"I'll Take Australia YA Novels for 300, Please"

From our guest blogger, Yvette:

                Having read all of Melina Marchetta’s wonderfully engaging work, I went in search of more young adult novels set in Australia. As readers, we all have our quirks, and I am always on the lookout for books with a vivid setting. While not as important to my reading experience as good writing and believable characters, a setting which I can picture in my head as I read really does add to the interest of a novel. As it turns out, YA novels from Down Under feature the same themes of coming into your own, making friends, rebelling against parents, finding love and having fun, not necessarily in that order. But what sets the best ones apart are a strong sense of place and liberal application of Aussie slang.

Here are three recently published novels that fit this category:

Zac and Mia by A.J. Betts

                Two teenagers in the cancer ward of Perth hospital first communicate by knocking on the wall between them, then by Facebook messenger. But before you can say “The Fault in Our Southern Hemisphere Stars”, the scene shifts to an olive farm in rural Western Australia. Zac, leukemia patient from room 1, is back at home after a grueling bone marrow transplant, using golf clubs to smack away roo poo, clearing the paths before the arrival of paying weekend visitors. In addition to olive oil tastings and an alpaca petting zoo, the farm has sheep and emus. A fox hides in the woods, waiting. When Mia, leg tumor patient from room 2, arrives at the farm a few weeks later on crutches, she is a broken, angry, runaway. While the plot has some twists, the end is predictable. However, the characters are strong and well drawn and the author does not shy away from their pain and fear. Watching a sunset, Mia thinks, “I know these colors well. Puckered pinks and flaming reds, hot and soft to the touch. Scarlet smearing the horizon. A symphony of infection and pain” (p. 200). Hospitals are the same the world over, but the scenes on the farm help set this book apart from other cancer dramas.

               

Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo

                This is not one of those books where the teenagers overcome obstacles and find happiness together. This is a book in which the statistical probability of young love lasting is zero from the very beginning. It simply won’t work. We know it. The title has the word “perishable” in it. The characters themselves know their relationship won’t work. There, I gave away the ending. But don’t worry about spoilers. This book is as fresh and as funny as they come, and the many pleasures of reading it are in watching the very real characters struggle, learn, communicate, and grow.

                Chris is 21. He attends classes at uni, likes to party, is recovering from the departure of a serious girlfriend. He lives at home, and works at Coles, a grocery store. He calls it the “Land of Dreams”. His is warm and engaging and always seems to twinkle. He can get away with saying “whillikers!” Here is Amelia on Chris:

                Each conversation with Chris seemed to prompt an exhausted mix of excitement and forehead slapping embarrassment at my inability to keep up with the references and in-jokes…. I wasn’t used to talking to boys at all, let along grown-up ones with university essays to write and incredible charisma. So, so far out of my depth (p.11).

Amelia is 15. She is literate, passionate about feminism as she defines it and lives at home with her baby sister, overworked mother and often absent theater-director father. Here is Chris on Amelia:

                She demonstrates an advanced-level single-eyebrow raise. She’s amusing – all frizzy-haired and fiery. I suspect she can, like, construct sentences and read books. Here’s hoping she will go a little way toward Amelia-rating the vacuousness of her chain-smoking fifteen-year-old cohorts….She hasn’t developed the ability to see past her own nose yet – takes everything seriously. Oh, adolescence, how much I don’t miss you (p. 42).

 Oh, and she is madly in love with Chris.                

                Chris calls Amelia “The Youngster” and is her staff trainer at Coles. They engage in witty banter. He explains the end of “Great Expectations” and lets her know about the alternate ending, the one in which Pip and Estella don’t get together. They agree this is a much better ending. (Alert readers will highlight this one, and write foreshadowing in the margin.) They write long letters back and forth. They share a pizza. Things look promising. Then, at a party, he kisses her. She says “I love you”. He calls the next day to apologize for his rude drunken behavior. In the end, both characters learn that you don’t always get what you want. Sometimes you get something better.

Girl Defective by Simmone Howell

                This got me right from the cover, which you really have to see. The title is a word play on both the detective plot line and teen angst. Of the three books reviewed here, this was my favorite by far, with its great set of characters, vivid setting and incredible writing.  

                Skylark Martin is 15, curious, trying to figure out who she is. She lives with her brother Gully (short for Seagull; her mother liked birds) who has “social difficulties”; in this case meaning he constantly wears a pig snout mask. Their mother has run off to “find herself” and be a performance artist; their father is addicted to beer and records and runs the vinyl shop over which they live. Enter “tragi-hot” Luke and the story of “just-plain tragic” Mia (a very different Mia from the cancer patient character) who drowned before the story opens. There is Nancy the older, not-very-good-influence friend. As Sky notes, “Before Nancy, I never smoked or drank; what I knew about sex, you could ice on a cupcake” (p. 12).

                St. Kilda’s, where the book is set, features almost as another character. It is a real place, not far from the center of Melbourne, but with a very different in feel. St. Kilda’s is a seaside playground, with beaches, palm-lined boardwalk and Luna Park. Built in 1912, it still features the Laughing Face entrance (you walk through the open mouth) and classic wooden roller coasters. The heat from the beach and the crowds in the amusement park are described in this book in such a way that you really feel present. As an entertainment district St. Kilda’s has its seamier underbelly, but “the red light district was not the wilderness of discarded condoms and push-up bras I’d imagines. Instead it looked positively family. Old workers’ terraces nestled against modern townhouses. I saw prayer flags, droopy camellias, kids’ bikes” (p. 125). Sky and Gully are on their way to interview “prossies” as part of the investigation about the brick chucked through the window of the record shop. Aussie slang is all about diminutives, as the word Aussie itself suggest, featuring words like “sunnies” (sunglasses) and “toasties” (for breakfast). Although the story wraps up, if feels as if Simmone Howell is not done with these characters. But that could be wishful thinking on my part, because I would love to hear much more about this bunch.

