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Book Review: Life in Outer Space by Melissa Keil

Jun 27, 2016

Life in Outer Space by Melissa Keil

Pages: 305
Publish date: February 1st 2013
Publisher: Hardie Grant Egmont
ISBN: 9781742973951
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon UK– Amazon US – Amazon AU – Dymocks

Sam Kinnison is a geek, and he’s totally fine with that. He has his horror movies, his nerdy friends, World of Warcraft – and until Princess Leia turns up in his bedroom, he doesn’t have to worry about girls.

Then Sam meets Camilla. She’s beautiful, friendly and completely irrelevant to his life. Sam is determined to ignore her, except that Camilla has a life of her own – and she’s decided that he’s going to be part of it.

Sam believes that everything he needs to know he can learn from the movies … but now it looks like he’s been watching the wrong ones.

Life in Outer Space:

This is possibly one of the most adorable books that I have ever read. When I closed the book I couldn’t keep the smile off my face, I am pretty sure I looked pretty stupid.

Life in Outer Space follows protagonist Sam Kinnison and his geeky ways. He loves horror movies, writes movie scripts and doesn’t care much for girls, but then Camilla comes into his life – and well, things start to change.

Sam was an interesting protagonist – he is geeky and doesn’t stand up for himself, and although I hate horror movies and don’t play video games, it was easy to see why he loved these things. Sam also has some self-doubt and it was difficult to read without trying to tell him that everything is going to be okay. But it was beautiful to see him grow throughout the novel and his character arc was spot on.

Camilla was a refreshing character to read about. She had this strong presence about her and she knew what she wanted in life. Even though she has this fame surrounding her, she doesn’t let it take over and she also doesn’t let people walk all over her.

The relationship between Camilla and Sam was completely adorable in Life in Outer Space. I was smiling ear to ear, I loved that it was slow burning and it started off as a friendship – which is fantastic because of the age of the protagonist. The way that both Sam and Camilla were there for each other was refreshing and even without knowing they helped each other out.

I adored that they were awkward with each other, the little smiles, that they both had feelings, yet kept it all hidden – it was a great representation of a first love between two young teens.

I loved seeing Sam’s relationship with his friends and how they are different from each other, but together they all work. I liked that they don’t take over from Sam character wise, but they are all fleshed out on their own.

There isn’t a good family vibe as such in, Life in Outer Space and I do wish there was more. Sam’s relationship with his mother was nice to see as his relationship with his father is strained. I liked seeing a mother and son relationship that was decent as I don’t see it in YA that often.

However, Sam’s family relationship isn’t that crash hot and I would have been okay with that if Camilla’s relationship with her parents was good. Camilla and her family are all over the place, they have no real bond and they all live apart. I just want to see something nice in the family section in Life in Outer Space.

Although I truly enjoyed Life in Outer Space, I found it hard to get into. I took me about 50 pages or so to be stuck in the story. It had a lot to do with the writing style and the voice of the protagonist. Sam is a 15 year old male – I am a 19 year old female; there is quite a lot of difference there. However, after the 50 pages the voice didn’t feel as foreign and I wanted to know what was going to happen.

Life in Outer Space by Melissa Keil ventures friendship, first love, family and what it is like to keep everything bottled in. It shows that sometimes love needs to start off as a friendship and that the bonds of friends are not always broken – even if there is some turbulence on the way.

Have you read any Melissa Keil? If you have did you like it as much as I did. I am going to pick up her other book quite soon. If you haven’t read her books are you going to? Let’s Chat!

#LoveOZYA Interview: Tim Sinclair

Jun 24, 2016

I love Aussie YA. I love reading books from authors that live in the same country as me, that know things that people out of Australia might be so confused about. I love how sometimes they can incorporate this into their book and it is fabulous.

So in saying that, I have decided to start a new feature on Angel Reads spotlighting Australian YA Authors. Each Friday for the next couple of months, I am going to interview an OZYA Author. I thought it would be a fun way to share my love for Australian Young Adult authors with not only fellow Aussies, but everyone around the world. I want more Australian YA books to be read, because they are amazing.

First week I interview Sarah Ayoub, then Fleur Ferris, followed by Will Kostakis, then Shivaun Plozza, and Gabrielle Tozer, followed by Jay Kristoff and Kylie Fornasier, A.J Betts, Megan Jacobson then Christopher Currie and last week Steph Bowe.

This week Tim Sinclair author of young adult novel Run (2013, Penguin Australia) and various other novels and poems.

Hi Tim, and welcome to Angel Reads. First can you introduce yourself to everyone? Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Hi! Thanks for having me. I write poetry and verse novels and novel novels (you know, the ones that everyone else just calls ‘novels’).

I like to involve myself in the research of my books in as physical a way as possible – my last book Run was about parkour, which made for some pretty interesting research – but it’s proving a little harder with my current project, as it would involve me travelling forward in time to a postapocalyptic world…

What has your writing journey been like? Where did you start? Why?

I’ve been writing stories and poems for as long as I can remember. I grew up in a very wordy household, where we did daggy things like write poems on each other’s birthday presents, so I’ve always swum in language. And I’ve always been a reader, so writing seemed like a natural part of that.

What was the process of getting your first book published?

Thrilling, obviously (!) – I was travelling while it was all happening, and sitting in an internet cafe on a small island in Hong Kong waiting for the cover proofs of Nine Hours North to download is one of the highlights of my life so far.

