Katniss climbed into bed with Peeta, gave him a hug and he leant in to say:

“You love me, real or not real?” and Katniss said, “Real.”

Time to admit a dirty secret I have been harbouring for a while now – yes, I’m ashamed! I haven’t read the Hunger Games. I know. I know. I’m a YA Fantasy/Dystopian writer, how could I NOT have read the Hunger Games…? It just sort of happened. Lets not talk about it. I’ll fix it…Soon.

Anyway, there we were in the cinema and I leant over to to Mrs. Black and did the unthinkable, whispered in the middle of the film. I said… That right there, that’s the last line of the book. She raised an eyebrow and asked me how I knew. I didn’t have the answer, so I shrugged, “I just did.”

But it got me thinking, how did I know? And what was it about that line that made it so obviously a last line?

After we left the cinema I frantically scanned the kindle app on my phone to see if I’d downloaded it and could check. I had, and low and behold, ignoring the epilogue, there was the last line of the book, exactly as I had predicted.

‘So after when he whispers, “you love me. Real or not real?” 

I tell him, “Real.”

Suzanne Collins – Mockingjay (Book 3)

So I scoured a bunch of other books to find their last lines and not only are there clear things I learnt, but there is also quite an obvious difference in the style and content between the last lines of first and last books in trilogies.

But first, the endings:

The Hunger Games (Book 1 – Suzanne Collins) – Out of the corner of my eye, I see Peeta extend his hand. I look at him, unsure. “One more time? For the audience?” he says. His voice isn’t angry. It’s hollow, which is worse. Already the boy with the bread is slipping away from me.

I take his hand, holding on tightly, preparing for the cameras, and dreading the moment when I will finally have to let go.

***

The Testing (Book 1 – Joelle Charbonneau) – I blink as the small room fills wth a voice that sounds like my own and listen as the voice speaks words I don’t want to believe.

***

Angel fall (Book 1 – Susan Ee)- I never realised why a triumph it is to simply be alive. My sister is with us. Raffle is flying. Everything else is secondary. And for now, that is enough.

***

End of Days– (Book 3 – Susan Ee)- My whole world turns into Raffe sensations as our lips explore each other.

***

Matched (Book 1 – Ally Condie)- My words never last long. I have to destroy them before anyone sees them. But. I remember them all. For some reason, the act of writing them all down makes me remember. Each word I write brings me closer to finding the right ones. And when I see Ky again, which I know will happen, I will whisper the words I have written in his ear, against his lips. And they will change from ash and nothing into flesh and blood.

***

Divergent  (Book 1 – Veronica Roth)- Abnegation and Dauntless are both broke, their members scattered. We are like the factionless now. I do not know what life will be like, separated from a faction-it feels disengaged, like a leaf divided from the tree that gives it sustenance. We are creatures of loss; we have left everything behind. I have no home, no path, and no certainty. I am no longer Tris, the selfless, or Tris, the brave. I suppose that now, I must become more than either.

***

Allegiant (Book 3 – Veronica Roth)- Since I was young, I have always known this: Life damages us, every one. We can’t escape that damage. But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended. We mend each other.

But what can we learn from these last lines?

ONE – The difference between book 1 and book 3

The most obvious difference between first books and last books that in a series, is that the first book, although drawing its story to a conclusion, leaves something open.

For example, the Hunger Games says: “and dreading the moment when I will finally have to let go.”

The key word for me is dreading. It tells us not only that there is more to come, but it is foreshadowing a gloomy future – telling us that there will come a time when she will let go for the last time.

Again, in Divergent (the first book), Tris says:

“I suppose that now, I must become more than either.”

Similarly here Tris spent the previous paragraph rounding every storyline off, but the

TWO – YA Philosophy

There’s this thing in YA books, I don’t know how to describe it other than ‘YA Philosophy’. I think because of the emotional rollercoaster YA’s go through and the fact they are still learning about life, there is always a big emotional truth revelation in a YA novel. An “oh yeah?!” moment when they learn something they will never forget.

It’s a fundamental truth that most adults will likely just ‘get’ intuitively. But here’s the clincher, I think the reason so many adults still like YA novels is because we forget our inner child and the lessons we learnt. Sure, we know them deep down. But we become numb to life because of the monotony of the suburban nightmare and the daily grind. Which means when the protagonist says something philosophical and emotionally fundamental, we are propelled back to our youth and our own “Oh yeah” moments. A poignant reminder that life is still beautiful in its innocence.

In essence, this is the characters arc – their personal journey but in YA its typically much more emotional than in other genres.

Two basic examples from the Hunger Games:

“Destroying things is much easier than making them.”

“You don’t forget the face of the person who was your last hope.”

***

In the final books, these revelations happen more frequently and more intensely, and Allegiant, the last in the Divergent series, the last line is precisely one of these YA Philosophy moments:

“But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended. We mend each other.”

Two examples from divergent:

“Then I realize what it is. It’s him. Something about him makes me feel like I am about to fall. Or turn to liquid. Or burst into flames.” 

“We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another.” 

***

THREE – Endings are endings for a reason

Endings are endings – so although in lesson one I learnt that in book 1 specifically something is left open, that ‘thing’ is tiny. Because ultimately, the previous paragraphs or chapters depending on how an author has paced their novel, rounds off all the story lines in that book.

YA readers generally are impatient. I know I am, and I love to feel satisfied at the end of a book, which means no unfinished business.

It feels like this is a careful line to tread because a lot of YA books at the moment are trilogies. So you have to leave something open. Generally, although obviously ever author is different, these novels resolve the major conflict, or plot problem, and leave a hook for the next one (see point one).

Interestingly, when I went back and checked the first books, three of the five mentioned the male love interest in the last paragraph – that was the hook into the next book’s storyline. Two didn’t, (divergent and the testing) and both those were about the self growth and journey of the protagonist.

FOUR – Foreshadowing

I talked about foreshadowing recently in 6 Tricks to the Perfect Reveal. One of the things I mentioned was it is never too early to foreshadow. Including, before book two even starts. All of these books are foreshadowing, whether its the reuniting of lovers, a self sacrifice or a war that still needs to be fought. The last line is key to setting up the premise for the next novel.

***

Every genre is different, but what do you find is essential for a book ending?

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The post 4 Tactics to Create Your Novel's Perfect Last Line appeared first on Sacha Black.

