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Reviews
Lucy does weekly book reviews for
The Age and
The West Australian
newspapers. You will find selected book reviews.
Current reviews
Reviews, best & worst as usual
Pretty Birds
Scott Simon
Hodder $32.95
During the siege of Sarajevo, both sides found teenage girls made
efficient snipers. Journalist Scott Simon interviewed one of them--hence
this book. It brutally and convincingly demonstrates how easily a
fun-loving, multi-cultured city (just like Melbourne) can degenerate to
a war zone. Irena is a typical teen, keen on rock, glossy magazines and
basketball. Gradually the imperatives of war make her a killing machine.
Much made Sarajevo's case appalling, notably the UN's inability to
protect civilians. All this Simon depicts, while never losing his focus
on an ordinary girl, living through a nightmare. Possibly the best novel
I've read this year.
Retrospective note: It takes guts to have Osama Bin Laden as a (walk-on)
character. Ditto for taking on a subject like Sarajevo. Pretty Birds
was one of those books where the novelty of the material (the chapter
where a Serb battery is duped into shelling their own bank has to have
happened in real life...), and the author's skilled handling of it,
possibly obscured other less adept aspects of the book. Yet it
succeeded. I wish Australian novelists would take such risks.
PICTURE BOOK
The Mystery of Eilean Mor
Gary Crew and Jeremy Geddes
Lothian $27.95
Over the past few years, children's writer Gary Crew has been producing
some fine, dark, picture books. Eilean Mor is perhaps the zenith. A
lighthouse on a haunted isle has gone dark. A boat goes to investigate.
Its captain finds the keepers gone, the island empty except for three
dark birds. Artist Geddes has worked in computer games, and it shows, in
the hyperrealist style. Much of the book is black, or deepest
puce-suitably sombre for the accompanying text. Eilean Mor should appeal
to Goths of most ages, except the littlest. Reading this book to small
children is asking for nightmares.
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