Jess Suggests | Middle Grade

Last month I read two middle grade books - Malkin Child and Witch Hill - and they got me thinking about some of the books I loved reading when I was younger; books which I still love to read now. So today I thought I'd share with you some of my favourite middle grade books, books I think readers of any age can enjoy!

Skellig

by David Almond

When a move to a new house coincides with his baby sister's illness, Michael's world seems suddenly lonely and uncertain. Then, one Sunday afternoon, he stumbles into the old, ramshackle garage of his new home, and finds something magical. A strange creature - part owl, part angel, a being who needs Michael's help if he is to survive. With his new friend Mina, Michael nourishes Skellig back to health, while his baby sister languishes in the hospital. But Skellig is far more than he at first appears, and as he helps Michael breathe life into his tiny sister, Michael's world changes for ever . . .

Skellig was the first ever book I was assigned to read in secondary school - when I was around eleven/twelve years old - and it's been one of my all time favourite books ever since. Something about this story seems to pull in everyone who reads it; I don't think I've met a single person who's read this book and forgotten about it. This book is gorgeous, and I highly recommend it!

Inkheart

by Cornelia Funke

Twelve-year-old Meggie learns that her father, who repairs and binds books for a living, can "read" fictional characters to life when one of those characters abducts them and tries to force him into service.

Characters from books literally leap off the page in this engrossing fantasy. Meggie has had her father to herself since her mother went away when she was young. Mo taught her to read when she was five, and the two share a mutual love of books. He can "read" characters out of books. When she was three, he read aloud from a book called Inkheart and released characters into the real world. At the same time, Meggie's mother disappeared into the story.

I feel like the Inkworld Trilogy isn't talked about enough in the book community, which is especially confusing when we take into account that this is a book about books! Inkheart, like a few of the other books on this list, is often classed as YA rather than middle grade, but personally this trilogy doesn't feel like a YA trilogy to me. It has a very middle grade feel to it, and I mean that in the best possible way. A lot of YA nowadays is romance heavy, but this book is nothing short of an adventure book; it's the kind of story that will remind you why you love reading - give it a try if you haven't already!

Vampirates: Demons of the Ocean

by Justin Somper

Conor and Grace are twins, recently orphaned after their widowed father's death. Rather than being adopted by the town's busy-bodies, they decide to set sail in their father's last possession, his sailing boat. But a vicious storm sees their boat capsize and the twins are separated. Two mysterious ships sail to their rescue - each picking up one twin before disappearing into the mist. Conor wakes to find himself on a pirate ship and is soon being trained up with a cutlass. Meanwhile Grace finds herself locked in a darkened room, as the vampirates wait for night to fall and their feasting to begin... Determined to find each other, yet intrigued by their new shipmates, the twins are about to embark on the biggest adventure of their lives...

This book is just so much fun! It might not be a literary masterpiece or a stunning piece of writing, but it's a fast-paced, action-packed story, and frankly I refuse to believe that everything we read has to leave us with some powerful message. Sometimes we just need to read something fun and enjoy it - this book is great if you're in the mood for an adventure!

The Secret Garden

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

When orphaned Mary Lennox comes to live at her uncle's great house on the Yorkshire Moors, she finds it full of secrets. The mansion has nearly one hundred rooms, and her uncle keeps himself locked up. And at night, she hears the sound of crying down one of the long corridors.

The gardens surrounding the large property are Mary's only escape. Then, Mary discovers a secret garden, surrounded by walls and locked with a missing key. One day, with the help of two unexpected companions, she discovers a way in. Is everything in the garden dead, or can Mary bring it back to life?

This book is a classic, and I just had to include it on this list because I guarantee that you can enjoy this book whether you're six or sixty! This story is nothing short of lovely, and as well as being one of my favourite children's books, it's one of my favourite classics, too. In fact this book is a great place to start if you're intimidated by classics, or if you're a younger reader who's looking to start reading them!

