Reminiscent of the TV series Scandal in several aspects, Courtney Sheinmel’s YA debut novel Edgewater brings a lush atmosphere, romance, po
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Reminiscent of the TV series Scandal in several aspects, Courtney Sheinmel’s YA debut novel Edgewater brings a lush atmosphere, romance, political intrigue, and deeply buried secrets.
Lorrie’s life is all about keeping up appearances and living the life she feels entitled to, even though it’s fairly obvious that she doesn’t quite belong among the rich and carefree. On the surface, it seems quite shallow, but there’s more to Lorrie’s efforts than that. Abandoned by both her parents and left in the care of a flaky, possibly bipolar aunt, Lorrie sees boarding schools and riding camps as an escape from her shameful family and her embarrassing home. The family estate, Edgewater, was once an awe-inspiring house, but now it’s in ruins and completely out of control. Lorrie is deeply ashamed of her circumstances and her only goal for years has been to hide the downfall of her family however she can. When the funds finally dry up completely, Lorrie has to adjust her worldview, but just then, long ago buried secrets start coming to light. It seems that both her family and that of Charlie Copeland, political prince and Lorrie’s crush, have something awful to hide.
Edgewater may be Courtney Sheinmel’s debut YA novel, but she has plenty of other works behind her, and she already honed her writer’s voice into something gentle and distinctive, beautiful yet unobtrusive. Her style is fairly simplistic and clear, but it still manages to surprise and impress with a particularly clever turn of phrase or an unexpected epithet. Even more importantly, her sentences are saturated with emotions, Lorrie’s shame in particular screaming at us from every page.
If I were to offer any constructive criticism, it would be about secondary characters, which, on occasion, seemed a bit cartoonish and over the top. A lot more could have been accomplished by focusing more on Gigi and Susannah and less on the romance and Lorrie’s friendship with Lennox. I felt that those two characters in particular had more to give and I was disappointed that they weren’t used to their full potential.
Otherwise, though, Edgewater was a breath of fresh air that pushed me right back into reading YA after growing tired of it in late spring. It’s not your average contemporary YA and not just another mystery. It jumps skillfully back and forth between genres and enchants with depth of emotion and its rich atmosphere. ...more
Being a child of the 80’s, I get really nostalgic whenever I’m reminded of anything from those years, be it the music, the fashion, or David Bowie’s wBeing a child of the 80’s, I get really nostalgic whenever I’m reminded of anything from those years, be it the music, the fashion, or David Bowie’s weird personas. But with or without nostalgia, with or without understanding of the period, The Rise and Fall of the Gallivanters is a truly magical book. Heartbreaking, overwhelming, deeply metaphorical and symbolic, painful, strange and so very honest, this sucker punch of a novel will stay with you for a very long time.
I’ve seen this book labeled as paranormal. It is not. I’ve seen it described as confusing and unexciting. It is not. It is, however, filled with symbolism, allegory and metaphors. This novel isn’t your average, everyday read. It’s something truly special, and as such, it will easily find the hearts of its true audience.
Beaufrand allows Noah to tell us his own story, but Noah’s mind is full of mysteries and monsters, missing girls and frightening fogs. He is more than happy to turn the spotlight on his best friend Evan, a modest, kind boy, a sidekick by nature if ever there was one. Noah and Evan have depended upon each other since they were just boys, and together they survived disasters, abuse, suicidal parents and hospitals. They made it thanks to each other and their music.
With tragedy behind him and tragedy on the horizon, Noah’s past and present painfully collide, and it’s far more than he can handle. In a desperate attempt to put his world to rights, he decides to re-form the Gallivanters, his failed punk band. The goal is to create a demo and enter a contest to play at a famous brewery, which happens to be the place where more than twenty girls disappeared.
Noah wants to be a musician and a knight, but even more, he wants Evan to be both. For a kid who is supposedly a self-centered troublemaker, he does very little for himself. Beaufrand delved deep into Noah psyche by subtly showing us consequences of constant horrible abuse, by giving us glimpses of a masochistic personality, and miraculously shaping it all into a character we can’t help but love. I am in awe.*
Be patient with this book. Be kind to it when it seems confusing and strange. Give it time, be tolerant, and the book will give back to you tenfold. This is quite easily my favorite book this year, with a quiet sort of beauty that might, just might, go tragically unnoticed. Some of the best things are, though, and I’ll always feel extremely lucky to have stumbled upon this gem.
