Love and sacrifice intertwine in this brilliant and provocative debut of rare beauty about a girl dealing with her mother’s schizophrenia and her own mental illness.

This book crossed my path at an unexpected time in my life. I went into it almost blind, only having skimmed the summary and catching a few of my favourite keywords. What I found was a story that was so powerful it still remains in my thoughts to this day (weeks after I have finished it): a story that I wanted to re-visit and tell others about.

Fig begins her tale at the age of 6 and continues it until she is 19, a year that she is dreading. Her anticipation of that date carries an almost ominous feeling throughout the story. The majority of the narrative is from a younger perspective, and Fig tells it like it is. When her mother becomes mentally ill, she faces being separated from her. Her main focus becomes how to make her mother better again, and how to get the family to return to the days before it all went wrong.

Fig struggles not only with family issues but her adolescence in general. She has never had any close friends, and in her small town she is teased because of her mother. Her father also feels the emptiness in the household and turns to his routine of running the farm and worrying about finances. This leads Fig to spend more time with her grandmother, whom she has never really liked, and her uncle who she admires but who has a tendency to not sit still for too long.

This story was so beautifully written. Being swept into Fig’s world as she tries to figure out how to make things better was a very emotional experience. I don’t usually cry when I read, but this one has me as close as I’ve ever been. There were so many sides to Fig as we see the different way the characters cope living with mental illness. Not only has this book become one of my favourites of the year, but also one of my all-time YA books ever.

Can you tell that it’s a book that I recommend you to read too? I HIGHLY recommend it.

Starting a new school is tough. You have to make sure you fit in and show no weakness. This is what gets Arthur into all of the trouble. All of his life, he has suffered severe asthma. The last thing that he should be doing is running cross-country. Being a new school, his coach thinks he’s making excuses and, being a new school, Arthur doesn’t want to draw attention to himself by protesting too much.

Rather than look stupid in front of his new classmates, Arthur ignores his better judgement and runs.

The ensuing asthma attack is worse than any Arthur has experienced before. While Leaf and Ed, two other students, go for help, two strange men appear. After a baffling argument, they leave Arthur a clock-hand and disappear again.

The clock-hand turns out to be a key and soon Arthur is on the kind of adventure that most people only dream about.

Mister Monday is the first book in a series of seven novels by acclaimed Australian author, Garth Nix. After having finally read this, I’m ashamed to say I’ve never read any of his novels before. While Mister Monday is aimed at a more middle grade audience, the imagination behind it is fantastical enough to appeal to anyone.

The House that Arthur enters with his key is a world that shapes the whole universe. With the minute key Arthur can get into the realm of Mister Monday, a lethargic young man who runs the Lower House. A disorganised Victorian-esque realm drowning in paperwork, Arthur must navigate through the Lower House and take Monday’s hour key from him if there is any hope for Earth. The world of the House itself is enthralling, but the way Nix weaves detail and explanations into the writing without breaking the action completes the story.

The characters, too, are an interesting and motley bunch. From the Will who has one driving purpose and never deviates, to the slothful Mister Monday to Suzy Blue – who isn’t educated but is highly intelligent for all of that.

Mister Monday is a highly imaginative and entertaining novel. The characters and world draw you in and keep you hooked. With a sympathetic protagonist, I’d recommend this to high fantasy and urban fantasy fans alike.

Mister Monday – Garth Nix

Allen & Unwin (July 1, 2003)

ISBN: 9781741142136

The Twice Lost (Lost Voices #3)

Mermaids have been sinking ships and drowning humans for centuries, and now the government is determined to put an end to the mermaid problem—by slaughtering all of them. Luce, a mermaid with exceptionally threatening abilities, becomes their number-one target, hunted as she flees down the coast toward San Francisco.

There she finds hundreds of mermaids living in exile under the docks of the bay. These are the Twice Lost: once-human girls lost first when a trauma turned them into mermaids, and lost a second time when they broke mermaid law and were rejected by their tribes. Luce is stunned when they elect her as their leader. But she won’t be their queen. She’ll be their general. And they will become the Twice Lost Army—because this is war

Characters: This story jumps around from several characters perspectives. Our main focus is still on Luce, as the general who is taking a stance to help prevent any further mermaid deaths. We get the side of the American Government, a secret weapon the government is holding hostage, and the humans that have had connections with the mermaids and are on their side.

Plot: As Luce travels south after witnessing the loss of her old Tribe, she has found other mermaids and humans along the way. Breaking the code of the Timahk more than once, she is now focusing on finding her long lost friend Nausicaa and warning the mermaids of the government killings. When she reaches San Francisco however, she comes across hundreds of misplaced mermaids and decides this is the spot where she will stop and fight.