Holes

by Louis Sachar

Camp Greenlake is a place for bad boys, where the belief is: "if you take a bad boy and make him dig a hole every day in the hot sun, it will turn him into a good boy." When Stanley Yelnats, accused and found guilty of a crime he did not commit, is sent to Camp Greenlake he really doesn't think it can be so bad. Stanley and his family try to pretend that he is just going away to camp like the rich kids do, and he promises to write to them every day. But the harsh realities of the camp, and the evil Warden with her lizard-venom impregnated fingernails with her own reasons for making the boys in her charge dig so many holes, sometimes make dying seem like a great idea. When Stanley leaves the camp to go in search of his friend Zero, their journey towards freedom becomes a battle with hunger, thirst and heat in the shadow of Big Thumb--a mountain so entwined in Stanley's own family history that he knows if they can reach it they will somehow find salvation.

We started with a book I read in secondary school, so I thought it was fitting that we end with another. Like Skellig, there's something about Holes that just seems to stick with everyone who reads it. This story has so many layers; it'll make you laugh as much as it'll make you cry, and stay with you for years to come. The film adaptation is also worth a watch! 

Have you read any of the books on my list? What are some of your favourite middle grade books?

J.

Jess Suggests | Underrated YA Fiction

When it comes to YA there are always books and series that are surrounded by hype, some of it deserved and some of it not, but unfortunately there also plenty of YA books which don't get half the attention they deserve.

So today I've compiled a list of YA books which I think deserve a lot more attention than they get! I read all five of these books during my adolescence, and all of them have a very special place in my heart.

Noughts and Crosses

by Malorie Blackman

Sephy is a Cross -- a member of the dark-skinned ruling class. Callum is a Nought -- a “colourless” member of the underclass who were once slaves to the Crosses. The two have been friends since early childhood, but that’s as far as it can go. In their world, Noughts and Crosses simply don’t mix. Against a background of prejudice and distrust, intensely highlighted by violent terrorist activity, a romance builds between Sephy and Callum -- a romance that is to lead both of them into terrible danger. Can they possibly find a way to be together?

Noughts and Crosses was not only the first Dystopian novel I ever read, but also one of the first books to really make me cry. This book destroyed me.

Blackman's exploration of racism and terrorism through the reversal of history, in which white people were once enslaved by black people, is both stunning and heartbreaking. There aren't enough good things I could possibly say about this novel; I read it when I was around thirteen, and to this day it's still one of my favourite novels of all time.

Noughts and Crosses is the first in a series - followed by Knife Edge, Checkmate and Double Cross - and while the other books are amazing Noughts and Crosses is the best one by far.

It might be classed as a YA novel, but people of any age can enjoy this book - please check it out if you haven't already!

Pirates!

by Celia Rees

Nancy Kington, a wealthy merchant's daughter living in Bristol, England in the early 1700's, is sometimes lonely but enjoys the privileges her father's business brings. Minerva Sharpe is a penniless slave's daughter living and working on the Kington's Jamaican plantation. These two young women, united through a set of extraordinary circumstances including a brutal murder, an arranged marriage, and set of ruby earrings, find themselves sailing the high seas in search of love, adventure and freedom— as pirates!

I mentioned Witch Child, another of Rees's Historical YA novels, in a previous post, and while I don't think Witch Child gets half the attention it deserves either, I thought it would be a great idea to include another of her stories in this list!

I first read Pirates! about eleven years ago after I came across it in my local library. It's one of those books that sits on the border between YA and Children's fiction, but given that it includes themes like piracy, slavery, death and arranged marriage it's easy to see why an older reader can enjoy it just as much as a younger one.

What I love most about this book is that it makes sure pirate stories aren't just for boys - Nancy and Minerva are pretty badass heroines! They make sure they get their fair share of the action, and that's just what I like to see.

So if you're a fan of pirates, give Pirates! a go!

Across the Nightingale Floor

by Lian Hearn

Set in a long-ago world resembling medieval Japan, where warring clans brutally battle it out while the nobility plots political marriages, the action starts almost immediately. Bodies are piling up by the third page, as teenage Takeo witnesses a massacre in his previously peaceful village. He seems to be writing his own ticket to the grave when he knocks an evil warlord from his horse. The boy is saved, though, by Lord Otori, who introduces Takeo to his clan.

