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.

Best Friend Book Tag

We don't share our YouTube videos here very often, but last night I (finally) uploaded the Best Friend Book Tag that Chami and I did together and I thought it'd share it here! I hope you all enjoy it :)

COVER REVEAL: The Last King by Millicent Nankivell

Today we are lucky enough to be sharing our amazing friend Millicent's cover reveal for her upcoming book The Last King. Millicent is an absolute inspiration to us and so we're incredibly honoured and excited to show you this amazing cover!

Before that, we've got a couple of amazingly made graphics to share with you to tease you about the book...

Anastasia Avignon has always known she was a witch.

It’s only now that mysterious shadows have begun chasing her that things have started getting weird. Yes, weird even for a witch.

For the sake of her safety, Anastasia has been taken to the Blackthorne Estate, run by Lady Mirabelle Brackens, a friend of her mother’s who she’s never heard of before. There, she meets Warren Brackens and Dara Robbins.

But there's something curious about them. They seem to have access to more power than is normal for any witch...and she’s burning to find out why.

When Anastasia begins displaying unnatural powers of her own, it only fuels her desire to find out more. As a long forgotten curse is revealed, Anastasia finds herself in a tangled web of whispers from the past.

Like many other events in history, fear and shame have concealed the truth behind the fate of the last royal family. So why is it that now, centuries after their defeat, Anastasia is seeing their history everywhere? Why has she suddenly become the target of the one who destroyed them all those years ago?

Anastasia is convinced that Warren and Dara have the answers to her questions, but is the price of their knowledge worth paying?

Now she is being hunted, Anastasia must learn to trust in her own abilities and follow her instincts. But is Anastasia on a path predestined for her, or does she have the power to shape her own?

ADD TO GOODREADS: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25276272-the-last-king

ARE YOU EXCITED FOR THIS BOOK YET?

HOW ABOUT NOW?

Now for the cover... *drum roll*

ABOUT MILLICENT

Most days, Millicent Nankivell believes she is a unicorn. Please don’t ever shatter her illusion.

As far back as she can remember, she has been creating stories that usually involved magic, mythical beasts, and creatures of her own invention. Not much has changed over the years. Well, except for also becoming a hopeless romantic as she got older.

If Millicent isn’t curled up in a dark corner with her laptop, sketch book, or reading a novel, you’ll probably find her out roaming local parks and gardens with her camera. She lives in Melbourne, Australia, and will argue that it is the best Australian city until she’s blue in the face!

MILLICENT'S LINKS

Blog http://www.millicentnankivell.com/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/millicentnankivelldotcom

Twitter https://twitter.com/millienankivell

Google+ https://plus.google.com/+MillicentNankivelldotcom/posts

Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13766624.Millicent_Nankivell

Newsletter http://eepurl.com/bf5npn

Please add The Last King to your Goodreads and spread the word about these amazing book (and cover, CAN WE JUST?) If you haven't already, follow Millicent's blog and prepare to have your life changed!

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.

Thoughts On The Young Adult Genre: DOESN'T COUNT AS LITERATURE.

So the other day I attended a creative writing club meeting. That was all good until I found a friend from that class and started walking back to get lunch. She was nice and it is always good to find people that write like you do and we were having a great conversation until she asked me what type of things I wrote. The conversation went down like this.

Me: Oh well, I read a lot in the Young Adult genre and that is why I like to write in it. I write Young adult.

Her: So you write about vampires?

Vampires.

VAMPIRES.

VAMPIRES. IS THAT WHAT THIS GENRE IS TO YOU?

DEAR GOD WOMEN, SORT OUT YOUR PRIORITIES.

First of all, I am disappointed in myself. Instead of saying that I write young adult, I gave her a reason that I wrote in that genre and of course, that comes of as an insult to YA. I had to explain myself and I really shouldn’t need to. I should be able to just say that I write young adult because I like to.

Now that I’ve got of that my chest, let’s talk about her.

Dear god.

I can’t even.

I hate that people look down on our genre like it is a speck of dust, that it is a lesser than other genres and doesn’t count as literature. The young adult genre is not just about vampires as I’m sure you are all clear about. Yeah, sure, there are a bunch of Young adult books that have vampires but there are just as much that are not Young Adult books. For example, Dracula.

God, I just want to slap people sometimes. Slap them and then throw them off buildings and then suffocate them and then eat them.

They deserve it.

Now this is a quite random post and barely a discussion but I just wanted to write something about it. One day I will write a whole novel on this damn topic and publish it so the whole world can see it, but right now I just wanted to show a piece of ignorance and see if there are any conversations or events like this that have happened to you? Leave them in the comments! I would love to know.