Ruth Estevez's Blog, page 6

Paper Towns by John Green

Paper Towns by John Green

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Well, I wrote a review and didn't save it before hitting the star button. So. Beginning again, not sure I'll have the detail of the first. And I might sound a bit grumpy, so apologies for that.
This is the second John Green novel I have read, the first being, Looking for Alaska. It struck me how similar it was in the set up of teenage boy worshipping girl. Green does the group boyish banter very well, the humour and the day to day. He creates the high school world with its daily boredom, bullying, fantasizing, well. In both books. I don't have a problem with an author being fixed on a theme but they need to do it differently, or gain something new for the reader. More on that later.
Q idolizes Margo Roth Spiegelman. The fact that he mostly uses her entire name shows how little he actually knows the real Margo. And that is the thread. We learn later in the book, how others view Margo and this deepens the discussion as to if we can ever truly know someone else.
This theme does infiltrate both books but he does it more so in Paper Towns. Is that better? Well, I found the discussions interesting but I would say, Green, just a little less of everything please. I little less of re-reading Walt Whitman. A little less of going back to that place in the wilderness. A little less talk of Margo....but then I guess that is the point. He is obsessed. But it annoyed even me just a tad. And the talk at the end. I won't spoil it for those who haven't read Paper Towns. But a little less talk at the end would have been good too.
As to the ending, I liked that it wasn't easy. I like that Q stayed true to character. I liked Margo's choice but it made me sad. But with Walt Whitman, I hope for her.
Did Green offer something new. Yes, he delved further into the question. His exploration of what is a paper town intrigued me. I enjoyed the discovery. Green gave us 'more' on the subject.
Would I read it again? This is my big tester with a book. No. I prefer less space in my prose. I like more beauty and imagery. This is a personal choice, so that will be different in us all. I've read enough about teenage boys though and 17/18 year olds all owning cars and driving all over the place is more alien to me than 'Alien.' No bad thing, but I've been there, done it now. I did however, enjoy the ride. The ideas? Yes, been there. As for the cows - just remembering things I wrote in my first attempt at this review - I won't spoil anything, other than that I had to suspend belief.




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Cold Bath Street by A. J. Hartley

I love ghost stories, good ghost stories, maybe because it’s so hard to find really good ones and so they are few and far between. Maybe it’s because I love being scared.

Cold Bath Street by A. J. Hartley has been made into a film. Fantastic! Another ghost film! (I’m not being sarcastic.) Also, fantastic because it is set in Preston, a Lancashire town in the North of England. The book has the accents and feel and reach to 1970’s Britain. Captured atmospherically alongside being a teenage boy and all the awkward moments and feelings. And death.

It has local legend, a great source for fiction and it grounds the story and draws us in to finding out what is fact and what is real in local myth. Time and whether anything can be changed is also explored, where you go after death and whether it is to be feared or embraced. What really gripped me was the ‘Merely Dead and well and truly Sincerely Dead’ as in The Wizard of Oz. Where do you go and what happens to you when you are Sincerely Dead? And how do you transition from Merely to Sincerely.

9.22, and Preston is stuck in time. He is Merely Dead. Being Merely Dead doesn’t mean you are untouchable. Preston’s half world is full of danger and that danger reaches into the present. The longer you are Merely Dead, the danger grows that you will be forgotten by your living loved ones. Preston cannot let that happen. He cannot be forgotten or remain forever Merely Dead because that means becoming like the walking dead, repeating their last moments forever.

Preston does good deeds. He also messes up. He looks at his life and wishes he’d done things differently. He wishes he’d been different. I like Preston. All questions to think about and I love books that make me think. Cold Bath Street does. Once or twice it veered on slightly preachy, but then, when talking about religion and the afterlife, it’s hard to not get carried away!

What I love most about this book, is that I read it so quickly. In fact, I read it. The last couple of books I’ve picked up, I’ve not completed. They’ve not held me. I am ecstatic that Cold Bath Street caught me up in its mystery, pulled me along with the action and made me care about the characters. It’s given me back my faith. For that, it’s got to be 5 stars. *****[image error]

Life’s a Roller Coaster

Just reminding myself of this right now. One minute, so happy, exhilarated, flying. The next, crashing down.

