Claire Hennessy's Blog, page 16
July 7, 2016
Book Review: The Privileged
“They all drank, often too much, and took drugs, because sometimes it was easier to be drunk or high than to be uncertain, hopeful, horny.”
Stella. Laura. Amanda. Friends since their teens and an all-too-familiar incident at a South Dublin disco, they’re now verging on their thirties and about to be reunited: Amanda’s in crisis once again. While Stella and Laura are comfortable, middle class, working hard at their jobs, Amanda lives in a world of privilege that has been a gateway for them since their adolescence – and has been able to fund a drug problem that has haunted her since then.
While it’s refreshing to see a focus on female friendships, the modern-day quest to find out what’s going on with Amanda isn’t quite strong enough to work as a framing device for all the background between these three women, and Amanda’s charisma is never quite compelling enough to justify their fondness for her. There are plenty of Amandas out there, butterflies who charm caterpillars, but she is not as vivid on the page as she should be. Still, it’s an interesting read and Laura’s role as a journalist weighing up ethics versus friendship is particularly intriguing.
July 3, 2016
Book Review: The Last Boy and Girl in the World
“The strange reality is that just because your town is almost washed away doesn’t mean you stop being in love with a boy.”
After severe flooding, the town of Aberdeen are told they’re going to have to evacuate permanently. Keeley Hewitt’s family have lived there for generations, on a street named after her great-great-grandfather, and her dad takes up the cause and leads the campaign to save the town. He’s been despondent ever since an accident left him unable to work two years ago, but now he’s full of energy – he has something to fight for.
Keeley’s mother is less thrilled by it all, especially as more and more of the town’s residents sign deals and leave. And Keeley, although she wants Aberdeen to survive, is caught up in her dream-come-true scenario: Jesse Ford, the boy she’s been in love with from afar forever, likes her. Between the two of them they plot zany events that take advantage of the increasingly-deserted town, like a prom night in their old principal’s now-abandoned house.
But Jesse isn’t nearly as perfect in real life as he is in fantasies – and as the town disintegrates around her, Keeley’s relationships are also crumbling. Her best friend Morgan feels distant from her, and she betrays the trust of someone she’s starting to realise she really cares about. Siobhan Vivian’s characterisation is fabulous – all these characters are nuanced and flawed, and Keeley in particular is the kind of jokey, silly, daring girl we so rarely see in fiction. She makes mistakes and messes up, but she’s also incredibly real.
I completely adored this book. It’s complex, looking at everything from corruption in local government to the small kindnesses or cruelties that we offer to others, but also very readable, with weather reports kicking off each chapter and becoming more and more ominous. Despite the unusual setting, the characters and their responses to impending disasters are easy to relate to, and there are no easy or simple fixes for anything. Highly, highly recommend.
June 28, 2016
Book Review: Girls On Fire
“Girls had to believe in everything but their own power, because if girls knew what they could do, imagine what they might.”
Hannah Dexter is a loner, a bland nothing among the pretty girls in her small town. She’s “filed the dream of a best friend away with my Barbies and the rest of my childish things”, has been alone for so long that she can’t even identify ‘loneliness’ as what she’s feeling. She’s pretty much the girl most readers will have been at some point – waiting for excitement, for drama, for something to shake things up and make her feel like a real teenager.
Enter Lacey, who rechristens her ‘Dex’ and sweeps her into a world of philosophy and grunge music – it’s the early 90s, and Kurt Cobain is their god. Enter Lacey, who tugs her out of small-town safety and into possible Satanic rituals. Enter Lacey, her best friend and soulmate – who’s nevertheless keeping secrets for her.
This is that gorgeous kind of love story, the kind that exists between best friends in a way that only can if it begins at that hyper-intense point in adolescence where it’s you and them against the world and everything is ecstasy or despair. But it moves beyond the typical ‘bad-girl-influences-good-girl’ trope – told in alternating chapters, the girls reveal they are both ‘bad’ and ‘good’, that the clichés they invent for one another crumble under scrutiny.
And then there’s – of course – the school bitch, Nikki, who’s shunned Dex and who has a history with both Lacey and the boy who committed suicide in the woods last year. The same woods the three of them will end up in, sooner or later. (Cue the omnious music.) The dynamics between all three are complex and shifting, leaving us on edge as to which pairing will survive.