On the other end of the scale, Across the Nightingale Floor is possibly one of the darkest YA novels I've read, and it's fantastic.

Lian Hearn has a gorgeous writing style and this book, the first in the Tales of the Otori series, really benefits from it. We follow our protagonists Takeo and Kaede as they try to survive in a war-torn land which resembles feudal Japan.

This series isn't for the weak hearted. Characters are betrayed, killed and tortured all over the place, but if you love epic Historical/Fantasy pieces of fiction you'll love this!

A Company of Swans

by Eva Ibbotson

For nineteen-year-old Harriet Morton, life in 1912 Cambridge is as dry and dull as a biscuit. Her stuffy father and her opressive aunt Louisa allow her only one outlet: ballet. When a Russian ballet master comes to class searching for dancers to fill the corps of his ballet company before their South American tour, Harriet's world changes. Defying her father's wishes and narrowly escaping the clutches of the man who wishes to marry her, Harriet sneaks off to join the ballet on their journey to the Amazon. There, in the wild, lush jungle, they perform Swan Lake in grand opera houses for the wealthy and culture-deprived rubber barons, and Harriet meets Rom Verney, the handsome and mysterious British exile who owns the most ornate opera house. Utterly enchanted by both the exotic surroundings and by Rom's affections, Harriet is swept away by her new life, completely unaware that her father and would-be fiancé have begun to track her down...

Eva Ibbotson's A Company of Swans is probably the nicest book on this list. Like Rees, Ibbotson, who sadly passed away in 2010, wrote several Historical YA novels; The Morning Gift being her most well known.

What's good about Ibbotson's Historical fiction is that you don't need to be a lover of history to enjoy her novels. She writes stories which are set in the past but aren't necessarily solely about the time in which they are set; A Company of Swans, for example, is set in 1912, but it's not about the sinking of the Titanic!

This is the perfect read if you're in the mood to read something that's lovely and sweet and easy. I still love it!

Sabriel

by Garth Nix

Sent to a boarding school in Ancelstierre as a young child, Sabriel has had little experience with the random power of Free Magic or the Dead who refuse to stay dead in the Old Kingdom. But during her final semester, her father, the Abhorsen, goes missing, and Sabriel knows she must enter the Old Kingdom to find him. She soon finds companions in Mogget, a cat whose aloof manner barely conceals its malevolent spirit, and Touchstone, a young Charter Mage long imprisoned by magic, now free in body but still trapped by painful memories. As the three travel deep into the Old Kingdom, threats mount on all sides. And every step brings them closer to a battle that will pit them against the true forces of life and death—and bring Sabriel face-to-face with her own destiny.

Other than Noughts and Crosses, I'm pretty sure Sabriel is the most well known book on this list. If you're a lover of Fantasy and you still haven't read this book - and other books in the Abhorsen trilogy - then you're missing out!

Like Hearn, Nix incorporates some darker themes into his stories. Our heroine, Sabriel, is the daughter of the Abhorsen, a magic user whose job is to send the dead back to the afterlife after they have been woken by necromancy. I'm sure you can imagine just how creepy sections of this book are when the undead are wandering around.

I first read Sabriel when I was around thirteen/fourteen and I still love it now. It's the start of a trilogy that just gets better, and there's a bit of everything in it: magic; romance; adventure... It's got it all!

Whether you're a fan of YA or not, I hope this post has encouraged you to check out some new novels if you haven't read them already!

Jess Suggests | Romance

Happy Valentine's Day!

As it's the day of love it only seems right that I celebrate it by sharing with you some of my personal recommendations for a romantic read!

