Trashy Teen Fic Review - Vampre Beach: Bloodlust and Gossip Girl

Teen fiction has a bad rep. When some people think of teen fiction they think of the Sweet Valley High style romances. They think of the trashy "I have to find a boyfriend and look perfect and manage my mazillion friends" kind of books. Usually, I just try point people towards the masses of really awesome teen fiction out there, but this week i was feeling a little ambitious. I challenged myself to read the trashiest teen fiction I could find, and try and find some merit in it.

The first book that I read was Vampire Beach: Bloodlust. The premise of the book is that there are a group of rich spoilt kids in Malibu, and most of them are actually vampires. The premise alone was enough to make me think "TRASH!" but I really wanted to give it a chance. After all - who doesn't love vampires? Unfortunately, my instincts were right. The book is terrible. Jason is new to town, and quickly adapts to his peers world of underage drinking and casual sex. At least Jason and his sister seem to have a slightly higher moral standard then the rest of the characters, Jason is really too busy obsessing over the girlfriend of one of his friends to sleep around much. Sometime around chapter 10 it's revealed that everyone are actually vampires, and this revelation didn't really change much. It just became drinking and sex with a murder mystery. The vampires were actually the most believable element of the whole novel, the rest of the novel felt like the fake hollywood lifestyle it was portraying - none of the characters had any real emotions beyond the scope of their stereotypes.

From a writing point of view, Gossip Girl, was slightly better. I choose this as my second attempt to find a 'not crap' traditional teen fic book because I've seen an episode of the tv show, and it seemed much better than the others of it's genre. The book is again about a group of super rich kids, this time in New York. It starts with a bit of a mislead, with the character Blair musing about her homelife and her parents, but the book, like Blair's life, is soon taken over by the rising starlet Serena who returns to the upperclass society from several years away at boarding school. Blair resents Serena for neglecting their friendship, and sets about snubbing her in the way only rich society girls can - leaving Serena feeling extemely lost, confused and out of place in the upperclass world she grew up in. This set-up was enough to keep me interested in the book for quite a while, but ultimate this book got to me too. Like Bloodlust, this book also seems to advocate the idea that teenagers don't really think about anything other than drinking and sex. I feel really really sorry for them if it's true. The book probably has good things to say on the importance of friendship etc, but I just couldn't get to them through all the melodrama. The series must be doing something right though, because there are eleven books and a tv-show to date.

The only good thing that I can see for these books is that at least they would get teens reading. They both had the same kind of sensationalist plots, and easy to read, if quite repetitive, style. They both had plenty of sex and alcohol and intrigue. It's not what i am interested in reading about, but obviously it appeals to someone

Stay tuned next week for an example of teen fic doing it right, with Simone Howell's Notes on a Teenage Underground.

Review: Barry Lyga - The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy ane Goth Girl

The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl is a book that I was either going to love or hate. It's a book about two subcultures that are very close to my heart, yet are often abused in popular media. When I first saw this book, I was scared it was going to be just another gimmick. Fortunately, Barry Lyga is a true fanboy at heart, and between this and his spectacular grasp of the craft of writing, it turned out to be one of the best books that I've read this year.

I'll be one of the first to admit that I'm slightly biased in that regard. As a comic/gaming/reading geek, who is surrounded by other geeks, there was a lot in the book that appealed to me. I got all the references and the in jokes, and felt a special sense of fear and anticipation as to whether the main character was going to acheive one of his major story goals, meeting Brian Micheal Bendis, one of the biggest names in comics. I actually found myself holding my breath for pages at a time leading up to this momentus event. While non-geeks may not get the significance of this, the book is well crafted enough that you would at least understand that it was important to the main character. Lyga was very clever about showing right from the start how important it was by having him checking the website daily to see if Bendis would still be attending the convention. And of cource, various challanges happened along the way that threatened the meeting, really creating high stakes for the character, and drawing you into the book.

You may wonder why I haven't actually introduced the main character yet. There is a reason for that, he remains nameless throughout the book. According to the author, he is called by his name once, but I didn't catch it on my first read though. It makes sense though, as it is 'Fanboy' who is narrating, and what cause would he have for telling us his own name? i don't think i really ever thought about the absesnse until I read an interview with Lyga which brought up the question. He states that it's because fanboy doens't like his name very much, and so he doesn't really use it. If you want to read things into that, it could be a statement on how he doesn't like himself. He doens't refer to either his step-dad or Kyra (goth girl) by name until he gets over his initial dislike for them, but his changing perceptions of them are reflected through the way he refers to them. This is one of the advantages of the really close first person point of view.