Rollercoasters that take you high, up, up, up and then down, stomach churningly and then up again are far better than merry-go-rounds that just go round and around and around, aren’t they?[image error]

Repetitive Strain Injury

I have a thing about photo books. I order them from photobox as a credit when they are on special offer. Two weeks ago there was a special offer and I had to make it in the fortnight. The problem is, I spent all day Sunday editing my photos online, uploading them to the photobox site – a pretty slow business at times. I found I had to do it in fairly small numbers or it freezes or takes forever. This will be my winter book – amazed at how many snowy pictures there were.

Anyway, I digress. With all the clicking and clicking and tapping my right index finger on the mouse, I woke on Monday with a very painful left shoulder blade that sent nerve aches up into my head. And it is stiff. I look like a robot when I turn to speak to anyone! Not a pretty sight. And nor is my face, frowning even when I’m not moving.

Last night and this morning, I’ve rubbed heat treatment super hot gel on it and wow – on fire. Think I put a bit too much on at first but it certainly numbed my shoulder. Thanks Noel, very kind hubby.

Trying not to work too much on the computer as well, but certain things have to be done. And they are! So off to work in long hand downstairs for a while, well away from the keyboard. Might make a cuppa first …[image error]

Letting go

Can you try too hard? Yesterday, I could feel myself getting wound up. Who should I contact? Where will be best to reach out to? This is all book related. It’s all book related at the moment! Only one reviewer has reviewed Jiddy Vardy on Goodreads. It’s a great review, but what if it’s the only one?

What if no-one else reviews it, not one journal, magazine, paper thinks it’s worth talking about? What if?What if? Don’t be stupid, Ruth, people have reviewed it and you should be grateful. I am, I am! But I want more!

This was time to tell myself to let go. Let go. It’s all going to plan. Don’t panic. Long exhale. I’m struggling with that factor. Letting go, I mean. I’ll just have one more look to see if it’s been read by anyone else on Goodreads, or put on the list. A few words said about Jiddy Vardy.

I write a review on Goodreads. Breathe. Go do something else. It’s not as if you’ve nothing else to do.

But I’ve been told this is the CRUCIAL time. The months and weeks before a book is launched are the most important. It’s too late afterwards, an uphill struggle. Impossible. Who is going to read it if they don’t know about it?

So, my brain is busy. My eyes are alert. My little heart is knocking my rib cage to tell me to slow down.

It’s not helping. I have to step back and leave it to the marketing people and give reviewers time to read Jiddy Vardy and to think and then write their words. People need time to respond. People are doing things for me. Be grateful. Stop nudging and jolting.

Breathe. If things are going to happen, they will happen. Wheels are in motion and I must trust. Give it space.

Breathe.

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the truth about lies by Tracy Darnton

I think I picked up this review copy of the truth about lies by Tracy Darnton at the UCLAN YA Literature Festival a few weeks ago.

It strikes me how many YA books are in the first person. I understand why – we get inside the protagonist’s head, we feel closer. It is immediate.

And it works. Jess is the main character. Since the age of eleven, she remembers everything. I mean everything. Not only facts, but smells, sounds, how events make her feel. It is not just a memory, it is re-living. She files everything away in bookshelves in rooms in her head. It is how she can cope with having so much in her brain. She has secrets too and they are unravelling.

If this wasn’t written in the first person, I wonder if we would like Jess or rather feel empathy for her. She is sharp, witty, damaged and flawed. Great in a main character!

The story is set in a school in the wilds of Dartmoor, with a small group of fellow students to get to know and hold at arm’s length. There is love interest in the form of Dan but also suspicion because Jess is suspicious of everyone. Back to the secrets!

As the book is so much about memory, each chapter begins with a different quote on the subject. I like this. It grounds the book and make you feel you are learning about the subject matter. The memory testing that Jess has gone through becomes scientific and takes us into the lab.

It is also a thriller, moving at exactly the right pace. Information is fed slowly as the net around Jess inches in, and figures from the past become an ever greater threat.

The question is posed that can memory be manipulated. We all know it can but Jess has the perfect memory. Or does she?

The ending? See what you think. And I’d be interested to know how many readers prefer YA in the first person.

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Evelyn Finds Herself — the first YA novel?

Interesting about the first YA novels. And forgotten novels as well.

Thanks to sheenawriter68 for this.

