Contemporary – Page 43 – My Good Reads

‘Highly Illogical Behaviour’ – John Corey Whaley

I picked this one up, not quite sure what to expect, and I think I can safely say it’s one of my favourite reads in a while.

When we first hear about Solomon it’s hard to know what to make of him. He’s sixteen and ever since the day he jumped in a fountain outside school he has not left his house. His panic attacks have led to severe agoraphobia and this is one of those conditions that is so hard to imagine. Loving the outdoors as I do, I can’t understand how things could be so bad that you shut yourself away from this experience in an attempt to keep yourself safe. The terrible effects of mental health issues not being discussed/addressed are all too evident here, and the ease with which Solomon disappears from the lives of his peers is telling.

Coming at the story from this viewpoint, I found myself quite irritated by the character of Lisa initially. A very determined young woman, Lisa resolves to befriend Solomon and ‘save’ him in order to write up her experience and get a scholarship to a psychology programme. It all feels very wrong, and I spent a lot of the first part of the novel almost hoping nothing would come of it as I was so concerned about the message this would send.

Thankfully, Whaley prevents this becoming mawkish with his portrayal of Sol who has to go down as one of the characters I would most like to know in real life. He’s all too aware of his limitations, is a complete geek with a very wicked sense of humour and shows himself to be a totally genuine character. I watched with admiration as he battles his fears while finding friendship, and even when things take a difficult turn Sol remains true to himself in a way that I felt was quite inspirational.

My response to Sol was, no doubt, helped by the character of Clark, Lisa’s boyfriend. Though he seemed to be added in as a third wheel initially, his role in the development of the story was pivotal. He, again, was a genuine character whom I came to admire tremendously. His friendship with Sol was touching, without having to be labelled in the way it seemed to be heading at one point.
In spite of my reservations about Lisa initially, she shows the capacity for development and growth that I think is so important to see. Sure she gets things wrong – horribly so – but she comes to acknowledge this and shows herself to be capable of doing what is necessary to rectify these problems.

As you can see, this was a book I thoroughly adored.

‘Follow Me Back’ – Nicci Cloke

Follow Me Back

Described as ‘Gone Girl’ for teen readers, this was never likely to be a book that I was going to really love though it’s an entertaining enough read.

‘Follow Me Back is on the Carnegie 2017 Nominations list, and the cover hints heavily at the role social media and text messages will play in the story. For this reason it surprised me that the author hadn’t insisted on the presentation of these aspects of the story being more realistic.

The story itself is quite interesting. Lizzie Summersall has gone missing, but she has left her laptop behind. She is known to have become friendly with someone online, and there are fears that she might have been groomed. The first Aidan – an old friend of Lizzie’s – hears about this is when the police arrive at his door asking him to answer some questions about Lizzie’s online activities.

We are quickly immersed in a shadowy world where nobody is quite what they seem, and we are encouraged to doubt the motivation behind everyone we might come into contact with online. At times, the story surrounding Aidan and Lizzie became rather far-fetched and felt like deliberate scaremongering. However, if it encourages just one person to rethink their on-line activity then I suppose it’s a good thing.

‘No Virgin’ – Anne Cassidy

No Virgin

Anne Cassidy has written some fabulous novels for Young Adult readers, and isn’t shy of tackling gritty subjects. Touted as perfect for fans of Louise O’Neill’s ‘Asking For It’ this book explores what happens when Stacey Woods is raped.

Stacey is the victim of a terrible attack, and the novel opens with her telling us that her best friend, Patrice, is the only one she can talk to about what has happened. With Patrice’s encouragement Stacey writes down what has happened to her, as she takes the first step in coming to terms with the experience.

Although there is never any question of Stacey being anything other than a victim, Stacey clearly holds herself responsible for what happened to her. Initially this is what I think makes her come across as somewhat unsympathetic as she gives us a lot of detail that makes her seem quite unpleasant, though her circumstances warrant our sympathy.