                As Nancy would say, “Your turn”. What other YA books have you read, set in other countries? Did the setting help enhance the story, or was it a distraction from the plot. Let us know!

Other titles that fit this list which I have not yet read:

Does My Head Look Big in This by Randa Abdel-Fattah

The Sweet, Terrible, Glorious Year I Truly, Completely Lost It by Lisa Shanahan

A Little Wanting Song by Cath Crowley

Audio Books

How do you read? Do you prefer reading with your eyes or your ears?

I like print. I like going at my own pace, noise from the rest of the world doesn't affect me, and I can see how names are spelled (which helps me remember them). I do listen to books, but I've taken to noting in my reading log which books were listened to because I'm never sure how much of what I enjoyed (or didn't) was because of the format.

I have started using audio books strategically because apparently I'll listen to anything. (Yes, I am one of those people who listen to public radio pledge drives.) I find I can persevere with listening in a way that I can't with sight reading. For example, for years Middlemarch had been on my to-read list. I had read and loved George Eliot's Silas Marner as a teen so I knew I liked her writing. Her epic story of a small English community with an independent woman as its central character seems like it would be right up my alley, but I tried two or three times and never got past book one. "What? You immerse me in Dorothea's story and then Lydgate? Fred and Mary? Who are these people? Where's Dorothea?"

When The Toast suggested a Middlemarch book club last year, I was determined to participate, and the audio book on CD got me over my reluctance, all the way to the realization that the book is called Middlemarch, and not Dorothea, for a reason. At some point I became impatient, grabbed a print copy and just finished it, but truly, I wouldn't have gotten there without the engagement that first came by listening.

And so, audio books are my go-to for non-fiction that I want, or need, to read. It's how I read the fascinating story of Henrietta Lacks and Norman Maclean's analysis of the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire. The Worst Hard Time informed my understanding of my parents' Kansas childhoods and Hawaii's history gained new poignancy for me through Sarah Vowell's distinctive voice.

Sometimes I'll tire of the pledge drive, grab a novel on CD off the library shelf to get me through, and a brilliant narrator will bring a story to life in a way that can't compare to the voice in my head. Neil Gaiman reads his own Graveyard Book and Alan Bennett his Uncommon Reader. They are masterful! Stephen Briggs knocks Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett out of the park. Currently Lisa is listening to The Book Thief and reveling in the reader's rendition, to the point that, though she's engaged enough to want to switch to reading print (it's faster), she can't, because she'd miss out on his narration.

Isn't it great that we have all these options? CDs, books, digital. What and why do you choose what you do?

Book Club Suggestions

I was chatting with a parent volunteer today, helping her find some new books to read-aloud with her 3rd grader, and admitted that I love to tell people what to read, but totally dislike being told myself. It's why I can't be in a book club. 

Sure doesn't stop me from telling YOU what YOUR book club should read next, though!

Here are some books I've read that I would have loved discussing when I finished them:

Unless, by Carol Shields

Reta Winters -- contented mother, wife, writer, translator -- finds herself thrown for a loop when her daughter drops out of college to beg on a Toronto street corner with a sign reading "goodness." I think it's because Reta and I must be close to the same age and when I first read the book, my children were about the age as hers in the novel, but I cannot get enough of this book. I've purchased other Carol Shields books, but I haven't read them yet. I'm just not done with Unless. The structure, the mix of tragedy and comedy, the language -- there is so much in this slim volume.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
An unusual selection from me as I don't read a lot of non-fiction, but I'm trying to be inclusive here. This was on all the best seller lists a couple years ago. Did you read it then? Do you know the story? Henrietta Lacks was a black woman in Baltimore who developed cervical cancer. A researcher trying to grow human cells for research took a sample of hers and they grew unlike any collected before. Okay, interesting questions of patient rights arise, but it doesn't stop there. Her story intersects with the polio vaccine and the Tuskegee Institute, among other mid-century focal points. Skloot did a great job of representing all the voices in this fascinating, and controversial, history.

Gemini, by Carol Cassella
Another medicine-based story, this is a well-written novel by a local doctor/writer. I loved all the main characters, even as they infuriated me. The writing and language are good. The plot twists are surprising, yet realistic. Two different stories unfold in alternating chapters -- a contemporary drama and a kids' friendship about 20 years earlier. It makes for a good structure for the story arc as a whole.

The Spare Room, by Helen Garner
This novel from Down Under gives you a medical drama without the financial concerns. I know, right? That's not something you get with American novels. Narrator Helen offers an old friend a place to stay while she is in treatment for stage 4 cancer. It turns out that Nicola is in total denial and her specialist is a quack. Fascinating, funny, horrifying, the reader reels from the disconnect of seeing Nicola in her self-absorbed dysfunctional state while hearing what a wonderful, generous, creative friend she was. We only get glimpses of the true Nicola -- she has been possessed by a desperation so fierce that she is lost to her friends and to herself.

An Untamed State, by Roxane Gay
"Once upon a time, in a far-off land, I was kidnapped by a gang of fearless yet terrified young men with so much impossible hope beating inside their bodies it burned their very skin and strengthened their will right through their bones." So begins Mireille's story of imprisonment, torture, surrender, betrayal, and the nearly impossible climb back to life. It's a hard read, but Gay is a generous author; she gives us hope and love and prose so beautiful you will weep. 

Middlemarch, by George Eliot
Is your group in the mood for a classic? This fits the bill, plus gives you passion, feminism, hypocrisy, greed, vanity, love, snark and glorious writing. It's oh so meaty and many, many writers owe Eliot their careers.

I'd love to hear what you think of this list! What's on yours?