I really did have to rack my brain to find something useful to say because there isn’t much. We are human just like the rest of the world. For those looking for tips on writing gay male characters, I’m not going to be helpful in this post. I’ve stuck to what I know…lesbians. 

Before I start, I wanted to make a couple of points reflecting on the discussion the last post had. Firstly, it’s not just LGBT people who have a distinct lack of a market in the literary world, there are a multitude of minority groups that need adequate representation and don’t. It sucks for all of us, not just LGBT people. Secondly, a lot of people speculated whether it was publishers blocking the publication of LGBT character driven novels. I don’t have the answer to that, but I thought it was an interesting point. Last, I still remain surprised that TV is now at the forefront of progression instead of books – wasn’t there a time when books paved the way for new thought in society? i’m not sure how comfortable I am with TV doing it for us.

1. Language 

There’s this whole language thing to describe yourself – or not describe yourself as the case may be. Some LGBT (and minority) people hate ticking boxes, so they make a point of not identifying, that’s fine. For those that identify as well as saying ‘I’m a lesbian or bisexual’ there’s this entire spectrum of slang words to describe yourself. Take this with the pinch of salt, I don’t want to offend anyone, but this is the way a lot of people I know explain it:

A point to note here is: this is a generational thing as much as it is personal preference. I have some friends in their 50’s and 60’s who are feminine but would still view themselves as a dyke – it’s just a word that was used frequently in previous years. That being said, I don’t know many people my age that would refer to themselves as a dyke. It seems to have taken a much more derogatory meaning in current trends. Also, and I hate this, but this scale is a little stereotypical, but I guess stereotypes come from somewhere.

A lipstick lesbian is barely discernible from a straight girly girl – dresses, make up, heels. We’ve all been there and got in trouble for trying to chat up a straight girl thinking they were a lipstick lesbian!… Or is that just me?!

Femmes, are one step down, make up – maybe heels, probably very few or no dresses. Still interested in girly things.

Boi’s are the androgynous bunch. Mixed bag of clothing, little if any make up and a mix of boys and girls clothes, usually sporty.

Butches tend to wear boys clothes, behave a little more masculine and definitely don’t do makeup.

Dykes think stereotype: shave heads, flannel shirts, very masculine – unless they are older lesbians in which case it’s just a word much as I would use lesbian.

Another point to note is about the dating of language in a novel. If you are looking for current lingo for your story this is it. But be warned just like ‘dyke’ has gone in, out and back into fashion again I am sure the other words will too. Lesbian is probably the safest word to stick too.

2. Clothes 

In pretty woman Vivian wakes up all glam and slings Edward’s shirt on. Great, but as a lesbian, if you’re not too different size wise, you can actually steal all of each other’s clothes. This is a ‘thing’ some lesbians love it (see merging below) others hate it (me and the wife do NOT share clothes!)

3. Merging

Merging starts with the clothes, slowly but surely you end up dressing the same, matching jumpers, or converse, then all of a sudden you have the same haircut, and before you know it, you look, sound and think the same. All a bit dangerous as most couples end up imploding on each other in a messy break up like no other you have seen.

4. and 5. U-Hauling, Lesbian Bed Death and Gold Stars

U-hauling – when you start dating and then shortly after the first sleep over, your new partner basically never leaves. You move from being fuck buddies to living together with 3 cats in as many weeks. It happens a lot. It’s linked to merging, and always leads to lesbian bed death.

Which literally does what it says on the tin. You become so wrapped up in your comfortable ‘relationship spread’ you stop being sexual beings and ultimately stop schtupping each other.

A gold star is a woman who has only ever slept with other women, and a term used quite a lot in general conversation.

6. Be ‘in the know’ about Media

I just moaned about books, but I could moan even louder about films and TV. Although, there is an emergence of odd characters here and there in soap etc, there isn’t really an entire genre out there to keep you going much longer than a few days.

That being said, Netflix goes above and beyond to pull a rather healthy sized portion of LGBT films. But anyone whose anyone knows there are only a handful of lesbian tv series to talk about, and trust me, they do get talked about: L-Word is the most famous, a 5 season saga following a group of lesbians in LA if you are a lesbian and haven’t watched it… tut, shame on you. I don’t think I know a single one who hasn’t seen it!

Lip Service – the English, or should I say Scottish version of the same kind of thing that only had 2 seasons. And the three recent prison series – Bad Girls, Wentworth, and Orange is The New Black.

By way of magazines I am sure there are more, but the two lesbian ones that spring to mind in the UK are Diva, and G3. GT for the boys.

7. Pride

We are special. We get a whole festival dedicated to celebrating girl on girl action, or boy on boy or…and so on.

If you’re young, then pride is non negotiable, it’s a full-blown meat fest of shenanigans and willing victims all vying for their next shag. Of course, what I meant to say was, it’s a well established tradition to celebrate the political battles so many had when fighting for our rights… It is, obviously, but if you’re young… Erm. Yeah. Moving on.

There are even week-long pride events in places like Gran Canaria… definitely been there twice! didn’t sleep a wink for 7 days!

8. Babies

As far as I am aware, science hasn’t yet, been able to make a baby with just sperm, or just an egg. Although I have been hearing about this successes with three parent babies, for those who have mitochondrial diseases. But for LGBT people this is the major area you come a cropper.

8.a. Fertility treatment if you go through a clinic is MEGA bucks. Like THOUSANDS. I hear the average couple spends 25K on getting pregnant…

8.b. If you’re a lesbian its a shit load easier to get pregnant than if you’re a gay guy. Girls have an oven handy, all they need is the *ahem* *shudders*. That is one heck of a shopping trip – and yes, it is just like a catalogue!

8.c. Access to fertility treatment (in the UK) is unfortunately postcode lottery. It’s unfair, unjust and quite frankly disgusting. God forbid you’re a lesbian with actual fertility problems. No support, no support groups, no professional unless in a fertility clinic can answer your questions. Leading to frantic googling which often results in discovering you have toenail warts or something else equally ridiculous.

8.d. Your not always welcome in mummy groups either (I got ousted out of two). Don’t get me wrong, I am sure some are fine. But not always. It’s lonely being a mum on maternity leave. But it’s even lonelier as a lesbian mum.

9. The Questions 

For some reason, people think because my spouse has a vagina instead of a penis, that they can just ask whatever they like. Let me give you a list of questions I have been asked recently:

“How did you… you know… choose?”  Choose what? dinner? who was putting the washing on? OHH you mean who was going to get pregnant. Each to their own. The answers different for every couple, but 9 times out of 10 its bloody obvious to us, it’s just not obvious to you!

