My Sister Rosa by Justine Larbalestier

Rosa is pushing all the buttons.

She makes the seat go backwards and forwards, the leg rest up and down, in and out, lights on, lights off, TV screen up, TV screen down.

We’ve never been in business class. Rosa has to explore everything and figure what she’s allowed to do and how to get away with what she isn’t.

The flight attendants love her. Flight attendants always slove Rosa. Most strangers do. She’s ten years old with blonde ringlets, big blue eyes, and dimples she can turn on and off like, well, like pushing a button.

Rosa looks like a doll; Rosa is not a doll.

Rosa is pushing all the buttons.

She makes the seat go backwards and forwards, the leg rest up and down, in and out, lights on, lights off, TV screen up, TV screen down.

We’ve never been in business class. Rosa has to explore everything and figure what she’s allowed to do and how to get away with what she isn’t.

The flight attendants love her. Flight attendants always love Rosa. Most strangers do. She’s ten years old with blonde ringlets, big blue eyes, and dimples she can turn on and off like, well, like pushing a button.

Rosa looks like a doll; Rosa is not a doll.

Che and his family are on their way to New York, for his dad’s new job. Che wishes they could have stayed in Australia this time, rather than moving overseas again. At home in Sydney, he had friends, he has a boxing gym he loves, he has a life. In New York, he has to begin all over again: new school, new friends, new gym. And Rosa. Rosa, his gorgeous, smart, funny little sister is a psychopath. And it seems he’s the only one who can keep her in line. But no matter how much he shadows her, Rosa has plans of her own. As Che becomes more settled in their new home, their new city, Rosa’s antics become more complex, more dangerous. How can he make others believe what he knows?

My Sister Rosa begins in a plane, en route to New York, as Rosa behaves much like any ten-year-old girl, experiencing business class for the first time. Che’s concerns about her behaviour feel overblown but fairly typical for an older brother. The first-person voice ensures the reader only has Che’s perspective and has to work out whether or not he is reliable in his depiction of their life, of his sister’s behaviour. What is clear, is that he’s keen to have his own life, to box, to have a girlfriend, to go home. He loves his sister, loves his family but New York is going to test them all. My Sister Rosa is a rich, complex, unsettling and compelling novel. Recommended for secondary readers.

My Sister Rosa, Justine Labalestier
Allen & Unwin 2016
ISBN: 9781760112226

review by Claire Saxby, Children’s author and bookseller

www.clairesaxby.com

Razorhurst, by Justine Larbalestier

Kelpie didn’t look at the card between her fingers. She could feel it there, but she was staring at the red splashes on the walls, on the mirror of the wardrobe, across the two paintings, at the blood sliding down them in rivulets. her nostrils flared at the smell from the dead man and she wished she could close them.
She did not see or smell apples.

Kelpie has been living on the streets of Surry Hills almost as long as she can remember. Her friends are mostly ghosts – she alone seems to be able to see and hear them – so she’s no stranger to death, but she is still shocked when she stumbles across the scene where Jimmy Palmer has just been slain. Unwittingly, she is now part of a turf war between mob bosses Glory Nelson and Mr Davidson. She also has a new, unexpected friend and protector – Dymphna Campbell – who was Jimmy’s girlfriend and Glory’s best girl. But Dymphna doesn’t know who to trust: she had Jimmy had been plotting to replace both of the mob bosses, and whoever killed Jimmy must have known that. Jimmy’s ghost wants to help, but he’s a bit hysterical over the turn of events. Kelpie’s only living friend, Snowy, also seems to want to help, but Jimmy says it was Snowy who killed him. Could sticking together be the thing that keeps both girls alive?

Set in 1930s Sydney, Razorhurst is historical fiction with a paranormal element, via the ghost characters. Set amidst the backdrop of a period where poverty was high, and gangs focused on prostitution and gambling preferred the razor as a means of enforcement and retribution, the story is fiction, but does draw on the lives of madams Tilly Devine and Kate Leigh, and 1930s prostitutes Dulcie Markham and Nellie Cameron as starting points for the intriguing characters of Glory and Dymphna.

Kelpie and Dymphna, who alternate as viewpoint characters, seem initially to be two very different people thrown together by circumstance, but it emerges that they have more in common than either thinks. this makes their relationship both complex and, for the reader, intriguing. The events that they endure, both within the short time frame of the book and in their pasts – which we see through flash backs – are violent and traumatic, yet both girls are strong, albeit in different ways.

Razorhurst is absorbing, frightening, and, at times, amusing. It is also utterly readable.

 

Razorhurst

Razorhurst, by Justine Larbalestier
Allen & Unwin, 2014
ISBN 9781743319437

Available from good bookstores or online.