Girls on Fire is a delirious, exhilarating read for everyone who’s ever had that kind of best friend or wished they had, for everyone ready to vicariously experience that rollercoaster of adolescence where nothing is quite as it seems and everything and anything is possible. Published for adults for content, but likely to appeal to older teens as well, particularly those who know their Nirvana. I loved it, I loved it, I loved it.
June 25, 2016
YA LGBTQ+ recs for Pride!
Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan is a classic – a fervently optimistic take on a world where sexuality has stopped being an issue, with a gorgeous love story at its heart.
Again with Mr Levithan, Wide Awake is about both sexuality and politics – set twenty minutes into the future with a presidential campaign that could change the country for good.
Pink by Lili Wilkinson looks at both sexuality and also typical-girl-ness, with what it means to fit into certain groups at school.
If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo is just out and offers up a hopeful tale of post-transition life for a trans teenage girl.
The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson is another moving story about trans teens and friendship.
Love & Lies by Ellen Wittlinger (sequel to Hard Love) is about a smart and flawed lesbian writer who develops a crush on her writing teacher. Very readable, very real.
Hannah Moskowitz’s Gone Gone Gone is set in 2002, amidst a series of mass shootings in Maryland, and features two incredibly real boys trying to make this thing between them work.
Also from Hannah Moskowitz – Not Otherwise Specified explores dance and body image and also what it means to be ‘not quite gay enough’ and the anti-bi vibes within the queer community.
Geography Club by Brent Hartinger and its sequels are terrifically readable – a group of kids set up a secret LGBTQ support group but decide to call it something so boring no one will ever want to join.
Rage: A Love Story by Julie Anne Peters is about an intense and ultimately abusive relationship between two teenage girls.
She Loves You, She Loves You Not…, also by Julie Anne Peters, is a compelling story about a lesbian teen reconnecting with her birth mother after a bad break-up. Some awkward implications about bisexuality here though.
Dramarama by E Lockhart is set at a performing arts summer camp and features The Gay Best Friend and his relationships. Delightful read, especially for musical-lovers.
Baby Be-Bop by Francesca Lia Block is a magical-realist coming-out story, part of the Weetzie Bat series.
Becky Albertalli’s Simon Vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda is a funny and warm love story about a teen boy coming out.
The gorgeous The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle also features a romance between two teen girls as a subplot.
Emily Horner’s A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend is an absolutely incredible and real story about a girl dealing with the loss of her best friend who she maybe had a crush on, while also forging a friendship-or-maybe-more with the mean girl at school.
Jandy Nelson’s I’ll Give You The Sun features a gay main character along with so, so much more.
Juno Dawson’s All of the Above has bisexual and queer characters as well as so many more teen issues, all told in an incredibly real teen-girl voice.
Flick by Geraldine Meade offers up a rare Irish lesbian teen character as she struggles to come to terms with her sexuality.
June 15, 2016
Some NTAG updates (with a touch of neurosis)
On the tellybox (Ireland AM).
I-HAVE-A-BOOK-OUT-NOW time, sorry, do please indulge me. People have been really lovely – here are some of the kind and complimentary things about Snarky Anorexic Ghost Book.
(Is there a way of posting about this stuff without feeling horribly self-indulgent and or attention-seeking? Seriously. Is there a classy way of going ‘here are some really nice things that people have said about this thing I made and am proud of’ without it being ‘oh just shut up you wagon’? Or is it always the case that we expect women – especially Irish women, we don’t do compliments – to just shrug off anything nice ever, to refuse any praise, to be noble and miserable and only concerned about other people? Irish mammies in the kitchen making tea for everyone but themselves.)
(Answers on the back of a postcard please.)
Right. The nice stuff people have said. SURE IT’S PROBABLY ALL RUBBISH DON’T LISTEN TO THEM. I’ll just be over here in the corner being virtuous. Or something.
