REVIEW: The Eye of the Sheep by Sofie Laguna

Title: The Eye of the Sheep
Author: Sofie Laguna
Genre: Adult, Literary Fiction.
Publication Date: August 1st 2014
Publisher: Allen and Unwin
Format: Paperback
Pages: 308
Rating: 4.5/5
Challenge: Stella Prize 2015

"Ned was beside me, his messages running easily through him, with space between each one, coming through him like water. He was the go-between, going between the animal kingdom and this one. I watched the waves as they rolled and crashed towards us, one after another, never stopping, always changing. I knew what was making them come, I had been there and I would always know."

Meet Jimmy Flick. He's not like other kids. He finds a lot of the adult world impossible to understand - especially why his Dad gets so angry with him. Jimmy's mother Paula is the only one who can manage him. She teaches him how to count sheep so that he can fall sleep. She holds him tight enough to stop his cells spinning. It is only Paula who can keep Jimmy out of his father's way. But when Jimmy's world falls apart, he has no one else to turn to. He alone has to navigate the unfathomable world and make things right.

Sofie Laguna's first novel, One Foot Wrong received rave reviews, sold all over the world and was longlisted for both the Miles Franklin and Prime Minister's Awards. In The Eye of the Sheep, her great originality and talent will again amaze and move readers. In the tradition of Room and The Lovely Bones, here is a surprising and brilliant novel from one of our finest writers. 

This is the third book in my read-through of the Stella Prize 2015 shortlist nominations. If you want to learn more about them, please click here.

Okay, wow. I’m going to be completely honest here when I say this was probably the book on the shortlist that I was probably least interested in. I listened to Sofie Laguna read an excerpt of this as part of the Digital Writers Festival and I thought it was amazing, but I wasn’t sure that it would be my kind of book.

Oh, past Ely. How ignorant you were. So far, this is my favourite Stella Prize nomination. I do have three more to go, but this — wow.

It was a little slow to start of with, and Jimmy’s voice is kind of hard to get used to it — really is the mind of a little boy so I struggled for the first 100 pages or so. I still flew through those pages though. I absolutely loved Jimmy from page one — how could you not? He’s this gorgeous little boy who has a pretty horrible life at times, I just wanted to wrap him up and give him a big hug.

This wouldn’t be nearly as powerful without Jimmy’s voice. You read everything from his point of view, so there are things that he doesn’t understand and it makes it confusing for the readers too. I loved how this was done. I’m not always a big fan of confusing narratives, but this was executed so unbelievably well. I felt like Sofie Laguna was actually Jimmy, or maybe that Jimmy was actually Sofie Laguna.

The thing is… my heart is now in pieces on the floor before Sofie Laguna has torn it out and stamped on it so many times. I don’t remember the last book that made me cry this much. I didn’t even cry, I literally sobbed. Sometimes I couldn’t even read the words on the page through my web of tears. I just love that feeling, don’t you?

So yes, favourite Stella Prize nomination so far, lots and lots of tears. I would absolutely recommend it to every single human being of this earth, because pain.

REVIEW: The Invisible History of the Human Race by Christine Kenneally

Title: The Invisible History of the Human Race: How DNA and History Shape Our Identities and Our Futures
Author: Christine Kenneally
Genre: Non-fiction.
Publication Date: November 2014
Publisher: Black Inc.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
Rating: 3.5/5
Challenge: Stella Prize 2015

We are doomed to repeat history if we fail to learn from it, but how are we affected by the forces that are invisible to us?

What role does Neanderthal DNA play in our genetic makeup? How did the theory of eugenics embraced by Nazi Germany first develop? How is trust passed down in Africa, and silence inherited in Tasmania? How are private companies like Ancestry.com uncovering, preserving and potentially editing the past?

In The Invisible History of the Human Race, Christine Kenneally reveals that, remarkably, it is not only our biological history that is coded in our DNA, but also our social history. She breaks down myths of determinism and draws on cutting-edge research to explore how both historical artefacts and our DNA tell us where we have come from and where we may be going. 

This is the second book in my read-through of the Stella Prize 2015 shortlist nominations. If you want to learn more about them, please click here.

My experience with non-fiction is limited to textbooks, and other things I’ve been forced to read over the years for class. I don’t hate non-fiction, but I don’t love it either. I think I’m more of a literary based non-fiction reader, so biographies of authors, or literary criticism – that sort of thing.

I just wanted to mention this because I think this book is probably really good, but it’s just not my sort of thing. I wish I could say I was still interested in science, but honestly I think I left that behind at high school.

I’m sure a lot of people would really enjoy this, and I did personally like sections. I really loved the first part of the book that looked at genealogy in Western society and elsewhere. The chapter about genealogy in Nazi Germany was particularly interesting. But sometimes, the science behind it all just got a little too much for me.

I think the writing style was great too. I loved how personal it was and I definitely laughed a few times which I wasn’t really expecting. Even though I have a very basic knowledge of most of the things covered in this book and even though I wasn’t passionate about any of it, the writing was so engaging that I kept reading long after where I would have usually given up.

Basically, this is a great book, just not my kind of book.