“So who’s the dad?” I try very VERY hard not to whip out my angry lesbian and smash whoever said it over the head. Instead, I smile sweetly and correct their grotesque language “actually he doesn’t have a dad, he has a donor.”

“Oh, so do you know the da…donor then?” Not that it’s any of your business but no, we don’t. We have a file of information, and before you ask, (which they always do) no he can’t contact him when he’s  18, that’s UK donors only. It’s a difficult personal decision, and believe you me, there are as many ways of getting pregnant in a lesbian relationship as there are hot meals in a year, and each one is a personal choice to that couple and results in a different type of relationship with the: donor, donor daddy, daddy, co-parent.

“Sooooooo….What does he call you?” UGH. You know, children actually have a habit of making their own choices. Most lesbians I know get called mummy and mama, but our boy decided to call me a variety of things from mum-mum, mum and mummy but the wife is most definitely mama. *shrugs* – kids.

“So how did you get pregnant?” I’m sorry, I don’t recall asking you what position you bonked your wife in the night you got her up the duff… what was it? Cow girl? doggie? or just plain old vanilla missionary? How the chuff do you think I got pregnant? I used some sperm, and no. It wasn’t with a turkey baster before you ask!

“So how do you have sex?” Omg. really? Stop doing that scissor motion with your fingers. STOP IT. It’s cringe worthy. You know, you could use your imagination! If you can’t then don’t ask me unless you’re researching it for a book (I’ll help then), otherwise I want to know the intricate details of your sex life.

10. One of You Game

There’s this game, a lot of lesbians plays it, although it comes under many a different name. But, essentially, you lesbian spot – it happened in a lift the other day. The wife and I absent-mindedly entered a lift behind another couple with a pram. It wasn’t till I looked up, noticed the hair, general stature, and distinctly butch physique of one of the couple that I realised – they were one of us. My eyes shot to the wife to see if she’d noticed. The piercing glare she fired back told me she had. It was now a race. A battle to see who would break first. Who would be first to nudge the other in a child like way and whisper without getting caught ‘that’s one of you’.

10. The Serious Side

It’s a sad fact that there is still some inherent inequality in the UK. Although the government has made progress and passed a same-sex marriage bill, if you think it’s provided equality, you are sadly mistaken. Did you know, I can’t divorce my wife on the grounds of adultery? Yeah, outrageous isn’t it?

But it’s not just the government. People still shout at you in the streets – some kid did it in my town over the summer, “err that’s a lesbian,” he bellowed as I raised an eyebrow and ushered my son away from the ignoramus. My wife had a knife held to her throat when she was at uni. Bigotry and homophobia is still rife, and the thing is, if your normal, then you’re unlikely to see it. To feel the constant pressure from being different, from having to decide whether you can be open or whether you need to hide yourself from the next colleague you’re being introduced to. I’m not saying if you write an LGBT character you need to go all feminist bra burning political. I’m just saying that actually, your characters facing the odd snipe, or dirty look, sadly, is realistic.

The darker side to this, is the wealth of statistics and information about mental illness, drugs and ill health. I’ve rambled for long enough, so I don’t need to add them all in here, besides, book research is healthy. But I know for a fact that suicide and depression is rife amongst LGBT people. Some statistics suggest drugs and smoking is too, especially with younger LGBT people and equally poorer health outcomes too.

Stonewall has a great starter for ten in these three booklets, being gay in Britain, being gay in school, and LGBT families.

***

Have you ever written about an LGBT character? Would you? If not why not? If you’re a lesbian what did I miss? What great little details could a writer add to their stories to give them depth?

The post Warning: These 10 Top Tips Will Help You Write Seriously Authentic Lesbian Characters appeared first on Sacha Black.

Can anyone tell me a blockbuster famous novel they have read with a main character that was either gay or lesbian? Don’t worry, I’ll wait whilst you scratch your head to think… still haven’t thought of one? No. Me neither. Anyone else got an issue with that? Because I really do.

Statistics vary, but it is said that the LGBT population is anywhere from 6-10% of the population. So why, doesn’t LGBT fiction make up 6-10% of mainstream fiction or even 6-10% of mainstream characters? Just where are all the LGBT characters in mainstream books?

The first time I read about a gay character was in Bookends, by Jane Green. She’s a fantastic chick flick writer, but the character was a minor character (a gay male) and cliched, in a bad way. He had HIV. Ugh. Really? Come on, aren’t we over that stereotype by now?

Don’t get me wrong, there are some extraordinarily talented writers that are writing about LGBT characters, I have featured a couple on here: James Howell, and I wrote about that book, over on Ula’s blog the other day. There’s also the critically acclaimed V.G Lee, Michael Harwood, and recently featured Anne Goodwin, then there’s also Kiki Archer, who is obscenely funny (I’ve seen her read an excerpt from her book Too Late… I Love You) and Paul Burston who wrote The Gay Divorcee and also happens to run an amazing Polari literary group in London for LGBT authors.  All these authors are successful in my eyes with bags of talent and genuinely brilliant novels and more importantly make money from their books.

Maybe I am being a little facetious. I did just give you an awesome list of books, and the quantity of LGBT books being published is beginning to grow exponentially.

There is a rather exciting bookshop in Kings Cross, called Gays the Word. If you’re ever in Kings Cross with a few minutes to spare, check it out, and feast your eyes upon an entire bookshop FULL of LGBT fiction. It ONLY sells LGBT fiction. My jaw about hit the floor when I discovered it. If you haven’t read an LGBT book before then it’s a must do pit stop. But really, must all the LGBT books in the world be huddled in one book shop? I struggle to find anything other than tipping the velvet in a waterstones or WHsmiths.

Despite all the books I just listed. LGBT fiction is not mainstream, ok maybe Sarah Waters’ Tipping The Velvet is. But one book does not make an entire genre mainstream.

More to the point, most of what you can find without searching hard, is erotica. *foreheadslap* I mean, really? No one actually scissors people, and honestly, some of us actually like reading ‘STORIES’ you know the ones with conflict, plot twists and a little character depth that’s more involved than whose lips are whose and I don’t mean the ones on your face! *sigh* I’m ranting, I know.

