Recs from the printed world

Football? Never heard of it.

The joy of procrastinating is that I have been reading actual books (when not knitting). Since lots of you also read YA fiction, here are two reviews, which will abuse acronyms because they have long titles (and I am in full acronym mode).

To begin with, The Demon's Covenant by Sarah Rees Brennan. This is the second book in her trilogy following on from The Demon's Lexicon in which Mae and her brother Jamie meet Nick Ryves and his brother Alan and discover in short order that there are demons and magicians in the world, that the demons may be the lesser of two evils, and that their dysfunctional family has nothing on some others.

While the first book was told in Nick's voice, this is told in Mae's, and Brennan captures the insecurity and hope of a teenaged girl's voice beautifully. That whole trying on of things: is this someone I fancy? Is this love? Is this being a grown-up? Am I doing it right? Do they love me? -- so much of it is note-perfect. Particularly because Mae's sense of alienation from the adult world is fully justified, she knows secrets she just can't share.
 

( spoilers for The Demon's Lexicon )

TDC answers many of the questions I had at the end of TDL: in particular, it gives far greater sense of the scope of the Magicians and of their power. One very nice note was the parallel question of what constitutes a family. Both Nick and Mae have real and legitimate questions about the adults in their lives, and Brennan deals with them in ways that respect the adults as well as the sense of abandonment the children feel, allowing that both can be right and wrong, even when they are trying.

To me, TDC is a book about family, disguised as an adventure novel, just as TDL was a mystery with the dustjacket of a romance. The adventure is well constructed and played out, as are the urban fantasy notes, but at the heart of the novel are some of the great questions of life: how do we know when love is real? Who can we trust? And what happens when we trust poorly? And it gripped me -- from the start to the end, I cared very deeply about each of these characters and what happened to them. I wasn't fully satisfied with where we leave them, but that is likely to be because this is the middle book of three, or because I am twenty years older than the target audience.

( My quibble, which contains BIG spoilers for The Demon's Convenant )

Small quibbles aside, it was a rollicking read that dealt intelligently with all the storyline arising from book 1 and set up a series of good plot points for book 3, without suffering in any way from the curses of Lulldom or Expositionitis that can affect middle books. TDC and last year's Flora's Dare revive my faith in the art of the trilogy!

Secondly, there's Will Grayson, Will Grayson, by American writers John Green and David Levithan. It's the story of two boys with the same name, who meet by chance, with each writer providing one Will Grayson and the two appearing in alternating chapters. This could have been a clever-clever disaster, but in fact works really well (you may need to read a few chapters of each to get used to them, a friend only liked the device after 60-odd pages). Will 1 is just trying to get through high school without drawing unnecessary attention to himself. Which he is reasonably successful at, aside from his best friend, Tiny Cooper, who is 'not the world's gayest person, and he is not the world's largest person, but [Will believes] he may be the world's largest person who is really, really gay ...' Despite the fact that he seems to delight in embarrassing straight and shy Will 1, Tiny is a truly brilliant friend, and Will knows it.

Will 2 is clinically depressed (and gay, and against capitalisation, but there's no causal connection), but holds onto hope that things will get better if he can just make it through each day. Alas, his friends are far less shiny than Will 1's, but that's not all bad news -- when a prank sends him off into the city, he runs into Will 1, and Tiny, and life improves dramatically even as it grows radically stranger.

( Spoilers )

The writers really remember what it was like to be a teenager: the insecurities, the uncertainties, the hopes and simple goals. both Wills just want to get by -- the possibility of a girl or boyfriend seems up there with walking on the moon, and the shock to their systems delivered by Tiny Cooper arranging sundry things for them is akin to NASA training. For the reader, it's a sideways lurch to something fresh and unexpected. In a very blokey way, WG, WG is about love and friendship and compassion, while including fake IDs student politics, sport, gross moments of snot and a chorus line. I inhaled it, then went back to the start. Highly recommended!

Recs from the printed world

Football? Never heard of it.

The joy of procrastinating is that I have been reading actual books (when not knitting). Since lots of you also read YA fiction, here are two reviews, which will abuse acronyms because they have long titles (and I am in full acronym mode).

To begin with, The Demon's Covenant by Sarah Rees Brennan. This is the second book in her trilogy following on from The Demon's Lexicon in which Mae and her brother Jamie meet Nick Ryves and his brother Alan and discover in short order that there are demons and magicians in the world, that the demons may be the lesser of two evils, and that their dysfunctional family has nothing on some others.

While the first book was told in Nick's voice, this is told in Mae's, and Brennan captures the insecurity and hope of a teenaged girl's voice beautifully. That whole trying on of things: is this someone I fancy? Is this love? Is this being a grown-up? Am I doing it right? Do they love me? -- so much of it is note-perfect. Particularly because Mae's sense of alienation from the adult world is fully justified, she knows secrets she just can't share.
 

