half as good.” 

• Gregory Peck – 25%

Simsion repeats many jokes in this book. The Gregory Peck ha-ha was particularly annoying for it’s repetitiveness.
Rosie thinks that Don bears a resemblance to the famous actor Gregory Peck (circa: 'To Kill a Mockingbird'). This was a lovely visual in 'The Rosie Project'. In 'The Rosie Effect' we learn that Don has taken his resemblance and amplified it by repeating famous lines from Gregory Peck films ('Roman Holiday' in particular) which often results in Rosie feeling amorous towards Don. This is nice, and when Don first mentions his subtle ‘strategy’ it’s funny, and I cracked a smile … but Simsion repeats a variation of this joke about 20 times throughout the book.
It is a sad day when mention of Gregory Peck in a novel becomes frustrating. 
A sad day indeed. 

• Marital Violence joke – 35%

It’s not just the Gregory Peck joke that Simsion repeats.
There are two elaborate comedy-of-errors situations that take quite a bit of build-up, but the premise is people thinking that Don means to do some sort of harm to Rosie and/or the baby. He doesn’t. The misunderstanding comes from Don being somewhere on the autism spectrum (what was once called Asperger syndrome) and being entirely too honest and direct with people, particularly those in positions of authority. This sees him participating in a domestic violence counselling session, and giving the wrong impression to a flight marshal about intending to hurt Rosie. 
This “funny” clunked on the page … twice.

• 'The Rosie Project' similarities – 10%

A lot of The Rosie Effect is set-up to be a mirrored sequel to 'The Rosie Project'. The Wife/Baby Project plot is just one of them. Simsion reuses another in the friendly neighbour who Don becomes emotionally (unbeknownst to him) attached to. In 'Rosie Project' Don’s kind, elderly neighbour Daphne was the person who encouraged him to become a husband … hence, The Wife Project. Simsion conveniently contrives a similar scenario for Don in 'The Rosie Effect', except this time the neighbour is an old rocker called George who has his own family dilemmas and both gives Don advice, and benefits from Don’s “boy’s night out” initiative. George also provides Don and Rosie an unrealistic housing opportunity in New York. 
I didn’t love the skewed-slightly plot, especially since George didn’t hold a candle to Daphne who was a crucial part of Don’s character arc. 

• Gene – 5%

Gene’s wife, Claudia, finally leaves the serial-philanderer and Don convinces Gene to come and take a position at Columbia and stay with him and Rosie. 
This book is in no way improved by more Gene. 
… I don’t think anything is ever improved by more Gene. 

• The Women – 20%

This is a very male-centric story. Don spends a lot of “boys nights out” with his friends George, Gene and new acquaintance Dave working through various husband and fatherhood difficulties. By comparison, Rosie actually feels like a depleted character in this book – it didn’t feel like she was physically present for a lot of it (and probably wasn’t, as she’s frequently working on her thesis) – but emotionally it felt like Simsion left her to lag behind. Maybe this is because he writes her as a silly pregnant woman – irrational, baby-brained and forever frustrated – rather than an actual human being who we’ve come to know and love through Don’s search for her in 'The Rosie Project'. As Helen Elliott said in her Sydney Morning Herald review: "If ever there was a formulaic pregnancy, this is it. It might make men laugh. Women will be unamused and even cross."
Other women in the book are equally hollow – there’s the second emotionally overwrought pregnant woman (Sonia), evil professional lady (Lydia), Skype-chat ex (Claudia) or simply background extras B1, B2 and B3 (I’m not kidding). 

100% disappointed. 

I didn’t like 'The Rosie Effect'. I first became worried when I got to Chapter Eight and realised I hadn’t chuckled once – compared to my belly-laughing by that point in 'The Rosie Project'. 
Sure, a few scenes elicited smiles:

Loud Woman laughed. Loudly. ‘He’s Rain Man! You know. Dustin Hoffman when he remembers all the cards. Dan’s the cocktail Rain Man.’ 

Rain Man! I had seen the film. I did not identify in any way with Rain Man, who was inarticulate, dependent and unemployable. A society of Rain Men would be dysfunctional. A society of Don Tillmans would be efficient, safe and pleasant for all of us. 

But they were far and few between.

To be honest, I rushed through reading the end because I just wanted to be done with it. I still think Don is a great character, and I will pick up the third book when it comes out … but I might have to rein in my expectations, and I suggest you do the same if you’re going into 'The Rosie Effect'. 

1.5-2/5 

 

Australian Romance Readers Convention - ARRC2015 - 'Young Love'

Hello Darling Readers!

This is just a little note to *squeeeeee* that next year I'll be attending the Australian Romance Readers Convention ... and moderating the young adult romance panel 'Young Love'. 

I'm really excited to discuss YA with these fabulous authors: 

Jen Kloester, Kaz Delaney, Kelley Armstrong and Maggie Gilbert!