In Stacey’s account we are given a rather laborious back-story as she attempts to explain the circumstances that led to her attack. Though the details are not pleasant to read about, they are not gratuitous and help us to understand why Stacey reacts in the way that she does. What I found less successful was the behaviour of the characters that Stacey comes into contact with – the lack of detail given to the portrayal of these characters meant I was less convinced by the story than I feel I should have been.

I am grateful to the publishers and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my review and although I don’t feel the story had quite the impact I feel it could have, I do think it will go down well with teenage readers.

‘No Virgin’ is due for publication in November 2016.

‘Paper Towns’ – John Green

Paper Towns

Quentin Jacobsen has spent most of his life in love with his next-door neighbour, Margo Roth Spiegelman. When she enters his room one night and asks for his help in taking revenge on her cheating boyfriend, Quentin gets caught up in an amusing – though not necessarily legal – evening of causing chaos. He takes this as the step forward in the relationship between them.

When he arrives in school he learns, along with the rest of the school community, that Margo has disappeared. Nobody knows where she has gone, but Quentin is convinced that the random clues that he stumbles across have been left for him in order to help him track down Margo.

While I found Quentin and his friends witty and entertaining, I couldn’t really see the appeal of Margo. It was the idea of Margo that Quentin had constructed that appealed to him. For me I felt there was something a little formulaic about the novel, but I know it’s going to appeal to Green fans.

‘The Square Root of Summer’ – Harriet Reuter Hapgood

The Square Root of Summer

Gottie H. Oppenheimer has felt things haven’t been the same since the death of her beloved grandfather, Grey, but when time literally starts to disappear she starts to wonder what is going on.

The explanation we are given is that wormholes have opened up and are transporting Gottie to her past. I won’t pretend to admit I understood even half of the ideas in this, but I found it was an interesting frame on which to hang the story.

I did find that I was intrigued by the love story, but I thought the focus on showing Gottie coming to terms with the loss of her grandfather was touching.

‘The Light Fantastic’ – Sarah Combs

The Light Fantastic

I received a copy of this from NetGalley in exchange for my honest thoughts and, I’ll be honest, I found it a puzzling read.

This has a contemporary setting and we start on the morning of April Donovan’s eighteenth birthday, just four days after the Boston Marathon bombing. April has a condition that means she has perfect recall of all manner of events, so she has become fixated on the things that have gone wrong over time during her birth month.

What was clear from quite early on was that the seemingly disconnected stories that we were being given were, in actual fact, all interlinked and it was simply a case of waiting for the writer to reveal exactly how.

From April to Lincoln, Phoebe to Adrian we are shown a lot of teenagers who are all struggling with their sense of disaffection. It was clear quite early on that we would be dealing with a high-school shooting, but I did not see the twist coming.

‘Twenty Boy Summer’ – Sarah Ockler

Twenty Boy Summer

This was the kind of book that I would have adored as a teenager; as an adult, I found myself feeling quite wistful as I read this.

Frankie comes up with a crazy plan for the summer vacation that she is going on with her best friend Anna – they have to talk to a new boy every day in an attempt to get Anna her summer fling. Anna agrees to the plan, though she doesn’t reveal to Frankie just how painful the experience will be.

Anna has always been part of a triangle with her best friend Frankie, and Frankie’s brother, Matt. The three were always inseparable, until the night their car crashes and Matt is killed.

This kind of experience would be upsetting enough for anyone, but it happened only weeks after Matt had finally declared his love for Anna. They had a perfect few weeks and were about to reveal their shifting relationship status when the accident happened. Anna hasn’t told anyone what happened between them, so she is left to grieve alone.

If I’m being honest, this could have been a really depressing story but it wasn’t at all. There was a definite sense of waiting for the inevitable secrets to spill out, but it was fairly light-hearted fun. I enjoyed watching Anna come to terms with her feelings and learn how she might come to accept what happened to her.

‘Hot Milk’ -Deborah Levy

The day I finished this rather unusual novel coincided with the announcement that ‘Hot Milk’ was on the short-list for the Man Booker Prize. This in no way impacts on my review – if anything, it makes me wonder whether I wouldn’t be better off focusing my attention on the ones that didn’t make the list, since I really found myself confused by this novel.

