Six by Karen Tayleur - Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists

Jan 05, 2011 Shirley Marr rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: aussie-ya

When I see the intriguing title, the number that springs immediately to my mind is “three”. This is Karen Tayleur’s third YA novel and she can now claim to have a substantial body of work, so what will this novel be like?

At first glance, the cover, with a bent number plate revealing the number 6 makes me think that it is a natural continuation of her last novel, Hostage, which shows the inverted image of a dark road heading toward the horizon. Like Hostage, I am thinking a journey, an accident,...more

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Aug 18, 2012 Sally rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: australian, car-accident, ya, school, really-het

The premise for this book sounded so awesome.

One car.

Five seatbelts.

Six people.

A late night party.

A generous splash of alchohol.

A sprinkle of bad weather.

Two P-plate signs.

And from the blurb: six people. Six points of view. But only one outcome.

And then... the book just completely failed to deliver. Did not at all live up to expectations :( We start with the car crash, and then what follows is essentially the promised "six people, six points of view"... but they're not, as expected, about...more

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Nov 04, 2012 Namis rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: cannot-put-down, australian, very-well-written, bad-endings, good-young-adult, read-in-2012

This was a really gripping book! I loved the author's writing and the climatic build up to the anticipated explosive ending. The little nursery rhymes at the start of each chapter added a eery feel and the six POVs actually helped the story. Each character had their own personality and issues. I would have given this five stars if it wasn't for the truly disappointing ending. The ending was rushed, confusing (who died at the end?) and a let-down. I was expecting something BIG. Maybe I got my hop...more

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Mar 27, 2011 Jenny rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: aussie-ya-book-challenge-2011

The title of Karen Tayleur’s novel 6 refers to the six Year 12 students trapped in a car that rolls on a bend in the road as the group leaves a party after their Year 12 formal. The crash scene opens the story with the reader quickly learning that while five were wearing seatbelts, one was not.

Sarah Lunn, one of the six, narrates the opening chapters describing events from the summer before the crash. Her story starts on a stinking hot day towards the end of the summer holidays when three girls...more

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Nov 30, 2010 Alison rated it 3 of 5 stars

The thing I loved best about Six is its atmosphere. The author does a great job of describing this hot and languid suburbia that I could almost feel myself in it, as I languished along with the the six main characters. I also loved how each chapter is linked to a particular nursery rhyme, lending a clever and menacing feel to each chapter. I also loved the slight, simmering sexual tension to it. The boys. The boy that mowed the lawn in a singlet knowing that the girl upstairs was possibly starin...more

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Dec 01, 2010 Stephanie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult

This review originally appeared at www.readinasinglesitting.com

Cautionary tales are common in YA literature: it’s painfully common to read a book in which consequences are painted with astonishing conservatism. Whether this is in part to cater to the library market, which wields considerable power in the success of any given YA, whether it’s to knowingly wag a finger at those naughty younguns, or whether it’s something that simply rises to the surface like the fats on a broth (and, like the fats...more This review originally appeared at www.readinasinglesitting.com

Cautionary tales are common in YA literature: it’s painfully common to read a book in which consequences are painted with astonishing conservatism. Whether this is in part to cater to the library market, which wields considerable power in the success of any given YA, whether it’s to knowingly wag a finger at those naughty younguns, or whether it’s something that simply rises to the surface like the fats on a broth (and, like the fats on a broth, better done away with, in my opinion), I’m not entirely sure, but there is an undeniable undercurrent of Lessons Learned in a good deal of YA. But not, of course, all YA. Some of the more challenging, thoughtful young adult literature I’ve read this year deals unflinchingly with situations so challenging that many authors writing on similar themes for adults might prefer to step back, to let a curtain fall, a door close rather than deal with these viscerally powerful issues. These novels simply present the reader with a situation, allowing the reader themselves to determine where the balance of the scales should fall.