Delirium

by Lauren Oliver

Lena Haloway is content in her safe, government-managed society. She feels (mostly) relaxed about the future in which her husband and career will be decided, and looks forward to turning 18, when she’ll be cured of deliria, a.k.a. love. She tries not to think about her mother’s suicide (her last words to Lena were a forbidden “I love you”) or the supposed “Invalid” community made up of the uncured just beyond her Portland, Maine, border. There’s no real point—she believes her government knows how to best protect its people, and should do so at any cost. But 95 days before her cure, Lena meets Alex, a confident and mysterious young man who makes her heart flutter and her skin turn red-hot. As their romance blossoms, Lena begins to doubt the intentions of those in power, and fears that her world will turn gray should she submit to the procedure.

Delirium is the first book in Lauren Oliver's Dystopian trilogy, set in a future where love has been declared a disease by the government. When people turn eighteen they are sent for a procedure, similar to a lobotomy, which makes them no longer able to feel love. They cannot fall in love, their friendships dissolve, and even their relationships with their family members turn cold.

This might not sound like the kind of world you want to explore on Valentine's Day, but like any Dystopian novel Delirium involves rebellion, and our heroine Lena Haloway becomes exactly the kind of rebel she's been raised to fear when she finds herself falling in love.

Oliver's writing style is absolutely gorgeous; even if this particular story doesn't interest you you should definitely check out one of Oliver's books purely for the way in which they are written, but Delirium is a wonderful story so check it out if you haven't already!

 Pride and Prejudice

by Jane Austen

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

So begins Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's witty comedy of manners--one of the most popular novels of all time--that features splendidly civilized sparring between the proud Mr. Darcy and the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet as they play out their spirited courtship in a series of eighteenth-century drawing-room intrigues. 

As I've mentioned before I'm not a huge fan of Jane Austen; I'd much rather read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies than Pride and Prejudice, but it can't be denied that this classic, still widely read today, is one of the most well known romance novels of all time. As such, it only feels right to include it in this list.

I think what people love most about this novel is the 'will they, won't they?' vibe which surrounds Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy's relationship. But if you'd rather read something a little more modern this Valentine's Day, check out Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary - a modern day re-telling of Austen's most famous novel.

The Fault in Our Stars

by John Green

Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.

It's very rare to come across a fan of YA who has yet to read this book, and if you are one of those people who hasn't read The Fault in Our Stars yet then now is the ideal time - especially considering the film adaptation, starring Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort, is coming out in June!

Considering this is a book which deals with terminal illness in children and teenagers you should definitely read it with a box of tissues at hand, but don't let its content scare you; it might sound like it should be a depressing read, but there's so much fun and laughter in this book that there were points when I was reading it in which I forgot our protagonist is ill. 

So if you've been putting it off so far, why not give The Fault in Our Stars a go this Valentine's Day?

The Gargoyle

by Andrew Davidson

The nameless and beautiful narrator of The Gargoyle is driving along a dark road when he is distracted by what seems to be a flight of arrows. He crashes into a ravine and wakes up in a burns ward, undergoing the tortures of the damned. His life is over - he is now a monster.

But in fact it is only just beginning. One day, Marianne Engel, a wild and compelling sculptress of gargoyles, enters his life and tells him that they were once lovers in medieval Germany. In her telling, he was a badly burned mercenary and she was a nun and a scribe who nursed him back to health in the famed monastery of Engelthal. As she spins her tale, Scheherazade fashion, and relates equally mesmerising stories of deathless love in Japan, Greenland, Italy and England, he finds himself drawn back to life - and, finally, to love.

The Gargoyle is one of my favourite books of all time and I won't stop talking about it until I know more people have read it.

Like Delirium, the writing style is gorgeous. Davidson expertly weaves different love stories into the main story arc with some of the most beautiful sentences I've ever read. Reading this book is like sucking on little pieces of candy.

And if the way it's written isn't enough to spark your interest consider this: the main character is a pornographer. I'm gonna go ahead and leave you with that thought.

Fingersmith

by Sarah Waters

Sue Trinder is an orphan, left as an infant in the care of Mrs. Sucksby, a "baby farmer," who raised her with unusual tenderness, as if Sue were her own. Mrs. Sucksby's household, with its fussy babies calmed with doses of gin, also hosts a transient family of petty thieves - fingersmiths - for whom this house in the heart of a mean London slum is home. 