AUTHOR ALLSORTS

I know you probably haven’t heard of it. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a classic.

my own two precious copies  — 1930s OUP reprint, and GGB 2006 

Evelyn Finds Herself might sound like some kind of hippy-dippy Californian memoir from the late 1960s, but it’s not. In fact it’s a 1929 school story, published by the Oxford University Press, by the author Josephine Elder, who also wrote adult fiction. She was a doctor, qualifying at a time when it was difficult and unusual for a woman to do so. I sometimes wish she had written more books, but if she had they might not have been so good.

worth reading for the charm of those cloche hats alone 

And Evelyn is her masterpiece – well-written, thoughtful and original. Evelyn is in the fifth form at the Addington Girls’ High School when we meet her, bright, earnest, popular, successful at…

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Writers reviewing other writer’s books

I’ve asked a few writers I know to review Jiddy Vardy, fully aware what a nightmare question this can be.

But it’s got to be done.

Some, rightly say, no because they are too busy with writing their own books, on tour, work.

Others have said no because they make it a policy not to review a book by someone they know. They might hate it, and wouldn’t that be awkward? Yes, absolutely right to turn it down.

It reminds me of a scene in the film, Midnight in Paris. Wanabee novelist Gil asks Ernest Hemingway to look at his manuscript. Hemingway says ‘NO.’

Two reasons – paraphrasing here – if he loves it, he will hate it because he’s jealous. If it’s badly written, he’ll hate it because he hates bad writing. No, he won’t read it!

No win scenario. But – Hemingway suggests someone else. Someone who isn’t a novelist. Someone with a keen eye and critical faculties.

Now, is that the best way? Isn’t it obvious that non-writers make the best reviewers? Readers and much better critics than other writers, aren’t they? I’m going to go with yes here, for all these reasons and also so that I’m let off the hook.

My reason that I don’t really want to review other writers books, whether I know them or not is because I believe a review should be honest and if there are things I don’t like, this is not going to go well. Writer to writer.

Chicken? Well. Maybe silence speaks volumes. [image error]

Photoshoots

[image error]Over a month ago now, I was part of a photoshoot with ZunTold, the publishing house who is publishing Jiddy Vardy and Kate Wiseman’s Gangster School. Conker Communications of Didsbury are in charge of marketing and they really made me relax because I felt slightly nervous about the videos we’d be making. I actually felt we bonded as a team through the day and that made it really good fun and uplifting.

Chorlton is fabulous for its generosity. My local bookshop, Chorlton Bookshop, were accommodating, generous and supportive and we took photos inside and out! Shots holding books, smiling, not smiling, trying to look riveted in what I was reading, thoughtful, pensive. It was a master class in acting!

And next door, Junipers Coffee Shop were also hospitable. A writer’s creative seat. An office. Meeting place. Added note – their food is delicious!

So, here’s just a few photos as they start to appear on social media. Now that’s something else I want to talk about and ask others what they think and how they find marketing themselves. It’s a full time job if you let it be, isn’t it?

Maps

Jiddy Vardy is set in the small, coastal village of Robin Hood’s Bay. It is a maze of alleyways, snickets, ginnels, cut-throughs, steps and courtyards. Cottages pile higgledy-piggledy up from the harbour, scrambling over the steep slope to the top. Misshapen, surprising and charming. 

When I first visited Baytown, as the old, original part of the settlement is often called, I met people who lived there and who didn’t only descend on their holiday cottage at weekends. Now, the cottages are filled with holiday guests, with less living by the sea, full-time.

But it wasn’t always so attractive to visitors. In the 1700’s it had a land collapse, which took part of the hill and houses with it into the sea. Fishing was the trade. And smuggling.

It was a rough and wild place to live. Smuggling was rife and it wasn’t only the alleyways, snickets and cut-throughs that were used to get about. Contraband traveled from the beach to the top of the Bay using other methods as well. Women may have carried perfumes and brandy in pigskin bags tied on a belt under their skirts, overnight seeming to widen their hips but bigger items needed other means. Bags, sacks and barrels were passed through hidden passageways and holes in the cottage walls, hand to hand and well out of sight of the Preventive soldiers. Higgledy-piggledy, closely built houses had a very good use in the smuggling business!

Maybe that is one of the reasons, Robin Hood’s Bay was such a successful smuggling community. And it also could have had a little to do with the brave, resourceful Jiddy Vardy.

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