Karen Tayleur’s Six aspires to be one such novel. Set in the leafy haven of Silver Valley, it traces six months in the life of a group of Year 12 students who share between them a horrific secret. The milieu is such that it reminds me rather strongly of Shirley Marr’s Fury, which I reviewed a few weeks ago: a rather disparately cobbled together group of teens whose sense of what’s right is subjugated to their preference to live in the now, to live in the future. Like Marr’s book, there’s a chilling amorality to Tayleur’s characters, but in this case the effect is all the more disturbing for the fact that the characters are drawn so humanely. Where Marr very deliberately twists and torments her characters into a truly horrific manifestation of anger and vengeance, Tayleur does the opposite, setting out to contrast her characters’ hopeful, dream-like outlooks with their actions. Where Marr’s characters act in a way that is nothing but cruelly appropriate to their tortured psyches, Tayleur’s efforts highlight a desperation to maintain the status quo, to continue to follow the paths her characters have spent their lives creating.

Sarah Lum’s friend Poppy, all loose flowing skirts, psychic auras, and abjectly hopeless romantic, tells Sarah one day that she doesn’t see a career in medicine in Sarah’s future. Sarah’s consternation at this is palpable: an off-the-cuff remark when she was a child has set her on the path to being a doctor, and without this path, this goal to strive for, she sees herself as lost, shallow, directionless. The others in Tayleur’s unlikely posse are similarly so, having picked out their future careers and lives with the sort of single-minded determination only seen in teens. So when they find themselves in a situation that could very easily cripple these plans, shred the identities they’ve spent their lives thus far developing, they do everything in their power to avoid acknowledging their responsibilities. The simple pragmatism with which they do so is astounding, and plays on the reader’s mind all the more as months pass and these teens’ lives are filled with inanities like Year 12 formals, ridiculous live triangles, and an utter obsession with earning their probationary licences. The contrast between the awful secret they’re hiding and these frivolities grows more and more stark, until a truly startling twist balances the scales in a way that brings fascinating cohesion to what has been a somewhat piecemeal plot. Tayleur’s characters are indeed judged in a way, but it’s not by the author, and I’m quite fascinated by the way Tayleur manages to pull off such a twist, with its accompanying framing device , so effortlessly. There’s a karmic sense of justice here on some level, but in a way that stems from the characters’ inaction rather than their actions, and which is coincidental rather than premeditated, ameliorating that sense of authorial judgement that could otherwise be an issue.

While thematically the book, like Marr’s, is extremely strong, it does struggle to find a sense of cohesion at times. The reader is given the sense that the book will engage a multiple, rotating point-of-view format, but the end result is more of a single point-of-view narrative (Sarah’s), interspersed with the occasional interlude from one of the other characters. This tends to be quite ineffective, as it’s as though Tayleur is unsure of her ability to get across the information she needs using a sole narrator, and must hammer home the point using another instead. As such, the multiple perspectives tend to feel as though they’re being used to shovel back-story and titillating bits of information in the reader’s direction. Overall, unfortunately, the development of the characters is somewhat rudimentary, with many of the characters fitting firmly into archetypes and not much beyond that. This is worsened by a chapter that comprises simply the various characters’ yearbook entries: the inclusion of this makes the reader feel as though there is concern that essential information isn’t being conveyed via the narrative, and thus needs to be explicated for good measure.

One other element I struggled with somewhat was the setting of the book. Despite having the odd element that was quintessentially Australian, I couldn’t help but feel as though the book had been deliberately set in a sort of territorial no-man’s-land in order to cater better to the American market, which is (anecdotally, I’ll say, to save my neck) notoriously averse to regionalisms and other elements that may result in confusion or a sense of the “too exotic” for its readers. I’ve found this issue arising quite often with much of the local YA I’ve read this year, and it’s something that I now find difficult not to notice as a reader. While I’m certainly not advocating a descent into parochialisms, ockers, and strine, I would prefer to see setting taken as something that’s essential to the work, rather than something that can be disaggregated seemingly with ease.

These criticisms aside, Tayleur’s Six is tautly written, and offers some truly chilling food for thought. At a mere two hundred pages, it certainly punches well above its weight, and the twist at the end will no doubt have many a reader in paroxysms of Six Sense-ish delight.(less)

