I’m not sure why, but I had low expectations of this book when I began it. However, I was pleasantly surprised! This debut book by New Zealand author Hugh Brown is a solid first offering. Focused around teenage lad, Will Clark, this book is sensitively told and a deserving winner of the inaugural Tessa Duder Award for Young Adult Fiction.
I recently read that dystopia is the new vampire book and Jack Lasenby’s Calling the Gods is well within this genre. An engaging imagining of an alternative future, this book is the story of teenager, Selene, and the how she survives with a small group of children when her village is destroyed. So far good.
The set up:
No one wanted the job of creating and maintaining Earth, so it was given to Bob, one of the committee member’s no hoper teenage son. Bob shows occasional signs of brilliance, but beyond the 6 days of creation, he’s not really interested in the job of maintaining Earth and its inhabitants. Bob is your typical lethargic teenager with raging hormones and an attitude problem.
It’s 1996 and Josh and Emma encounter the internet for the first time. Emma uses her email and password that she obviously keeps to adulthood because when she logs on she discovers her own Facebook profile – 15 years in the future.
The set up
Here’s the honest truth: I judged a book by its cover. I am into teen fiction with the best of them and I can do a bit of soft sic-fi but I sniggered out loud when I saw the cover of this book. Go on, look and tell me you didn’t do the same. And then I ready the back of Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles) and thought “Right. Well that hasn’t been done before- NOT.” Read the full review »
The Set UpÂ
The premise is this: What would you make of Facebook if you stumbled upon it in 1996 and it told you your future. And that’s what happens to Josh and Emma. Co-written by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler, The Future of Us explores the Facebook phenomenon from 1996. Read the full review »
The set-up:
This is the third book in the Juno of Taris series and this time, Juno has to face old foes in order to get on with her new life in Aotearoa. She also has to deal with a new way of life and come to grips with the different culture of living in Aotearoa. There’s a dash of adventure as well as some heartbreak for Juno. Read the full review »
Apparently my older sister Mallory was perfect. That’s not how I remember her, but it’s what my mother tells me when I’m doing something wrong. My sister certainly looks perfect in all the photos mum has plastered her bedroom with … But I guess it doesn’t matter whether she was perfect or not. It’s impossible to be as good as someone who’s just a memory.
Luke is what you would call my only friend. When we were little kids our favourite game was pirates and that’s when I started calling him ‘Legless, because that’s definitely a pirate name, and he called me ‘Ahoy there, Marty’. Well, he didn’t call me ‘Ahoy there’ but ‘Marty’ with the ‘Ahoy there’ first, get it? Just like pirates, or how we thought pirates would talk. Sometimes he’d say, ‘Ahoy there, Mixed-up Marty!’ Mixed-up Marty, that’s me all right, and Luke is Luke with only one-and-a-half legs. Read the full review »
I first encountered Meg Rosoff when I read her earlier novel “How I live” now, and I was absolutely captivated by her gorgeous prose and the clever handling of language. So, I was expecting great things with her latest novel “There is No Dog”. Alas, I feel a bit let down. Read the full review »
