Friday Brown by Vicki Wakefield

on GoodReads

Friday Brown is a beautiful story of self-discovery and self-determination. It is the coming-of-age tale of a young girl, discovering who she is, but on her own terms. At 17 Friday's life has been under the singular influence of her mother until she finds herself alone and lost in Sydney. As she falls into the company of a group of homeless children she learns the value of friendship, the meaning of love, and finally the meaning behind her mother's philosophy of life: that if you can't make a good choice, at least make a choice you can live with.

I enjoyed this story immensely (4/5 stars). Wakefield describes Sydney and the various country towns Friday finds herself in with clarity and detail. Her characters are honest and flawed, the dialogue cleverly reinforcing their various natures. Friday is an engaging character and her struggle to remain true to herself whilst also discovering who she is, the sort of person she chooses to be, is universal.

When all is said and done, Friday Brown is a story about how the choices you make are what end up defining you as a person, and accepting people for who they are, regardless, is the sign of true friendship.

I look forward to more by Vikki Wakefield. Her first novel, All I Ever Wanted, was shortlisted for the 2011 Gold Inky Awards, shortlisted for the 2012 REAL Awards, a 2012 CBCA Notable Book and winner of the Young Adult Fiction Award at the 2012 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature. Friday Brown is her second novel and was shortlisted for the 2013 CBCA Book of the Year for Older Readers.

2014 Australian Women Writers Challenge

A new year brings a new reading challenge.
As well as #rwpchat and the ubiquitous GoodReads challenge, this year I've decided to participate in the Australian Women Writers Challenge.

For me the challenge will be in developing my review writing skills. I've done a little bit of reviewing for ALIA's inCite magazine a few years ago but mostly keep my personal reviews to GoodReads or this blog. (Let's be honest, mostly I just rate a book on GoodReads and leave it at that, call me lazy). Which is why I'm excited about #aww2014. It's a challenge that not only stretches me as a reader and reviewer but more importantly highlights the work of Australian women writers.
And if there's one thing which I am passionate about as a reader, it is supporting Australian writers.

So I've joined the AWW challenge group on GoodReads and I'll be signing up and focusing my reading efforts (and reviewing efforts) on the work of Australian women. I am still debating what level to aim for (Stella = 4; Miles = 6; Franklin = 10) but am really looking forward to sharing my reviews and reading the reviews of other readers participating in #aww2014.

This is going to be fun!

My Reading Year

2013 has been a reasonably quiet reading year for me.

Seriously, 120 books is pretty average for me. But I did set myself the challenge of reading stuff I wouldn't normally read and ended up with quite a neat list in the end.

But what's my favourite read of 2013? What's the one title that struck such resonance with me that I reluctantly put it aside when I finished it? That's a tough one.
Discovering the Laini Taylor Daughter of Smoke and Bone series was a huge delight. The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Muriel Barbery) and The Book of Emmet (Deborah Forster) struck me deeply. John Scalzi's Redshirts and The Android's Dream saw me laughing out loud in public (as did The Mallet of Loving Correction). Mark Lawrence's series The Broken Empire is just plain wow, I waited with baited breath for each instalment and loved the blend of fantasy and science fiction. Darren Shan and Derek Landy were pretty constant throughout the year and anything Neil Gaiman writes is usually very very good (no disappointments there). The Fault in Our Stars by John Green is heartbreakingly beautiful as is Kate Forsyth's The Wild Girl. Tad Williams, Terry Pratchett, John Marsden,Brandon Sanderson, Stephen King, Joe Hill, Jim Butcher, Jack Heath, John Flanagan, Matthew Reilly, Dean Koontz, James A Owen, Cinda Williams Chima, Justine Larbalestier, Melina Marchetta, P M Newton, Libby Gleeson, Cassandra Clare, Emma Donoghue, to name but a few. There were very few stories I read which disappointed (always nice when this happens). I took on the recommendations of others more this year and discovered a range of new authors to explore. It's been a delight.

But, what's my favourite read of 2013? ....... Yeesh.

I'm going to give that honour to Laini Taylor and Daughter of Smoke and Bone. This title was suggested to me by a work experience student as excited by books and reading and authors and stories as I am and was a delight to spend a week with showing her the ins and outs of library land. I read this and was wowed.   Emperor of Thorns by Mark Lawrence comes a close second but I started this series last year so I was already exposed to the characters and story whereas Daughter of Smoke and Bone was completely new.    Neil Gaiman's Fortunately the Milk entertained me for days. Even now I can induce giggles with "Ve vill wiwisect you".    I was excited to be part of Jack Heath's Ink, inc. Pozible project and delighted by the end product.

this book on GoodReads

It's been a really good reading year for me and I am keenly anticipating 2014 and the continuation of the Read Watch Play twitter reading group (follow @readwatchplay for the latest updates) which has inspired some cleverly themed reading choices. #rwpchat is a fun conversation to be involved in and the monthly tweetups have led to some very satisfying new discoveries. Talking books and games and movies and music and reading in all its myriad forms is positively delightful!