One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives - Gentleman, a somewhat elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a naïve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, then they will all share in Maud's vast inheritance. Once the inheritance is secured, Maud will be left to live out her days in a mental hospital. With dreams of paying back the kindness of her adopted family, Sue agrees to the plan. Once in, however, Sue begins to pity her helpless mark and care for Maud Lilly in unexpected ways. . . 

This is something of a naughty suggestion as, unlike the other four books on this list, I haven't actually read this one yet. As I mentioned in a previous post, however, I am hoping to read it this year - in fact I might add it to my TBR pile for March!

The main reason I wanted to include Fingersmith on this list is because the romance in the novel is between two women, and I only think it right that a list compiled of love stories has at least one story that includes a homosexual relationship. There are plenty of books out there that involve characters who aren't typical white, heterosexual males, but sometimes they can be hard to find!

I've heard nothing but good things about Fingersmith. So if you're in the mood for some Historical Fiction this Valentine's Day why don't you give it a try?

I hope you've seen something here that interests you! If you've read any of these books or have some suggestions of your own for a Valentine's Day read feel free to leave them below - I love receiving recommendations!

Have a lovely Valentine's Day whether you spend it with someone special or spend it pampering yourself!

Jess Suggests | Classics

Last week I gave you the classics I'd still like to read, so today I thought I'd recommend some of my favourite classics instead!

Frankenstein

by Mary Shelley

At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed science student Victor Frankenstein. Obsessed with discovering the cause of generation and life and bestowing animation upon lifeless matter, Frankenstein assembles a human being from stolen body parts but; upon bringing it to life, he recoils in horror at the creature's hideousness. Tormented by isolation and loneliness, the once-innocent creature turns to evil and unleashes a campaign of murderous revenge against his creator, Frankenstein.

I didn't get around to reading Mary Shelley's infamous novel until I was in my second year of university, and I so wish I had read it sooner because it's now one of my favourite novels of all time!

What surprised me most when reading Frankenstein was just how easy it was to read. Unfortunately I'm not a huge fan of the Romantic movement in literature - I've always found the context of the period, like the French Revolution, more interesting than the literature it inspired - so I often find it difficult to read purely because I rarely enjoy it. Frankenstein, however, blew me away.

It's a fantastic, atmospheric, thought provoking piece of literature, and I can honestly say that if you haven't read this classic yet you're missing out!

The Moonstone

by Wilkie Collins

‘When you looked down into the stone, you looked into a yellow deep that drew your eyes into it so that they saw nothing else’

The Moonstone, a yellow diamond looted from an Indian temple and believed to bring bad luck to its owner, is bequeathed to Rachel Verinder on her eighteenth birthday. That very night the priceless stone is stolen again and when Sergeant Cuff is brought in to investigate the crime, he soon realizes that no one in Rachel’s household is above suspicion. Hailed by T. S. Eliot as ‘the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels’, The Moonstone is a marvellously taut and intricate tale of mystery, in which facts and memory can prove treacherous and not everyone is as they first appear.

Before there was Arthur Conan Doyle there was Wilkie Collins. The Moonstone is believed to be the very first detective novel, and it's a gorgeous one at that.

Collins expertly weaves characters and events to create a story that is rich with intrigue, suspicion and Indian culture. It's rather dense, as a lot of Victorian novels tend to be, but it's well worth your patience if you decide to give it a try!

There's an array of characters, some you'll love and some you'll despise, but all of them make up one of the best Victorian novels - and indeed one of the best novels period - that I have ever read.

The Secret Garden

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

"One of th' gardens is locked up. No one has been in it for ten years."

When orphaned Mary Lennox comes to live at her uncle's great house on the Yorkshire Moors, she finds it full of mysterious secrets. There are nearly one hundred rooms, most of which are locked, and the house is filled with creepy old portraits and suits of armor. Mary rarely sees her uncle, and perhaps most unsettling of all is that at night she hears the sound of someone crying down one of the long corridors.

