'The Minnow' by Diana Sweeney

Received from the Publisher 

From the BLURB:

Tom survived a devastating flood that claimed the lives of her sister and parents. Now she lives with Bill in his old shed by the lake. But it’s time to move out—Tom is pregnant with Bill’s baby.

Jonah lets her move in with him. Mrs Peck gives her the Fishmaster Super Series tackle box. Nana is full of gentle good advice and useful sayings.

And in her longing for what is lost, Tom talks to fish: Oscar the carp in the pet shop, little Sarah catfish who might be her sister, an unhelpful turtle in a tank at the maternity ward. And the minnow.

The Minnow is a moving and powerful coming-of-age story with a whimsical element that belies the heartbreaking truth of grief and loss. Tom is a character you will never forget.

Tom is 14-years-old. She lives in The Crossing, a small coastal town that recently experienced devastating floods. Tom’s Mum, Dad and sister all died and she has been living with Bill ever since. Now she finds herself pregnant with Bill’s baby, and caught in the middle of his shady business, which is gaining the interest of the local police.

So Tom moves into her best friend Jonah’s house – Jonah’s parents also died in the floods, and he’s happy to take care of Tom if it means getting her away from Bill.

While the baby grows in her belly – and takes on the persona of ‘the minnow’ – Tom goes about her life; visiting her Nana in the nursing home, talking to the ghost of her dead grandfather Papa and fishing when the mood takes her.

But grief is always there, waiting to bob to the surface and reel Tom back in.

‘The Minnow’ is the debut young adult book from Diana Sweeney, and winner of the 2013 Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing.

By now nobody should be surprised that the Text Prize is producing some of Australia’s finest young adult and children’s writing. But here I am, gobsmacked yet again that this Prize has unearthed such an original, tender and downright unique work as ‘The Minnow’ from debut novelist Diana Sweeney. I can honestly say, with hand over my heart, that I’ve never read anything quite like this disarming and haunting novel – I kept trying to think if Sweeney had echoes of Isabel Allende’s magical realism, or A.S. King’s subversion with perhaps literary touches of Karen Russell. But I have come to the conclusion that Diana Sweeney simply writes like no other – she is a wholly unique and welcome new voice to Australian youth literature, and ‘The Minnow’ is a majestic debut.

Sweeney tells Tom’s uncomfortable and tragic story of becoming orphan and pregnant to a much older man, but cloaked in beguiling prose and almost with vignette-like flashbacks. When we meet her, Tom is fourteen and indeed an orphan – having lost her Mum, Dad and sister to the floods a few months back;

The last time I saw Sarah she was floating head down with her arms and legs out from her sides like a star fish. I watched her from the roof of the fire station, counting the seconds. She held the record at fifty-two. I counted to sixty as she disappeared around the side of the newsagent. I remember thinking she was probably sneaking a breath.
 

She has been living with an older man called Bill – we don’t quite know how much older (though can assume it’s considerably) or how she came to be sleeping in the loft of his shack house. But when we meet her, Tom finds herself pregnant with his child after a one-off liaison and in need of her (two-years older) friend, Jonah’s, help for new accommodation when Bill’s extracurricular activities see him fleeing from the police.

As the baby grows inside her, Tom starts referring to the tadpole as ‘The Minnow’ and the two have frequent conversations and sometimes disagreements during the incubation.

Tom also visits the local pet shop and carries on thoughtful conversations with Oscar the Carp and Sarah the Catfish. Not to mention the vital relationship she has with her Nana, who lives in a nursing home, and her grandfather Papa – who died a long time ago but insists on haunting Nana, for he never stopped loving her.

Yes, these little asides with her dead Papa, growing baby and various forms of marine life are strange and certainly a nod to magic realism. But they’re not jarring or so disorientating when Sweeney’s entire story is about the ‘after’ of tragedy – when nothing ever feels right or normal ever again. And Sweeney is exploring devastation so beautifully, with such tender understanding and sparkling prose, that the reader can hardly begrudge Tom the friends and family she has amassed around her – real or imagined, living or haunting. She is fourteen-years-old and has experienced too much pain before her time, she is wiser for it but still a young girl navigating uncertainty and hurt.

