A review of Letters from the Inside, Looking for Alibrandi and Girl Saves Boy.

Holidays are great times for reading, and especially for catching up on that stack of books on the bedside table... which is why, incidentally, I’m holding off an eBook reader, because I do most of my holiday reading on the technology-unfriendly beach.

However, I digress.

I had the chance of catching up on my daughter’s reading list these holidays: three titles, two well-known (one for this novel, another by a famous author), and the final one from a ridiculously young and talented Australian author, writing about teens older than herself!

There has been renewed interest in John Marsden since the first of his Tomorrow series was made into a movie: Tomorrow When the World Began. He is a fine author, curiously writing many of his works from a female perspective. He explained in a recent interview that as a boy growing up in the 50s and 60s he didn’t have much of a chance to show emotion; so writing from a female perspective allows him to explore emotional responses to a variety of situations.

He certainly has the opportunity to do that in Letters from the Inside, which consists entirely of an exchange of letters between two 18-year-old girls. There are characteristic Marsden plot twists and turns in the novel.

One character has a sense of God, a vague sovereign being, the other definitely doesn’t. They both seem boy crazy, and have the traditional teen identity and image crises. However, one of the girls is in a not-so-typical situation, which allows examination of conventional teen issues from a different perspective.

This is not a great book however, because it telegraphs its conclusion, and has an extremely unlikely scenario that does not satisfy.

All three books I am reviewing coincidentally feature teens in their final year of schooling. I guess this is a favourite plot theme because there is the intensity of final year exams, the formal dramas, and the issue of what one is going to do with one’s life.

Looking for Alibrandi is the most realistic of the three novels. It too has been made into a successful movie. It deals with teen issues from the perspective of an Italian growing up in a predominantly “anglo” school in inner-city Sydney in the 90s.

The main character, Josephine Alibrandi, is outspoken and very funny. She discovers that she cannot talk herself out of every situation, and that she still has a lot of maturing to go through as she faces some challenging situations: the father she never met re-enters her life, she has her first serious boyfriend, and she almost gets stripped of her office of Vice-Captain for wagging school.

Her sense of God and morals is caught up with her cultural heritage. For her, to be Italian is to have a Catholic sensibility, it would seem. She articulates at one point that her belief in God needs to be separated from the evils of organised religion.

All three books chosen deal with issues of suicide and violence. Girl Saves Boy opens with Jewel saving Sacha from his suicide attempt.

This is a debut novel from a 16-year-old author! Steph Bowe is an amazing talent (with an interesting blogsite). The novel is a very accomplished piece of writing, although there are some annoying plot errors that should have been picked up by the editor.

My criticism of this book is that it suffers from too many extreme circumstances. It reads a little like a teen sitcom plotline: a boy with leukaemia whose Mum died of anorexia, and whose father has just taken up with a gay lover... hooks up with a girl whose brother drowned when he was 10, causing the separation of her parents, and suicide attempts from her mother.

No-one needs that much happening to have existential crisis; one or two tragedies would have been sufficient!

However, the characters are likeable, the issues that arise are real, and the conversations they have are engaging.

Jewel would like to believe in a higher being; Sacha doesn’t. She went on a church camp when she was younger, and says the idea of forgiveness and a clean slate is attractive.

There are some heavy physical encounters described in all three books, though none are particularly explicit. Only Alibrandi questions an easy attitude to sex among teens. Her questioning process is helpful, and she dismisses the conclusion from her friends that her relationship with a boy didn’t last because she refused to make love with him.

These three books remind me how important it is to read what our teens are reading, so we can discuss the ideas and issues raised; especially since books like these are recommended texts for schools. They also demonstrate just how counter-cultural the Christian lifestyle is for teens. I heard in a recent sermon that we should support our teens who “honour Christ and not the crowd.”