The gardens surrounding the odd property are Mary's escape and she explores every inch of them - all except for the mysterious walled-in, locked garden. Then one day, Mary discovers a key. Could it open the door to the garden?

Classics don't always have to be long, introspective pieces of fiction - The Secret Garden is proof of this!

Even though it's a children's story The Secret Garden deals with quite a few dark themes - as children's stories often do! - including child neglect and what initially appears to be terminal illness.

Unlike Sara Crewe, the heroine of Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess, Mary Lennox is a spoiled, selfish little girl, and yet we as readers still fall in love with her because, also unlike Sara, Mary develops a lot more as a character. We watch her learn how to interact with other children, and learn how to care for both them and the garden that she discovers.

I love this book, and I highly recommend it!

Agnes Grey

by Anne Brontë

'The name of governess, I soon found, was a mere mockery … my pupils had no more notion of obedience than a wild, unbroken colt’

When her family becomes impoverished after a disastrous financial speculation, Agnes Grey determines to find work as a governess in order to contribute to their meagre income and assert her independence. But Agnes’s enthusiasm is swiftly extinguished as she struggles first with the unmanageable Bloomfield children and then with the painful disdain of the haughty Murray family; the only kindness she receives comes from Mr Weston, the sober young curate. Drawing on her own experience, Anne Brontë’s first novel offers a compelling personal perspective on the desperate position of unmarried, educated women for whom becoming a governess was the only respectable career open in Victorian society.

Anne Brontë has to be one of the most underrated English authors; she's often overshadowed by her sisters Charlotte and Emily, who are famous for novels such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

Anne deserves a lot more recognition, as it is believed she is one of England's earliest feminist writers - this certainly isn't surprising when we look at Helen, the heroine of Anne's most famous work The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Agnes Grey, Anne's other novel, is much more autobiographical, and deals with the troubles many governesses in Victorian England faced. What I love most about this story is that it's just nice. While Wuthering Heights's Heathcliff murders puppies, Agnes Grey's Mr Weston rescues cats. 

Agnes is an endearing heroine, and I would so love it if more people read Anne's work!

Animal Farm

by George Orwell

Tired of their servitude to man, a group of farm animals revolt and establish their own society, only to be betrayed into worse servitude by their leaders, the pigs, whose slogan becomes: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

This novella is brilliant because it's creepy. This shouldn't come as any surprise given that Orwell is also the author of the terrifying Nineteen Eighty-Four; the mother of the modern dystopian novel.

One of the main reasons I love this novella is because it's a political satire - it's based on real events in Russian history, and if that's not frightening I don't know what is!

It should also be praised for having one of the best last lines of any story ever, when I first read it it gave me chills!

Again, if you haven't read this already I highly recommend it. I only read it last year, and I really wish I'd read it sooner - it's a lot shorter than I initially thought!

With any luck you've seen something here that you might check out in future! If you could recommend a classic, which one would it be?

Jess Suggests | Postmodern Fiction

Ah, postmodernism, a term many English students are very familiar with even when they don't know what it means, and it's not surprising so many people don't as postmodernism doesn't exactly have a set meaning.
     One of the most confusing aspects of postmodernism is that it didn't come around after modernism, but during. Why postmodernism, then? I have no idea. While modernism tried to prove that literature could be completely new, postmodernism arose with the argument that new literature is impossible; stories will always come from other stories. The argument was often given rather sceptically - after all Angela Carter's fairy tale re-tellings aren't particularly charming - but as postmodernism has developed it has become more of a celebration of our oldest stories by giving them new life.
     It is this aspect of postmodernism I will be looking at today by showing you five books which would never have been written if it weren't for an older text to act as inspiration. There are hundreds of postmodern novels out there today so these are just five examples from a very, very long list:

Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie

Haroun's father is the greatest of all storytellers. His magical stories bring laughter to the sad city of Alifbay. But, one terrible day, everything goes wrong and his father runs out of stories to tell.