“While eating disorders and body image are portrayed with great insight and sensitivity, this is absolutely not an issue book: it’s extremely readable with plenty of snark and humour.” – The Bookseller
“It’s very wise… she writes about relationships in an incredibly nuanced way…I read it with awe.” – Marian Keyes’s World of Writing
“a carefully crafted masterpiece… She has successfully, and beautifully, characterised the ana voice… Nothing Tastes as Good is clever, clever clever… a fresh take on the realities of anorexia and binge eating, and you absolutely need to read it.” – A Series of Erraticism
“This is a truly original and poignant insight into the minds of two girls in the grip of eating disorders – reinforcing how slippery that slope can be and how fast someone can fall.” – Sarah Stewart, YA Shelfies
“…a beautifully complex depiction of relationships and body disorders.” – Zoe Jellicoe, The Dublin Inquirer
“This book was incredibly relatable, because every one of us has an Annabel inside us. Telling us we’re fat, ugly, everything we’ve ever doubted about ourselves.” – Pretty Purple Polka Dots
“…a clever narrative device… original and engaging” – Sarah Gilmartin, The Irish Times
“an utterly unique piece of YA fiction that speaks to you whatever your waist size” – The Book Bag
“A truly exceptional vision; unique and riveting. Read it!” – Mary Esther Judy, Fallen Star Stories
“Fusing reality with a supernatural element, this is so much more than an ‘issues’ book – this is a Young Adult novel that really packs a punch.” – Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop
“This is the kind of book teenage girls (and boys) need, a book that challenges the stigma around ‘the silly things that teenage girls do to themselves.’” – Jenny Duffy, The Books, The Art and Me
“a thought provoking, hard hitting and raw novel dealing with serious issues such as teenage life, mental health and relationships. One of the best books I’ve read this year.” – Shannon Bookworm
June 14, 2016
Book Review: Mad Girl
“… mental illness does not always fit the binary, black-and-white terms given to it in the media, books and films. This is also why it is such a bastard. It is good at hiding, evading capture, putting on a show. It is the world’s greatest actor.”
Mental illness memoirs are often written by those in the public eye, who type earnestly about their time spent in bed or struggling without ever addressing the fact that despite their health issues, their lives have hints of glamour and privilege that are completely ignored in their narrative of suffering. It’s not that these things make you immune to mental illness, of course, but they do mean that it’s easier to afford a doctor, or counselling, or time off work. Working-class sufferers of mental illness don’t write books about it; we don’t seem to be interested in that.
Bryony Gordon, successful columnist with the Sunday Telegraph, deviates from the typical pattern not because of her lack of privilege – this is a lady doing well for herself – but because she acknowledges that even as she was in a very dark hole mentally, her work was going well. She writes about the fun stuff, about how her drug and alcohol dependency facilitated both socialising for work and penning cheeky columns about her life as a ‘single lady’. Though, as she admits, the older one gets in this role, the more awkward it becomes and the more pitying looks one gets: “No single woman in her thirties wants to be described as a character. We should – it’s good to be a character, much better than relying solely on your looks – but we don’t.”
This is Gordon’s second memoir, but it’s her first to address the OCD that kicked in aged twelve and had her on medication by age seventeen. Despite the severity of this condition – and she conveys the repetitive, terrifying, unstoppable thoughts expertly on the page – she also handles it with a lightness of touch and casual asides, cheerfully acknowledging her worries about her alopecia preoccupying her over things like bringing the iron to work so that she won’t have to worry about it having been left on. She is scared all of the time: worried she’s done something terrible despite all evidence to the contrary. Worried she’s capable of it.
This is the origin point of other problems that plague her throughout her twenties and thirties. She develops an eating disorder, reflecting that, “My body had never felt like mine, not really. I realise that now, with age and lines and fat and the tiniest bit of wisdom. Does any young woman feel as if her body is hers, anyway?” Making herself throw up feels normal, yet it also must be hidden. On the surface it looks like she’s doing well. Later, when she recovers from this and stops taking cocaine, the weight gain is visibly disapproved of by various peers, even as she is healthier and happier. We don’t mind how unhappy women are if they’re thin, after all.
Then there are the bad relationships, the toxic liaisons that she’s particularly susceptible to in a quest for passion and excitement. While she takes responsibility for her commitment to these various problematic men, it’s also clear that they are the sort who seek out vulnerable women. And after all, she is ‘crazy’ – it’s so much easier to gaslight a girlfriend who already has a diagnosis.
