Wildlife by Fiona Wood

Wildlife is lovely, lovely and a bit more grown-up than Six Impossible Things. I suppose it is a sequel, or a companion novel, and I daresay I like Wildlife even better.

I have been in Melbourne for almost two weeks and I only brought the one book with me (I have been very busy sitting on trains and trams and thinking about things, so one book was enough) and it is not an especially long novel so I have been rather dragging out the process of reading it. You know how difficult trying to spend two weeks reading such a splendid novel? Very difficult. I wanted to read it all at once, but in an amazing example of self-control I took my time. It is a beautifully written novel, worth the three-year wait since Six Impossible Things.

Oh, here's the blurb:

Boarding for a term in the wilderness, sixteen-year-old Sibylla expects the gruesome outdoor education program – but friendship complications, and love that goes wrong? They’re extra-curricula.

Enter Lou from Six Impossible Things – the reluctant new girl for this term in the great outdoors. Fragile behind an implacable mask, she is grieving a death that occurred almost a year ago. Despite herself, Lou becomes intrigued by the unfolding drama between her housemates Sibylla and Holly, and has to decide whether to end her self-imposed detachment and join the fray.

And as Sibylla confronts a tangle of betrayal, she needs to renegotiate everything she thought she knew about surviving in the wild.

It is really wonderfully, beautifully written and heartfelt, and my favourite character (and the one I related to most) was probably Michael. It's only shortfalls in my eyes would be the occasional sense of a little too much learning lessons/growing up/figuring out (I have this issue with lots of coming-of-age novels though - nothing ever feels big or significant or life-changing as you experience it, 'personal growth' tends to only be noticed in retrospect in real life) and the obviousness of the toxicity of Holly's relationship with Sibylla (though, really, that's fairly realistic). I found the relationships between the characters to be very authentically teenaged (I love Sibylla and her over-thinking and her self-conscious teenagedness. Teenageryness? Teenness? Those aren't words, but I hope you understand what I mean). Lou's grief was very, very well written (Lou is my other favourite. I was sad that Fred and Estelle and co were 'off-page', but I did love that they were mentioned, even though they were away in France).

Here's a rather lengthy excerpt from the publisher's website, and here it is on Goodreads. This review would be longer but I am on a computer at a library and they only give you sixty minutes and I've spent rather a lot of time thinking and staring out the window while sitting here. I have also just noticed what a noisy typist I am. Anyway! In conclusion - Wildlife, lovely, beautiful contemporary Australian YA. File under 'books I wish I had written'.

On what literature is really about, and being a "serious" writer

Literary snobs annoy me. They annoy me a lot.

I tire of the idea that the only "serious" writers are the ones writing literary fiction.

I tire of the idea that I am less real as a writer or work less hard or am somehow less important because I write books for teenagers.

And I think it is absolutely absurd when people say things like "That isn't what literature is about."

Like, the only stories of worth have to examine the human condition and be about death and some middle-class white bloke wandering about doing nothing for four hundred pages (as written by some narcissistic middle-class white bloke).

About 90% of the time when I read a critically-acclaimed, award-winning novel I am just baffled. (Generally of the books-for-adults variety. I usually like the YA award winners.)

A great deal of literary fiction seems to be about literary fiction which, to me, is very odd. It's like an entire genre of in-jokes.

I dislike the idea that all the important stories must be depressing. I think that literature can and should be about a lot of things. Entertainment and comfort and whatever it is the reader wants out of it. I don't know, I think there's enough depressing in the real world without every novel of "value" (how do we ascribe this value? how does this work?) being so incredibly depressing.

I think the idea of "serious" and "non-serious" writers is stupidly linear. (Maybe I should add "unserious writer" to my bio. I'm not sure I could ever be, or be considered, a "serious" writer.) I am, however, very uncool and not really part of any literary scene and likely not a future award-winner, so perhaps I am not the best person to listen to.

To sum up:
1. I have forgotten how to write blog posts.
2. People who talk about "serious" fiction are irritating.
3. Lots of novels are important and have value and bring people joy and make them think! Stories, I love them all! Stop acting like your genre is by default superior to mine!

Life in Outer Space by Melissa Keil

The first novel published through Hardie Grant Egmont's new Ampersand Project, an imprint dedicated to debut YA novels, Life In Outer Space is just the loveliest. As a result, I am very much looking forward to what the Ampersand Project discovers next.

Reminiscent of Six Impossible Things by Fiona Wood in terms of adorable romance (and a little bit Shirley Marr's Preloved too), Life In Outer Space is just nice, you know? I don't know how to express this properly (if we could mind-meld you'd get it - how much easier everything would be if we could mind-meld), but sometimes I tire of all the edgy, and the gritty, and the ever-present overly masculine and borderline-disturbing love interest (I mean, really) and I just want to read a novel with people I can relate to in it. It's like a YA novel version of a rom-com with all these socially awkward nerdy kids in it (who are actually really cool and awesome, despite their professed geekiness).

It's funny and endearing and chock full of movie references (do you think I've used the phrase 'chock full' on this blog before?) and there's a little bit of World of Warcraft in there, too. It's not groundbreaking - just boy-meets-girl, boy-is-socially-awkward, boy-eventually-realises-he-loves-girl but it's so darn nice/adorably funny. I love Camilla myself, and I also love Melissa Keil and I'd quite like it if another Keil novel were published very soon (why must it take so long for books to be written? Again, mind-melds, they'd be handy).

Here it is on Goodreads, should you care for a blurb or a second opinion.