So, cheers to 2013 and bring on 2014 - may it be keenly filled with reading delights and discoveries!

Sometimes collection development isn't easy....

Whilst I work with a team of others to select titles for our library, I do however, possess the final say in all selections and purchases. It's my job and we have limited funds. I am constantly saying "yes" to some titles and "no" to others all based on a whole myriad of considerations. This is what collection management and development entails.

So when a book was recently suggested to me for the library to buy which is basically about a married school teacher in a suburban US town who has a singular sexual obsession with 14 year old boys - "It is a craving she pursues with sociopathic meticulousness and forethought, her sole purpose in becoming a teacher is to fulfil her passion and provide her access to her compulsion” - I said 'no'.

I found myself quite distressed by the synopsis of the book. I tweeted about it. One of my friends commented that she'd once been offered a self-published non-fiction title on incest for her library to buy. Though the particular title she'd been offered was completely lacking in academic rigour or literary merit and so was rejected, she made a rather significant point - "as one of the last societal taboos, surely accurate and non-sensationalist discourse would be valuable?" I tend to agree with the sentiment. 

I considered what GoodReads readers had to say about the book in question. The ratings and the comments vary from 0 stars right up to 5 stars. Comments also range from praise of the writer's skill in presenting a distinctly horrible character to those who lambasted it as nothing more than sensationalist pornography..
This sort of blurring the lines is evil. If I could do it over again, I'd have stayed away, just to avoid the corrosive effect that desensitization has been proven to have on our psyches. At the very least, I implore you, don't let your kids read it, even your "mature" ones. (Recynd)

The range of comments went on to raise the issue of how a particular crime is viewed not only in society but also in different countries.

This made me curious as to what our very own Crimes Act 1900 No. 40 has to say - not just about the kind of behaviour being portrayed but also the fact of the physical presence of the book in bookshops...

Sections 66A - 77 cover the whole gamut of sexual offences relating to children.
Section 91FB describes child abuse material as any "material that depicts or describes, in a way that reasonable persons would regard as being, in all the circumstances, offensive ... a person who is, appears to be or is implied to be, a child engaged in or apparently engaged in a sexual pose or sexual activity (whether or not in the presence of other persons)."
This section goes on to state that "the matters to be taken into account in deciding whether reasonable persons would regard particular material as being, in all the circumstances, offensive, include:(a) the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults, and (b) the literary, artistic or educational merit (if any) of the material, and (c) the journalistic merit (if any) of the material, being the merit of the material as a record or report of a matter of public interest, and (d) the general character of the material (including whether it is of a medical, legal or scientific character)".
91H describes the penalty for production, dissemination and/or possession of said material to be a maximum of 10 years.

Does the book depict acts of child abuse as per the Crimes Act 1900? Yes. 
Am I a reasonable adult to be offended by it? Yes.
Does the book have any literary, artistic, or educational merit? No. Do any of the characters in the book participate in sexual offences against children? Yes. Do these characters actively pursue this activity? Yes. Do they know it is wrong? Yes. Does that stop them? No. Do they consider murder in order to hide their crime? Yes. Are they sexually interested in any kinds of sexual partners other than children of a certain age? No. (Note: I am basing my answers here on the majority of comments I read on GoodReads).

The book in question does not have graphic images but it does explicitly detail sexual activities between an adult and a child that leaves little to the imagination. The adult protagonist actively seeks out children of a certain age bracket and does not appear to be interested in these children as they mature. Based on what the Crimes Act 1900 tells me this is both behaviour and the presentation of behaviour that is a crime in Australia. Indeed there is a very good paper by Kylie Miller, Senior Analyst with the National Crime Authority, which considers the nature and definition of a paedophile. So, considering all these elements it could be fair to say that the library buying this book and making it available to the general public would constitute a breach of the Crimes Act. It's probably a good thing I said 'no' then isn't it.

It will be interesting to see how this book progresses through the Australian literary scene. We're a pretty forgiving lot, open to reading about all sorts of subjects, but I truly query whether this 'debut novel' is worth the paper it has been printed on.


On a final note, this is my own personal opinion. It is based solely on my interpretation of the reviews available on GoodReads and my interpretation of the Crimes Act 1900. I do not believe that having a list of 'banned books' is in any way shape or form a good idea. Nor do I believe that content which is extremely offensive to a reasonable person is a good way to get people's attention and change the social mindset that all paedophiles are male. If this were a Non-Fiction title which enabled " accurate and non-sensationalist discourse" I would be all for it - but it's not.