Review: Out by Joanna Kenrick

Out by Joanna Kenrick (review copy) - Natalie is secretly in love with Will, her best friend. But Will has his own secret - he's gay. Which one of them will be first to speak out? From BarringtonStoke.co.uk

I'm for all readers being able to access books, people of all reading abilities, so it only seems fair to include Out in LGBTQ YA Month, a book published by Barrington Stoke for struggling and reluctant readers.

Natalie has been best friends with Will since she was six-years-old, but now she's 15, she's found her feelings for Will have changed, and she's seeing him in a completely different light. She likes him. She finds it very odd, but can't stop thinking about him, and knows she has to say something. What if he likes her too? But Will beats Natalie to it and makes an announcement of his own. He's gay. And now everything will change.

Continue reading Review: Out by Joanna Kenrick

News: Jo Cotterill's Interactive Valentine's Story

Jo Cotterill, author of the Sweet Hearts series, is writing an interactive Valentine’s story through her blog and Sweet Hearts Facebook page. Readers can help to shape the story, through answering the different questions Jo asks each day until Tuesday 8th Feb, and the full story will be published on Valentine’s Day.

The questions started yesterday, with Jo asking what the name of her heroine should be. There were lots of suggestions and Jo announced this morning that she chose the suggestion "Camilia", and posted her next question, what does Camilia love to do best? I've made my suggestions, why don't you go and make yours? And check bck everyday for the answers and the next questions!

Continue reading News: Jo Cotterill's Interactive Valentine's Story

Discussion: Censorship - What Way is Acceptable?

Luisa informed me about an article, Censorship in Action, from the Nicki’s View column on Health News, where Nicki, a teenager, rants against banning or burning books. Please read the article before continuing, so you know what I’m going on about.

So you’ve now read that she talks about how some people want sexually explicit books removed from the YA section of the library, or segregated, or be labelled that they are sexually explicit to warn teens and parents.

Surely, if a book is YA, it should be in the YA section so the young adults can find it? Removing it from YA I feel is out of order; they are Young Adult novels, for young adults. Why can’t they, or their parents, decide what they should or shouldn’t read? There is something seriously wrong with taking away the choice of whether or not they want to read a novel.

As you would have read in my review of Screwed by Joanna Kenrick, some librarians are refusing to stock it in their libraries because of the cover. In an email to me, Joanna said:

"The problem with the jacket, as I understand it, is that although it appeals to the teenage market, the booksellers and other adults involved in actually getting the book to the kids are too conservative. I did a talk last week to some school librarians – half of them said they would refuse to stock ‘Screwed’ in their school library, even if it were age restricted."

Refusing to stock a book that is so highly important in getting through to teens about some serious issues!

There’s something else I want to talk about on this subject in the comments, but I’m not entirely sure if it fits in with what was said above as I haven’t yet read the books, so I can’t be certain. If I say it in the comments, maybe someone else can correct or confirm.

I think I’m ok with the books being labelled. When my copy of Screwed by Joanna Kenrick arrived, there was a sticker on the front saying “Not suitable for younger readers”, and on the back, near the barcode it had “Warning: Explicit Content”. The same warning is on the back of Good Girls by Laura Ruby, and on Sugar Rush by Julie Burchill, the warning is actually part of the front cover design. I think this is all pretty fair, I know there are some teenagers who don’t want to read sexually explicit books, so I think the warning is good for them. I know some people disagree with parents deciding what they’re children can and can’t read, but I do – they’re going to know what their children are ready to deal with – so again, for the parents, I think this is fair.

You’ll also have read about some people wanting Baby Be Bop by Francesca Lia Block to be burned. I haven’t read this book, but I have a Dangerous Angels omnibus book with all the stories in the series in, because the series was something I may have done an essay on a few years back, but I know roughly about the stories. They don’t appeal all that much to me, but burning them?! How unbelievably outrageous! You have no idea how mad it makes me that people will actually suggest destroying books in some way, that’s just sacrilege to me. But going to such extremes to stop people reading a book?

So what do you think about all of this? Is there an acceptable way of keeping certain books out of certain people’s hands? Even if you disagree with censorship in general, it happens, so what’s the best way to go about it?

Continue reading Discussion: Censorship - What Way is Acceptable?

Interview with Joanna Kenrick

Joanna Kenrick was lovely enough to put by some time to answer a few questions for us on her YA novel, Screwed.

How did you come with the idea for screwed?

It was when I was writing Red Tears, my novel for teenagers about self-harm, two years earlier. It struck me that some teens were using promiscuity as a form of self-harm too, and I was also surrounded by reports in the papers saying Britain still had the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe. I thought, ‘but if all these girls are getting pregnant, what about the ones that aren’t?’ And I also saw a programme about teenagers who were sleeping with each other at parties because they got drunk, and they didn’t see anything wrong with it – but at the same time they didn’t really seem to enjoy it much!