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Nov 08, 2012 Sue rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a great book. A book about that time in a teenager’s life when they are teetering on the precipice of adulthood, looking back over their shoulder at their childhood and knowing there is only one way to fall. It’s a book about friends, school, growing up and all the awful stuff that goes with it.
Karen Tayleur’s prologue lets us know that this story is not going to end well.
“…inside the overturned car, a mobile phone breaks into a musical ringtone. It is someone checking up on a daughter...more This is a great book. A book about that time in a teenager’s life when they are teetering on the precipice of adulthood, looking back over their shoulder at their childhood and knowing there is only one way to fall. It’s a book about friends, school, growing up and all the awful stuff that goes with it.
Karen Tayleur’s prologue lets us know that this story is not going to end well.
“…inside the overturned car, a mobile phone breaks into a musical ringtone. It is someone checking up on a daughter or a son or a friend. But no one will answer it.”
With this ominous beginning we enter the world of 5 friends who become linked by an unusual event – the discovery of a body in the local woods. The beginning of the story is related by Sarah, who I would call the chief protagonist. Friends Sarah, Poppy, Virginia, Finn, and Nico stumble across the corpse as they take a shortcut home. They don’t tell anyone about it. Nico places his shirt over the dead girl’s face and then, realising it may implicate him in the death (although he is innocent) seeks to retrieve it. When his girlfriend Poppy returns to get the shirt (Nico has been in trouble with the police in the past), it is gone. The book follows the ins and outs of the characters’ lives after their grisly discovery and how each of them deals with the fallout and the worrying mystery of the missing shirt.
Each of the characters tells part of the story and slowly a picture builds of the group and a sense of impending tragedy starts to gain momentum.
Sarah is studious and wants to be a doctor, Poppy believes she has psychic powers, Nico just wants to lay low, Finn has recently faked a break-up with Virginia so they can continue seeing each other after her parents forbid it. Virginia is the typical “popular” girl – caught up in the banal and superficial. Cooper is obsessed with Virginia.
In the background, they are all getting ready to attend the Senior Formal and there are relationship issues to deal with too.
Nico is struggling with guilt about the dead body and also with someone who taunts him with phone calls telling him they know about the missing shirt. Cooper, desperate to land Virginia, manages to get her as his formal date. Sarah yearns for Finn, who seems to be interested in her, despite Virginia’s protestations, Poppy worries about everyone – especially the troubled Nico and her best mate Sarah, who seems to be pulling away from her.
The night of the formal arrives and it is heavily laden with guilt, recrimination and revelations. No spoliers, but the six end up in the same car together and the novel ends as it began, with Sarah speaking to us.
I really enjoyed this story. The device of using the six characters to fill in the story works well, as does the clever use of nursery rhyme lines at the beginning of each chapter, emphasising the leaving of and longing for childish things and the inevitable push to adulthood.
An Australian coming-of-age story, but easily accessible to teenagers from anywhere, I commend you to read it.
Ages 14 and up
(less)

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Jun 11, 2011 Marj rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult

Like the angles in a prism, there's never only one view of an event. From the opening scene of the car crash, we travel back to the preceding six months and events which lead up to that fateful moment. Tayleur uses interesting narrative structure and mix of voice, between first and third person, dialogue, journal and vid blog narrative, with each chapter headed by a nursery rhyme.Though mostly written from Sarah's point of view, we also hear from five other characters (hence the title 'Six'), ro...more

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Apr 22, 2012 Claire rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult, read-in-2012

Great concept and set up but the writing/execution was weak and all the characters felt extremely one dimensional to me. There was too much focus on Sarah so we never exactly knew the other 5 characters well. I didn't really understand her POV choices in general tbh. Like why bother having 6 points of view when some characters only get 2 chapters that don't really tell us anything about them? Also, the switching of third person and first person narration was jarring and handled in a very unskill...more

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Jan 09, 2011 starfleetbrat rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011-reads, young-adult

6 is a cautionary coming of age tale that could easily be set in any town in almost any country but the language lends itself to Australia. The characters were interesting and the story itself wasn't terrible, but if you have read any kind of young adult book in the past twenty years or so then you can probably guess most of what happens in this novel.

It was interesting to see an Australian take on the plot, but I felt like the author couldn't decide if the characters were 18 or 15. And unlike...more

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Sep 03, 2012 Isobella Wedge rated it 4 of 5 stars

i decided to read this book because a friend recommended it to me. it fits the category of 'my own choice.' my favourite quote from this book is 'Are you breaking our promise? Are you turning into just another boring adult?' it makes me laugh and realise that adults are boring and mature from my point of view, and that's why i like it. i learned from this book that drunk-driving is stupid because it can lead to serious consequences. i liked Poppy in this book because instead of being a young-at-...more

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Jan 17, 2011 Nomes rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: aussie-ya, 2010, mutli-pov

Karen Tayleur knows how to capture a readers attention from the outset and tease her way through to a twist-y climax.

