Blog Tour: Super Awkward, Beth Garrod

Pages: 405

Publisher: Scholastic

Release Date: 1^st September

Edition: UK paperback, review copy

I, Bella Fisher, am absolutely winning at failing at life.

1. I once got my tongue stuck to a box of Calippos in a supermarket.

2. I accidentally called my Geography teacher Mum. Twice. He wasn’t impressed.

3. I’m a geek. And not in a geek-chic kind of way, but in a secretly-caring-about-failing-maths-and-science way.

4. I always fail maths and science.

So it figures that when I meet the fittest boy in the world, Zac, I’m doing solo star jumps. While dressed up as a cereal box…

Now I've got to somehow persuade Zac to come to prom with me – while avoiding my evil ex and dealing with a secret so mega-awks I want to Ctrl-Z my brain.

What could go wrong?

Oh yeah, that’s right. Absolutely everything.

Super Awkward is a brilliantly funny, charming and addictive debut – I thoroughly enjoyed it. Beth Garrod is a great new voice in UKYA.

Bella is a heroine hard not to love and everything about her story feels fresh and authentic. Her phone is the centre of her world, being dragged to a caravan park in Wales is a crime against her and her mum’s hippy attitude is basically the most embarrassing thing to happen to her. She’s very real. I really loved the way she messed around with language – her smushing words together and making up strange acronyms was very reminiscent of Georgia Nicolson for me.

The friendship between Bella, Rachel and Tegan felt like the friendships I knew at 15 (and still have at 24). They bickered and fought and made mistakes, but they were still loyal to each other even when they weren’t speaking. They have moments of real seriousness and real silliness – it was the perfect balance. Bella, Rachel and Tegan have the kind of friendship that I reckon could go the distance and that’s really lovely to see in YA and quite frankly, I’d like to pluck them out of the book and be the fourth person in the group please and thank you.

Don’t forget to check out the rest of the stops on the blog tour!

Thanks to Scholastic for the review copy.

Sophie

Blog Tour: Poppy Pym and the Pharaoh's Curse, Laura Wood

Pages: 310

Publisher: Scholastic

Release Date: 3^rd September 2015

Edition: UK paperback, review copy

Other Titles by this Author: Poppy Pym and the Double Jinx,

Poppy Pym has grown up in the circus, eating candy floss for breakfast and learning about lion taming… until her circus family decide she needs a more traditional education, and they send her to boarding school. At first, Poppy has trouble fitting in at St Smithen’s, a school that is very different from the circus. But when an ancient Egyptian ruby comes to the school and dangerous accidents start occurring, it’s up to Poppy to save her new home and solve the mystery of the Pharaoh’s curse!

I loved Poppy Pym’s first adventure – it's fun, charming and full of mystery.

There’s just something about a middle grade mystery that ticks all of the boxes for me, that’s a real surprise as I’ve never really been one for mysteries. I'm only just reading the original Sherlock Holmes stories and I've never picked up an Agatha Christie! It’s a crime.

But I love everything about this book: Poppy’s circus family, St Smithen’s, the memorable teachers, Poppy’s circus lessons with Ingrid and Kip, Poppy’s struggles acclimatising to non-circus life, and of course, the curse. It’s just a whole lot of fun and I couldn’t read it fast enough. If you’ve fallen in love with Robin Stevens’ Murder Most Unladylike series and need something to fill the gap, Poppy’s got you covered. 

I’m so glad I have Poppy, Ingrid and Kip’s second mystery already sitting on my bookshelf – I can't wait to dive in and head back to St Smithen’s.

Thanks to Faye Rogers PR and Scholastic for the review copy. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the stops on the tour!

Sophie 

Happy Home Ed, Keris Stainton

Pages: 144

Publisher: self-published

Release Date: 28^th August 2016

Edition: UK e-book, purchased,

Other Titles by this Author: Della Says: OMG!, Jessie Hearts NYC, Emma Hearts LA, As Delightful As a Carrot, Calm Like a Stupid Feather, Starring Kitty, Spotlight on Sunny, Counting Stars

Not sure home education is for you? Nor was Keris Stainton…

Keris Stainton had never really considered home education. It just seemed too radical. Eccentric. Different. Weird.

But it’s estimated that over 50,000 children are home educated in the UK and this figure is rising by 65% per year – they can’t all be weirdos, can they?

Turns out that deciding to take her 7-year-old son out of school was the perfect way to find out.

This book is a collection of Keris’s blog posts over two years of blogging about her family’s (hugely positive) experience of home edication. It also includes interviews with other home educating families, because one of the most interesting things about home ed is that everyone does it differently.

I don’t have children and I was traditionally educated all the way up to and through university, but I found Keris’s story of unschooling her boys fascinating.

