I made a few comments in the blog about the last Koja novel I read to the effect that romance is my least favourite genre. But goddammit I loved Kink even though that is ostensibly the book's main genre if you had to pigeonhole it.
I wish she'd stop doing this to me. This book is a young adult novel about two best friends at high school, Dana and Avra. Dana, the narrator, is madly in love with Avra's boyfriend, Emil, but doesn't want to admit it.Truly the stuff of the most normal of soap operas. This is not the type of stuff I normally like to read.
However, because of Kathe Koja's writing, I fully symapathised with Dana, wondered why she wanted to hang with Avra in any case (despite undertanding exactly why) and really wanted to know where the story was going. The will-they-won't-they was actually important to me while I read this book.
It isn't written in the normal stream of consiousness that the last few Koja novels I've read have been. The prose is much plainer and grammatical, but still just as compelling and emotional. The relationships between the three central characters are etched razor sharp on the page. Dana makes for a genuinely likeable protagonist.
As an extra layer to the story, we have segments from the project Dana is writing about bees for her Bio class. These serve to highlight and mirror the emotional story, as well as providing some interesting informaion about our buzzing little friends.
It's only a short book and a very fast read and well recommended despite being in my least favourite genre. I can't even say this one comes close to psychological horror the way that Kink did.
A solid 7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment