The Sarra Manning Experience

The first time I encountered Sarra Manning I was sitting on the loo and just happened to pick up a book that had been lying face down on the floor.  This was 'Let's Get Lost' and the, then 13 year old Girl was well and truly into it, taking it everywhere with her. Well, apart from when she'd  left it lying on the bathroom floor or course.

Half an hour and probably a fast-approaching haemorrhoid-situation later, I surfaced back to reality.  This was one Helluva Main Teenage Character.  She didn't take any crap, she didn't particularly like her family, she scared her teachers and she shot her mouth off whether it was appropriate or not. 

I loved it and realised that characters didn't have to be all naive and cutesy and innocent like they were when I was a teenager.  They could be arsey and belligerent and bolshy if they wanted, and they were such FUN.

There followed 'Guitar Girl' and then 'Pretty Things' which both lived up to expectations.  They were just so joyful and lovely to read with characters that stayed with you well after the last page was turned.  Along with the Girl, I was hooked.

So when I heard a couple of years ago that Sarra had written her first grown-up book, 'Unsticky', I felt that this was going to be either a huge mistake, considering how brilliantly she wrote for her teenaged audience, or else a move of genius. I couldn't wait to read it.


And Genius it was.  The Girl and I both devoured this in a matter of a fortnight between us.  And it makes for compelling discussions over chocolate cake, let me tell you!

So I was delighted to hear that Sarra's latest book, 'You Don't Have To Say You Love Me' was out and from reviews I'd read by friends' blogs whose opinions I value and generally agree with (apart from the Tom Cruise/Basil Brush dispute, Keris, but we won't go into that) I couldn't wait to get my paws on it.

And  6 days later, I am bereft.  It is SUCH a fabulously-written book of utter joy that I am  physically saddened.   I miss Neve and Max and Celia (even, heaven forbid, the poisonous Charlotte) whom I've spent the past week cosying up with.  They've become like proper friends and I don't know what I shall do without them.  I'm on the verge of demanding a sequel and I HATE sequels.  Such is my sadness at never having them in my life again.    I never skipped a word, sometimes even re-reading some because they'd been so beautifully put-together.    And by the end of the week I was rationing my 'fix' because I didn't want it to end.

As another bloggy-friend, Helen Redfern rightly says, you don't just adore the main character, Neve, you actually *become* her.

I always thought that 'Bet Me' by Jennifer Crusie would take some beating but this has turned my head.  Co-incidentally enough, both books begin with a scene in a bar, an unlikey but totally believable hero/heroine combination, have THE best sex-scenes ever and and ending that's .... well, that'd be telling.  And they're both utterly wonderful...  I'd URGE everyone to read them immediately!

I feel a little bit sorry for the next book on my To Be Read pile 'cos it's got such a hard act to follow!

 

An excerpt from Nearly Finished Book No.5!

This is the section in 'Grounded' where the Main Character, Becca has gone home with her best friend, Liberty.  As Becca is electronically 'grounded' (i.e. no mobile, internet, iPod, etc) she's making very full use of Liberty's computer when she's at her house after school one night.  She's currently checking out Facebook and wondering if the boy she's in love with is secretly in love with the most unpopular girl in school as they were spotted together earlier and he touched her face.

‘No way,’ Liberty says decisively. ‘There’s no way those two are an item. No way. I’d bet my last Crunchie bar on it.’

My heart begins a definite rise at hearing this. If Liberty would bet something as sacred as her last Crunchie bar, then it must be true. There is no way on earth that Judd and Claire are together.

‘I think he was probably just swatting a wasp away from her face or something,’ she tries.

‘Swatting?’ I frown. ‘Er…would you really call that a swat?’ I wince. ‘Really? I mean it was the gentlest swat I’ve ever seen if it was a swat.’

Liberty ponders on and I continue the conundrum.‘I mean I’d like to be swatted on a daily basis if that’s the way to get a swat. Wouldn’t you?’

‘Maybe she had some crap on her face,’ Liberty conjures. ‘She was getting well into that baked potato at lunchtime. And baked potato has a habit of clinging to the skin for hours after it’s hit it. He was probably really disgusted for her. He might even be OCD?’

I continue to frown and wonder.

‘OCD? D’you think he could be?’

There’s a ‘ping’ on Liberty’s computer and our eyes fly to the screen. The hoard of Hartley Road Upper are well and truly logged on and are right now regurgitating their days and advertising their evening’s entertainment for the world to view.

‘Oh my god, look! Bethany Landers and Ben Harding are dating! Oh my god, they kept that quiet!’ Liberty realises what she’s just says and immediately (but obviously not quick enough to prevent the words she’s already said from escaping) clamps a hand over her mouth. ‘Oops… shit, sorry,’ she says, her eyes widening apologetically.

I nod resignedly. See? It happens. People have secret lives. Lives they don’t want anybody else to know about until one of them decides to broadcast it to about six hundred and twenty five other ‘friends’ when they’re good and ready.

‘Jeez, look Becs – she’s even given themselves a name - “Beth-amin”. Bethamin! How mental is that? How completely chavvy?’

I try and work out what Judd and I would be if we ever got together and united our names. Budd wouldn’t work – we’d just sound like a lager. How about Jucca? That sounds pretty cool – although a little bit like a cross between a spiky-leaved plant and a large hairy creature from Star Wars.

I’m undecided.

‘Bethamin!’ Liberty is still repeating. ‘Bethamin! Can you actually believe that? Who does she think she is Who does she think they are? Bethamin!’

‘They sound like a spot cream,’ I say sulkily.

A great couple of reads

Here's the synopsis: Jack worships luck and decides his actions by the flip of a coin. No risk is too great if the coin demands it. Luck brings him Jess, a beautiful singer who will change his life. But Jack’s luck is running out, and soon the stakes are high. As chance and choice unravel, the risks of Jack’s game become terrifyingly clear. An evening of heady recklessness, and suddenly a life hangs in the balance, decided by the toss of a coin. In the end, it is the reader who must choose whether to spin that coin and determine: life or death. 
This, as an Amazon reviewer also put it, is a truly hypnotic read. "Wasted" is told in an unusual third person present (read the first chapter here) which I was worried might make my brain ache, but actually made it all the more compelling, I would URGE people to go read this.  Young, old, whatever.  It's a brilliant piece of writing, and one which compels you to want to read on and on and on until you're properly full up with it.  Master stroke of story-telling. And the ending is just inspired.

When Ty witnesses a stabbing, his own life is in danger from the criminals he’s named, and he and his mum have to go into police protection. Ty has a new name, a new look and a cool new image – life as Joe is good, especially when he gets talent spotted as a potential athletics star, special training from an attractive local celebrity and a lot of female attention. But his mum can’t cope with her new life, and the gangsters will stop at nothing to flush them from hiding. Joe’s cracking under extreme pressure, and then he meets a girl with dark secrets of her own. This wonderfully gripping and intelligent novel depicts Ty/Joe's confused sense of identity in a moving and funny story.

"When I was Joe" is another fantastic piece of story-telling.  I can't remember the last time I whizzed through a book so effortlessly and so thrillingly.  I found myself in turns being Joe/his mother/his best friend and I so badly wanted to jump in and help him on his quest and couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen to him next.  Read the first chapter here.   The sequel, called "Almost True" comes out this September, so.... what are you waiting for?

'The Madolescents'

Somewhere I read that someone (surfing the web is all well and good until you do so much you can't remember where you've been or why you were even there in the first place... still...) had Chrissie Glazebrook's début novel, 'The Madolescents' on their top five favourite books of all time.  I think it might have been a YA author but I can't be sure. I hope it wasn't you, Keris!  Anyway - doesn't matter.  Any recommendation is good, whether it makes you steer clear or makes you want to buy it to see if it REALLY was as bad as the someone, somewhere says it is.
THIS book, however, is probably the best, darkest, funniest, sardonic book of teenage angst and way of life that I've read. EVER.  Well, so far, obviously.
The storyline is just so perfectly normal and the characters ways of life and family backgrounds and groups of friends and social lives are just so brilliantly well-observed that it could only have been written by someone who's lived through it.  Been there.  Seen it.  Probably even done some of it herself.
Rowena M (she reckons for 'mad') Vincent, the greatest unsympathetic main character I've ever 'met' is a 16 year old Funeral Parlour assistant.  And that in itself is probably the best occupation I've read for a long time, imo.  What with all these Media types and Florists (soooo many Florists about right now... is it the weather?) to read about a girl who has a shite job (her words) living in a shite town with shite prospects and at times slightly worrying mental aberrations, is, perversely, a total breath of fresh air.
And  whereas I usually trip over written dialect, some of the Northern words ("canny", "maison well", smarmy "get" etc)  actually heightened the whole flavour of being in Rowena's world and endeared me even more to her maniac ways.
The Madolescents of the title are a bunch of (purportedly maladjusted) teenagers who meet once a week for group therapy - not that a lot of therapy is achieved. And although I wouldn't say that they're completely pivotal to the plot, they do give it more edge.  The main story focusses on Rowena's home life, with her mum having just met Bernard ('Filthy') Luker and the deeply unattractive emotions this evokes in her. And whilst it doesn't sound funny, there are so many belly-laughs in this book I couldn't pick out just one - you HAVE to read it and see for yourself.
In fact, I loved this book so much that I had to Google Chrissie Glazebrook and find out a bit more about her.  I wondered it she might Twitter and if she Facebook-d.   But the first thing I found was her Obituary in the Guardian online, which kind of brought me up.  Sharpish.  More than sharpish.  It turns out that this truly, amazingly talented and darkly hilarious writer died of bowel and associated cancer aged 62 in 2007.  And as The Madolescents was published in 2002, I couldn't quite believe that she'd been 57 when it came out.  Which makes her writing all the more remarkable. But what a waste of such incredible talent.  It actually gave me a figurative slap round the stupid face for ever worrying that being the wrong side of forty makes any kind of noticeable difference in the way you write.  That's the last time I say "bah, I'm too old for all that nonsense now" and I hereby give you permission to turn the figurative into the actual if you DO ever hear me bemoan this fact.
Chrissie Glazebrook, The Madolescents specifically -  officially in my top five.
WARNING: contains alcohol, swearing, drugs, sex, FF, mental illness, karaoke, transvestisism and suicide.  Oh, and LAUGHS-A-PLENTY!