Another, is that as a reader we are presented with information that fanboy sees and his interpretation of it, but are still free to make our own minds up. Things are not always as fanboy sees them, and we there are some quite obvious hints about the way things really are that he manages to miss. For example, Kyra has a different car every time we see her, and while she always has an excuse, the intellegent reader starts to question them after a while - even though fanboy never does.

The disadvantage, is that sometimes things don't get as much attention as they deserve. Fanboy's best friend Cal is one that I have a lot of empathy for. He is one of the few black kids in a predominately white school, he is into comics, but he is also into sports and hangs out with the jocks. He is one of the popular kids, but the only person he is really himself with is fanboy, who of cource doesn't see the challanges that are faced by Cal only that his best friend sometimes snobs him off for the same kids that bully him. I understand why fanboy is pissed, but I feel for Cal as well, and I'd really like to know more about his motivations. We get a bit of a glimpse into his world towards the end of the book, and I do feel that I have a fairly good understanding of the character, but it would be interesting to hear more about him.

It's taken me a while to get up to "goth girl", but I don't mind too much because so does the book. It may be titled "The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl", but it's really about the adventures of fanboy, and how he is changed by his meeting with goth girl. I really didn't like Kyra at first. She was everything a bad goth stereotype should be, and i can totally understand why people think they hate goths. As fanboy, and therefore the reader, gets to learn more about Kyra, we start to see why she acts the way she does. We learn to understand that she is a pretty messed up little girl, and care more about the pain that she is in then what what a pain in the arse she is. While I'm still waiting for a book that shows goths like the happy fun people I know, I think that Kyra is still a very important character because she allows people to feel empathy for those that will go to great lengths to push them away.

This book deals with some really important themes: mostly self-confidence, friends, and following your dreams, with a liberal does of family, girls and bullies thrown in for good measure. It's one of those books that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to anyone - but especially to geeks, to teenagers, or to those that want a better understanding of either

Review: Judith Clarke - Night Train

Nightrain, by Judith Clarke, is one of the of the saddest and most depressing books I've ever read - but I still love itv I'm yet to find anything else that talks so openly and honestly about how hard life can really be. The book beings with the funeral of the protagonist, Luke, as told from the point of view of his two sisters: Naomi, 5, and Molly, 16. Naomi's account especially draws you emotionally in the story from the beginning.

We see that Luke is troubled from the onset, skipping school, expelled twice, failing all his subjects, Luke appears from the outside to be your stereotypical 'troubled kid' who just doesn't care about anything. From the inside we see that Luke is troubled in a different way. He's having trouble managing everyday things, and is obviously struggling from undiagnosed depression.

The action of the book only takes place over a couple of days, as Luke struggles to try and finish an assignment for the one teacher who still has faith in him, and deal with the threat of being expelled from school. The book shows not only his problems, but also how everyone around him is affected by them. Luke's sisters, his mother, his girlfriend and his english teacher all have POV chapters, and we watch them struggle to understand Luke, and deal with the impact he has on their own lives.

The book is largely about confusion and lack of communication. Luke knows that something is wrong with him, but can't express it to anyone else. Similarly, the other characters know he is troubled, but everyone is at a loss for what to do about it.

The two people who stand out particularly strongly are Naomi, his sister, and Dan, his father. Naomi is an ideal viewpoint character because we all naturally have empathy for little kids, but no-one really talks about them. People tend to forget that kids are smarter than they look, and know more than they look, so Naomi's reactions to Luke's situation is particularly powerful. Through her telling we hear about how worried she get when Lukie doesn't come home, and how she has to close all the gates on their street - or something bad will happen to him.