But the reason I am talking about this is because I want to write a middle-ish grade LGBT novel. Think Jacqueline Wilson Girls In Love – that kind of age group, but with all LGBT characters. It got me thinking about how little blockbuster famous LGBT fiction there is out there, and even less for younger teens. I know of a handful, most notably I read Ash and Huntress by Malinda Lo, both of which, actually, were fantasy, another surprise because it’s nigh on impossible to find any LGBT fantasy, and definitely no LGBT YA fantasy.

If you’re about to say, well you’re a lesbian, you write the YA fantasy LGBT stuff. I know. I could. I’d love to in fact. Except that…I can’t… You know how stories and characters ‘come to you’ in moments of inspiration? Well apparently my muse does not wear a rainbow tutu. That or, she is preoccupied being a Diva.

So what is it that stops LGBT fiction becoming blockbuster hits like the Hunger games? Is there something stopping writers crafting gay characters? Fear? the unknown? terminology? and if writers are writing LGBT fiction, then what’s stopping it from becoming mainstream?

Believe me, life isn’t that different. Someone still has to do the washing up, someone still gets up in the middle of the night when the baby wakes up, trash still gets taken out, clothes get washed, food shops get done. I mean, to be honest, other than the distinct lack of a male appendage I don’t see much difference in this relationship than any of my previous ones. So seriously, TELL ME? Why? What am I missing? 

This is part 1 of a two part post. Next week, I give you my list of  The Top Ten Things You Need To Know When Crafting A Lesbian Character.

The post Where Are All The LGBT Characters? appeared first on Sacha Black.

Do you have a smell, or ‘thing’ that makes you recall an incident or memory vividly? If so what is it? Let me know in the comments. Is it a sound? Or smell? Or maybe the feel of a certain fabric?

I tend to have certain songs that remind me of people or times in my life, a few particularly from uni, like Mr Brightside. Every time I would hear that song in a club at uni, I would drunk dial my bezzie mate (if she wasn’t with me) and slur at the top of my voice down the phone vaguely in time to the lyrics. It was like a love note to my buddy. Now when I hear the song, it reminds me of sweaty dancing, dingy union club nights and a lot of happy times.

I also get the same thing with smells. They seem to evoke the strongest sense of memory. Nag Champa incense sticks for example, fling me back to Nepal and my days trekking in the Himalayas. How wonderful that things can do this to us, but how? And how can we transfer that into our writing?

Smell is so important – think about when you get a cold. You can’t taste a damn thing can you? Well – that’s because taste and smell – although separate senses, are intricately linked, but you can read about that here. And what of the perfume industry? It has always been a wonder to me that girls buy girls perfume and boys buy boy perfume. Personally I love the smell of boys perfume – it was designed for women to love it, to find it attractive. SO WHY DON’T GIRLS WEAR IT? If it was designed for us to love it seems bonkers we don’t wear it. Can you tell this annoys me? I always wear boys perfume in protest!

The parts of the brain most commonly associated with memory are the amygdala in the temporal lobe and the hippocampus. Smells are processed by the olfactory bulbs – which start in the nose and run under the brain, close to the hippocampus and the amygdala which controls memory.

However,  sight, sound and touch sensory information don’t run near these parts of the brain which is why smell more than any other part of the brain is so closely linked to memory. Smell and memory perception centres in the brain cross over and get caught in each others paths. Giving us this wonderful opportunity as a writer to exploit its benefits.

Plenty of scientific articles demonstrate using fMRI scanning that the brain displays more activity when intense memories are evoked through smell. Unfortunately for us writers, studies also show that the brain is more active when actually smelling the aroma rather than reading the word(1).

That being said, I also know, having read a lot of psychology science papers at uni that, when a person reads the word associated to a smell, the same areas of the brain are lit up on the scanners – meaning their brains are having similar experiences as if they were actually smelling it for real, albeit less intensely.

So what does this mean as writers?

I was chatting to Jane a while back, about how smell is always the forgotten sense. But actually it gives so much depth to a piece of writing, some authors are able to capture smell so vividly you can actually taste the air, or feel your stomach gurgle as a juicy piece of cake is laid on the table for a characters birthday. My point is, I often neglect other senses on a first draft, and actually you don’t need reams of aromatic description, the odd well placed sentence is more than enough.

A couple of examples for you:

“The house smelled musty and damp, and a little sweet, as if it were haunted by the ghosts of long-dead cookies.” ― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“He wraps his arms around me and holds me tight for a few seconds. His breaths tickle my ear, and I close my eyes, letting myself finally relax. He smells like wind and sweat and soap, like Tobias and like safety.”  ― Veronica Roth, Allegiant

How have you used smell in your work? Or do you have a certain smell or sound that evokes a memory for you? Let me know in the comments. 

Here’s one more random question, I couldn’t decide which photo to use as my blog post cover. Which do you prefer – the one at the top, or this one, and why?

References

(1) Arshamian A, Iannilli E, Gerber JC, Willander J, Persson J, Seo H-S, Hummel T, & Larsson M. The functional neuroanatomy of odor evoked autobiographical memories cued by odors and words. Neuropsychologia 51 (2013), 123-131.

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The post Evoking Memories – A Writers Must appeared first on Sacha Black.

My lovely friend from work, who now blogs, Wandering Willis, gave me my current word collection notebook before she trotted off travelling. She blogs about her travels in South East Asia – check her out.

I collect words in a multitude of ways.

I am signed up to two online dictionary’s word of the day. Every day without fail, I get a new word in my inbox, if you don’t get these, you should – I really do learn something new every day! I’ve signed up to Dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster.

When I started writing this post, I came across this little gem of a website too, the Phrontistery which lists 17,000 unusual English words, as well as linking you through to a secondary website that detailed lost English words. Jackpot! *rubs hands, squeals like a child*

As I said in my original post I spend the entire time I read, highlighting sentences and scribbling them into notebooks. As I approach 30 (eek) I decided to try and achieve something. In fact, 30 somethings. One of those things is to learn some Latin.  I was never given the chance to learn it at school, so I’m determined to learn some now. I am quietly obsessed with ancient languages, you only need look at my sons name to know that. But more than any, I adore Latin, it’s the superiority of the language and the fact that some of the words are untranslatable.

Which brings me nicely to this post. I love untranslatable words. I did a Writespiration on the word Hiraeth some time ago. But here is a list of just some of the words I have collected. Some are English, others are not, but I think each one is wonderful.