'El Deafo' by Cece Bell

From the BLURB:

Going to school and making new friends can be tough. But going to school and making new friends while wearing a bulky hearing aid strapped to your chest? That requires superpowers! In this funny, poignant graphic novel memoir, author/illustrator Cece Bell chronicles her hearing loss at a young age and her subsequent experiences with the Phonic Ear, a very powerful—and very awkward—hearing aid.

The Phonic Ear gives Cece the ability to hear—sometimes things she shouldn’t—but also isolates her from her classmates. She really just wants to fit in and find a true friend, someone who appreciates her as she is. After some trouble, she is finally able to harness the power of the Phonic Ear and become “El Deafo, Listener for All.” And more importantly, declare a place for herself in the world and find the friend she’s longed for.

I have been excited for this middle-grade graphic semi-autobiographical novel for the longest time! I remember when BEA was on earlier this year, lots of publishing articles were writing about how autobiographies and memoirs were a predicted trend coming to youth literature – a few titles that intrigued me were Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin, We Should Hang Out Sometime: Embarrassingly, a true story by Josh Sundquist, not to mention David Burton’s How to Be Happy which won the Text Prize for Young Adult and Children's Writing this year … and El Deafo by Cece Bell.

EL Deafo is Cece Bell’s semi-autobiographic graphic novel that begins when Bell is four and a half years old and contracts meningitis. During her recovery it’s discovered that she has become severely to profoundly deaf, and so begins her new life as the only deaf member of her hearing family, and the beginning of her relationship with The Phonic Ear – a hearing aid pack that she wears like a backpack and connects to her ears via cords.

I particularly loved the way that Bell portrays her gradual hearing loss – while recovering in hospital odd things start happening (like the nurses giving all the kids ice-cream, except her). The strangeness continues at home, where Bell becomes anxious when she can’t find her mother in the house. The gradual silence is expressed through speech-bubbles with fading text … and during these chapters Bell is speaking from her four-year-old perspective, unable to pinpoint exactly what’s changed in her world, but with a deep sense that something is missing.

Bell’s childhood plays out during the 1970s, so at her specialist kindergarten she – along with her fellow deaf and hard of hearing classmates – are taught how to lip-read. 

This proves a complicated lesson for Bell, who details the myriad of ways that lip-reading is about a lot more than just looking at people’s lips – you have to look out for visual, context and gestural clues for one thing. And if a person is talking to you at night, with a moustache/beard, with their head turned or amongst a big group of people – all those clues are of little help.

By the time Bell’s family moved to a different town, she had done so well at kindergarten that when she started first grade, she went to a hearing school and was the only student there who had hearing loss. Outfitted with The Phonic Ear and a microphone for her teacher to wear (that transmitted to Bell’s hearing aid) it was during this time that Bell came to think of herself as El Deafo – a superhero with super hearing!

Bell explores so many facets of her childhood, and all of it is entirely relatable. From trying to extricate herself from a bossy friend, to experiencing her first crush – so much of El Deafo is universal. And then there are the ways that Bell explores how her childhood was ever so slightly different and sometimes more complicated – the friend who insisted on introducing Cece as her “deaf friend” for instance, her initial embarrassments with sign-language.

El Deafo is also laugh-out-loud funny. Bell has hijinks with her Phonic Ear and microphone, which turns her into a fly-on-the-wall in the teacher's lounge ... and during her teacher's toilet breaks. It's great to watch Bell transform into a self-confident superhero on the page, but only when she starts being a little more honest and lets her classmates into her unique world. 

I really loved El Deafo. I interviewed Kayla Whaley recently, a moderator over at the wonderful Disability in KidLit blog and someone you should definitely follow on Twitter. In my Kill Your Darlings interview, Whaley spoke about how important it is to show varied and positive forms of disability in youth literature – “I think that’s a point that doesn’t get made often. There are innumerable disabled experiences, not one single authoritative experience. It’s critical that we have varied portrayals, that we show young readers that their experience of disability is valid, no matter what that experience looks like.”

What’s really great about Cece Bell is that she acknowledges El Deafo is very much based on her unique childhood experiences; “It is in no way a representation of what all deaf people might experience,” she says in a note from the author. She also acknowledges that many in the Deaf community do not want to “fix” themselves, or see being deaf as a disability. But she’s very honest in this book, and explores the many ways that she struggled and railed against her hearing loss – “I was a deaf kid surrounded by kids who could hear. I felt different, and in my mind, being different was not a good thing. I secretly, and openly, believed that my deafness, in making me so different, was a disability. And I was ashamed.”

These are the positive and varied portrayals that Kayla was talking about – and El Deafo is such a wonderful example of how powerful such stories can be. At the end of her author’s note, Bell summarises what it took so long for her younger-self to learn: “Our differences are our superpowers!” 

This is a favourite book of 2014 for me – an absolutely stunning semi-autobiographic graphic novel that middle-grade readers will love, but everyone should read!

5/5