The story, such as I understood it, focuses on 25-year-old Sophia. We are told she has a first-class degree in Anthropology and is working on her doctoral thesis. For such a clever woman, she seems remarkably stupid. When she accompanies her mother to Spain in order to seek further medical intervention for the mysterious ailments that have plagued her mother for years, I can’t understand why she doesn’t leave her to it. The mother is manipulative and the manifestation of her physical ailments seems to come and go depending upon who she is talking to, or what else is happening. Yet Sophia happily accompanies her from appointment to appointment and seems content to do nothing to break out of this debilitating co-dependant relationship.

There are some quirky characters, though I don’t feel I really ever got to see them as anything other than a device to illustrate whatever point Sophia wanted to make about herself at the time.

Throughout the novel I was struck by a number of images or repeated references. I’m certain these were important, but I’m still not certain why. I found this an easy book to read as it is relatively short, and the action is easy to follow. However, the language is richly evocative and I cannot help but feel that it is the kind of novel that I ought to read again in order to try and make more sense of it. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I’ll be in a hurry to do so.

‘The Movie Version’ – Emma Wunsch

The Movie Version

Due for publication in October 2016, I thank publishers Amulet and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. Described as ‘a whip-smart, heart-wrenching debut YA novel about first love, first loss, and filmmaking’ this strikes me as the kind of novel that will divide opinion.

In ‘The Movie Version’ we are introduced to Amelia and her family. She is obsessed with movies, and in her life elder brother Toby is the archetypal star. Everything revolves around her popular, smart brother and Amelia seems to accept her role as ‘second-best’ without question.

After returning from a summer away working, Amelia can’t help but notice that her brother has changed. He’s always been a little erratic, but Amelia is concerned by his outbursts and lack of personal hygiene. Initially she puts Toby’s changed behaviour down to a summer of smoking pot – and she covers for his slip-ups without question, because that’s what she’s always done – but when he is found in a state of extreme anxiety it is clear that something is not right.

Slowly it becomes clear that Toby is actually suffering with schizophrenia. His illness impacts on family life in ways that they cannot imagine, and it is all too apparent that Amelia has hidden behind her brother for so long that she has not really pushed herself to develop personally.

Initially I found the constant film referencing a little self-congratulatory, but I know this will appeal to some readers. Amelia veered between sensitivity towards her brother and genuinely offensive – perhaps this is realistic, but I wonder if her attitude will make it harder for some readers to really empathise with her.

‘Born Scared’ – Kevin Brooks

Born Scared

Due for publication in early September 2016, this is the first offering by Kevin Brooks since he won the Carnegie Medal in 2014 with the highly topical The Bunker Diary.

Brooks has always been one of those writers that I’ve admired for tackling that which is not obvious. He finds the unusual in every one of his characters, and sometimes it is more successful than others. In this instance, though there are things I would have liked to have further detail about I have to say that I was absorbed throughout the time I was reading this.

From the opening pages we are told that Elliot is scared of everything. There is no obvious explanation for this, and nobody seems able to help him. He survives because of his daily dose of medication – but even that experience creates fear. I think there is a part of Elliot that many people will identify with, though his anxiety is extreme and he appears to be resigned to allowing others to manage his environment as best they can.

While Elliot’s experiences would be interesting, they wouldn’t keep us engaged for the whole novel. So we find Elliot in the awful position on Christmas Eve of only having two pills left and, with an awful snow storm on the way, plans are made for his mother to collect his prescription.

It may seem a farcical situation, but Elliot’s mother gets caught up in events that nobody could predict. When she does not return at the expected time, Elliot is forced into the truly terrifying situation of having to step outside his own home and go to find her.

Telling you what happens to Elliot from this point on would be unfair. Suffice to say, Brooks describes the terror Elliot feels with sensitivity. It was thoroughly absorbing to read. I’d have liked a little more detail in places, but I could not wait to finish it once it became clear how the various characters were linked.

A huge thank you to Egmont publishing and NetGalley for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.