Tarantism – Is said to be a form of hysterical behaviour, cause by the bite of the wolf spider Lycosa tarantula. The victims engage in a frenzied dance to save their lives.

Timocracy – A form of government in which Honour is the dominant motive of rulers.

Kalon – Beauty is more than skin deep – an idealised view of physical and moral beauty.

Nedovtipa – A Czech word that means, someone who finds it difficult to take a hint.

Natsukashii – A Japanese word that describes feeling nostalgic after a sudden trigger reminded you.

Selcouth – Unfamiliar, rare and strange yet marvellous.

Sapiosexual – Someone who is attracted to intelligence in others.

Frowzy – habitually unkempt, slovenly.

Orphic – Mysterious and entrancing beyond ordinary understanding.

Froward – Habitually rebellious, wilfully contrary.

Tartle – To hesitate when introducing someone because you have forgotten their name.

Dysania – Finding it hard to get out of bed in the morning.

Habromania – Delusions of happiness.

Paracosm – A detailed, prolongation of a child’s imaginary world where a child includes human, creature or aliens creations.

Anacampserote – something that can bring back a lost love.

Paedarchy – A government run by children.

Anagapesis – No longer feeling any emotion towards someone you once loved.

Noosphere – The sum of human thought, knowledge and culture.

Pettifoggery – A trivial argument.

Vernorexia – A romantic mood inspired by springtime.

Chrysalism – the amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm.

Noctuary – The record of a single nights events, dreams or thoughts.

Altschmerz – Weariness with the same old issues that you’ve always had—the same boring flaws and anxieties you’ve been gnawing on for years.

Rubatosis – The unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat – I particularly like this one because I am acutely aware of my own heartbeat, I can slow it down just by thinking about it – bit of a party trick!

Hybristophilia – The attraction to extremely violent criminals or those that have committed gruesome crimes.

Frith – A deer forest.

Zatch – Female genitalia!

Obambulate – To wander about.

***

Let me reiterate why, if you don’t already collect words you really should. Have you ever had writers block? I’ve written book one in my Keepers series, it’s sitting ready to be edited. I wanted to start book two, but I was blocked. Paralysed because I had spent so long absorbed in the first book I hadn’t stopped to think about book two. I had no idea where I was taking the story. After delving into a list of unusual words, guess what… I had an epiphany, inspired by one of the words that gave me the ultimate conflict for my book. Next time your blocked, dig into the dictionary!

The post The Zen of Finding Lost Words appeared first on Sacha Black.

I am truly honoured to be part of my wonderful blogging buddies blog book tour. Geoff Le Pard is a writer an author extraordinaire, as well as being a half decent ex lawyer and a seriously nifty weekly flash fiction contender.  But by far the best of his accolades is the fact he is a member of the Annual Bloggers Bash Committee! :p

This week, Geoffle is teaching us about differentiating dialogue between characters, and he is using his experience from his brand spanking, freshly published (go buy it) book My Father and Other Liars. Without further ado, Geoffle…. take it away.

My Father and Other Liars is the second book by Geoff Le Pard. Published in August it is available as an ebook and paperback here:

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

***

In My Father and Other Liars, the main characters span the generations and continents. I needed to make sure they sounded both sufficiently distinct and credible. The best way to draw this out is through the dialogue. I love dialogue. There, said it! It helps me breathe life into my characters in ways no amount of prose can. So what are the top 7 things I have either learnt from writing dialogue?

TRICK ONE

How old is the speaker? Youngsters have a very specific slang. A little goes a long way. If it’s a contemporary story the TV is great source or any café where you can overhear young people – they rarely keep the volume down! If you are setting your story, say, 10 years ago then TV dramas and sitcoms are perfect. You really only need to sprinkle a little into any speech – like salt on your chips. Once the speaker is above 30 they tend to be more considered, using less current slang which brings us to…

TRICK TWO

Accents and dialect and regional inflections. Even three Londoners of similar age and background will sound different and use different phrases. Each can be given a verbal tick perhaps. Most of us have what you might call a ‘thinking phrase – classically ‘you know’ where the speaker gains a valuable fraction of a second – if you use this sparingly while another speaker drops in an occasional ‘like’ you soon create a difference. Or it may be a ‘dunno’ or an ain’t’. Estuary English is ripe to poach: – dropping the odd ‘h’ at the start of ‘g’ at the end of words can do it. But, and I can’t emphasise this enough, only use them sparingly; otherwise it can irritate your reader.

TRICK THREE

If your character is not from an English speaking country and you want them to speak in their first language then maybe use a common phrase to start, a greeting perhaps, in their language to indicate they are speaking in their mother tongue before reverting to English. Writing subtitles is boring!

TRICK FOUR

By the same token, if your character is an English speaker but, say, American or Australian be very careful about both slang figures of speech and spellings. Personally if my character is American and they say ‘program’ I spell it the American way. In the book I’ve had a real problem with ‘Ass’ not ‘Arse’ for the US speakers: one of my two main protagonists is from Oklahoma. I am indebted to my Beta Reader Paula Moyer, who grew up in Oklahoma, for helping me eradicate some of my worst failings and, as crucially, adding in some phrases that help establish Lori Ann’s credentials to an informed reader.

TRICK FIVE

People rarely speak in soliloquys. Keep sentences short, break them up. If you have to recount back story in dialogue (and try not to) then break it up. People mislead themselves, they go off on tangents, they lose their thread. Use this to distinguish them, certainly but do it sparingly. Remember the benefit of dialogue in a narrative is to move the scene forward at pace, to help give tension to a piece, to introduce emotion.

TRICK SIX

I try and never resort to stereotypes unless for comic effect. I am very careful not to use dialogue to delineate race, or ethnicity, or religion or even sex and certainly I never use it to show low IQ or poor education. In my first book, the gardener Cyril has a thick Hampshire accent; I’ve written his few speeches phonetically, for comic effect but through the editing process I reduced the amount dramatically. I cannot emphasise enough – less is more.

TRICK SEVEN

Dialogue should always be read out loud. Since it represents actual speech, hearing it can reveal the dead sections or the places that feel unnatural. This goes for all your work but for me it is especially true of dialogue.