Your book deals with what I feel is one of the biggest problems for teenagers; casual sex without really getting what they’re doing. Did you find this a difficult story to write?

No, because I see it as like most other things teens indulge in without understanding the consequences – drugs, drink, dares on motorways. Casual sex is easy, available, and free. However, I should point out that my teenage years were NOT spent in endless one-night stands; far from it! So in that respect, yes, it was difficult to write because I had no personal experience. But I could imagine Marsha in my head, and so I just pretended I was her when I was writing the book.

I loved how you separated the sex scenes from the rest of the story, a visible way of showing how Marsha disconnected herself from sex. Was it important to you to show Marsha’s disconnection?

Yes, because I think a lot of people do disconnect. Sex in itself is quite a detached activity if you’re not emotionally involved. Most adults will admit to having sex they didn’t really enjoy, but they felt they ought to, or ‘couldn’t be bothered’ to refuse. The media often portrays sex as something all-encompassing; a passionate affair. When in fact, for many people, a lot of the time, it isn’t like that. Marsha is doing something she loves and hates at the same time: she loves the attention that sex gives her; the feeling that she is ‘special’ to someone – but at the same time she finds it somewhat disgusting, and she never seems to look back on the experiences with any pleasure. Like I said above, she’s doing it as a form of self-harm; a way to deal with feelings she has buried, but not in a positive, long-lasting way.

Although graphic, the sex scenes in Screwed don’t seem so bad as there is a lack of emotion and thinking through most of them; it makes them less shocking which is disturbing in itself. How did you come up with the style in which you wrote the sex scenes?

I’m glad you said that, because although I knew I was writing an ‘issue’ book about sex, I never wanted the sex scenes to be something teenagers would necessarily enjoy reading. The sex scene on page one was the first thing I wrote for the book, and it set the tone. I wanted Marsha to notice other things during the act, like the moon, or the sky, because as a woman you do tend to be looking up rather a lot… Curiously, the first draft of the book was written entirely in the present tense (which was what I used for Red Tears) but I then realised that it would work much better if I used present tense only for the sex scenes – it’s like the experience is very immediate but as though viewed from above. Marsha is almost seeing herself from the outside, rather than taking pleasure in her own body.

You covered some important topics brilliantly in my opinion, such as virginity and your first time through conversations with Beth and STDs through Marsha’s scare. How important did you feel it was to cover such subjects for teenage readers?

Very important. Sex is a complicated issue. Most teenagers are aware of the risk of pregnancy, but I saw a TV programme two years ago in which teenage boys went for STD tests. Their ignorance was terrifying. First time experiences are almost universally disappointing. A lot of young people have huge expectations of losing their virginity, and that in itself is a shame. Sex should be explained as something you can practise over a period of time within a relationship, not the mind-blowing orgasmic experience between strangers it so often is in the films.

Several people have said to me that they thought Beth was going to get pregnant after losing her virginity, and actually that did happen in an early draft of the book. But my editor very rightly pointed out that that subplot then started to detract from the main thrust of the story, which is Marsha and her relationship with Rich, along with her journey of self-discovery.

What is your view of the hook-up culture that has come about?

I think it’s an inevitable outcome of the current society. There are so many aspects that contribute to it though – the binge-drinking trend; the fact that so many children grow up in ‘broken’ families, where often they don’t see positive relationships around them; the lack of feeling part of a community; the dearth of sex education in schools – and of course the simple fact that teenagers will always rebel because that’s what being a teenager is all about. In a way I think it’s sad that a lot of young adults don’t value themselves and their bodies more highly. But on the other hand, I also think there is an over-reaction from many adults which doesn’t help the situation. Teenagers are always going to be curious about sex. That’s not the problem. The problem is when no one will talk to them about it!

What’s your opinion of how YA novels are dealing with the topic of sex?

I haven’t read very many that deal with it directly. But I think it’s good that more books are daring to deal with it as a topic. I think there need to be more stories that deal with the issue of sex itself, not just the one outcome of pregnancy (although that is very important).

Do you think there is a limit on what should be covered in YA novels?

Topic-wise, no. Absolutely not. BUT I do think authors should deal with the topics in a responsible way. Promiscuity should not be promoted as a good idea, for example. On the other hand, you have to be careful not to be too ‘preachy’. Kids can smell a moral a mile off, and they don’t like an obvious message, such as ‘sex is bad’. They know life isn’t that simple. We need to treat our readers with respect. They deserve good stories about real things and let them draw their own conclusions.

What books did you read as a teenager, and how well do you think they dealt with talking about sex?