*Just writing this review, thinking intensely about the beauty of this book, made me cry like a baby. ...more
Somehow I knew right from the start that Sarah Skilton would surprise me. Her debut Bruised has a very special place in my heart, but it is such a speSomehow I knew right from the start that Sarah Skilton would surprise me. Her debut Bruised has a very special place in my heart, but it is such a spectacularly unique novel and Sarah Skilton’s authorial voice was hidden so well, that I didn’t quite know what to expect. The same remains true for High & Dry. Skilton is not a conspicuous, self-important writer. She hides behind her protagonists, making it seem that she played no part in the process of their creation and giving them a life of their own, a level of realism that is rare, precious and just wonderful. A strong authorial voice (like Maggie Stiefvater’s, for example), is a truly marvelous thing, but I believe it takes far more skill to hide yourself completely from the reader and leave your characters in the spotlight.
High & Dry is a story about young Charlie, recently left by his girlfriend Ellie, prone to self-destructive behavior and alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol. Interestingly enough, High & Dry gives off a distinct noir vibe, so much so that one can almost hear a young Robert Downey Jr. narrating it. There is a certain level of darkness and hopelessness that, combined with a morally ambiguous and fatalistic anti-hero, has all the markings of a true film noir.
Our Charlie is careless, obsessive and self-destructive. He gives us very little to admire or even like. And yet, in the true anti-hero fashion, he makes us root for him nevertheless. Somehow, as he is running around heedlessly getting himself into even more trouble, he runs straight into our hearts and stays there until the end. So what if he is cynical and brooding? What if he lets himself be defined by a failed relationship? There must be an awakening ahead or else we wouldn’t be here, right?
Charlie’s ex-girlfriend Ellie is a young adult version of femme fatale, not because of something she did directly, but because of how Charlie sees her. Somehow, during their relationship and especially after, she has become Charlie’s raison d'être, someone who defines both his character and his behavior. It was heartbreaking to watch him self-destruct and deteriorate, obsess and almost stalk her.
For all his faults, Charlie is staggeringly intelligent, which in a way makes his behavior even worse. Skilton’s greatest strength lies in creating strong voices for her protagonists, and Charlie Dixon’s voice is very impressive. Believable male voices are so hard to find in YA, but Skilton got it just right.
However, if you’re expecting a repeat of Sarah Skilton’s Bruised, you should know that High & Dry functions on a very different emotional level and adjust your expectations accordingly. While both novels have angry, self-destructive protagonists, they are completely different and affect the readers in very different ways.
Skilton has proved to be a very adaptable, imaginative writer, unafraid to take necessary risks. I’ve come to expect wonderful things from her and I admire her greatly. If you’re looking for something different, you needn’t look further. High & Dry is wholly original and simply wonderful.
Some books should be sold with a companion novel, a cheerful, nonsensical one people would read immediately after the main story to lighten up their souls. If there was ever a book that left me in urgent need of some cheering up (and a cup of spicy hot chocolate), it’s this one. But would I change a single thing about it? Not in a million years!
There are some things most people would rather not think about. I dare say Spanish flu is one of them. It’s a nasty scar in human history, and October 1918 possibly the worst month humankind has ever endured. Not only was the world desperate and exhausted by the First World War, but far worse was the second wave of influenza that killed anywhere between 50 and 100 million people.
This is the month Cat Winters chose to write about, and she did so with the surety of a seasoned author (I still can’t believe that this is her debut) and a thorough research behind her. In the Shadow of Blackbirds is a story built on the contrast between a young, innocent love and the war that tried (and succeeded) to steal that innocence away. Everywhere Mary Shelley turned, she saw nothing but ugliness and death. In her world, human warmth and compassion disappeared behind fear and mistrust. The gauze masks people wore to protect themselves from the flu are very symbolic of the period, and of the terror and distance between people.
”Oh, you silly, naive men.” I shook my weary head and genuinely pitied their ignorance. “You’ve clearly never been a sixteen-year-old girl in the fall of 1918.”*
Through it all, Mary Shelley Black is practically alone. Her father is in prison, accused of being a traitor, her 26-year-old aunt is superstitious and unsupportive, and her young boyfriend Stephen died in a battlefield in France. As a very unconventional girl who enjoys taking things apart to see how they work, Shell is quite used to a lonely life, but at least before she always had Stephen to talk to. He was the only one who ever appreciated and even admired her eccentricities.
When Stephen's spirit starts showing up next to Mary Shelley in photographs taken by his opportunistic half-brother, Mary has to consider the possibility that he isn’t resting peacefully and investigate the circumstances of his death. In this book, the brutally realistic and the paranormal collide, and the reader is never quite sure how much of it is truth, and how much is the product of overactive imagination (actually, the words ‘group delusion’ and ‘mass hysteria’ come to mind).
I’ve never given much thought to the things people hold on to in difficult times to alleviate their fear, but the sudden (renewed) popularity of spiritualism during World War I makes perfect sense, as do the folk remedies people resorted to to protect themselves from the flu. It’s very easy for us to be judgmental and ridicule people who stuffed salt up their nose, but in October 1918, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have done the same.