His first book, Dead Flies and Sherry Trifle can be found here:

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Geoff Le Pard’s Author Bio 

I have been writing creatively since 2006 when at a summer school with my family I wrote a short radio play. That led to a novel, some more courses, more novels, each better than the last until I took an MA at Sheffield Hallam, realised you needed to edit, edit and then edit some more; the result is my first published book in 2014. I once was a lawyer; I am now a writer. When I’m not writing and thinking about writing, I’m blogging (which is a sort of writing); I cook, I walk, I read (but not enough) and I walk some more. The dog approves of my career choices. My second novel will be published on 14th August 2015 and further novels are in the pipeline for later in 2015.

***

The post 7 Tricks To Differentiating Dialogue – Geoff Le Pard appeared first on Sacha Black.

My favourite genre without exception is YA. I love, love, love it. I know I’m an adult, but can’t I just pretend I stopped ageing at 16? To be honest, I think it’s probably true anyway.

I adore the innocents of it, the newness of life and every adult experience they have is difficult and I really love the fight and drive the kids have. But more than anything, I adore the fact that they never give up hope, and generally speaking the hero  wins out. Guilty pleasure or what?!

Well, for fans of the YA genre, this will blow your mind. If you haven’t ever read a YA book then I guarantee you can find one on this list.

Epic Reads via Harper Collins have a mine field of infographics and book lists containing every awesome YA book… like…. EVER. It’s like every bibliophiles paradise. I died in a big mushy pile of excitement went straight to YA library heaven! Are you getting the message yet? This shit is awesome!

You cant read that right? No I know. Well if you go to Epic Reads page then you can download it there.

But wait, there is oh so much more…

• For the super YA geeks there is a timeline of YA fiction.
• There’s a periodic table of Epic Reads.
• A list of 162 Epic YA Retellings.
• The United States of YA – where you can literally read your YA self across America.
• 25 YA Books to read if you like Game of Thrones
• and finally a list of 30 YA books that will change your view of the world.

I mean basically this is candy to me and to be honest total hell too! How am I meant to find the time to read all these?

Do you like YA Fiction? If So, why and what’s on your ultimate YA list?

The post The Ultimate YA Reading List appeared first on Sacha Black.

I’ve been waiting for the release of this book for the best part of a year. End of Days is the last instalment in the Penryn and the End of Days trilogy from Susan Ee. I’ll admit I felt like a kid, but I had to have it on pre-order as soon as it was available, that’s how much I wanted to read it!

Susan Ee’s trilogy is a YA/NA Fantasy/Dystopian trilogy – the same genre as the likes of Hunger Games and Divergent – the same genre I write, so I couldn’t help but read it. I adored the first book Angelfall. The second book World After was ok – but it felt much like a lot of second books in trilogies – a filler, a stop gap before the climax in the third book. (I’ll put links and photos and blurbs to the first two books at the end).

So you’re not completely lost the general background to the first two books is – Angel apocalypse – they bring war on humans the protagonist saves an angel (Raffe who happens to be an Archangel and gods wrath.) They start to fall in love – which is completely forbidden.

To End of Days, the final instalment.

Amazon gives this blurb:

After a daring escape from the angels, Penryn and Raffe are on the run. They’re both desperate to find a doctor who can reverse the twisted changes inflicted by the angels on Raffe and Penryn’s sister. As they set off in search of answers, a startling revelation about Raffe’s past unleashes dark forces that threaten them all. 

When the angels release an apocalyptic nightmare onto humans, both sides are set on a path toward war. As unlikely alliances form and strategies shift, who will emerge victorious? Forced to pick sides in the fight for control of the earthly realm, Raffe and Penryn must choose: Their own kind, or each other?

My Review:

I adored the first book so I was eagerly waiting for the final installment to find out what happens to the main characters. Ee doesn’t disappoint.

The book is generally quite pacey. Stylistically it’s written as an easy read. So much so that I found myself slipping through the pages, I’d blink and I’d read 15 chapters. The chapters are short which helps to keep the pace too.

The main character Penryn, is a really loveable protagonist, you can’t help but want her to ‘win’. She sucks you in and makes you feel for her. Ee beautifully depicts the raw emotions that teens really do feel. I found myself grinning at her first kiss, feeling her pain as she’s rejected and the desperation for her to get the boy. This really, is a love story at its heart. For me, the rest of the plot seems to disappear into trivialities, did I actually care who was elected as the new messenger? Not really, I was too busy caring about Penryn and Raffe. The characters really are exceptional. I imagine they are relatable to an entire generation of YA readers and those who are not quite so YA anymore… *cough*.

What I like about this series is that it is ‘real’ Penryn’s mother has mental health issues, and her sister… well, I will let you read and find out what happens to her. What Ee does, is touch on gritty real life issues in her fantasy genre (albeit mostly in the first novel). I like this, because a lot of novels in this genre don’t do that.

The novel builds to a wonderful crescendo. I did find the last 20% of the novel smidge slow. After the pace of the first two books and the first two thirds of the final book, it felt like a lot of fannying around to get to the ending we all knew was coming (and wanted). There was so much description and nothingness in the last few chapters before the final battle commenced.

But the actual ending? Well I got what I came for – I was thoroughly satisfied with the outcome.

That being said, this is my only other critique. The book got to the crescendo – what happened, happened and then it stopped dead. If I had a physical copy I would have flicked the pages over going ‘Huh?’ Don’t get me wrong, it was exactly what I wanted, but it was so good, I sort of wanted to know a bit more, I needed just a tiny bit more closure.

Thankfully Ee wrote an epilogue… I breathed a sigh of relief and then read it… Sadly it didn’t add anything to the book, plus it ended even more abruptly than the novel. It was two utterly random pages of nothing, and as I finished it I genuinely frowned and say ‘is that it?’… out loud, in the middle of the night with my wife asleep in bed next to me (she wasn’t impressed at being woken up!)

Am I complaining? No, not really. At the end of the day I got what I came for. I loved the characters, the plot and the overall ending. Would I recommend the trilogy? You’re damn right I would – especially to YA fantasy/dystopian readers.

There are two other reasons I love Susan Ee:

1. She skirts around religious topics – angel wars, Nephilim, Archangels and apocalypses. I find this fascinating as a topic for a YA novel.

2. She started out at an indie author. She self published Angelfall, and I think due to its success has gone under a publishing house now – Hodder Paperbacks. Good for her – that kind of self published success is something I can only aspire to. Also – and I am very excited that she is in talks with film directors…. Angelfall might well big coming to the big screen… eeek.

Final Book Rating: 4 out of 5 because unlike Veronica Roth, she gave us the ending we all wanted!

