'One' book with the heart of two: 'One' book review

'One' by Sarah Crossan

Review by Christopher Moore

 

Summary:

Grace and Tippi are twins - conjoined twins. And their lives are about to change. No longer able to afford homeschooling, they must venture into the world - a world of stares, sneers and cruelty. Will they find more than that at school? Can they find real friends? And what about love? But what neither Grace or Tippi realises is that a heart-wrenching decision lies ahead. A decision that could tear them apart. One that will change their lives even more than they ever imagined...From Carnegie Medal shortlisted author Sarah Crossan, this moving and beautifully crafted novel about identity, sisterhood and love ultimately asks one question: what does it mean to want and have a soulmate? Winner of The CILIP Carnegie Medal in 2016.

 

 

Review:

The first book I ever read by Sarah Crossan was Apple and Rain. Apple and Rain stuck to me like glue so I knew One was a winner from the start. I love that it’s written in verse; firstly, because it is beautiful and the poetic nature adds layers of meaning to the little complexities of Tippi’s and Grace’s stories and secondly, because this style and the white space makes it easier for those with reading difficulties to enjoy.

It’s hard to say what my favourite part of this book was. Let’s start with the cover and remark on how beautiful the new jacket is. Tippi and Grace – there’s too much to say. They are beautiful human beings. The meaning behind their names, their passion and support for each other is emotional in small gestures and in key scenes, heart-shattering.

My favourite character though, is probably Dragon. I love how she supports her sisters. She never complains that their parents’ attention is focused on them. She doesn’t protest when she is denied the opportunity to travel to Russia and dance. The scene where she helps Tippi and Grace climb a tree was probably one of my favourites. I won’t say anymore because I don’t want to spoil the story for anyone.

Crossan infuses other issues into the story to create a multi-faceted narrative that ticks all my boxes and ones I never even knew existed. Alcoholism, financial constraint, family, friendship, love; One has it all but none of this overshadows Tippi’s and Grace’s incredible bond. The panoramic scenes are as short as a few words and as long as six pages but this episodic scenes knit together to create the seamless, over-arching story. I don’t know how to sum up how I feel articulately because One has left me feeling rather emotional, grasping at oxygen atoms like they might somehow lend me the words I need to describe what is a story that draws tears, induces laughter and brings an eye-crinkling smile that touches your eyes.

Sarah Crossan’s One is sadder than:

• Titanic
• My Dog Skip (this movie devastated me as a child)
• Marley & Me (beginning to see a trend?)
• Stay by the Shakespeare Sisters
• Paris Hilton’s attempts at a pop career

 

But it was like: 

• Your first kiss that fizzles through your body and sends hundreds of fireworks firing off in your head
• That rush of adrenaline you get right before a big race
• The feeling you get when someone smiles at you and it makes you smile from the inside out
• The feeling you get when you see tragedy on the news and while you send out prayers into the universe, it brings your family closer together, making you cherish every hug, kiss breath and step.

  

Nothing I ever say about One will ever do it justice. It’s refreshing and poignant and it touched my heart in ways I never thought possible. It very nearly brought me to tears but it made me want to reach into the book and hold Tippi and Grace so tight that I’d never let them go. It made me laugh and opened up the corners of my world to be a little kinder, a little gentler and to never be afraid to love and live who and how I want.

 

I can't do a giveaway for this book because between these pages is a story and each word is perfectly placed and that placement and the sheer weight of those words creates what can only be described as perfection. It would have been a grave injustice if Sarah Crossan didn't win the Carnegie Medal 2016. Congratulations, Sarah!

Rating: 5/5 Stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

 

Christopher Moore:

  

Christopher is a co-founder of the YAfictionados blog and is best known as the YAblooker. He is a twenty-five year old book blogger who has previously worked in marketing and consumer insight for various publishing houses and writes in his spare time. He loves to travel and will read anything YA-related and some general fiction and fantasy.

'The Bombs That Brought Us Together' Review

'The Bombs That Brought us Together' by Brian Conaghan
Review by Christopher Moore

 

Summary:

Fourteen-year-old Charlie Law has lived in Little Town, on the border with Old Country, all his life. He knows the rules: no going out after dark; no drinking; no litter; no fighting. You don't want to get on the wrong side of the people who run Little Town. When he meets Pavel Duda, a refugee from Old Country, the rules start to get broken. Then the bombs come, and the soldiers from Old Country, and Little Town changes for ever.

Sometimes, to keep the people you love safe, you have to do bad things. As Little Town's rules crumble, Charlie is sucked into a dangerous game. There's a gun, and a bad man, and his closest friend, and his dearest enemy. Charlie Law wants to keep everyone happy, even if it kills him. And maybe it will ...

