
What am I celebrating this week?
The website for young adult author Kate Larkindale. A place for her musings on writing, publishing and a day job in the arts sector.
I found this one in the bookshelf in our office breakroom. Because we run a Writers progamme as part of our Festival, we often have books given to us at work and when they've been read, they end up in the library in the Whare Kai. Plus, other people (myself included) often offload books they've read into those shelves if they're not ones they want to keep at home. Anyway, this one looked interesting enough, and I needed something to read, so I picked it up.
It was one of those books that have a variety of POVs, all linked by a single thing - in this case, an obscure book called The History of Love.
There's Leo, an old Polish man who has had one great love in his life and his love was so huge, it spilled over into a book he wrote to contain his emotions. Both the book and the woman are long gone now, and Leo is in New York, trying to prove to himself he's still alive. At least for one more day.
Also in New York is Alma, a fourteen-year-old girl whose father has died, leaving her mother desperately lonely. When they met, her father gave her mother a copy of a book called The History of Love, in Spanish. when a stranger writes and asks her mother to translate the book into English, Alma decides the man asking for this must be her mother's next soulmate.
As the various characters in this book circle closer and closer to the truth about The History of Love, all their lives might be changed forever.
I enjoyed this book. It was well written and the various different relationships revealed themselves quietly. It wasn't something completely absorbing or mind-blowing, but it was interesting enough to keep me reading. It was also quite sad, or maybe, melancholy would be a better word. It left me with a bit of an ache in my heart for all the lost opportunities the characters had.
So I'd recommend this one. It's not right up there among my favourite books of the year, but I did enjoy it .
But don't just listen to me. Here's the blurb:
Fourteen-year-old Alma Singer is trying to find a cure for her mother's loneliness. Believing she might discover it in an old book her mother is lovingly translating, she sets out in search of its author.I didn't do a lot of writing over the weekend, but I think I figured out that I've gone the wrong way with this book. I thought originally I needed something dramatic to happen to get Devon out of her house, but was convinced by a bunch of other people that a slow fade would work.
Maybe in real life.
In fiction, I think you need more and certainly, the slow fade isn't working for this book. It's taking far too long for me to get the characters to the place they need to be and I feel like a lot of what I've written is really boring. So I'm going to go back and figure out where I need to add the dramatic bit that forces Devon's change, then I'll be able to get this book on track.
Very glad I've figured that out now because I have the whole of next week off to write and was really planning to get this book done in that week. Not sure I'll manage that now, but I should be able to get a good way into it anyway.
So that's my goal this week. To figure out where I went wrong and to fix it before I move on further into the story.
What are your goals this week?
I can't believe I didn't discover this book sooner; it's so up my alley it's not funny! The writing is glorious, the story is edge-of-your-seat gripping and the characters are absolutely unforgettable.
The book follows the exploits of one Eli Bell, starting when he's around twelve,and finishing up when he's on the threshold of adulthood. Eli is a sensitive, observant kid, prone to crying, yet tough as nails at the same time.
He has to be. His mother is a junkie, his father a drunk he barely knows, his stepfather deals drugs and his brother chooses to be mute (sound familiar??). And his babysitter is the legendary crook and prison-escape artist, Slim Halliday.
Growing up with Slim's stories of goodness, crime and derring-do, Eli has a nose for a good story and an over-developed sense of right and wrong.
But life isn't kind to Eli and his family, especially when his stepfather crosses the drug kingpin in town and gets himself disappeared, his mother thrown in jail and Eli himself mutilated. But true to his adventurous spirit, even losing a finger doesn't slow Eli down. It might take years for the opportunity to take Tytus Broz down, but he will be taken down.
And in the meantime, there are other adventures to be had, from falling for the crime writer at the local paper to breaking into a prison to spend Christmas with his mother.
I loved this book. Eli is such a delightful character, even when he's in some stupidly awful situations. And the relationship he has with his silent, possibly magical older brother is beautiful. You know what a sucker I am for a good brother relationship... The depiction of Brisbane's criminal underworld in the 1980s is perfectly drawn in its gritty, slightly shabby and worn-out criminality.
And the writing is gorgeous. As a wannbe reporter, Eli's editor tells him he's too flowery, too focused on the details, and the author is just as focused on the details - to great effect. There's some gorgeous language in this book, even though it's as tough and gritty as the streets the Bell boys grow up on.
So yeah. I loved it.
But don;'t just listen to me. Here's the blurb:
I got all the edits done on Standing Too Close over the weekend, so that's gone back to my publisher. I expect it will be a few weeks before I get the next round.
So this week, it's back to the new book. I finished chapter seven this weekend, and I feel like it's still going to be another two or three chapters before Devon and Arlo meet. Is that too far into the book? I think I'll be at around 20K by then, which feels like it might be too far. But I guess we'll see. Writing a book from start to finish is weird...
I have a function to cater for work this week which will be a nice change from being in front of my computer all day. Looking forward to that.
And that's really it for goals this week. What are yours?