I’m going to give the overall trilogy two ratings – For anyone who doesn’t read the genre I’d say 3 out of 5 – it probably won’t set your world on fire, but it’s a good easy read and wonderful story with fantastic characters.

For anyone who does read the genre I would give the overall trilogy 4 out of 5. You will love it. It’s everything you want from this kind of series.

If you want to buy the trilogy you can visit here:

Angelfall Book 1

Blurb:

It’s been six weeks since the angels of the apocalypse destroyed the world as we know it. Only pockets of humanity remain.

Savage street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night.

When angels fly away with a helpless girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back.

Including making a deal with the enemy.

World After Book 2

Blurb:

In this sequel to the bestselling fantasy thriller, Angelfall, the survivors of the angel apocalypse begin to scrape back together what’s left of the modern world. When a group of people capture Penryn’s sister Paige, thinking she’s a monster, the situation ends in a massacre. Paige disappears. Humans are terrified. Mom is heartbroken.

Penryn drives through the streets of San Francisco looking for Paige.

Why are the streets so empty? Where is everybody? Her search leads her into the heart of the angels’ secret plans, where she catches a glimpse of their motivations, and learns the horrifying extent to which the angels are willing to go.

Meanwhile, Raffe hunts for his wings. Without them, he can’t rejoin the angels, can’t take his rightful place as one of their leaders. When faced with recapturing his wings or helping Penryn survive, which will he choose?

End of Days Book 3

After a daring escape from the angels, Penryn and Raffe are on the run. They’re both desperate to find a doctor who can reverse the twisted changes inflicted by the angels on Raffe and Penryn’s sister. As they set off in search of answers, a startling revelation about Raffe’s past unleashes dark forces that threaten them all. 

When the angels release an apocalyptic nightmare onto humans, both sides are set on a path toward war. As unlikely alliances form and strategies shift, who will emerge victorious? Forced to pick sides in the fight for control of the earthly realm, Raffe and Penryn must choose: Their own kind, or each other?

The post End of Days By Susan Ee – Book Review appeared first on Sacha Black.

There used to be a time when I would accept nothing less than perfection. I still fight the frustration when I’m not completely perfect.

I’ve come to believe perfectionism it’s a disease. An infection that slowly eats away at your skin until it buries itself into your bone and spreads to every corner of your body like an angry cancer. The growing niggle questioning whether perfectionism is something to be strived for, or maybe, abhorred has become a raging monster, and now, a blog post…

As writers creative people we torture ourselves striving for something that deep down we all know is almost impossible to achieve. And if we somehow do achieve it, we spend our lives endlessly searching for that golden thread of genius within us so we can create another masterpiece. It’s like a drug, an addiction, a sought after high impossible to replicate.

But what is this blind search for perfectionism doing to our mental health and psyche? I talked about the shocking truth behind creativity recently, where there was an underlying point from Gilbert about depression in creative people.

Creative people in particular seem to suffer a high prevalence of depression, suicide and other mood disorders, including most frequently, bipolar disorder. Van Gogh was Bipolar and suffered tremendously until his suicide at 37. Syvia Plath, another sufferer with a mood disorder and eventually she committed suicide to at just 31. There are others, who vehemently argue against this trend of depression in creative people, and if you read enough research then like everything you can find enough studies that you end up sat on the fence completely befuddled.

I’m ignoring most of the science and am speaking from experience, with just a little science thrown in; from knowing many a creative person and seeing the effect of creativity gone awry, and from experiencing it myself.

My focus is on writers and one of the earliest studies of creativity and mood disorders focused on writers. It showed that 80% of writers had some variant of mood disorder. But why? Are we predisposed to mood disorders? Do we have hormone imbalances? Is it because we spend so long lost in our thoughts, pondering, reflecting, dissecting our every ideation and decision? Do we spend too long deliberating and judging ourselves? Does that lead the creative into a spiralling depression as we deconstruct ourselves and examine each tiny piece of us and our stories?

I know for me, boredom, and the restriction of my creativity is extremely bad for my mental state. I can end up in a very dark place if I am not allowed to thrive as a creative person. And yet equally, I can drive myself literally insane in the pursuit of that winning story, that character that makes someone cry, or laugh or fear for their safety. I can be so critical of myself its self destructive but especially for my sanity. I’m trying to pursue something I know I will never be able to achieve.

Despite constantly striving for perfection, I don’t believe it exists.

Will I ever be able to put the pen down, stop tweaking? Can you? I doubt it.

There’s just one more tweak? One tiny edit, a comma? A sentence? Sound familiar?

We grind ourselves down, wear down all our drive and pick and nag at our creative minds until we leave ourselves in a creative black hole. I think over striving for perfection gives us writers block and depression. If we pursue a concept that doesn’t exist we set ourselves up for constant failure.

Society is the same. Kids today think Barbi is perfection. (Yes that really is a real woman)

Kids think that plastic fantastic is acceptable and something to aim for. But sometimes when you get a little too hooked on achieving the impossible on too much plastic this happens:

Ok, maybe I’m being a little facetious but you see the point I’m making?

I wrote a poem last #1000speak, so this time I decided to share something personal. I have edited this, removed some of the bits that made me cringe, but it’s mostly intact. I wrote this piece when I was just coming out of a dark hole, it’s an odd piece of writing, more of a stream of consciousness rather than a story or anything much, but I think it makes the point, creative depression is not good by any standard:

Phantom Limb by Sacha Black

I am watching my life through his eyes, at his mercy.

My glass was always half empty, its why I never noticed the cracked cup, the leaking liquid. He didn’t arrive with the grandeur entrance I expected. He snuck quietly into my life like the silent thief, slyly changing the minutia, stealing my belongings until he consumed everything.

I can never see the world through those precious rose spectacles I used to have. The virgin eyes I owned are gone. Stolen. He took them for himself, replaced them with his dark and twisted ones. I didn’t even notice. Not until I was already exhausted from staring through his shadowy specs.

I understand what numb is; to really feel nothing.

It’s infinite.

He took my feelings away one by one. Every happy thought tarnished by a rusty anesthetized memory.

I am left watching my life play out through him.

I am his phantom limb. I see my life, but I’m not really there. I used to be present, alive, able to breathe. But now I’m surrounded by a vast suffocating nothing.