Originality: This trilogy includes all female mermaids. There is very little made of any ties to current mermaid mythology. However, the mermaids do age more slowly than humans and have the ability to sing to the water to cause magical effects, some dangerous enough to sink ships. The mermaids (Queen’s) are ranked and chosen by how powerfully they can sing (manipulate the water).

Writing: The pacing of the story is pretty slow. The building up and causes of the war, in particular, involves a lot of different characters. Each character’s story has to evolve and grow until the point that the war begins. As the mermaids are aiming for a peaceful ending, they show a lot of restraint but the humans are less honourable.   The villain of this story is a truly horrible, abusive, and manipulative person who oversteps his boundaries.

Krista’s Rating: As this is the final book in the trilogy, I was expecting everything to come to a very fast-paced ending but the writing was slower than I anticipated. Yet even with a lot of down time, this is a series that kept me thinking long after I finished the books; the story still sticks with me.

Read Krista’s review of book one in the trilogy.

I’m just going to be upfront and admit it: I’m a total newbie when it comes to dystopian YA fiction. Fans of the genre are right now wondering what the heck I’ve been doing with my reading hours up until now.

Well, we’ve all got to start somewhere, and I’d say being handed Jane Higgins’ novel Havoc was a pretty good introduction to the rough and tumble of worlds tending towards irreversible oblivion.

I didn’t realise it at first (d’oh, newbie alarm sounding again!) but Havoc is actually Book 2 in the Southside Novels series. Book 1, The Bridge, won the Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing in 2010 so it comes from strong pedigree.

Havoc picks up where The Bridge left off. It’s 2199 and The City remains divided. There might be a ceasefire between the two warring sides (Cityside and Southside), but it’s one that’s barely holding. Then Cityside blows up one of the bridges leaving Southsiders dead and conflict instantly re-ignited. In the bomb’s aftermath, teenagers Nik and Lanya are drawn into the complex web of power, fear and betrayal that’s fueling The City’s fractured war.

I really enjoyed stepping into this vivid futuristic world. In the hands of Nik, who is the only son of the chief spy for Southside’s Brekens, it felt like I was on a crazy, adrenalin pumping adventure full of wrong turns and intrigue…with a few perfectly timed lucky-breaks. Nik’s split loyalties between his new home on Southside and his past in Cityside injects the story with a great dynamic. I was right with this character as he tried to navigate his way around old relationships while following his new sense of purpose as something of a champion for the Breken cause.

The character of Lanya (and the chemistry between her and Nik) is another of the book’s strengths. Lanya is a smart, feisty heroine for readers to invest in. Nik and Lanya’s race to halt the widespread release of Cityside’s biological warfare is pacey and compelling.

There were times when I found the book’s political aspects a little confusing (so many factions with differing motivations) but had I read The Bridge first I’m sure this wouldn’t have been an issue.

Being the dystopian newbie that I am, upon finishing the book I was keen to know what committed readers of the genre had thought of it. As far as I can tell it’s getting a big wrap for not following ‘the usual tropes’ and many praise it for being an ‘intelligent’ read.

My assessment would be that this is a well-paced adventure into a world cleverly imagined.

Echo is the story of two lovers who are under a curse (the story will bear this out). One of them always loses the other, tragically. But the two of them learn to beat the curse: whenever one dies, the other time travels to the lost lover’s next (or past) reincarnation. The novel spans over a thousand years, to several different times and places; and it clearly illustrates the risks one will take, the lengths one will go, and the sacrifices one will make for true love.

The keywords that caught my attention with this book were curse, soul mates, and the story spanning over thousands of years. There were so many possibilities for how the story might develop.

The story starts out in the 460’s A.D., and Karissa has just appeared in Gaul on a mission to find her lost mate. We learn some historical background about what was happening at the time and in that area of the world. I really enjoy reading historical books and was getting my hopes up that this was leading to a very detailed and well-researched story with a mystery and romance at the core.

Unfortunately, I did not end up loving the book as much as I was hoping mainly due to the characters. Karissa didn’t seem to fit in this ancient world. What I mean is that she was very much a 21st century girl living in an ancient time and the two just did not mesh well. People were too patient with her inappropriate behaviour.

POV’s switched between Karissa and Adregin, and their names changed throughout the book as did the settings (time periods). However, I wanted information than I got ; for example, I never completely understood how the languages came so easily to them, or how they maintained their memories.

I believe that Echo would have benefited from pruning in some areas and expansion in others, but there were lots encouraging things about it, and some readers will find interest in the bigger picture ideas of reincarnation and the looping of the curse.

***For older readers