What Magic Is This? by Holly Bourne - Review

I didn't exactly mean to pick up another book by Holly Bourne straight after The Yearbook, but I was scrolling through my tablet and I came across this, so decided to read it. I needed something quick and this was perfect. It's one of those Barrington Stoke novellas that I love. I've got about four on my Kindle app that I should get to! But here's this one. 

The protagonist of this book is Sophia. She and her friends Mia and Alexis are trying to do spells. They're having a sleepover while Sophia's mum is gone one evening. They are in Year 9 which I really liked, because Year 9 is a difficult year for everyone, girls especially, and I loved the representation here. 

Sophia is heartbroken after the lad she has had a crush on for ages finally asked her out but then chucked her with very little care for her. Mia self harms and wants to stop. Alexis is the least rounded out of the three, which I did feel was a shame, but it is understandable in such a short book. Sophia thinks she is the boring one amongst her friends, but really I don't agree with her at all. 

They decide to cast some spells to try to cure Sophia's heartbreak, help Mia's depression, and help Alexis get over the death of her family dog. What happened with Sophia's boyfriend is told in flashbacks, while the events of the evening are funny and all too believable. 

I sort of felt like this book might have been a bit of a precursor to The Yearbook - not in terms of characters or anything but it had a similar feel, like Holly had cut her teeth on this one before writing The Yearbook. For that reason I really liked it. I'm giving it four out of five. 

The Yearbook by Holly Bourne - Review

I can sometimes take or leave Holly Bourne, so I wouldn't rush to read stuff by her, but when I was browsing in the library recently for anything new in YA, I came across this and I was really intrigued by the premise. I actually really liked the book and think it's the best thing I've read by Holly. I feel like she's really dug into emotions here and it has really paid off. I hope all her future books are this deep and this good!

So Paige is in Year 11 at school and her life is pretty difficult. At home, she lives with her mum and dad. Her elder brother, Adam, her dad's favourite, has gone away to uni, so her dad is in an even worse mood than usual. The whole household revolves around him and his bad moods. Every time Paige walks into the house she has to gauge the temperature to see if her dad is angry or whether her parents are putting up a good front. Her dad is abusive. Paige sort of kids herself that it's not 'that bad' because he doesn't hit her or her mum, but honestly, it's pretty bad. He's a bad person. He doesn't love Paige or any of the rest of the family at all. Paige cries herself to sleep a lot of nights and she is lonely and sad. 

At school she is lonely too. She had a friend called Ruby who had to move away, and since then Paige has been by herself. She spends her lunchtimes in the library and she is also a journalist on the school newspaper, which she loves. She is friendly with the school librarian who also oversees the paper. But she isn't really registered by anyone in her year. She's just a nobody. She watches all the bullying that occurs in her year - for example when one of the popular boys does bunny ears on a boy called Charlie when they're having their year photo taken - and she records it in notebooks. She has done this for years and years but she has never done anything with her records. 

Two things happen. Firstly, Paige finds some writing in a book and begins a correspondence with someone. They end up meeting and he is Elijah, a boy in the sixth form. My one criticism is that he is perhaps a bit too perfect, but I couldn't even mind because honestly Paige deserves some happiness in her life. He brings her out of herself and they have a lot of fun together and eventually trust each other hugely. Elijah does have problems himself, which I liked. He is very cute. 

Secondly, The Awfuls get put together with the newspaper students to make the year's yearbook for when they leave school. The Awfuls are the top bullies, top dogs of the whole school. There's Grace, lead Awful, Amelia, and Laura. They want to put together pages with memories of each year of school, but the stories and photos they choose are firstly cented around themselves and secondly really mean to anyone else they mention. There are extracts throughout the book so the reader knows that Paige did stand up for herself and everyone else, so I liked knowing that and couldn't wait to find out how we got there. 

I want to describe this book as Carrie meets Mean Girls... it's great. Five out of five from me! 