And the flights of realism never feel so out of place because Sweeney’s writing captures them so perfectly to orientate the reader. Her words are at once sparse but beautifully constructed; she has the rhythms of a true storyteller so that I found myself finishing the book in a day without ever really feeling the passage of time. Her pacing is particularly impressive, for how she says so much with so little. We get a few flashbacks, for instance, that can run the length of a paragraph but feel like a fulfilling vignette for how much detail she manages to cram into the more infinitesimal of memories:

Sarah and I hardly ever played hide-and-seek. Mum said it was an unfair game because Sarah always ended up in tears when she couldn’t find me. I absolutely loved hiding and it never bothered me if Sarah wouldn’t play, because I had just as much fun hiding on my own. Dad said I could hide in plain sight. I’m not sure how I did it, but I could stand flat against a wall and Mum would walk straight past and not notice I was there. 

It took a few years of practice – and a lot of help from Papa – to hide from Dad. Papa said Dad’s army training was our biggest hurdle. I tried asking Dad about it once, but he just walked away from me.

I will say that I felt Sweeney was gathering storm-clouds and foreshadows as she made her way to the end, but when we finally got there I found myself wishing it had been tighter, maybe clearer and perhaps a chapter or two longer?

This books sticks with you – is it too much of a cliché to say ‘hook, line and (golden) sinker?’ Here is a book unlike any other on the YA shelves today. On the one hand it is dark and bush gothic, but also with a sense of whimsy and lightness. Tom is a protagonist too young for such tragedy but all the more interesting for how she has survived, and is still surviving, in the wake of it. Diana Sweeney carries you under with this story that is full of death and ghosts but with a deftly surreal touch and haunting prose … I want to read more from her, and soon.

5/5

 I am absolutely delighted to be taking part in a Little Bookroom event with Diana Sweeney. 

Book here 

'Zac and Mia' by A.J. Betts

Received from the Publisher

From the BLURB:

The last person Zac expects in the room next door is a girl like Mia, angry and feisty with questionable taste in music. In the real world, he wouldn’t—couldn’t—be friends with her. In hospital different rules apply, and what begins as a knock on the wall leads to a note—then a friendship neither of them sees coming.

You need courage to be in hospital; different courage to be back in the real world. In one of these worlds Zac needs Mia. And in the other Mia needs Zac. Or maybe they both need each other, always.

Zac Meier tracks his fight with leukaemia by NASA’s Curiosity rover. When he was first admitted he watched a documentary about the construction of the rover; when he first relapsed the launch was making headlines and the night before his bone marrow transfer he watched footage of the rover being shot into space. Now he’s stuck in isolation from November 18 to December 22 while the graft from a German donor (his friends have since nicknamed him ‘Helga’) safely heals. They can shoot a robot into outer space to explore a new planet but haven’t yet found a cure for cancer . . . and that’s just the way it goes.

So, Zac waits. He waits with his mum who plays Call of Duty with him and does word puzzles. She welcomes all the new patients that are frequently in and out of this floor and she always has a detailed answer ready when the nurses ask Zac; “have you opened your bowels?” 

And then one day a newbie arrives next door. Zac suspects it’s someone his own age (around about seventeen; the unlucky cut-off which means he just missed out on being admitted to the ‘fun’ and colourful children’s ward) – the real clue is when the new patient starts blaring Lady Gaga. 

Over the next few days Zac finds out his next-door-neighbour is a young girl called Mia Phillips, who has localised cancer in her lower leg. She’s lucky. Her chances of survival kick Zac’s leukaemia stats in the butt.

Zac and Mia strike up a tentative neighbourly friendship.

It starts with tapping.

Notes are passed.

A Facebook friend request is accepted.

And all the while Zac learns of Mia’s anger and secrecy; she has screaming matches with her mother and according to Facebook, none of her friends know that she’s seriously sick. 

When Zac’s isolation comes to an end and it’s time for him to re-enter the real world and await the all-clear, he thinks he’s seen the last of angry Mia and her good-chances.

Little does he know, their story is just beginning. 