Haroun, determined to return the storyteller's gift to his father, flies off on the back of the Hoopoe bird to the Sea of Stories - and so begins a fabulous, exciting and dazzling adventure.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories has to be one of the ultimate postmodern reads. There are references from stories all over the world in this book - which makes sense, given that the main character's father is a storyteller - but the main inspiration has to be The 1001 Nights, perhaps better known as The Arabian Nights; the series of tales which originate from Arabic, Persian, Indian, Egyptian and Mesopotamian folklore and from which we have famous stories like Aladdin and Sindbad the Sailor.
     After Haroun's mother runs away with their upstairs neighbour - as she no longer believes that being married to a storyteller is practical - Haroun's father Rashid begins to lose his ability for storytelling. With the help of Iff the Water Genie and Butt the talking Hoopoe bird, Haroun travels to the bizarre and fantasical Land of Gup, where the soldiers wear pages from Shakespeare and there are Plentimaw fish in the sea, to defeat the evil Khattam-Shud, who is so boring he is poisoning the stories.

     This book is an absolute delight to read no matter how old you are, and it's a wonderful book to read if you're looking to rekindle your love for some of the world's oldest stories. It's also a fantastic celebration of postmodernism and of the way that we reuse stories to keep storytelling alive. As far as I'm concerned this underrated book is a must read.

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Percy Jackson is about to be kicked out of boarding school... again. And that's the least of his troubles. Lately, mythological monsters and the gods of Mount Olympus seem to be walking straight out of the pages of Percy's Greek mythology textbook and into his life. And worse, he's angered a few of them. Zeus' master lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the prime suspect.

Now Percy and his friends have just ten days to find and return Zeus' stolen property and bring peace to a warring Mount Olympus. But to succeed on his quest, Percy will have to do more than catch the true thief: he must come to terms with the father who abandoned him; solve the riddle of the Oracle, which warns him of betrayal by a friend; and unravel a treachery more powerful than the gods themselves.

Let's face it as far as stories go you can't get much older than Greek mythology. Yeah it can be pretty messed up - Athena burst out of Zeus's forehead fully clothed and poor Persephone was the daughter of a brother and sister who then married her uncle - but we love it all the same. 

     What's great about this novel - and this series - is that Riordan hasn't tried to rewrite the mythology or tame it, he's simply taken the idea of demigods and brought them forward into the present. Not only has he given the mythology the feeling of never having gone away, but he's also made it fun and accessable for younger readers; in a way Riordan is the bridge between mythology and children as Terry Deary is the bridge between children and history. 

     After finding out that he is in fact the son of Poseidon our protagonist Percy is sent to Camp Half-Blood, where all demigods are kept safe and are able to learn how to control their abilities. Throughout the story he encounters a satyr in the form of his best friend Grover, Annabeth the daughter of Athena, a centaur, a minotaur, Medusa, and even Hades and Persephone. This is an ideal book for any lover of Greek mythology and indeed for anyone with an interest in the mythology who feels a little intimidated by the original tales.

Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding

Meet Bridget Jones—a 30-something Singleton who is certain she would have all the answers if she could:

a. lose 7 pounds

b. stop smoking

c. develop Inner Poise

Bridget Jones' Diary is the devastatingly self-aware, laugh-out-loud daily chronicle of Bridget's permanent, doomed quest for self-improvement — a year in which she resolves to: reduce the circumference of each thigh by 1.5 inches, visit the gym three times a week not just to buy a sandwich, form a functional relationship with a responsible adult, and learn to program the VCR. 

Unlike the other books listed here Bridget Jones's Diary is a modern day re-telling of a much more recent classic: Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Unlike the previous two novels mentioned this is a direct re-telling of its original, yes there are some differences, but the story is in fact very similar to that of Austen's novel.

     We have Bridget Jones, our modern day Elizabeth Bennet, Mark Darcy, our modern day Fitzwilliam Darcy, and Daniel Cleaver, our modern day George Wickham. Through her wonderfully witty diary entries we see the world through her eyes as she struggles under the pressure of being a singleton in her thirties in a world full of friends and family who are desperate to see her settled and married. Sound familiar? Of course. The entirety of Pride and Prejudice is centered around the Bennet family trying to marry off their five daughters to good husbands.