 

Perfect for readers of Patrick Ness, John Boyne and Malorie Blackman.
 

 

Review:

The Bombs That Brought Us Together is an incredible story that chronicles the tensions between Old Country and Little Town but more closely, the relationship between Charlie and Pav. At its core, it's a story of friendship but it explores politics, prejudice, oppression, survival and war from a child's perspective. Conaghan's sophomore novel is a powerful story and one of my favourite books of 2016.

The story starts out with Charlie wanting to teach Pav to speak in Little Town lingo as his accent marks him out as different; as a deserter. He and his family move onto Charlie's street. Charlie wants to get some chairs and a table, leading him to the Big Man, a man who pulls a lot of the strings in Little Town and despises Old Country. He helps Charlie but at a price and it's this that really gets the story rolling and pin-balls it to a nail-biting conclusion.

Charlie and Pav's friendship is beautiful and we get flashes of humour mixed in with the bleak circumstances that the citizens of Little Town find themselves in. There's a few twists thrown in to heighten the suspense and really pull you into Little Town. I think it will be a story that will divide readers; those that like it will absolutely LOVE it. Whether it's for you or not, everyone must surely agree that this a story that's beautifully told with characters that feel real and a fictional world, created with such fine details, and echoes ours closely. It's a story that will make you laugh, smile, bite your nails to stubs and maybe even make you cry (and that cover!). This book will make you feel. Prepare yourself.

The Bombs That Brought Us Together is a powerful read that hits quite close to home with current issues and makes themes like survival, politics and war accessible to a younger audience. Undoubtedly, it's a novel that's destined for the Carnegie Medal shortlist 2017.

Rating: 5/5 Stars  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

 

Christopher Moore:

  

Christopher is a co-founder of the YAfictionados blog and is best known as the YAblooker. He is a twenty-five year old book blogger who has previously worked in marketing and consumer insight for various publishing houses and writes in his spare time. He loves to travel and will read anything YA-related and some general fiction and fantasy.
 

I'm So Starstruck: 'Star Struck' Review

'Star Struck' by Jenny MacLachlan
Review by Christopher Moore

Summary:

Following on from Flirty Dancing, Love Bomb and Sunkissed, Jenny McLachlan's next book is perfect for fans of Geek Girl and Louise Rennison.

A spotlight shines down on the two of us and everyone drifts into the shadows...Pearl is destined to be the star of this year's school musical. Being the lead is all she wants - especially as it means kissing super-hot Jake Flower.

Then a new girl walks into the audition...Hoshi can sing, she's an amazing dancer and she's seriously cute. Before Pearl knows it, she's stolen her part, her friends and Jake's attention! But this girl doesn't know who she's messing with. Pearl's used to battling every day and she's not going down without a fight. Sparks are going to fly!
 

Review:

Star Struck is the last in the Ladybirds series. I should probably point out now that I haven’t read the others but that didn’t take away from my reading enjoyment.

If I’m being honest, I thought that Pearl was an absolute cow. She came across as a complete rhymes-with-witch but I get it. MacLachan crafts her characters on two levels; their characteristics and outer appearance and their internalised problems like Pearl's home life where we get to see her softer, more vulnerable side. So yes, on the outside, Pearl isn’t a very nice person but when we get a 360 view of her life, we begin to understand the complexities that drive her and make her act the way she does.

Domestic abuse haunts her home life. Pearl has to lock her bedroom door to prevent her brother from invading her personal space and finding new ways to torture her. There were parts where I was actually scared for Pearl; where I experienced her panic and fear as if there were some sort of fictional-real-world, psychic link tethering us together.

I don’t think the book covers do justice to the stories. When I picked it up, I wanted to put it down again because the cover gave the impression that this was going to be a girly, all-frills kind of book when it’s more than that. It’s a book that touches on some really strong issues like abuse and there's a nice surprise towards the end. Pearl, as the narrator, is funny and cruel but she demands your attention and makes you want to read her story.

Is this the best book I’ve ever read? No. Is this a book I’d recommend? Certainly. It’s an ideal beach read. The only drawback for me was the way the abuse was handled; I don’t feel like there was any sense of resolution and for younger readers, that’s a bit dangerous, hence why I knocked off a star.

Rating: 4/5 Stars  ★ ★ ★ ★

 

Christopher Moore:

  

Christopher is a co-founder of the YAfictionados blog and is best known as the YAblooker. He is a twenty-five year old book blogger who has previously worked in marketing and consumer insight for various publishing houses and writes in his spare time. He loves to travel and will read anything YA-related and some general fiction and fantasy.