Home ed is something that I've always seen as slightly strange – something for people who lives miles and miles from civilisation, are super religious or primarily an American thing. Keris completely changed my mind about it, and even though having children of my own is many, many years away from me, it’s now something I’ll seriously consider. It seems like something that would bring in the best things about school and take away the bits that made me anxious and unhappy.

I really wasn’t expecting Happy Home Ed to make me look so differently at my own experience at school, but it did. I was good at school: top sets, solid attendance, decent marks and a total goody two shoes, but I actually hated it most of the time and that was normal for me and my friends. Everything I did in lessons and in homework was driven by a fear of failing, of disappointing, my teachers, my mum and myself and I have to admit, that’s something that’s stuck with me into adulthood. So has the idea of having to buck up and get on with doing things I hate and that have no value to me – it’s a rite of passage, surely? Happy Home Ed challenged that idea for me and made me rethink my whole school experience. I suddenly realised that, with a few exceptions, I learned to achieve rather than learning to learn up until university when I chose to learn.

I stopped doing art after GCSE because an art exam is two solid school days of painting in silence and it wasn’t fun anymore. I didn’t pursue history into A-level because all we did was memorise figures and stats (and all about the wars, every. single. year.) for brutal exams. I continued with the sciences because I was good at them and they were a respectable career. I was pushed not to take English Lit at A-level because I was doing the sciences too, and I nearly didn’t. I can’t even imagine what I would have done without it – that class got me through the day at college, became my degree and is basically still my life.

Even if you aren’t considering home ed, this is still very much worth a read. So interesting!

Sophie

Authors in real life

Last week I headed up to London to do an interview. In real life. With a major author. In the gorgeous Carmelite offices. And I was terrified.

But not until I walked out of the train station and it dawned on me – panic set in, my hands got clammy, my questions all seemed terrible and I was convinced it would all go horribly wrong. It was only my second real life interview, after all.

And you know what? It was totally fine.

Sure, my voice got a little weird at first and I fumbled a little, but it was kinda fun. I mean, how often to you get to sit in a swish room at Carmelite and have one on one time with Lauren Oliver? Never. (She’s lovely and super cool, btw.)

New motto, Shonda Rhimes-style: say yes. It won't be nearly as bad as you think it will.

Have you ever interviewed an author in person? Were you terrified?

Sophie

#2016ClassicsChallenge: Orlando

Originally published in 1928 by Hogarth Press

My edition: the Penguin Modern Classics paperback

WHEN I Discovered This Classic

In my final year of university I took a module on Virginia Woolf, based solely on the fact that I found her life and inclusion in the Bloomsbury Group fascinating. I’d never read a single word of hers until then.

WHY I Chose to Read It

This is one of the books that I never managed to finish while studying her so I’d like to change that. It’s also Woolf’s longest novel and she can be really, really tough to read so I think it might be better read outside of that pressured environment!

WHAT Makes It a Classic

Woolf’s exploration of gender and identity was far beyond her time and done in her trademark whimsical style.

WHAT I Thought of This Classic

I have a very complicated relationship with Virginia Woolf. I think she was an amazing women and a tour de force of literature, and though I love her essays, letters and A Room of One’s Own, I really struggle to enjoy her fiction. I appreciate what she's doing, the beauty of her writing and gel with the themes she’s portraying, but there’s no enjoyment in it for me. That sadly continued into Orlando.

My first Woolf novel was actually the highly experimental Jacob’s Room, and then The Waves and Mrs Dalloway, so Orlando felt like a much easier Woolf novel than the ones I’d read previously. Though Orlando transforms from man to woman and lives through four centuries while only reaching the age of 36, everything felt straightforward and easy to understand. Until the last chapter, of course, where the novel went whimsical and experimental and further into the realm of magical realism.

Orlando is a mock biography of Orlando and the biographer has a really strong narrative voice. I love the way the reader was addressed directly with little asides and small explanations of what was going on in Orlando’s mind or how she spoke at certain times. It made the novel feel punchy and fun in a way that I’d never experienced with Woolf before.

It was really interesting coming back to Woolf after so long and realising how much of what I learned about her and what she believed in and experienced had stayed with me. Woolf is famous for her feminism, but also for her theories on gender; but Orlando also latches onto Woolf’s resentment towards the Victorian sensibilities and restrictions that she was born into. I loved seeing the biographer’s/Woolf’s observations on the position and roles of both men and women throughout the centuries.

While I’m definitely glad I read Orlando and I’m still in awe of Virginia Woolf, I didn’t really enjoy the reading process. I’m not sure if I’m going to continue reading Woolf’s novels; I may just dig deeper into her non-fiction.

WILL It Stay a Classic

It’s Virginia Woolf – Orlando isn’t going anywhere.

WHO I’d Recommend it To

- Those wanting a relatively easy introduction to Woolf’s work (also Mrs Dalloway!).

- People interested in gender theory.

Sophie