release date: june 27th, 2011
Mim knows what she wants, and where she wants to go — anywhere but home, stuck in the suburbs with her mother who won't get off the couch, and two brothers in prison. She's set herself rules to live by, but she's starting to break them.
Now Mim has to retrieve a lost package for her mother.
Does this make her a drug runner?
Why is a monster dog called Gargoyle hidden in the back shed?
And Jordan, the boy she sent Valentines to for years, why is he now suddenly a creep?
How come there's a huge gap between her and her best friend, Tahnee?
And who is the mysterious girl next door who moans at night?
Over the nine days before her seventeenth birthday, Mim's life turns upside down. She has problems, and she's determined to solve them herself. But in the end, she works out who her people are, and the same things look entirely different.
gotta say: i liked this one.
it had a lot of 'not quite' elements that made it completely off beat and kinda awesome (which is weird right? that by not being able to pigeonhole it, is what makes it awesome).
it was 'not quite' a drug book. 'not quite' a coming of age book. 'not quite' a poverty book. 'not quite' an alice in wonderland adventure. 'not quite' a love story. 'not quite' a family drama.
and all these 'not quite' elements have it sitting in this awesome 'just a little bit of everything' read. i feel like australian ya has this great ability to produce writers that are 'not quite' and 'just a little bit of everything'. i find myself going to say something like: 'oh this book was X' and then realise no, it's not. not completely. it's always so much more than, and not quite there. kinda makes me really proud to be australian, to be honest.
it was a little bit of grunge and grit and sarcasm... but not too much, ya know. i was afraid, going into it, i'd be getting some 'living dead girl' horror or something. and foremost for me was 'no no no i'm not strong enough'... but people had been saying such wonderful things, so i just gave myself a mental slap and delved in. happily it turned out it was not all horror and darkness (just a little darkness as it turned out).
also: weird coincidence but i was reading this as i was waiting in the emergency room - possible broken ankle, which turned out to be a false alarm (HURRAH!) - and had to laugh. the character totally effed up her ankle like i did; same ankle and everything... okay, not very interesting, but i did look down at my ankle rather ruefully.
5 comments:
LOL @ the weird coincidence thing. that's very cool (well, you know what i mean)
i am curious about all this "not quiteness" about it
i am going to hunt this down so i can join the club with you and tye :)
just to temper the love fest: it's not my favourite book of the year or anything. it's a unique/weird/wacky kinda book.
it starts off a lot darker than it ends up being. and there's a lot of twists and turns, which had an essence of alice in wonderland to it- the i can't believe this is really happening and where the hell did that come from? elements.
still i quite enjoyed it. :)
Love this review Lovely :)
Tye
I've been slacking off on my stalker duties. Shame on me.
Anyhoo, I like books that have a little bit of everything in them. Perhaps we need more Australian YA authors to be imported into the US...'cos frankly, a lot of US YA books are starting to seem like clones of a dead one-trick pony.
thanks tye!
marg: i understand - stalking is an art form that does not put food on the table. why just the other day i had to climb down from my tree outside of melina marchetta's house... a girl's gotta eat, and bark just isn't fine dining, ya know?
it's also like those dead one-trick pony's don't believe in EDITING... *shakes head*
Post a Comment