6 opens with a haunting prologue:
"But the facts are simple. A recipe for disaster.
One car.
Five seatbelts.
Six people.
A late night party.
A generous splash of alcohol.
A sprinkle of bad weather.
Two P-plate signs." p.5
And no one is answering the ringing mobile phone...

6 follows the lives of 6 teenagers in their final 6 months of year 12 (the last year of school). There's the teaser tha...more

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Mar 23, 2011 Jennifer Cain rated it 4 of 5 stars

Great book. 6 friends find a body in the woods and need to make a decision about what they do. Anonymous texts start appearing on the phones who should have done something but the body. Poppy can see into the future...how come? One after party to go to and one wet road and only one outcome. Page turner.

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Sep 22, 2012 Bridget rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

What a great book. From the point of view of six teenagers involved in a tragic car accident after an after-party. Great tension build up, well written, realistic and I'm going to buy more copies of it because I think the boys at school will really like it.

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Oct 06, 2012 Watermelon Daisy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Six was one of the most intense books I’ve read in a while.

Unfortunately, although the intensity drove most of the plot forward, it failed to meet my expectations on what an amazing book it could’ve been.

The ending was impossible to grasp, and I couldn’t figure out what was going on. If you’ve read this book, can you explain the ending to me?

Regardless, I thought it was one of the most creative books I’ve read in a while. The intense atmosphere fits in perfectly with the suspense/mystery creati...more

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Mar 30, 2011 Sian rated it 3 of 5 stars

a good YA book, characters well developed and I recognised some of my own teenage traits in them. Have to say I was not too surprised by the ending, but felt the author really got in the head of the teenage characters

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Mar 13, 2013 Sheri added it

It was a good book, but I cannot for the life of me figure out who's funeral was at the end!! All six people were stated for, and the two girls found dead were buried months beforehand!!!

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Jan 03, 2012 Julie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Wow. This was a great read; well written, great pace, with a superbly building story that led to an immensely satisfying climactic twist. Recommended, especially for young adults.

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Jan 22, 2013 Victoria rated it 4 of 5 stars

I liked the Author's style of writing, as well as the characters. But the storyline was nice, but I didn't really find it that captivating as I expected it to be. Overall 3.5 stars to 4 stars

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Apr 08, 2012 Lylaa rated it 4 of 5 stars

I LOVED this. How it was planned, how it was written, the characters ; amazing.

The bit I hated, like to the pits HATED was the sad ending.

If you want a happy ending, go somewhere else.

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Dec 11, 2010 Kelly rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: cybils-2010-nominations, read-in-2010, ya-fiction

2.5

A fast paced contemporary mystery. I liked it but am a bit baffled by the end. I feel like I missed something.

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Jan 03, 2012 Alice rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: 15-19 year olds

Shelves: books-i-own, general

Very good book for teenagers. The switching perspectives is good - seeing the errors in the assumptions the characters make about each other gives it a bit more depth. Nice easy read.

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Oct 06, 2012 Lilli rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: aussie-authors, contemporary, female-writers, multiple-pov

it was a good book and all but i honestly feel the writing style was quite poor.

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Apr 15, 2013 Sophie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Interesting, loved the ending and beginning though the middle was a bit boring.

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Aug 05, 2011 Trisha added it

slow burning, authentic voices, powerful conclusion.

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Feb 24, 2011 Rachel Smolski rated it 4 of 5 stars

I loved this book and could not put it down. It made me late for work

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Jun 20, 2012 Ness rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this in an evening. Very readable and compelling...

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Oct 05, 2011 Giorgia rated it 5 of 5 stars

I thought it was really good

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Sep 12, 2011 Aleeeeeza marked it as to-read

Shelves: aussie-lit

SIX POVs? Wowza. :|

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Feb 23, 2013 Sacha rated it 3 of 5 stars

Whilst the story is interesting, intriguing and relatively realistic, the ending is too swift and somewhat unbelievable.

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title link	preview: Six
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