“Relationships like this, they creep up on you slowly. They wouldn’t happen any other way. Like praying mantises, they dance seductively in front of you to lure you in before biting your head off. They work by stealth, and before you know it you are declaring undying love to a man who seems sometimes to hate you. Except what you’re feeling isn’t love, not really. It’s fear. It’s fear of him, fear of yourself, fear of being alone.”
There is a happy ending of sorts to all this – Gordon is now married with a small girl – but despite some of the coping mechanisms having been put in their place, she still has OCD, and is still prone to relapses. An epilogue reveals how writing the book triggered one of these, how difficult it is to write about mental illness without it tugging at you. The honesty here makes this a more, rather than less, optimistic read. Good things can happen to messed-up girls and women. But they also need to help themselves, to be open to it, to do what they can and seek help for the things they can’t. This is a book that’s both breezy and smart, funny and insightful. Gordon is the antithesis of self-pitying without being a Pollyanna, and is firm about the purpose of the book: not to lecture anyone else, but to share her story in the hope that others might speak up too.
June 6, 2016
Book Review: Nina Is Not OK
‘Do you think your drinking is a problem? Do you get drunk when you don’t mean to?’
I always mean to.
This is comedian Shappi Khorsandi’s first novel. Let’s get her writing more of these, please. Seventeen-year-old Nina drinks too much. She sort-of knows this and sort-of doesn’t. It’s just that things were easier before her longterm boyfriend Jamie met the love of his life on a plane and broke her heart. And things were definitely easier before that night she can’t entirely remember – the night she got kicked out of a nightclub for publicly giving a blow job to a random guy and ended up in a taxi some time later clutching her knickers in her hands.
As you might guess, this is not quite for younger teens, but I do hope that older teens as well as adults will pick up this coming-of-age novel. Nina goes through a lot: she feels “upside down, inside out and back to front. I was myself, just the worst ‘version’ of myself.” After the drinking gets out of hand and she does something utterly mortifying, destabilising the family she’s staying with while her stepfather, mother and half-sister are abroad, she ends up in rehab, where she notes:
…feeling rejected is how most of us got to be in this place. No one says in a meeting: “I’ve always felt like I belong! Now if I could just sort out this silly drinking habit I could skip back off to my perfect life!” AA is not for those people.
This is a terrific exploration of sexuality, from the ways in which alcohol gets tangled up in decision-making (and in Nina’s and many girls’ cases, also leads them to blame themselves for the actions of predatory creeps) to what it means to be attracted to both men and women. I also loved Nina’s friend Beth, who has many feminist rants throughout the novel and points out some of the double standards that Nina can’t quite accept, blaming herself for an assault. It’s absolutely heart-breaking in places, and feels incredibly real: I loved it.
June 2, 2016
Susan’s Bad Poetry competition winner!
And the winner of the Susan’s Bad Poetry Competition is… Lorelei Summers, with this poem:
For A
I find a feather from a swan
Or perhaps a pigeon
And think if only you had
Flown the way that I did
I want to go back and fix you
Because you were broken
Instead I go to centra to buy wine
And a pomegranate
Here’s what Courtney had to say:
“I performed it aloud twice for different people… it was objectively the best worst poem and the most unapologetically hilarious too. I could see Susan sitting at her desk marvelling at the depth of her own actions. That somehow buying wine and a pomegranate was angsty and meaningful, and that referencing Centra showed she was grounding the poem in reality.”
And here’s me:
“This is perfectly Susan. This is so perfectly Susan, with the pretense that it is all about Annabel but really it’s completely about her and her Journey and ‘flying’, oh god, it is delightful.”
It was only after making our decision that we became aware of Ms Summers’s Secret Identity, and as she already owns a signed copy of Nothing Tastes As Good (and owns very many YA books) she is more than welcome to let us know whether she would like the other titles in the bundle, or whether she would prefer the prize be donated to a school, library or other organisation of her choice. Update: Ms Summers’s Alter Ego will be donating some shiny YA and MG books to the very fabulous Fighting Words!
Many thanks to everyone who submitted and help bring more bad Susan-y poetry into the world!
May 18, 2016
Susan’s Bad Poetry competition
Ireland: May 26.
UK: July 14.
In memory of Annabel.
Last night I dreamt about Sylvia Plath again.