Author Interview: Melinda Salisbury

Melinda Salisbury is the debut author of The Sin Eater’s Daughter, the first in a new YA trilogy. She lives by the sea, in England, and saw The Grand Budapest Hotel (great film!) ELEVEN times at the cinema.


Follow Melinda on Twitter: @AHintofMystery

Buy 'The Sin Eater's Daughter':

-  Amazon
-  Foyles
-  Waterstones

 

 

 

 

The interview

Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us.


1. For those that haven’t read The Sin Eater’s Daughter, can you sum it up in 140 characters?

Executioner of traitors. Embodiment of a Goddess. Betrothed of a Prince. Puppet of mad queen. Take away her duty and who is Twylla?

 
2. Were there any books, in particular, that influenced or shaped the story? 

Originally I’d planned it as a re-telling of Little Red Riding Hood, but instead of a young woman navigating a forest, she’d have to move through castle politics, where the wolves were the people around her. That motif was largely lost, as the story grew, though it still has a very fairy-tale theme to it, which I like, as I have such a love for the traditional fairy-tales – the darker the better. The Pied Piper of Hamelin and Sleeping Beauty all play a massive part in building the foundations of the world, though both have been distorted to suit my needs.


3. What made you want to write this story and in particular, why the fantasy genre and (young adult) audience?

When I was a little, almost all of my games involved very elaborate world building. At my Nana’s house I’d play with the decorative glass stones she’d bought for her garden, organising them by colour into factions; red for the royals, yellow for servants, blue for the armies, and green for villains. I’d play out childish versions of love affairs between princes and witches, and queens and jesters. I was the same with normal toys, preferring ones with lots of characters, where I could spin the game out for days, if not weeks, until it became a self-supporting world of its own.
 
The same thing happened with The Sin Eater’s Daughter – I never consciously chose to write it, it just developed out of the materials in my head – a love of poison, and medieval history, and darkness, and fairy tales. Fantasy has always been my favourite genre, because I find it difficult to be entertained by ‘reality’. I don’t like to read or watch things that I could be doing myself – soap operas and any kind of reality based television has no appeal to me, because I feel almost wasteful watching people live a life that is very similar to mine, or doing things I could be doing. I tend to want something different – like Vikings, or The Musketeers, for entertainment. I want to experience lives that are vastly different from mine and fantasy offers me a way to do that.

As for why YA, because quite simply it’s what I prefer to read. YA novels, regardless of genre, are always breaking new ground and pushing boundaries in ways that challenge the reader without alienating them. They are stories filled with people figuring out who they are and how they fit in, and I think deep down that’s how most people feel all the time. I’ve technically been an adult for a while now, but I still feel as though I’m on a learning curve and YA is a great reminder I’m not alone in that. I’m writing what I feel I know. And what I love.


4. Where did the idea for Twylla’s story come from? How did you go about creating the mythological framework for the story?

It started with a small, idle idea in the shower and grew from there. I was singing away to myself and suddenly wondered what it would be like if I had to sing for a king, was taken from my home to do it, and my family’s lives would be at stake if I didn’t? What if I’d originally seen this as an escape, only to find it was even worse? What if my whole life was designed around me and I had no choice in it? The plot grew from there. I knew there would be a queen and she would be a bad person. I knew my heroine would be forced to choose between love and duty, and I knew that every single character – even the good ones – had an agenda.

I also knew religion would be a huge part of it, because it’s the cornerstone of every world, including ours. It determine a lot of the laws, and rules, and behaviours of a people and so I spent a lot of time developing those and making sure they were both ‘realistic’ and solid. Civilisations have risen and crumbled in the names of gods. Countries have been invaded; populations decimated – all in the name of gods. For any world to be fully realised, whether we like or not, it needs some kind of higher power, a rallying or rebellion point for its people.   

And because kings and queens are traditionally the gods’ representatives on earth, regardless of century, country or people, Gods and kings (or queens) are inextricably linked. Therefore if I was having a royal family, I needed gods, and vice versa.

So I created my gods; the female, Næht – death, darkness, temptation, and her counterpart Dæg - life, light and strength. I can’t say, without revealing part of the plot of the next book, why there are dual gods, and how they came to be worshipped in Lormere, but that mythology exists, and will come to the fore.

As for fairy tales and mythology, I’ve always believed those are the tools we use to make sense of the world around us – the monster in the woods, the wicked witch. It’s how we learn, and teach. Again, as with religion, a fully-developed world needs its own folklore.