...And A Happy New Year? by Holly Bourne - Review

I read the first book of Holly's Spinster Club series way back in 2015. (Am I Normal Yet? reviewed here). But I've never read the others. I may own one of them! I'm not sure. But I have had the spin off novella ...And A Happy New Year? on my wishlist since forever, and then I got it from my Secret Santa. I was pleased, but I had forgotten the ins and outs of the first book. No matter, because there's enough explanation in this book to remind a reader, and probably for someone with no knowledge at all to read and enjoy the book. 

So there's Evie, who was the main character in Am I Normal Yet? She has suffered from OCD and is now studying at university just a few miles away from the girls' home town. She is doing really well now. She has a boyfriend, Oli, who also has mental health problems, and unfortunately, he has relapsed. He has been unable to leave the house for several weeks and has been really clingy with Evie and asking a lot of her. She's obviously worried sick, but she knows she can't get sucked down into terrible thought patterns. She doesn't really know what to do. She feels like she can't talk to her best friends about it, so she doesn't. 

Amber is doing her art foundation year at a nearby college, so she hasn't gone away to university like Lottie has. She feels a bit left behind because of that, but she has applied to an art college in America, and has been accepted. I don't know her story as I haven't read her book, but her mum lives in California and has been very absent from Amber's life. She also met a boy, Kyle, at a camp in America. Where she is going to college, in the north east, will be really close to him. She can't wait! But she hasn't told her friends yet - partly because she's worried about upsetting Evie, and partly because Lottie feels so remote from her. 

Lottie is at university in London and on the face of it, she's loving it. She has a column about feminism in the paper, and she's found a political party to join. But she hates her housemates, who to her seem like proper 'basic bitches' and who seem to talk behind her back. Her boyfriend Will is also in London, at a different university, but there seems to be something wrong between the two of them, too. She feels like she's alone. 

Amber is having a New Year's Eve party. Her dad and stepmum are away. Kyle is over from America, winning everyone over with games of beer pong. Lottie gets ridiculous drunk and ends up being put to bed for a bit. The novella is told from all three of their points of view, and I really liked how that worked. There's just enough info here for this to be a very cute book. I'm giving it four out of five.

I will say that as it was published in 2016 UK YA has moved on massively, and it felt a bit like reading anicent history while reading it! But it is still really good.

Floored: A Novel - Review

Where did I get it? Netgalley, so thank you very much to Pan Macmillan for allowing me it 

What's it about? There has been so much hype around this book which really made me want to read it! It is a collaborative novel written by seven of the best voices in UK Young Adult literature - Sara Barnard, Holly Bourne, Tanya Byrne, Non Pratt, Melinda Salisbury, Lisa Williamson, and Eleanor Wood. I think I've read books by all these authors except for Lisa Williamson, so I knew I had excellent writing in store. 

What happens is that six teenagers happen to meet one day in Manchester. They are all, for some reason or another, at UKB (basically the BBC). Two are there for an internship, one is there to deliver a parcel. They all get into a lift at the same time, and at the last second a postman does too, pushing a trolley. And then, between floors, he dies, and the teens have to work out what to do next. 

We then see the six throughout the next few years as they meet up on the same day each year, and as their lives progress. It is such an interesting concept for a book!

The six teens are as follows: Dawson, who used to be on TV but who isn't "cute" anymore and isn't sure if he'll work again, Kaitlyn, who was a fan of Dawson's and who has just been diagnosed with Stargardt disease which means she will lose her sight, Velvet, who lives in a hotel in Bridlington and is trying her best to fit in, Sasha, who is working for her overbearing dad and also trying her best, Hugo, who is rich, whose dad is an MP, and who is full of himself, and finally Joe, who dreams of more than working in the local biscuit factory. Each author wrote one of the teens each, and then the 7th one wrote the narrator bits at the end of each year, which told us loads more of the action.