‘Zac and Mia’ by A.J. Betts was the winner of the 2012 Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s writing. Betts now joins the long list of beloved Australian children’s and young adult authors who found their start with the prestigious Prize.

Can we just get something out of the way quickly? . . . ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ by John Green. Yeah. So ‘Zac and Mia’ is only similar to Green’s juggernaut in that it deals with young people who have cancer. That’s it. And I’m going to make a big call and say that Green’s book is fantasy compared to Betts’s raw tale of surviving the shitty hand that fate deals.  There’s certainly no Phalanxifor miracle drug in Betts’s book. 

For communicating the day-to-day mundane madness of cancer, Betts deserves high praise. I've read a few cancer YA books now where it’s all about what comes after – whether that be after you know the battle is lost or remission won – and there’s often a bucket list involved either way (and a prerequisite romance for a real robust life experience.) And, that’s fine. But in the first half of ‘Zac and Mia’, Betts tackles what happens in the thick of fighting. She presents Zac a few days into his isolation after a bone marrow transfer. She writes about him being waylaid by a common cold, and how he looks like Jabba the Hutt – bald and bloated from medication. When we first meet him, Zac is bored and sick of himself – he’s counted the tiles on the roof and eavesdrops on his neighbours as they go through the routines he has come to know by heart. Everyone probably knows someone or of someone who has/had cancer – I certainly do. And I can attest to the waiting lunacy and monotony there is in ‘fighting’ for your life. So I love that Betts presented that side of Zac and Mia’s story – it’s certainly not pretty, and it does mean that the book has a slow beginning . . .  but I think it was so important that Betts show that side of cancer; the truth and the tedium. 

It’s also in this slow but important beginning that we learn the most about Zac. That he was a healthy football player before fatigue and slight sores made way for much worse. And that while he tries to remain strong for his ever-present mum and Facebook friends, Zac has his reservations and fears. Especially since he knows what it’s like to not be cured, for treatment not to work the first time round;

I’m told I’m now 99.9 per cent someone else. I’m told this is a good thing, but how can I know for sure? There’s nothing in this room to test myself with. What if I now kick a footy with the skill of a German beer wench? What if I've forgotten how to drive a ute or ride a quad bike? What if my body doesn’t remember how to run? What if these things aren’t stored in my head or muscles, but down deeper, in my marrow? What if . . . what if all of this is just a waste of time and the leukaemia comes back anyway?

Betts also looks at cancer through a modernist gaze, and rather beautifully. Zac has this to say about the social media benefits of cancer;

Cancer is a Facebook friend magnet. According to my home page, I’m more popular than ever. In the old days, people would have prayed for each other, now they Like and Comment as if they’re going for a world record. 

And at one point Mia wonders what happens to all the Facebook pages of dead people (and their iTunes music? To which Zac profoundly replies “in the cloud?”). It might date the book if Facebook goes by way of MySpace, but I loved that Betts asked these profound questions of death and grieving in the digital age. 
   
Part one of the book was ‘Zac’ and all from his perspective, part two is ‘and’ and part three is ‘Mia’. Between ‘and’ and ‘Mia’ the story shifts rather monumentally to the outside world and especially onto Mia; who copes very differently than Zac with her cancer. Mia has issues at home and amongst her popular friendship group. She’s used to being desired and desirable, parties and boys are her normal so when cancer interrupts her life she tries to maintain her status quo, with disastrous results. Mia is angry, and for that reason she may not be terribly likeable, initially. But readers will probably find her prickly, mostly because Mia is the antithesis to all those phony portrayals of what cancer ‘survivors’ and strugglers should act like. Zac actually tows the line in many ways; he’s scared but battling and hopeful. Mia is just angry – angry at her mum and the nurses, her stupid leg and the way her seemingly perfect life has been interrupted. She cannot stand the thought of attending her school formal on crutches or in a wig, and she’s going to do all she can to get as far away from reminders of her illness as she can. I liked her. I liked that she ranted and railed to the point of annoyance because she bloody well should be mad at everyone. It’s not fucking fair, and good on her for letting them know it. Of course, Mia can’t run away from herself and what her body is doing, any more than she can try to put distance between her and the problems she’s created.