( spoilers for The Demon's Lexicon )

TDC answers many of the questions I had at the end of TDL: in particular, it gives far greater sense of the scope of the Magicians and of their power. One very nice note was the parallel question of what constitutes a family. Both Nick and Mae have real and legitimate questions about the adults in their lives, and Brennan deals with them in ways that respect the adults as well as the sense of abandonment the children feel, allowing that both can be right and wrong, even when they are trying.

To me, TDC is a book about family, disguised as an adventure novel, just as TDL was a mystery with the dustjacket of a romance. The adventure is well constructed and played out, as are the urban fantasy notes, but at the heart of the novel are some of the great questions of life: how do we know when love is real? Who can we trust? And what happens when we trust poorly? And it gripped me -- from the start to the end, I cared very deeply about each of these characters and what happened to them. I wasn't fully satisfied with where we leave them, but that is likely to be because this is the middle book of three, or because I am twenty years older than the target audience.

( My quibble, which contains BIG spoilers for The Demon's Convenant )

Small quibbles aside, it was a rollicking read that dealt intelligently with all the storyline arising from book 1 and set up a series of good plot points for book 3, without suffering in any way from the curses of Lulldom or Expositionitis that can affect middle books. TDC and last year's Flora's Dare revive my faith in the art of the trilogy!

Secondly, there's Will Grayson, Will Grayson, by American writers John Green and David Levithan. It's the story of two boys with the same name, who meet by chance, with each writer providing one Will Grayson and the two appearing in alternating chapters. This could have been a clever-clever disaster, but in fact works really well (you may need to read a few chapters of each to get used to them, a friend only liked the device after 60-odd pages). Will 1 is just trying to get through high school without drawing unnecessary attention to himself. Which he is reasonably successful at, aside from his best friend, Tiny Cooper, who is 'not the world's gayest person, and he is not the world's largest person, but [Will believes] he may be the world's largest person who is really, really gay ...' Despite the fact that he seems to delight in embarrassing straight and shy Will 1, Tiny is a truly brilliant friend, and Will knows it.

Will 2 is clinically depressed (and gay, and against capitalisation, but there's no causal connection), but holds onto hope that things will get better if he can just make it through each day. Alas, his friends are far less shiny than Will 1's, but that's not all bad news -- when a prank sends him off into the city, he runs into Will 1, and Tiny, and life improves dramatically even as it grows radically stranger.

( Spoilers )

The writers really remember what it was like to be a teenager: the insecurities, the uncertainties, the hopes and simple goals. both Wills just want to get by -- the possibility of a girl or boyfriend seems up there with walking on the moon, and the shock to their systems delivered by Tiny Cooper arranging sundry things for them is akin to NASA training. For the reader, it's a sideways lurch to something fresh and unexpected. In a very blokey way, WG, WG is about love and friendship and compassion, while including fake IDs student politics, sport, gross moments of snot and a chorus line. I inhaled it, then went back to the start. Highly recommended!

Something that just occurred to me ...

You remember US Airways 1549, the plane that landed on the Hudson River, NY in January last year? And everybody lived? 

Part of that was because they had Sully Sullenberger as their captain -- a truly brilliant pilot with a level head and a wealth of gliding experience that made him uniquely qualified to land a crippled aeroplane on a river. Part because they had a mature and professional crew, from the brave and focussed co-pilot to everyone in the cabin, who kept their calm and followed all the procedures in a manner guaranteed to minimise panic.

But some of it was thanks to the passengers, who obeyed instructions, held their brace positions, and exited swiftly in an orderly fashion. They helped each other stay on the wings and get out of the water, then get onto the rafts and rescue vessels. And it was also thanks to the air traffic controllers, the boat crews on the Hudson River and the NY rescue services. Everyone involved did what they could, to the best of their abilities.

So – aside from wishing how this was how everyone acted every day without necessarily facing a near-death experience – do we think there's anyone in English football who can sit the team down and just get them to watch documentaries about Flight 1549 until the lessons sink in?

Something that just occurred to me ...

You remember US Airways 1549, the plane that landed on the Hudson River, NY in January last year? And everybody lived? 

Part of that was because they had Sully Sullenberger as their captain -- a truly brilliant pilot with a level head and a wealth of gliding experience that made him uniquely qualified to land a crippled aeroplane on a river. Part because they had a mature and professional crew, from the brave and focussed co-pilot to everyone in the cabin, who kept their calm and followed all the procedures in a manner guaranteed to minimise panic.

But some of it was thanks to the passengers, who obeyed instructions, held their brace positions, and exited swiftly in an orderly fashion. They helped each other stay on the wings and get out of the water, then get onto the rafts and rescue vessels. And it was also thanks to the air traffic controllers, the boat crews on the Hudson River and the NY rescue services. Everyone involved did what they could, to the best of their abilities.

So – aside from wishing how this was how everyone acted every day without necessarily facing a near-death experience – do we think there's anyone in English football who can sit the team down and just get them to watch documentaries about Flight 1549 until the lessons sink in?