The other word I would use would be ‘pivotal’. There it was, the culmination of a lifetime spent dreaming about being a ‘real writer’, but what I very quickly realised was that it was just the start of the next phase. There’s always something else to aim for.

Was it different when getting your subsequent books published?

Each book has its own set of excitements and challenges – I know a bit more each time around, but there’s still so much to learn. I’m writing my first novel novel at the moment – actually, series of novels – and that’s a whole other thing. So many words!

You are an OZYA author, what are some of your favourite Aussie YA books?

I hate the ‘favourites’ question! Always so hard to narrow it down… If you’re going to make me pick just a few though, I’d say Vikki Wakefield’s Inbetween Days, Fiona Wood’s Cloudwish, Margo Lanagan’s Tender Morsels, and Ambelin Kwaymullina’s The Tribe series.

You can find Tim on twitter at @Tim_Sinclair, his website and don’t forget to add his books to your goodreads.

Run by Tim Sinclair

Pages: 236
Publish date: March 2016
Publisher: Penguin Australia
ISBN: 0143567683
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon UK – Amazon US – Amazon AU – Dymocks

Dee loves the freedom and risk of parkour. And when he’s set the ultimate parkour challenge he can’t resist, but has he got himself in way over his head? Run is a paranoid thriller – genre fiction meets literary verse novel.

***

Thank you Tim for joining me at Angel Reads. That is it for this week’s #LoveOZYA Interview. What did you think of Tim and his books? Let’s Chat!

Come back next week for some more Aussie fun. If you want to know more about the #LoveOZYA movement check out the website for all the details. Also if you have any Australian YA authors that you would like to see me interview, just let me know and I can see what I can do.

Discussion: Fanfiction?

Jun 23, 2016

I have wanted to write this discussion for quite some time now, however, when every time I sit down I don’t know what to say, I decided that it is time to just write it. Fanfiction is a controversial discussion around the book word; some people love it, some people hate it. Is it right to do? Is it wrong? Why do people write it? Questions like these are asked all the time.

I have been reading Fanfiction since I was twelve years old. I loved it then and I love it now. The main reason I read fanfiction is, that I love a book so much that I don’t want to leave it, the world of the book captures me and all I want to do is delve more into it.

Firstly, what is fanfiction?

Fanfiction is where someone uses characters, the world or other attributes of an already published novel to write a story.

What do I read?

I don’t read a range of fanfiction, at the moment I mostly only read Harry Potter and if you know me well you will know why. Harry has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember and I want to be with him forever. I love reading anything to do with James and Lily and Harry and Ginny.

I love how people can create and build characters’, I love seeing how people perceive characters, relationships the world. I may not agree with some of the changes that they have done, and that is totally fine.

When I first started to read fanfiction I did read some Twilight stories, because at that aged I loved it. However, I never read any Bella and Edward fanfiction – I don’t even know why, I always seemed to get bored with them, so I read Bella and different members of the pack – yes I’m weird.

I have also read some Vampire Academy, Percy Jackson and The Mortal Instruments. Vampire Academy is probably higher on my reading list than the others.

There is one rule that I have when reading fanfiction, I only read stories where a book/series have finished. I don’t want to get confused with how other people see the characters and how the author has shown them.

Is it okay?

The main question that is asked about fanfiction; is it okay to write? It’s hard to have a solid answer for this, for me, if the person who has written the story isn’t gaining money from it and has acknowledged that they have not created the world, characters etc. – then I’m okay with it.

However, if the person is receiving money or has published the book then now, they shouldn’t do that and I won’t read it.

There are some authors that don’t like when their books have inspired fanfictions and that is totally okay – they can feel that way, they can think that way.

I feel that fanfictions is an amazing exercise for people that want to be authors. They are able to write with established characters they can work with that, they are able to create dialogue, write in a world that has already been built. It’s a way of just working on the authors writing rather than world building.

Bad side

One of the things that I dislike about reading fanfiction is the response from others, it’s not a thing that I think about all the time, nevertheless when people ask if you read it – I don’t like to say yes – because they look down on me.

It’s mostly since I have been at university that I’ve noticed this and maybe it’s because they are older and most fanfiction is to do with young adult novels, and teens and people that read young adult can connect with it more – I don’t know.

Another bad side is that there is some umm…quite horrible pairings in fanfiction. Some that even thinking about makes me cringe, it’s like a big no-no. From time to time you stumble on it without realising and you can get a little shock.

Also, the writing of some stories are not up to a certain standard that I like to read and it’s easy to close the tab and start another.

Where can you read it?

Most of the fanfiction that I do read is on fanfiction.net – I like how it works, how I can be specific about what I want to read. It’s easy to navigate and there is quite a lot on there.

Wattpad also has fanfiction, however, that has a lot more to do with celebrities rather than books. A couple of moths ago I wrote a post about reading on Wattpad and what it means to me.

Overall fanfiction is not for everyone; some people love it, some hate it and that is alright. It is fun reading material for those who want to read more in the world of the book or series that they love, hear about characters after the books have finished and it’s a fantastic writing tool for bubbling writers.

Do you read fanfiction? If so, what do you read? What are some of your favourite stories? or Have you read in the past? Or maybe not at all. Let’s Chat!