What didn’t work for me so much was the ‘and’ middle part of the story. I was quite happy for Zac’s beginning to be slow, and I actually quite liked that Betts mirrored the mundane hospital life to introduce us to these characters and set their stage. But I did think the middle dragged a bit; and while I liked Zac and Mia individually, together I was never so sure or entirely sold or quite certain what I was meant to be feeling about the two of them. There was just a bit of a disconnect for me in the middle, and mostly (ironically?) when it was Zac and Mia together the story didn’t work so much for me. 

I will say I have a small beef with the cover of ‘Zac and Mia.’ When I saw it, my first thought was “not YA.” Now, having come from Reading Matters and the many legitimate and important discussions surrounding gender-flipped covers, I’m not saying that I think a twee cover featuring a guy and girl in Nicholas Sparks-esque almost-kissing pose would be better. Far from it. But the ‘Zac and Mia’ cover does not work for me and doesn’t lend itself to the incredible and heartfelt story within. Initially I thought maybe the weird Evil-Eye petals would make story-sense . . . but if it was ever explained then it went over my head. Look, someone like John Green can get away with a sparse Rodrigo Corral clouds cover because it’s John Green and his name is the cover (at this point, he could probably even get away with a black cover, Spinal Tap style). But for this really beautiful book about two kids finding each other under the worst of circumstances; I just wanted something more. And something that would let teen readers know this is a book with a lot of heart and heartache. I normally love Text covers and I actually don’t normally comment on book covers at all (unless they’re offensive); but I think ‘Zac and Mia’ has missed out on a lot by going for an unemotional literary look over more accessible and appealing YA, and it pains me to point that out. 

‘Zac and Mia’ pulls no punches and offers no easy outs for readers. This is a young adult book about two teenagers in the thick of their cancer battle; examining their boredom and fear, grieving Facebook friends and the infuriating hell of living in a modern age where we can send a robot to Mars but have no cure for what kills close to seven million people every year. Another triumph for the Text Prize, A.J. Betts is in good company and ‘Zac and Mia’ is another great read.

4/5

'Fire in the Sea' by Myke Bartlett

Received from the Publisher

From the BLURB:

Sadie is sixteen and bored with life in Perth. It’s summer, and lazing on the beach in the stifling heat with her cousins and Tom is a drag. Then something comes out of the sea.

Dark menacing forms attack an old man, leaving him for dead and Sadie wracking her brains to understand what she saw. Then there’s a mysterious inheritance, a strange young man called Jake and a horned beast trampling the back yard.

Sadie finds herself caught in the middle of an ancient conflict that is nearing its final battle, a showdown that threatens to engulf Perth and all those she loves in a furious tsunami.

Fire in the Sea is a fast-paced thrilling adventure with a feisty heroine who is not afraid to fight for what she knows is right.

Sadie Miller needs to get out of Perth. This town is too small to hold her, and has too many bad memories that keep a hold of her. Like the memory of her parents’ death, and every one of her sixteen years that should have been shared with them. Instead, Sadie lives with her grandparents and keeps to her close-knit bubble of friends, including her two cousins Heather and Kimberley, and her best friend (who wants to be more), Tom.

But just as Sadie starts fiercely wishing for anything to change, everything does . . .

At Cottesloe beach one night, Sadie and Tom watch an old man be set-upon by two masked thugs, and Sadie steps in to help. The attackers disappear into the water, and the beaten man tells Sadie to beware of “men with wet shoes.”

But the strangeness is only just beginning. It seems that the old man, a one Mr. Freeman, signed the entirety of his will and estate over to Sadie while on his deathbed – she now owns an old Gothic house and everything in it, and is tasked with taking care of the premises, including a vicious guard-dog called Kingsley.

One night, in the process of guarding Mr. Freeman’s house (now hers) Sadie finds herself pinned by a shirtless, posh, sword-wielding boy demanding to know the whereabouts of the ‘relic’. Even stranger than finding this shirtless, posh, sword-wielding boy in Freeman’s abandoned house, is discovering that the same boy claims to be Mr. Freeman – Jacob ‘Jake’ Freeman. One in the same. Reincarnated. Like the Dalai Lama.