5. Twylla: where did her name come from and how did you build her identity?

Twylla was the name that came to me when I imagined her! It was never a choice; I’d never heard it consciously before, but I must have picked it up from somewhere. I just knew that was her name, and I never questioned it. I later found out though that ‘Twyla’ is the Cherokee word for ‘twilight’ and loved how that fitted with her being Daunen Embodied (Daunen is Old English for dawn) and Naeht and Daeg (Old English for day and night). It felt right, somehow.

I built her identity out of my own experiences at her age! I had tremendously strict parents, my weekend curfew at age seventeen was 11pm, I wasn’t allowed a key for the house and was rarely allowed to remain in the house unsupervised, (I would often spend the day at the library if it was raining, or in the woods if it was sunny, taking food and books with me). I was very, very rarely allowed to sleep away from home, I had to fight tooth and nail for almost every freedom and it really isolated me from my peers, who were experimenting with boys and girls and drinking and basically being “normal” teens.
 
I lived a double life at home and at school, keeping so much of who I was a secret from everyone in my life. And I also had a very strained relationship with my family. So it wasn’t at all hard for me to put myself in the shoes of a seventeen year old who is disconnected from the world around her, and who has little love and support in her life. I was better off than Twylla in many ways, but there’s a lot of me at seventeen in her. All her naivety, and her fear of questioning the status quo comes directly from my experiences and my fears. So I built her around that – at her core is a confused, frightened and lonely young woman who doesn’t know who she is or what she should do.


6. What was the most difficult part to write?

I didn’t find any of it difficult! I don’t know whether it was because I didn’t feel under any pressure when writing it, but the words just flowed, I didn’t get at all stuck during the first draft. At times it was almost as though I wasn’t in control of the story at all, it happened without any planning, or real thought – it just happened. Of course, the first draft was kind of a hot mess because of that, but there was a lot of stuff in there that made it to the final version. 


7. The ending to The Sin Eater’s Daughter is a definite nail-biter. What can we expect from the next book?

I can tell you that it’s set in Tregellan, and is based around a new character, and their life and the challenges they face in the aftermath of The Sin Eater’s Daughter. There is more danger, more treachery, and more death; we’ve said goodbye to some characters and we’ll say hello to some other new ones. It’s always been an uncertain world, and it continues to be so. What happened in The Sin Eater’s Daughter set off a chain of events that reaches far across the realm, and things are changing for everyone. 


8. How did you find the writing-to-publication process? 

Surprisingly pleasant! I went down the traditional route of finding an agent, working with her, and then submitting to publishing houses when we thought it was ready. Thanks to her expertise the whole thing was very smooth, and easy to participate in. 

I found my agent because I submitted a different book to her, but whilst I’d been looking for an agent I’d begun to write The Sin Eater’s Daughter as way of keeping myself occupied. My agent came back to me after reading the full MS of the original book to say she loved my writing, but the story wasn’t anything new or exciting, and then she asked if I had anything else. By coincidence, I’d finished the very first draft of The Sin Eater’s Daughter the day before, so I told her about it, but warned it was unedited. She read it anyway, loved it, though felt it needed some work, and eventually we both got it to a place where she felt she could try and get it onto publisher’s desks. And boy did she! 

I’ve been incredibly fortunate that both my agent and my editors have loved the story as much as I do, and have so much faith in me. I’m very privileged and honoured to work with the team I do; there is a lot of expertise and creativity – but more importantly, a lot of trust and support from them and it makes writing an absolute pleasure.


9. Do you have any unusual or strange habits while writing?

No. I’m really dull! I free write at first, and pretty much just let the characters do what they like! I loosely map the ending, and the beginning, and who the main characters are, and what they are to each other, but in between I give them free reign to do their thing while I build the world around them. I keep a notebook with me all the time in case I have an idea, and I like to get it down on paper, as a starting point, as soon as possible. I love editing, I prefer it to writing. I like making things pretty, the hard work bit at the start is my least favourite.

I am a night-time writer. Between 7pm and midnight is my best time for writing. I tend to start by re-reading the last passage I wrote, and making alterations, which helps ease me back into the story, and then the new writing tends to come between 9pm and 11pm. Then I read back again for a bit. I’ve tried working in the day, but I get distracted by the outdoors very easily, so it’s better for me to work at night, when the light is gone. I like to have a cup of tea going cold beside me, and I can’t write to music, but that’s about it.


10. You’re on Mars (because that’s what authors do, right?) and you realise that you only have 48-hours of oxygen left in your canisters. You reach for your emergency kit filled with five books (apparently, there was a food shortage, you’ve lost communication with Earth and no Kindles!). What five books are they?

The Girl With Glass Feet by Ali Shaw
 
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The Snow Spider by Jenny Nimmo

The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher

 
Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us. We, at YAfictionados, wish you all the best with the book and your writing career.