Krista

Sunrise – Mike Mullen

The last book in the series, in which super volcano has erupted and society must reform. The series has been constant, dark and scary throughout.

Defy – Sara B. Larsen

A girl who has been in disguise as a boy; one of the prince’s highest guards. To be found out would be death. Warring kingdoms and magic. A lot of fun and humorous read.

Peacemaker – Marianne de Pierres

The future meets the old west. Set in Australia. Magic, mystery and a strong female lead. Very creative and recommended read.

Gated by Amy Christine Parker

A group of people believing the world is coming to an end wall themselves off in a compound and things begin to go wrong within.

Stolen Songbird – Danielle L. Jensen

Trolls! I loved how this story took place underground in tunnels. It was such a massive imaginative creation that I was blown away just trying to imagine the beauty and claustrophobic feelings of this city. Great characters and entertaining read.

Most Anticipated

The Witch Hunter – Virginia Boecker 

“A YA fantasy debut where the magic and suspense of Graceling meets the political intrigue and unrest of Games of Thrones”-publisher Little Brown Books for Young Readers. I love books about witches and this one sounds very suspenseful and fun.

The Heir – Kiera Cass

I am a huge fan of the series and cannot wait for the newest in the series to come out.

The Cage – Megan Shepard

Five teenagers trapped in a HUMAN ZOO!?! Yes please.

Burning Kingdoms – Lauren DeStefano

Another author I am a big fan of and recommend any book by her. This is a sequel to Perfect Ruin. “On the floating city of Internment, you can be anything you dream, unless you approach the edge.” from author’s website.

The Stars Never Rise – Rachel Vincent

Another book by an author I love and will purchase anything she has written. She is an amazing storyteller. This is about soul consuming demons in a town where the number of souls are low.

Joelene

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown – Holly Black

Entire cities blocked off to control world-wide vampiric outbreaks. A girl wakes up to find that all of her friends are dead. Now she has no choice but to enter a Coldtown.

Bitterwood Bible – Angela Slatter

A strange and deadly man wanders the pages of this book of overlapping short stories, destroying anything in his path.

How the Light Gets In – Louise Penny

Almost a cosy mystery but with more political scope and scandal than any I’ve read before.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone – Laini Taylor

Doors that only open from the inside and lead to places that you would never imagine. This novel has immense and mind-blowing imagination in its world-building.

All Our Yesterdays – Cristin Terrill

Would you go back in time to kill the one person you had loved all of your life? If it meant saving the world? A fun time-travel novel that actually deals with some serious ethical issues.

Most Anticipated

I admit I haven’t kept up with books that much this year, and I have a massive TBR pile at home so next year most of the ones I’m looking forward to are already out.

Darkest Part of the Forest – Holly Black

I don’t even know what it’s about. It’s Holly Black and usually that’s enough.

Unmade – Sarah Rees Brennan

The third in the Lynburn Legacy trilogy. Though the second in the series wasn’t amazing, I have great hopes for this one.

Lies of Locke Lamora – Scott Lynch

This is one that I’ve been seeing around for ages as well as having customers recommend it. Hearing that Lynch has Pirate Queens sealed the deal.

The Monogram Murders – Sophie Hannah

I’m a massive Agatha Christie fan so when I heard that Sophie Hannah was writing a new Hercule Poirot, I was sceptical. I really like Hannah’s writing style though and, when I read the blurb, I knew I had to have it.

Dreams of Gods and Monsters – Laini Taylor

The first two were great, so my expectations for the final are high. It helps that Bel enjoyed it so much too.

The Fault in Our Stars

By John Green

(or, reading outside your comfort zone)

Here at Escape Club, each year we write up a wrap of our top five reads. It’s normally something I really enjoy; going back through my bookshelves and lists of reviews, sorting which of the dozens of books read will make my own list. Unfortunately, 2014 was a bit of a dud reading year for me. You know when you just can’t seem to find that book that grabs you? Or you read the first hundred or so pages of one novel, only to be distracted by something else (ooh, shiny!) and not end up completing either of them? Well yeah, that was me this year, with only a couple of exceptions.

And one BIG exception.

I spent a lot of hours on aeroplanes this year when we travelled to the United States from Melbourne. I watched a LOT of movies on those planes – all from my usual genre of choice, which captures my book taste too. Malificent. Godzilla. The latest X Men and Planet of the Apes movies. Movies about time-travelling detectives and a heap of superheroes. Get the picture? I’m a speculative fiction gal, through and through. I don’t like watching or reading about real life, I already live that. I want fantasy and horror, science fiction and action on my entertainment menu.