Sadie wouldn’t believe all this rubbish, normally . . . but stranger things keep happening. Like Tom having a close-encounter with a horned man. Or a siren song that keeps calling from the sea, or the appearance of those men with wet feet that Mr. Freeman warned Sadie about.

This really is just the beginning. And if Sadie doesn’t help the reincarnated Jake Freeman find his ‘relic’, an old wooden box worse than Pandora’s, then all hell will break loose . . . literally.

Only one thing is certain – Perth just got a whole lot more interesting for Sadie Miller.

Myke Bartlett’s debut novel, ‘Fire in the Sea’, was the 2011 winner of the Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing.

I love an Australian young adult paranormal novel that relishes being an Australian young adult paranormal novel. Case and point – Myke Bartlett’s incredibly compelling ‘Fire in the Sea’. This novel marks the first Aussie paranormal I've read that is set in Western Australia, and makes a focal point of the City of Light, Perth. A good portion of the drama and supernatural shenanigans take place at the iconic Cottesloe Beach, with the grandiose Surf Life Saving Club in the background standing watch. It’s clear from the moment that Sadie Miller laments her Perth surroundings (dreaming of a move to Oxford or Melbourne) that Bartlett is himself well-acquainted with the teenage pastime of wishing to be ‘anywhere but here’. Sadie knocks around the beach with her friends, and rides her bike through suburban neighbourhoods, but is thoroughly sick of it all. Not only does this small town hold vastly painful memories of her dead parents, but the fact of the matter is: nothing happens . . . until a beaten old man leaves Sadie with everything, almost more than she can handle.

Bartlett’s particular brand of supernatural is more like a patchwork of monsters, myths and imagination. I don’t think I’ll be spoiling anything if I say that he covers a broad spectrum of paranormal from the Minotaur to sea sirens, while providing a harrowing explanation for Pompeii’s eruption and an even more chilling mystery surrounding a famous long-lost city. It’s a most peculiar mix of myth and mayhem that works brilliantly when woven by Bartlett. But what really saves ‘Fire in the Sea’ from just being a hodge-podge of fantasy is its young protagonist, Sadie Miller.

We are with Sadie every step of the way – from Mr. Freeman’s attack to his seeming reincarnation to a particularly handsome young man. She is as cast adrift in the supernatural sea as readers, but her particular brand of brittle, sarcastic loyalty makes navigating Bartlett’s mythical waters so very easy (and downright enjoyable);

Jake lifted the talisman from the front of his shirt. ‘This marks me as a servant of the Gods. As long as I wear it, I’ll always come back.’
‘Good for you. So you don’t die. You don’t get old.’ Sadie looked down at the dog by his feet, the dog with the same name as countless dogs before him. She saw herself, staring at a dog, standing on grass she’d played on as a child. ‘No. Seriously, what is wrong with me? Demons, Gods. A magic box. I mean, I've never ever read Lord of the Rings. I hate all that stuff.’

I loved Sadie. She’s just the sort of young heroine I love to read – she spends a good portion of the novel being scared witless, but never lets her fear get in the way of saving her friends or doing what’s right. She's quick-thinking and fierce, and just the sort of friend I'd like to have in my corner (should a Minotaur ever attack). But she’s also thoroughly relatable – combating Perth-fatigue, a best friend who wants to be more and trying not to succumb to the grief that constantly pulls at her.

I really shouldn’t be so surprised that another Text Prize novel is incredible, but I am. ‘Fire in the Sea’ is a fantastic new addition to the Aussie young adult paranormal scene – set in the beautiful (if lamentably dull) city of Perth, and featuring everything from sea sirens to crazy reincarnated boys. Myke Bartlett has written a parade of paranormal creatures and a thrilling sea-depths mystery . . . I, for one, hope that this is just the first of many more novels from an interesting new Aussie YA voice.

5/5

'This is Shyness' by Leanne Hall

From the BLURB:

A guy who howls. A girl on a mission to forget.

In the suburb of Shyness, where the sun doesn’t rise and the border crackles with a strange energy, Wolfboy meets a stranger at the Diabetic Hotel. She tells him her name is Wildgirl, and she dares him to be her guide through the endless night.

