Thought

To anyone who is worried about the effect Twilight may be having on our impressionable young women, I have four words:

Flowers. In. The. Attic.

Quote

"I think of it as a sort of Questynge Beste: it hath a head like literary fiction, feet like a graphic novel, a body like somebody's diary and a tail like a text message, and maketh a noise like a cafeteria full of twelve- to eighteen-year-olds."


-- A description of young adult literature by Sofia Samatar




Strange Horizons web magazine

from a review of Margo Lanagan's collection Yellowcake

Read

Devilish by Maureen Johnson

Book note

What I Saw and How I Lied
by Judy Blundell
2008


What I Saw and How I Lied is a languid thriller set in 1947, haunted by the war and its aftereffects. Evie Spooner is an innocent 15-year-old happy to travel with her movie-star-gorgeous mother and successful stepfather on their vacation to Florida. But the past is following them, and Evie must make an abrupt transition from innocent child to wise adult if she is to survive.

Nicely written, with a sense of dread that builds throughout the story, this is a quality young adult choice that adults can enjoy, too. It has an old-fashioned sensibility about it, not just of the time period, but from the compact, careful telling of the story.