Team Human, by Justine Larbalestier & Sarah Rees Brennan

‘Kristin,’ I said to her voicemail yet again. ‘The boy advice, man advice, whatever, it’s not for me. It’s much ore serious than that. Cathy’s gone all moony-eyed over a boy. Not just any boy. This one is an undead pain in the butt, and he won’t go away. Help!’

Seeing a vampire isn’t all that unusual in New Whitby, given that the city was founded by vampires. But although Mel and her friends Cathy and Anna might have seen them before, they haven’t actually met one. Vampires tend to stick to their own kind, and their aversion to light means they tend to be awake and active when humans are asleep. Then a vampire comes to their school, and suddenly everything is different, because Cathy is convinced that he is ‘the one’. Mel is determined to do whatever it takes to make Cathy see that dating a boy like Francis is dumb, but considering becoming a vampire to be with him is just sheer madness.

Her efforts to save Cathy are complicated when she meets Kit, a human boy with an unusual upbrining. Mel’s anti-vampire sentiments are soon trheatening not just her friendship with Cathy, but also her connection with Kit.

Team Human is an interesting take on the vampire book phenomenon. Taken as a parody of the form, it is clever and funny. Taken as a straight read, it also works – there is romance, mystery, suspense and character development. Whether teen readers will consider it a parody will depend on the reader, but because it works either way this is not a problem.

Team Human

Team Human, by Justine Larbalestier & Sarah Rees Brennan
Allen & Unwin, 2012
ISBN 978174237839

This book is available from good bookstores, or online from Fishpond,

Liar, by Justine Larbalestier

I haven’t been entirely honest. I mean, I have been about the facts. About Zach and the police. How awful it was at school, at home. My family history. My illness. How I showed Zach foxes. How everyone suspects me, if not of killing Zach, then of something.
I haven’t made myself out to be better than I am. Or worse.
But I haven’t been entirely honest about my insides. How it is in my head and my heart and my veins.
Let me come clean.

Micah Wilkins is a liar. Everyone knows that – her teachers, her parents and especially her classmates. Even Micah knows it – and admits it. But she promises the reader that this time she will tell the truth.

Micah’s secret boyfriend, Zach has been murdered, and Micah wants the reader to know that she didn’t kill him – even though there’s plenty of suspicion being cast on her. Zach’s ‘real’ girlfriend Sarah, his friends, the teachers and the police all seem to think Micah could have done it – and even her parents seem a little unsure. At first it seems that all this suspicion is a little unfounded, and that Micah may be a little paranoid, but as the book progresses, the reader finds plenty of reason not to trust Micah – and to instead wonder just what she is capable of.

Liar is a compelling story. With twists and turns and an intriguing plot structure which sees Micah (and the reader) jump from past to present and back again with a complexity which allows for truth (and lies) to be slowly pieced together, what IS certain is that the reader will be fascinated with Micah and find it difficult to stop reading until the final page and even then, to stop thinking about Micah for a long time after.

Breathtaking.

Liar

Liar, by Justine Larbalestier
Allen & Unwin, 2009

This book can be purchased online from Fishpond. Buying through this link supports Aussiereviews.

How to Ditch Your Fairy, by Justine Larbalestier

I have a parking fairy. I’m fourteen years old. I can’t drive. I don’t like cars and I have a parking fairy. Rochelle gets a clothes-shopping fairy and is always well attired; I get a parking fairy and always smell faintly of petrol. How fair is that?

In New Avalon everyone has a personal fairy. Having a god fairy can really ensure success – but having a less useful fairy can be a disaster. The problem is, you can’t choose the fairy you get. For Charlie, having a parking fairy when she doesn’t drive isn’t just useless – it’s also annoying. Everyone wants her to go places with them, to ensure that they get a parking spot when they get there. And some people – especially the brutish Danders Anders – won’t take no for an answer. Charlie is determined to get rid of her fairy and get a new one – but this isn’t as easy as it seems.

How to Ditch Your Fairy is a funny look at teen life in a parallel world whose main difference to our own is the existence of unseen fairies. The city of New Avalon is a slightly crazy place, where famous people are known as ‘Ours’ and revered as untouchables, and students are classified into schools based on their talents, so that they can aspire to be Ours too, or at least to ensure New Avalon’s continued position as the most important city in the world. The city’s self-centeredness and lack of awareness of the wider world is echoed by Charlie’s own self absorption, though as she works with her one-time enemy Fiorenze to ditch their respective fairies, she develops an awareness of the world around her and of other people’s needs and opinions.

A fun book for teen readers.

How to Ditch Your Fairy

How to Ditch Your Fairy , by Justine Larbalestier
Allen & Unwin, 2009

This book can be purchased online from Fishpond. Buying through this link supports Aussiereviews.