I loved each of the characters, I thought they were very distinct from each other and well drawn. I liked that at least three of them came from working class families; I felt like class was a big theme within the book actually. I liked the stuff around disability, both with Kaitlyn and with someone else's family member, which I won't spoiler. I liked the stuff around sexuality, which I also won't spoiler but which I felt was dealt with in a really good way.

I don't have a clue which author wrote each part. I hope we do get to find out! I thought the person writing the narrator parts had the most difficult job, but they were well written parts which sat nicely alongside the other more personal parts. I am talking about writing a collaborative novel myself with a friend, so I really liked to see how Person 1's point of view segued into Person 2's, and so on, and how that was done without a lot of repetition.

I also liked how we first saw everyone at 15/16, on work experience, and then saw them get older, saw them grow into adults. I thought the character progression was shown really well.

What age range is it for? 15+ 

Are any main characters LGBTQ+? Yes, I am utterly not spoiling it though because I loved the way this unfolded. 

Are any main characters people of colour? Sasha is mixed race - I would have liked a bit more exposition here really, but I did like the descriptions of her relationship with her mother. 

Are any main characters disabled either mentally or physically? Yes, as I've described above 

Is there any sex stuff? Yes, a little. It is slightly graphic. 

Are drugs mentioned or used? I think so, I think there's some mention but not much 

Is there any talk of death? Yes. The death in the lift isn't very graphic but may be upsetting, and there is some other discussion. 

Are there swear words? Yeah. 

What criticisms do I have? Almost none. There were a couple of inconsistencies but honestly I'm putting them down to trying to co-ordinate seven people and their writing! (And they may be ironed out in the final version). Some reviews have said they thought the novel was too superficial. I don't agree. I think it is simple and simply told, but I don't think it's superficial. There was lots of stuff to dig into if you wanted. 

Would I recommend the book? Very much absolutely! It's a really fun book. 

Why did I choose to read it at this point in life? As I said I'd seen a lot of the hype and I wanted to see if it lived up to it. It does - it most definitely does! 

What other books is it like? I honestly don't know. It is simply told like a lot of Non Pratt's book, but it has shades of all the other writers too. It reminded me a bit of Alice Oseman, too. 

How many stars? Five out of five. Read it, read it now!

Am I Normal Yet? by Holly Bourne - Review

Where did I get it? I bought it at YAShot after hearing Holly speak. I queued for her to sign it - she's lovely! 

What's it about? Evie is in recovery from a bad time with her mental health. She has OCD and was hospitalised for it, but now she's doing better. She's at college, she's reducing her meds, so is she normal yet? Her BFF is entwined with a boy all the time, and Evie dips her toe into dating too, and she also makes some new friends. But her mental health is getting bad again, and her parents and sister are worried about her. This is a really frank look at OCD and living with a debilitating mental health disorder. It may be triggering - take care of yourself, okay? It is, although very sad and quite upsetting for me personally, really good.

There's a lot about feminism in it too, which for young adults would be a really good introduction on to the subject. 

What age range is it for? 15+, depending on the 15 year old. As I said, take care.  

Are any main characters LGBTQ+? No

Are any main characters non-white? It's not mentioned.

Are any main characters disabled either mentally or physically? Yep, that's the premise

Is there any sex stuff? Not really, it's very senstively done

Are drugs mentioned or used? Yes, one of the characters uses marijuana a lot, and Evie is taking Fluoxetine (aka Prozac) 

Is there any talk of death? Yes, but not much

Are there swear words? Not many

Would I recommend the book? Yes, definitely. If you've never suffered from anything like this, it would probably be a really interesting and useful insight into living with a mental health issue. If you have suffered from OCD or something similar (for me, I spent my entire teens - and since - anxious as hell, so I understood a lot of what Evie thought/felt), then I hope it makes you feel less alone. Trigger warning again though - there's a lot about Evie's rituals (eg around handwashing) so if this will trigger you, please don't read it. 

How many stars? 8 out of 10, it isn't perfect but it's worth a read.

Where is the book going now? I'll keep it, as it's signed to me :)