I don’t need to be a clairvoyant to see the future that lies ahead of Cat Winters and her debut: awards, critical acclaim, translations to more languages than I can name (I’m a linguist, I can name a lot of languages). If you squint at the cover, you can already see the shiny William C. Morris medal in the top left corner, possibly even a Printz. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
There’s only a handful of authors whose insightfulness I admire as much as I admire Sarah Skilton right now, most of them Australian. At first, my rating was 4.5 stars, but then I decided that such profound understanding of human psyche combined with really excellent writing deserves more. So I gave it a five, which is something I rarely do. And I don’t regret it.
Control and power are such interesting things. We all crave them, some more, some less, and none of us like to feel helpless or weak. But feeling powerful and in control can be a double-edged sword. That wonderful feeling easily turns into something horrible the second someone stronger comes along. We all want to believe that we can defend ourselves, that nothing big can harm us. Those things happen to other people, right?
But what if you spend years preparing for exactly one such event? Countless hours of training to protect not just yourself, but those who are weaker, powerless? And what if, when the time comes, you fail? I doubt an adult would be able to handle that very well. A sixteen-year-old girl? She’s likely to get angry, violent and depressed, and not in neat little stages, but all at once. She’s likely to crack.
Imogen spent six years living and breathing Tae Kwan Do. She followed all the rules, inside and outside the dojang. She trained hard, ate healthy and studied a lot for her average grades. She was confident that she could face any situation, confront any bully, fend off any attack, all thanks to her rigorous training. What she didn’t count on was a gun.
This story about Imogen’s struggle with guilt, depression, and the need to prove to everyone that she IS capable of defending herself, is one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve ever read. Skilton’s approach is brutally honest and realistic, and she’s not in the business of creating heroes. Imogen wasn’t always the easiest character to like, but even when she was being unfair or judgmental, I could feel the hurt pouring off her, and I desperately wanted to protect her even though she doesn’t need anyone’s protection.
The most wonderful thing about Bruised are its layers. As the story progresses, more of Imogen’s family issues are revealed, and we see it’s not just the event in the diner she struggles with, but also problems that were there before. She’s angry at her father for ignoring his diabetes and ending up in a wheelchair, she’s upset with her older brother for outshining her in everything, but most of all, she resents her mother for not accepting her for who she is.
There is no magic wand Imogen can wave to make her problems disappear. Depression and anger aren’t things one can just decide to recover from overnight. Bruised isn’t some miraculous story about self discovery. It’s about a girl forced to question everything she stands for and maybe become a better person in the process.
If you’re a contemporary fan, Bruised is an absolute must-read. If you’re not… well, neither am I, but the best things in life come from unexpected directions. I know not everyone will love this book as much as I did, but it will definitely leave an impression. It’s not one you’ll easily forget.
For a book that is mere 180 pages long, Absent is surprisingly heart-wrenching. It is a poignant story about coming to terms with death, accepting thiFor a book that is mere 180 pages long, Absent is surprisingly heart-wrenching. It is a poignant story about coming to terms with death, accepting things and moving on. Although short, Absent has many great qualities, like Katie Williams’ simple, yet beautiful writing and many subtle messages that delicately, but firmly teach us the truths about life.
Paige is dead. She fell off the roof of her high school during her physics class and ended up tied to the school grounds along with two other ghosts, Brooke and Evan. She spends her days in classes, listening to conversations, hoping to hear that she’s missed by someone other than her best friend Usha. Instead, she hears rumors that she committed suicide and she knows exactly who’s to blame.
Paige soon discovers that she can possess any person, as long as that person is thinking about her. The memorial being painted by the school entrance ensures that people remember her, at least in passing, and she’s free to possess whomever she chooses. She uses this ability to stop unwanted rumors, spread different ones and make sure that everyone gets exactly what they deserve.
Paige isn’t a bad person at all, but she’d been deluding herself in life and death has a way of opening your eyes even when you don’t want it to. Her desire to be mourned by the boy she liked despite herself, the same boy who refused to acknowledge her in public when she was alive, helped me see the lonely girl underneath her masks. All three ghosts had to come to terms with their untimely deaths and the damage the left behind. They had many regrets and things to forgive themselves for, but they all learned that it’s never too late to become a better person.
Even with three ghosts at the center of the story, Absent doesn’t address the matter of life after death. Williams never even tries to offer her version of the afterlife, nor do her characters question their ties to the school. I saw this as an admission that the hows and whys aren’t for us to question, which I really appreciated.
The subtle message of this tiny book is that not all wrongs can be put to right and that sometimes the cards you’ve been dealt don’t matter – all that matters is making peace with the things that went wrong and moving on. Absent wasn’t what I expected it to be, but what I took away from it was more valuable than it first seemed. This is a book you’ll think about long after you finish it, and the more you think about it, the more you’ll like it.
Maja (The Nocturnal Library)
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