I wanted to float away from the earth,
not be tethered to this mortal coil.
But now I’ve seen you up close, Grim Reaper
Now I see your ugliness, truly revealed.
I don’t want that for myself any more.
Not after seeing her there, the empty shell.
She could have been anything.
A pilot. A teacher. A doctor. A zoo-keeper.
A mother. A CEO. An archaeologist.
A painter. An actress. An accountant.
Instead she chose to be thin.
Instead she chose death.
Now I choose life.
I choose life.
I choose life.
So in my new book, Annabel, our narrator, is a snarky ghost who spent some time in hospital, and has rather irritatingly served to be an ‘inspiration’ or catalyst for the recovery of her fellow patients. Annabel is Not Impressed (she’s very rarely impressed with anything, to be fair). As someone who gets to hover over – but not communicate with – the people she knew in life, Annabel gets to witness therapy sessions but also terrible poetry-writing and collage-making.
Susan is someone Annabel dismisses as a ‘tourist’ (to mental-health trauma) – let’s keep in mind Annabel is not the kindest or most empathetic human/ghost, and poor Susan does engage in a good bit of self-injury – but let us be fair, writing earnest poetry in memory of someone who was not actually a friend of yours in any shape or form is a bit much, especially if it’s dreadful.
I love Susan’s Bad Poetry and I want there to be more of it. So, for the grand prize of a signed copy of Nothing Tastes As Good plus a selection of other recent YA titles, write and share a Bad Susan-esque Poem in the comments of this post.
Deadline: 11.59pm Friday (GMT), 27th May 2016. Multiple entries fine. Entries welcome from all over the world. Judging by yours truly and Courtney from the Internet, whose Susan-insights are kinda epic. If not posting from an existing account, please leave email address with your entry so we can get in touch!
The A-Z of books
Borrowing this from Aoife…
Author You’ve Read the Most Books From
Ann M Martin.
Best Sequel Ever
Prized, by Caragh M O’Brien – sequel to Birthmarked. It’s the best second-in-a-dystopian-trilogy I’ve ever read.
Currently Reading
The Last Days of Summer by Vanessa Ronan.
Drink of Choice While Reading
TEA.
E-Reader or Physical Book
Both, both, both!
Fictional Character You Probably Would Have Actually Dated in High School
Draco Malfoy. (I’m not saying it would have been a healthy choice…)
Glad You Gave this Book a Chance
Sophie Kinsella’s Confessions of a Shopaholic – made me realise how brilliant and funny and sharp her books really are.
Hidden Gem Book
Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue.
Important Moment in Your Reading Life
My first Marian Keyes book.
Just Finished
Nina Is Not OK by Shappi Khorsandi (proof – it’s out in July).
Kind of Books You Won’t Read
High fantasy is just not my thing.
Longest Book You’ve Read
Aidan Chambers’s This Is All, I think.
Major Book Hangover
I do not know if I experience these.
Number of Bookcases You Own
Four.
One Book You’ve Read Multiple Times
One? ONE?! Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy.
Preferred Place to Read
In bed.
Quote that Inspires You/Gives You all the Feels from a Book You’ve Read
“Do I dare disturb the universe?” from TS Eliot’s The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock.
Reading Regret
Not learning to abandon blah books earlier in life.
Series You Started and Need to Finish
Lauren Oliver’s Delirium trilogy. I loved the first one so much, and own the second, so… yes. Must get on that.
Three of Your All-Time Favorite Books
Matilda by Roald Dahl
Rachel’s Holiday by Marian Keyes
Summer Sisters by Judy Blume
Unapologetic Fangirl For
Most things. The Babysitters Club. Harry Potter. Malory Towers. The Wells & Wong mystery series. Marian Keyes.
Very Excited for this Release more than All Others
What’s A Girl Gotta Do? by Holly Bourne, the third in her Spinster Club series.
Worst Bookish Habit
Buying ALL the books and then not reading them.
X Marks the Sport: Start on the Top Left of Your Shelf and Pick the 27th Book
Girl Up by Laura Bates
Your Latest Purchase
In the Dark, In the Woods by Eliza Wass – next title being discussed in YA bookclub.
Zzzzz-Snatcher Book (Last Book that Kept You up Way too late)
I am a boring human, I need my sleep!