And then, on the final leg of our trip home from Hawaii, I clicked the button to watch the film adaptation of John Green’s uber-selling novel, ‘The Fault in Our Stars’. I saved it ’til last because a/ not my thing, b/ it would bore me into sleep and quicken the ten hour flight, and c/ not my thing again. I was wrong. I sobbed and laughed out loud and sobbed again. It was mortifyingly embarrassing. I had to cover my face, wiping away the black-mascara tears with Qantas napkins, not able to speak to my family or the aircraft crew. And still, I couldn’t turn it off. As we disembarked at Sydney for our connecting flight to Melbourne, my sister-in-law, Kerrie (who was seated a couple of rows back from me) said: “Omg, can you tell I’ve been crying? I just watched that movie, that Fault in Our Stars”. Yep, her too.

So of course, I had to read the book. Just to you know, see which was better. I needed to know how the author, John Green, had created such beautiful characters in Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters – two teenage cancer patients – to be so witty, so clever and yet never whiny or precocious. I wanted to know if the movie was a fluke or if the book could evoke that sort of emotion from me as well. Of course, like everyone in the Western World, I’d seen The Fault in Our Stars on display in every bookshop and department store for months beforehand. I refused to buy it. Too commercial for my tastes. Too mainstream. Too soppy. Too real-life.

I’ve never, ever been so wrong. And I’m very happy to admit it.

I loved the novel version, knocking it over in two sittings and keeping me up until 2am to finish. The only reason I put it down at any time was to reach for another tissue. I forced my Mum and BFF to read it NOW with the threat of not speaking to them until they had (they did. And loved it too) Of course, I knew what happens, there were no surprises or twists for me – the movie keeps pretty close to the book – but still, Hazel and Gus’s story of love and commitment through all that is thrown at them kept me entranced. And the writing – oh, the writing! John Green the most incredible way of playing with words and tugging at your heartstrings. While the story is told from terminally-ill Hazel’s point of view, we’re not left wondering what might be going on inside the delicious mind of her beloved Gus either. These two characters could easily become boring Mary-Janes (too perfect) but they are so full of faults and imperfections, and in Hazel’s own words: Cancer Perks to be anything of the sort. Against all my preconceived ideas, they completely won me over.

If you’re one of the few people out there yet to read The Fault in Our Stars, or see the movie, sorry, but I won’t be handing out spoilers here. You MUST read it. Or at the very least, SEE it. The film adaption, while of course not quite being as amazing as the book, captures Hazel and Gus so well. Starring Divergent’s Shailene Woodley as Hazel Grace and the kinda quirky Ansel Elgort as Augustus Waters, amongst a slew of well-known actors, John Green’s characters really are brought to life.

So the moral of my story? Well, besides the fact that you must run out right now and jump straight into this very real, very funny and painful world, don’t be scared to read outside your preferred genre. You might surprise yourself, like I did. Go on, be adventurous. If you normally read science fiction, give a bit of crime fiction a go. Fantasy lover? Try some hard core space opera. Horror more your style? Who says you won’t enjoy a little high fantasy. You just never know.

When Parfitt’s, the struggling local soft drink company, decides to sell to a global brand it looks as though Katie’s mother will lose her job and with it the huge rambling house that Katie’s great-grandfather built. The Old Queenslander is the only home that Katie has ever known. All of her friends live in her street and her garden is their local hang-out. Desperate to save her mother’s job, Katie recruits her friends to begin an advertising campaign that will draw Parfitt’s away from its simple roots and into the modern world.

A group of Australian teens making their own company and finding a mystery to solve in the process sounds so delightfully Teen Power Inc. that I had to check Parfizz Pitch out. It lived up to expectations in many ways – and in some ways did not.

Like the members of Teen Power Inc. the group of friends who band together to make the Mosquito Advertising agency are very different to each other and have equally dissimilar backgrounds. Katie is the only child of a single mother. Clementine is the youngest in a large family of intellectuals. Dominic goes to boarding school while his family work overseas. Their differences mean that the group does not always get along and on occasion will misunderstand one another. Though they have strong ties, they sometimes work toward opposing goals or toward the same goal but with different methods.

Unlike Teen Power Inc., Parfizz Pitch does not embrace racial diversity. The only character that is identified as a person of colour is unpleasant from his first appearance, and never redeems himself. And sure, every race has its share of terrible people but that shouldn’t be the only thing that’s depicted.

Hopefully this is something that will be addressed further as the series progresses. Adventure-mysteries for teens don’t come along nearly as often as they should and the Mosquito Advertising series has a different take on it as well as having a strong cast of female characters.

This series has been likened to the Famous Five, and it’s true, but Parfizz Pitch is modern take on the children’s mystery genre. More of a middle-grade read than teen, it perfectly captures the long, balmy days of a Brisbane summer.

The Parfizz Pitch – Kate Hunter

University of Queensland Press (May 31, 2010)

ISBN: 9780702237713

When you have five children at school, the end of the year can be a hectic time. Here’s what Kylie Fox cooked up for her kids to take to their class Xmas parties.  Maybe you can draw some inspiration from her santas’ on sleighs, snowflakes, and ginger bread men. We are in awe!