But then they are mugged by the sugar-crazed Kidds. And what plays out is moving, reckless...dangerous. There are things that can only be said in the dark. And one long night is time enough to change your life.

She meets him in the suburb of Shyness, at the Diabetic Hotel. He’s a hairy cowboy, all swagger and intensity. He howls upon meeting her, and calls himself ‘Wolfboy’. The words emblazoned across her chest earn her the nickname ‘Wildgirl’.

They have one night together, in the suburb of Shyness where it’s darkness all the time, and the sun hasn’t made an appearance in three years.

Sometimes, one night is all you need.

Leanne Hall won the Text Prize in 2009 for her debut young adult novel, ‘This is Shyness’ which was published in 2010.

I’ll admit it; I was thoroughly confused by the blurb. Considering how popular the YA paranormal genre is, I saw the name ‘Wolfboy’ and instantly thought ‘werewolf’. Coupled with the strange mention of a suburb in darkness . . . I really had no idea what I was getting into when I cracked this book open (and that was half the fun).

‘This is Shyness’ is a blend of realism, speculative fiction and urban fantasy. Leanne Hall is writing two fragile, lonely characters and exploring their delicate psyche’s in a blackened suburb full of dreamers, sugar-trippers and pink ukuleles.

Wildgirl lives in a housing complex near Shyness, with her single mother. She dreams of the day when she can skip town and never look back. Wolfboy resides in his parent’s decrepit mansion, full of memories and ghosts that he can’t ever forget . . . and so, he howls;

I howl.

I howl at the roof like a hotted-up bomb doing donuts, full of screeches. I howl like an air-raid siren, my arms stretched out wide. Howls are like songs. They can’t be summoned; they just happen. They come from a place that I barely understand. And then something else climbs to the surface, something black and jagged, something from the deep. Imagine all your worst feelings surfacing. Imagine coughing up razor blades. Imagine not being able to stop the pain from coming out, and not knowing when it’s going to end.

Wildgirl and Wolfboy’s problems are real. They stem from a broken family, unknown father and school bullying. The Wild and the Wolf are living real pains, and it’s only Shyness that is fantastical and strange.

Shyness turned dark three years ago, and hasn’t seen light since. It’s an anomaly that has sparked rumours of Armageddon and government conspiracies. The darkness has, understandably, had an odd effect on the residents of Shyness – there are those who keep dreaming, never sure when day begins and nights ends, so they remain happily ensconced in dreamland. Shyness residents are pale and anaemic-looking, like walking ghosts. Doctor Gregory’s face appears on billboards all over Shyness – promising personal cures for the darkness, and remedies for coping with the night. Businesses have closed up and moved into the daylight, so parts of Shyness are abandoned and dead.

But by far the strangest product of the darkness is ‘The Kidds’. KIDDS RUSH IN is tagged all around Shyness, and people are scared of these young no-hopers. The Kidds are hooked on sugar; they have trained monkey-like creatures called tarsiers to sniff out the good stuff . . . wizz-fizz would send these children into the stratosphere! The Kidds who roam Shyness reminded me of the 1979 urban wasteland movie ‘The Warriors’, for all the street tribes and bizarre gang wars. They’re odd, to be sure, but fascinatingly so.

When Wolfboy and Wildgirl get on the bad side of the Kidds, they have to venture into their housing complex haven to retrieve something that was stolen . . .

‘This is Shyness’ is a beautifully strange novel. The darkness reflects the minds of Wildboy and Wolfgirl, who are each dealing with personal catastrophe. This certainly isn’t your typical Aussie YA novel – and I kind of love that. Hall is pushing the boundaries of urban fantasy by bending speculation and realism to her narrative in order to explore personal tragedy through physical manifestation. It sounds all big, scary and literary . . . but the beauty of Hall’s novel is that it’s also wonderfully entertaining. Reader’s get caught up in Wolfboy and Wildgirl’s dance of attraction, and their slowly revealed pasts which come to reflect the darkness that is Shyness. A truly magnificent debut novel from an interesting new voice in Australian YA.

5/5