Cat and Joel set the record straight – Nick Earls and Rebecca Sparrow

Joel and Cat are as close to arch enemies as you can get in Year 12. If Joel wasn’t running late he would never have ended up with Cat as his partner for the English Extension writing assignment. But he was late and now Cat is his partner.

As Cat’s life rocks ‘n’ rolls with her families to-ing and fro-ing, and while Joel tries to outsmart his mother’s boyfriend, the two must trade paragraph for paragraph to put together a coherent story. The results are not only surprising, but humourous as well.

Earls and Sparrow should team-up more often to produce books for today’s teenagers. Readers will instantly recognise some of themselves in either Cat or Joel and will no doubt enjoy the different, but complementary, narrative voices of the main charaters.

Slam – Nick Hornby

Nick Hornby’s venture into young adult fiction may possibly be his best move yet. The accomplished adult author—known for High Fidelity, About a Boy and A Long Way Down— has put his convincing and unique voice to Sam, a fifteen year old skateboarder.

Sam thinks he has hit the jackpot when the beautiful Alicia shows more than a passing interest in him. Just as Sam is losing interest, Alicia drops a bomb-shell: she is pregnant. The announcement leaves Sam, Alicia and their families reeling, forcing Sam and Alicia to face facts.

Hornby does not follow a straight line in Slam, but rather diverges into Sam’s imagination. Sam relies heavily on the advice of Tony Hawk which leads to the hilarious notion of a poster leading Sam along the parenthood path.

Well worth a look. I only hope the Hornby provides us with more young adult books for those readers who are not quite up to his adult masterpieces.