with lovely straw hats... for GOATS

right. so i'm the first to admit that overall i'm rather crap at this whole blogging thing. i'm not in the least bit dedicated, even though sometimes i pretend to be (april was a big month for me, a whole six posts). i see everyone elses beautifully designed and executed blogs, with well thought out and intelligently written posts (with a few exceptions that i will not mention cos i don't want to cause a storm in the blog world, not that anyone reads this anyway). and i think, shit, i sound like a mad bogan pretending to talk about books. HOWEVER. i have decided fuck it, that i will no longer try and censor myself and attempt to veil my general idiocy. instead, i will embrace it. ima proud of it y'all!

and now here is a snippet of quentin blake:

Angelica Sprocket's Pockets

Angelica Sprocket has lots of pockets. What's inside them? well. there is a pocket for mice, and a pocket for cheese (hahahahah imagine a pocket of cheese. quite daliesque really, melting clocks, melting cheese... perhaps this not censoring myself is a bad idea...) and a pocket with lovely straw hats.... for GOATS.

hilarity ensues. he is brilliant. not only at creating lively if a wee bit insane stories, but also at illustrating them with such expression and scrawliness that they leap off the page and dance about madly in front of your eyes, infecting your world with the whimsical genius that is Quentin Blake.

love it. not as mindblowingly exquisite as Mrs Armitage (although probably just because i'm biased with Mrs A cos she was a childhood book character), but still a darn good romp of a picture book. Angelica Sprocket herself is another delightfully humorous and eccentric character, and her coat is reminiscent of Mary Poppin's carpet bag in that is able to neatly bypass the tiny matter of physics to carry some alligators and even the kitchen sink.

hmmmm....

went for a wee drink on saturday night, and when i got to my third cranberry vodka, found out that a girl i used to go to school with ACTUALLY SLEPT WITH HER TEACHER. well, thats the word on the street. and it comes from a believable street. hence, gospel.

so! she was in year twelve and seduced her business teacher. apparently they flirted alot and then she emailed him asking for private tutoring and he replied and was all 'yes lets have sex' or something similar. his wife and children don't know the reason for the up and coming divorce, just that it's up and coming (ooh err).

CREEPY.

it was ok on never been kissed cos drew barrymore was actually a journalist and like thirty years old. but i dont think its ok when she is seventeen, he is mid forties, married, and her first.
apparently she has a rather severe older guy complex. well, good. go watch a george clooney movie. dont fuck your teacher.

any thoughts anyone?

slice- juicy moments from my impossible life by steven herrick *june 2010*

darcy is your average 16 year old. he goes to school, he plays chess with his social pariah of a mate noah, and he loves audrey, his beautiful meditating neighbour. unlike most 16 year olds however, he cannot keep his mouth shut. well, he can, but as soon as he thinks anything he says it, promptly and uncensored. this makes even the most mundane, like the receiving of maths exam results or the sex talk from parents, humourous and enjoyable.

this was the first steven herrick i have ever read (what!? complete travesty according to a colleague), and im going to have to hunt him down and read all his stuff. he has a really honest funny voice, without any of the bits where you think, hmmm that didn't actually need to be said, and i wish you didn't say it cos now i don't like you as much. there was none of that! i sense a new favourite author person coming on...

the byron journals- daniel ducrou *28 June 2010*

after leaving highschool, family dramas and hometown adelaide behind, andrew embraces the idea of byron bay and the culture that comes with it whole heartedly. he scores half a bag of outdoor almost straight off the plane, punches on with his mates, gets kicked out of the apartment, and moves in with some buskers he meets at a party all in the first two chapters. what was going to be a week at schoolies becomes an extended stay in the dodgier side of byron, and life in general.

andrew was an intriguing character. i couldn't entirely work him out which certainly kept things interesting. he is a concert pianist (or to his friends, concert penis) and seemed like the good side of the tracks boy playing at being bad. however when he buys the weed he notes that it 'looked a bit light', a sentence that marks him as a regular smoker, or at least someone used to weighing bags of weed, implying he had a bit of street smart, or thought he did. but towards the end of the book, as the drug references get more prolific, and the consequences more serious, he is very relatable as the kid in WAY over his head. he was also a bit of a dickhead to his mate benny, and while it was pretty mean, it was also very relatable (even though i wish it wasn't, i like to think i'm not a dickhead...).

i wasnt a huge fan of heidi, andrew's love interest. i've known people like her, and the term 'fuckin crazy bitch' was the one used most often. i know that the love interest is often a fairly damaged character in a lot of ya books, but heidi also came across as a nasty person, manipulative, judgemental and ignorant (although very good at the drums) and in a huge amount of denial. i liked andrew less due to his shit taste in women.

there was a lot of sex, a lot of drugs, and a lot of well described music scenes. ducrou really captured the wavy uncontrollable feeling of playing music in a group, badly or brilliantly, and these scenes were some of my favourites from the book. i also loved the descriptions of being on the road, with different bits of australia flashing past in the bus windows.

i think ducrou is going to be one to watch in the future. 'the byron journals' felt authentic and gritty, and he managed to avoid cliches for the most part, something not always easily done when it comes to ya novels set in byron bay. recommended, but not to anyone under 14.