He torments me with the life I could lead. I am ashamed of him. I am meant to be strong. Unbreakable. Instead I crumbled like an ash statue. He blew over my life, and I drifted apart piece by piece.

He is the dirty little secret I punish myself for.

I’m tired of being a phantom limb.

I will not do it any more.

No matter how foggy his spectacles get, I will smear the lenses until I can see the tunnel in the distance. I know there is a light at the end of it.

***

I’m not suggesting we should stop striving or aiming for the top. I’m saying sometimes we need to take a step back and remember, perfection is usually impossible. What we create may well be someone else’s idea of perfection. You will be someone’s favourite author. I highly doubt whatever I create, no matter how many drafts or how many edits I do, I will ever be truly happy with it. So why not accept that? And be kind to ourselves?

We need to start believing that just because ‘WE’ don’t think something is perfect, doesn’t mean somebody else won’t. There is no perfect – perfect is unobtainable because what you think is perfect, I won’t. No two concepts of perfect align. Our own concepts of perfectionism are dangerous, and unrealistic. Praise yourself, nurture yourself away from that pedestal. Perfection isn’t all that anyway, it’s boring, outdated. It’s the goody two shoes at the front of the class, the ‘know it all’ everyone sniggers at when they finally get a question wrong.

Isn’t that the point? Humanity is interesting because we are full of mistakes and problems. Aren’t the best characters the ones who fuck up, and make mistakes? Isn’t that why we secretly like the anti-hero?

Nurture yourself. Stop striving for the unachievable. No body likes Miss Perfect anyway.

But more important than anything, don’t forget…

The post Nurture Yourself in the Pursuit of Perfection #1000speak appeared first on Sacha Black.

It has taken me an inexplicably long time to read just one book. I am actually a reasonably fast reader I can sink a few books in a week if I have the time. Alas, baby Black has prevented this from happening, and shamefully, not only is this the first book I’ve finished this year, but worse this particular book has taken me way over six months to read. Tut. But huzzah I have finally finished it.

I have only (from memory) written one other book review, for A Disturbed Girl’s Guide to Curing Boredom, because I loved it so much I felt compelled to write about it on amazon and goodreads and such like.

But having read a few posts recently, about the benefits of book reviews, and the difficulty people face getting genuine ones; I figured it was my duty (as a budding writer) to review every book I read henceforth. So I will, and I will post them here, because where better? I will also reference them on my Reading for leisure list. But more importantly, I am going to try and sway the percentage of books I read towards the indie end, there are a couple of traditionally published books out this year, I have been waiting for, but otherwise, I am going to take a leaf out of Dylan’s book and ‘Pay It Forward‘

I’m caveating this review because I have no idea if I will say the right things… feel free to tell me if I have missed anything that should be covered in a review…?

To the book – Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld can be found on Amazon if you are interested in buying it.

The Amazon Book Blurb:

Tally lives in a world where your sixteenth birthday brings aesthetic perfection: an operation which erases all your flaws, transforming you from an ‘Ugly’ into a ‘Pretty’. She is on the eve of this important event, and cannot wait for her life to change. As well as guaranteeing supermodel looks, life as a Pretty seems to revolve around having a good time. But then she meets Shay, who is also fifteen – but with a very different outlook on life. Shay isn’t sure she wants to be Pretty and plans to escape to a community in the forest – the Rusty Ruins – where Uglies go to escape ‘ turning’. Tally won’t be persuaded to join her, as this would involve sacrificing everything she’s ever wanted for a lot of uncertainty. When she is taken in for questioning on her birthday, however, Tally gets sent to the Ruins anyway – against her will. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she could ever imagine: find her friend Shay and turn her in, or never turn Pretty at all. What she discovers in the Ruins reveals that there is nothing ‘pretty’ about the transformations… And the choice Tally makes will change her world forever.

MY REVIEW:

I was originally drawn to Uglies, because it is comes from my favourite genre. YA Fantasy/Dystopian fiction. But also that’s what I am trying to write so I have been consuming everything I can get my hands on! Most (not all) books in this genre are written in the first person. Anyone who has read this blog for a while would know, I have a strong distaste for third person novels… unless they are written so well I can’t tell. I’ve even ranted about the third person POV, in the third person POV! So when I started reading Uglies, I did struggle to get passed the POv. I found myself annoyed by the protagonists name being littered across every page, and multiple ‘Tally felt this, or that,’ made the character’s emotions seem dubious at best.

That being said the concept of this dystopian setting was fantastic. I think it’s highly relevant to the model and surgery obsessed teens of today. What a pertinent and timely reminder to readers of the YA genre of the dangerous surgery and looks obsessions pose. For it’s appropriateness as a moral and ethical centrepiece for its targeted age group, I salute it. I would happily go under the knife, and It made me stop and think.

This book was painfully slow to start, I nearly gave up on a number of occasions. But several friends who have read it to the end encouraged me to persist because it ‘gets better’ as do the sequels (so they say). So I persisted, and to a certain extent they were right.

The book speeds up, eventually, but not until precisely 64% of the way through. I say 64% ‘exactly’ because, judge me not, I read the thing on my iPad kindle app. The point is I actually took note of when I started to enjoy the story. 64% is too far in to have kept me captive under normal circumstances, if it wasn’t for my friends I would have given up at 30%. I am a fan of speed, pace and action, this book does not give that until two thirds of the way through. And yes, I get that theres a story arc and most of the tension and climax comes at the end. But the world setting and history filling in, was too long, and too slow. I can’t for the life of me even remember what happened before 64%.

Sadly I didn’t feel much of anything for the protagonist either,ok, I did, a bit. But I didn’t cry, or get worried and feel bereft when I finished the book, and believe me, some books definitely do that to me.

By the end of the book, I was reasonably satisfied because it had action and was pacey. But, in the last couple of chapters, there were long paragraphs of description, it felt like the author was running out of words, and couldn’t afford the dialogue. The ending itself was not overly satisfying. It ended, and some storylines were closed. However, it was left wide open for the sequels, so much so, I didn’t really feel like I got closure on anything. I know that series are meant to be left open, (we have to make money somehow) but shouldn’t a book also give closure inself? I think so.

Would I recommend this book? If you read this genre regularly, then you will probably love it. At the moment, I expect the spectacular, I want to be wowed and inspired to write, not feel like I could do better. But, if you like YA fantasy/dystopian fiction then I would say, give it a go. If you don’t, don’t waste your time.

At a push, 3 out of 5.

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