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Drea is definitely a person.

That might seem like an odd thing to say, but I have felt let down in the past by books with characters who have ADHD/Aspergers/autism. They either fudge the issue by not naming it or treat the character with autism as an issue to be dealt with.

Don't get me wrong, I have got a lot out of those books. But then I am a parent to two children with varying degrees of autistic spectrum disorders and ADHD; I myself have no diagnosis. 

I'm not sure I would want my children to read those books until they are more comfortable in their own skins. Because despite the best of intentions, they "other" them. 

I want them to be able to find books that have a character they can identify with, who's like them: a person whose diagnosis or disability is just a part of who they are. Neither good nor bad. This one fits the bill beautifully. 

 I don't know what I think about this book, only that I was completely caught up in it. 

For a book dealing with the subject of sexual assault, it was surprisingly ... I can't think of the right word ... "calm" is wrong, but the closest I can come up with - My emotions were engaged without ever being overwhelmed; There was a sense of being safely guided through events without ever being protected from them. 

And I loved the way Mikey and Ellie's relationship developed, despite it's Romeo & Juliet overtones. The scene where they escape everything for a day and we see experienced, street-smart Mikey's vulnerability when it comes to Ellie is beautifully done and made me sigh at the memory of that first-love rush, and the feeling of wonder that someone else could feel exactly the same about you as you do about them. Of finding out you are worth something, and more than you dared believe. 

I read this trilogy a while ago now, but it has stayed with me. So I want to share it with you.

This, the first book in the series, made me physically ache with joy, pain, hope and despair. It has the most beautiful, equal relationship at the centre of it between two, well, children really - at least by chronological age. 

The setting is kind of Sci-Fi/Western. The pioneer way-of-life, the fact that these people came together as "settlers" on a new planet, allows for Todd's strange combination of maturity and childishness, practical knowledge and social ignorance. 

In Prentisstown, there are no women, they all died over a decade before the story begins, and "Everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts in an overwhelming, never-ending stream of Noise." Todd's struggles to filter and control the "Noise" - a world of information overload with no escape, no way to filter out or mask the unwanted thoughts and feelings except to try to hide them in plain view by putting out other thoughts to blur the "Noise" you make - made my heart go out to him.

This book found my vulnerabilities and spoke to them. 

Everyone's response to this book will be different. because this is one of those books that tells you as much about yourself as it does about the characters portrayed. Patrick Ness might well become one of my favourite authors because of his ability to do just that.

This is a beautiful story of hope, sacrifice and love. The setting, heroine and elements of "magical realism" all reminded me of Isabel Allende's "Eva Luna" only with fewer individual strands in the story and aimed at a younger audience. 

I enjoyed this, but didn't fall in love with it the way I fell in love with Eva Luna. It pales by comparison, which is both unfortunate and unfair to this book. But I can't unread Eva Luna and I can't help my response to it.

I didn't want to like The Hunger Games. I wanted to be able to maintain an air of sniffy superiority and snobbishness about it. But I have to admit, it drew me in, and I ended up reading and enjoying the whole trilogy.

Its a compelling story, and one which drives you to keep turning the pages, even when- like me- you're a reluctant reader. It really did win me over. However, that's not to say that I found a few major problems with it:

“If you had to relive your life exactly as it was – same successes and failures, same happiness, same miseries, same mixture of comedy and tragedy – would you want to? Was it worth it?” 

How far would you go to help a friend?

Alex is a socially awkward, intelligent teenage protagonist (I have a real soft spot for this type of character) who, aged 10, gets hit on the head with an iron-nickel meteorite the size of an orange, resulting in a memory-robbing coma, epilepsy and sparking an interest in astrophysics and neurology.

The story features a couple of supremely absurd series of events, a slightly dysfunctional yet very supportive mother/son relationship and has at it's heart a friendship between two very different people, who grow to love and respect each other sufficiently to embark on a journey to Zurich which will end with Alex being stopped at customs "...with 113 grams of marijuana, an urn full of ashes on the passenger seat, and an entire nation in uproar..."

There was much I loved about this book, and nothing I hated, but it didn't move me as much as I expected it too. It is, however, a book I would recommend as an entertaining, enjoyable, thoughtful and thought-provoking exploration of friendship, literature, science and assisted suicide.

Jackie

I figured I should get the ball rolling, get the show on the road, and all the other cliches for being first in line, albeit with a review that I've already published on my other blog.

Which Way To The Nearest Wilderness- Tricia Springstubb 1984