     What's brilliant about this book is that it doesn't jump out as an Austen re-telling or try to shove the 200 year old story down your throat. You don't need to be a fan of Austen's works to enjoy this, but if you are then consider it an added bonus. This book is funny and charming, Helen Fielding has done a wonderful job of bringing a famous story to a modern-day audience.

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . . 

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

Following Bridget Jones's Diary we have another re-telling of a classic story, one that every child knows well: Cinderella. Originally Cinderella was one of the many fairy tales collected by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, more commonly known as the Brothers Grimm. It's a story which has been told again and again in many different formats including  operas, ballets, pantomimes and film versions such as Disney's Cinderella, Ever After, A Cinderella Story, Another Cinderella Story, and literary re-tellings such as Gail Carson Levine's Ella Enchanted, Amber T. Smith's If the Shoe Fits and Gregory Maguire's Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister. Obviously there's something about this story that we just can't get enough of, whether it's our adoration of true love at the stroke of midnight or simply our desire to root for the underdog, either way Cinderella is not going anywhere.

     And now? Now we have Cinder, a fantastic posthuman re-telling of the classic tale in which our Cinderella is a cyborg. Marissa Meyer has managed to give a well-known, age old story an utterly fresh spin and modernised it for an audience of people who are now obsessed with technology. Meyer has even opened up the fairy tale genre for sci-fi fans all over the world which can only be a good thing because this year sci-fi is huge, particularly with  the completion of Beth Revis's Across the Universe trilogy this January and upcoming films such as Man of Steel, coming this June, and an adaptation of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game set to be released in November.

     No longer is Cinderella a meek girl who sweeps the floors and waits for her fairy godmother, Meyer's Cinderella is a mechanic who really drives the novel forward by leading the plot in the way that all great protagonists do. Like Bridget Jones's Diary you don't need to be a fan of Cinderella to enjoy Cinder, for while it is indeed a re-telling it has been re-told in such a way that the story and characters feel brand new. This is a delightful book.

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

'R' is a zombie. He has no name, no memories and no pulse, but he has dreams. He is a little different from his fellow Dead.

Amongst the ruins of an abandoned city, R meets a girl. Her name is Julie and she is the opposite of everything he knows - warm and bright and very much alive, she is a blast of colour in a dreary grey landscape. For reasons he can't understand, R chooses to save Julie instead of eating her, and a tense yet strangely tender relationship begins.

This has never happened before. It breaks the rules and defies logic, but R is no longer content with life in the grave. He wants to breathe again, he wants to live, and Julie wants to help him. But their grim, rotting world won't be changed without a fight...

You know what would have made Romeo and Juliet better? Zombies, of course! William Shakespeare is credited with writing possibly the most famous love story ever, but it's Isaac Marion who has made the story dead cool. See what I did there?

     Yes apparently a rose by any other name really would smell as sweet, even if it was covered in rotting flesh. Warm Bodies is full of familiar characters disguised by tweaked names; we have our hero R (Romeo), our heroine Julie (Juliet), her boyfriend Perry (Paris), her friend Nora (the Nurse) and R's friend M/Marco (Mercutio). R is a zombie, and after he kills Perry and eats his brain he begins to develop feelings he no longer realised he had for Perry's girlfriend Julie. When Julie learns that R isn't quite what he seems her belief that a cure for the undead can be found is reignited.

     This story is very much a marmite kind of a story. You don't have to be a fan of Romeo and Juliet to enjoy it, but there is a very clear cut line between people who like it a lot and people who don't like it at all. One thing that can't be denied, however, is that it has brought zombie fiction to women; that's not to say that women can't enjoy zombie films and fiction filed under the horror genre - I'm a woman myself and I love a good zombie story just as much as the next person - but in creating a piece of YA zombie chick fiction Marion has introduced a lot more women to the undead in literature, and that can only be a good thing. Try it for yourself, and give the movie a watch too!

So if postmodernism is now something which interests you go and check it out! There are plenty of postmodern texts to be had.

     Thanks for reading! J.