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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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Last Modified: 20/11/2005