REVIEW: Foreign Soil by Maxine Beneba Clarke

Title: Foreign Soil
Author: Maxine Beneba Clarke
Genre: Short Stories, Australian Fiction.
Publication Date: May 1st 2014
Publisher: Hachette Australia
Format: Paperback
Pages: 272
Rating: 4/5
Challenge: Stella Prize 2015

In this collection of award-winning stories, Melbourne writer Maxine Beneba Clarke has given a voice to the disenfranchised, the lost, the downtrodden and the mistreated. It will challenge you, it will have you by the heartstrings. This is contemporary fiction at its finest.

Winner of the Victorian Premier's Unpublished Manuscript Award 2013.

In Melbourne's Western Suburbs, in a dilapidated block of flats overhanging the rattling Footscray train-lines, a young black mother is working on a collection of stories.

The book is called FOREIGN SOIL. Inside its covers, a desperate asylum seeker is pacing the hallways of Sydney's notorious Villawood detention centre, a seven-year-old Sudanese boy has found solace in a patchwork bike, an enraged black militant is on the war-path through the rebel squats of 1960s' Brixton, a Mississippi housewife decides to make the ultimate sacrifice to save her son from small-town ignorance, a young woman leaves rural Jamaica in search of her destiny, and a Sydney schoolgirl loses her way.

The young mother keeps writing, the rejection letters keep arriving...

This is the first book in my read-through of the Stella Prize 2015 shortlist nominations. If you want to learn more about them, please click here.

I have a habit of putting books like this on my Goodreads wishlist shelf but then never reading or even thinking about them ever again. It’s sad because it means that I probably miss out on a lot of good books, like this one turned out to be. That’s why I wanted to do this Stella Prize read-a-long in the first place, because it meant I had to actually pick up all these books that I wouldn’t have read otherwise. If the rest are anything like this one, then I’m in for a real treat.

I should preface this review by saying that I’m not a big short story reader, nor am I very diverse in my reading. With that being said, you can probably guess that I really loved the diversity of this. Not only is the whole collection diverse from what I generally read, but each story was diverse from the next. 

There were so many ways in which the stories were different so I’m going to mention a few here. Firstly, there were so many different settings. There were places I was familiar with- like Melbourne and London, and then completely foreign (see what I did there?) places like Jamaica and Uganda. It was absolutely amazing to read about all these different places through the eyes of the characters, and I really felt like I’d be transported there. There was also quite a cast of characters – they varied in age, race, gender, religion, background, voices. There were ones I definitely didn’t like for whatever reason, but they were all incredibly interesting. Finally, the stories were set in different times and tackled so many different issues that were incredible to read about, but they all connected with the theme of displacement. It was intriguing to see the ways in which different people could feel displaced in their lives, and at sometimes it was oddly relatable. 

I think one of my favourite things, however, was the language. Each story has a different tone, a different voice to go with the characters – some are written like the majority of novels out there, others were more based in the culture and dialect of that particular character. The language and issues were tough, but strangely beautiful and haunting. 

This is definitely something I’d recommend and I can’t wait to see how it stacks up against the other Stella Prize nominations. 

The 2015 Stella Prize

On the 12th of March, the shortlist for the Stella Prize was announced. For those of you who might not know, the Stella Prize celebrates Australian women and their contribution to literature. I've never really paid much attention to literary awards - I read the books I'm interested in rather than just reading ones because they've been nominated for or awarded something. However, this year I decided to change that.

Some of you may have guessed that I feel very strongly about female authors and I've been trying to support more this year. Then I remembered the Stella Prize, and I thought why not read and review those books. Not only do I get to support women, but I get to support fellow Australians too which is really cool.

This is just a post to say that it is my plan to read through the 2015 shortlist and to review each of them here (and on Goodreads). The winner will be announced on the 21st of April and so I'm hoping to read all six by then. So let's briefly talk about the six nominated pieces.

(Photo Credit: The Stella Prize)

The Eye of the Sheep by Sofie Laguna

All I know about this one is that it follows a little boy named Jimmy who has an alcoholic and abusive father, and that it is supposed to be a truly beautiful and haunting story.

The Invisible History of the Human Race by Christine Kenneally

This a non-fiction piece, I believe, which is something I usually steer very clear of but the synopsis says that it 'tells us about our individual, social, and anthropological pasts' and as I am studying anthropology this semester, I thought it would be interesting thing to read.

The Golden Age by Joan London

This is 1950's Perth with refugees from Europe and an Australian boy caught up in the polio epidemic. It sounds incredibly interesting, and it's also the one that has the longest hold list at the library... I'm 41st in line.

Foreign Soil by Maxine Beneba Clarke

I just started this one about an hour ago, and from what I can tell so far it is a collection of short stories that all focus on displacement as a theme, but through different voices and in different settings and times. 

The Strays by Emily Bitto

This is 1930's Melbourne (um, GIVE IT TO ME) that tells the friendship of two young girls. It also looks at art, family, friendship and ambition. 

Heat and Light by Ellen van Neerven

This is another story collection, but this one is split into three parts: Heat, Water, Light. I don't know much else about this one, but I think it's one of those to go into blindly. 

Those are the six books, if you'd like to learn more about them then check out these two posts here and here. I'll be doing a wrap up around the 20th of April about how I went with these books and I'll link all the reviews within that so if you're interested in seeing what I think then look out for that. 

I'm hoping I get the chance to read the other six books that make up the longlist as well as a few from 2014 and 2013, but I'll be working my way through those a little slower. 

Let me know if you're planning to read any of these, or if you already have. I hope you're all having a wonderful Monday (Yeah, that was a joke. Who has nice Mondays?)