Dan is noticeable for his absence for most of the book. Disappointed in his son's luck of progress during his second attempt at the HSC, Dan stops talking to or about his son. This bothers not only Luke, understandably, but also Margret - who is feeling completely out of control of both her children. Dan's viewpoint is similarly absent during most of the book - it's only at the end, when we get a glimpse of how things might just turn out ok, that he gets a chance to express himself too us - and we learn that he really does care about Luke, and tries to make things right.
The book draws you in by showing you the pain and suffering off all the characters, then gives you hope towards the end that everything will turn out ok. You know that it won't because the beginning of the book told you so, but it's a statement about the power of hope that you still want it to anyway. To me, this book has always been a hopeful book, despite the sad ending, because it's a sign that things often aren't as bad as they look - and that you better make the most of the them because you never know when they will be gone.

Reveiw - Catherine Gilbert Murdock - Dairy Queen

Yesterday I read Dairy Queen. I chose this book because I wanted to sound like I was writing a year eight book report it reminded me of an old anthology I really like, Confessions of a neo milkmaid.

It turned out to be nothing like confessions, it turned out to not even be australian. I had to learn this the hard way, after going "but country life isn't like that" I needed a walmart reference to go "Yep this isn't an Aussie book." This isn't what makes it bad.

The book is about a girl called DJ, who lives on her parents farm, and does all the work because her father hurt his hip. The blurb talks a lot about how people "learn to talk", which is fair enough, because the book does too. In fact, the entire plot of the story could be summed up as "DJ decideds to play football, and realizes that you need to talk to people to work out your problems." This isn't something I'm very interested in reading about. I think it's an important point to make, I just like books with a little more action.

Part of the reason for this may be because I have just been reading a writing manual called Scene and Structure, which talks about building tension by conflict, and by disaster. It also talks about having a clear story goal, and scene goals, but Dairy Queen doesn't do this at all. Thinks actually get better for DJ as the book goes on. So while I liked her well enough, I knew that things would work out ok, so it didn't really keep me gripped to the plot.

The other thing that I didn't like is how the main character often felt the need to explain things, including adressing the reader in the second person, eg "you must be thinking". I didn't like this at all, and not only because I don't like being told what to think. While it may be a way to give the character a little more voice, at it is explained who the 'you' is at the end of the plot, I didn't like it because it's not the way that I read. I like to immerse myself so completely in a book that I inside the main characters head, in some ways I am the main character, but when someone adresses me, I regain that aweness that there is a me outside the book, and lose that intensity.

Before you think that I hate the book completely, I do have to admit that I finished it in a day. It's not a terrible book, it just does things I don't like. After reading a little more about the author, I have to admit that I have a lot of respect for her. I respect anyone that can write a good first novel, and get it published - espececially when they wrote a novel to explain a vivid moment in a dream.

The book does have some good things going for it, the characters are interesting, and i do like the points she makes. A lot of people love this book, and I really hope it's message finds the audience that need it.

Review: Randa Abdel-Fattah - Does My Head Look Big in This / 10 Things I Hate About Me

I've been interested in reading "Does my head look big in this" for a while. The catchy title alone is definately a draw point, plus it was getting a fair amount of media attention. As it turns out, I read Randa Abdel-Fattah's second book, "Ten things I hate about me" first, so I'll talk about that first.

The book begins with a class of kids just come back from school holidays, talking about the race riots. This leaves you with no illusions of what kind of book you're about to read. It's obviously going to be about Issue's. This continues throughout the book, the plot is incredibly linear, and prediticlable. The love intrest is introduced on pg 9, and it is obvious from the onset that's what he is. The secret identity character also has an element of not-so-secret.

The saving grace of this book is it's characters. Even though some of them feel like they are there only to illuminate certain points, the main character Jamilah and her family are still interesting. Randa Abdel-Fattah is obviously writing what she knows, and it shows, it's a great insight into a world that I know nothing about, which is a great thing to get out of any book.

Her first book, "Does my head look big in this" does that even better. The predictable plot of "ten things i hate about me" are not an issue here, mostly because there isn't really that much of a plot. The book is much more character driven, and feels less like it's trying to make a stand about an issue, instead it is genuinely trying to show us what life is like for a Muslim girl living in melbourne. The book opens with Amal's voice very strong and powerful, and the whole way through we have a really clear sense of the character, and what motivates her.

The other characters in the book come through clearly as well. While it still has the 'non-sterotype' representation probelm of "ten things i hate about me' as well as resuing some of those personality types, the two pairs of best friends mechanic actually works really well, especially since they all have their own problems, it really emphasizes that no-one is perfect, even the blond georgeous girl doesn't see how good things are for her.