Well, when I was a teenager, there wasn’t anything like the number of YA books there are now. It just wasn’t a booming market, though there were some books about sex – Judy Blume’s Forever, for example. But I didn’t come across it back then. Actually, what I read at the age of about fifteen or sixteen was Mills and Boon. Now there’s glorified sex for you! I thought them intensely romantic and exciting but even then, I knew the stories weren’t very realistic.

What do you think about parents not allowing their teenagers to read novels with a certain sexual content?

I think they are closing their eyes to a huge problem in this country. If so many teenagers are getting pregnant, then it stands to reason there are a lot of them having sex. Parents sometimes think they need to protect their teenage children against certain issues so that they don’t ‘get ideas’. And yet, by denying their kids access to those books, they are also making sure they’ll ‘get ideas’ from their friends at parties – which may not be the right ideas at all!

Anything else you wish to add/discuss?

I feel quite strongly that there should be a more comprehensive and universal programme of sex education for teenagers in this country. Whenever I hear the phrase ‘teenage pregnancy’ in the news, I always feel sad. Many teens make excellent parents, but nine times out of ten, the pregnancy was a mistake because they didn’t take precautions. That’s something we can fix, if only the people in charge were brave enough to tackle it.

I’d also like to add that ‘Screwed’ was not my choice of title. I wanted to go with ‘You Don’t Have To’ but the publishers felt that wasn’t punchy enough. I also wasn’t sure about the jacket cover, but it was felt that it would appeal to teenagers. I would be interested to hear what other people thought, particularly from teens themselves.

Thank you, Joanna, for an incredible interview! It was such a fascinating read! If you have any other questions for Joanna, she'll be popping by today to answer them, so get asking!

Continue reading Interview with Joanna Kenrick

Review: Screwed by Joanna Kenrick

Screwed by Joanna Kenrick - 15-year-old Marsha is wild, rebellious, and has gone off the rails. She goes out clubbing until very late, gets incredibly drunk, and sleeps around. A lot. When her best friend Faith bets her fifty pounds she won’t be able to get Rich, a boy in their year, to sleep with her, she agrees. Boys are all the same, and Marsha knows what they like, why would this one be any different? Except Rich is different, he’d rather a relationship than a one-night stand. What Marsha doesn’t realise is, is that so would she.

I cannot even begin to tell you how amazing this book was. It was just so incredible; so powerful and unbelievably moving. Once I finished, I had to go up to my room just to sort my head out and have a bit of a cry, because I couldn’t help but get so wrapped up in Marsha’s story. This book is just... wow. I’m a bit lost for words, and can’t describe just how good it is.

At first, I didn’t like Marsha much, or her friend Faith – in fact, I can’t stand Faith. I didn’t like Marsha's complete lack of caring or thought about what she did. It didn’t faze her, she didn’t even think about it, she just did. Well, she had to, didn’t she? She couldn’t let Faith beat her when it came to how many people she’d slept with, could she? It was disturbing, and made me feel quite sick, this complete lack of respect for herself.

Then new girl Beth arrives at the school, and she’s shy and reserved and asks Marsha and Faith if she can hang out with them, not knowing about their lifestyles. How Faith treats her in the beginning is just disgusting, and Marsha trying to turn her into a mini-me, when Beth is so naive and innocent, was just awful to watch. Sorry, read. As the story progressed though, they got to know each other a bit better; Beth still tried to fit in, and Marsha seemed to feel a bit sorry for her, and came to like her. It was great to see this surprising friendship grow, and how they helped each other in some ways.

Beneath the surface, though, you discover Marsha has some serious issues. I can’t really go into it much without spoiling the story, but you come to understand Marsha’s way of life, and sympathise. The only one who can help her figure things out is Rich; sweet, caring, shy, adorable Rich, the only one who can really get where she’s coming from.

Joanna Kenrick deals with the sex scenes in this novel in a great way. The novel is entirely first person from Marsha’s point of view, until it gets to the sex scenes. They have their own italicised paragraph in third person. Kenrick separates the sex scenes from the rest of the novel, a style device used to show Marsha separating herself from what’s happening. When she’s having sex, Marsha isn’t really there; it’s happening to her, but she’s kind of numb, looking about and thinking of other things. She disconnects herself from what’s happening.

The scenes aren’t overly detailed, either. They are quite graphic, but so emotionless that the acts don’t seem that bad. It’s pretty much “He does this. She does that. Then he says this. He moans, and it’s done.” You don’t get much insight into what’s going on inside Marsha’s head at these points, because more often than not, nothing is. Names are never mentioned, nor are speech marks. In some of the earlier scenes, proper punctuation is left out. It’s almost like it’s not real, or it’s a dream. It’s such a fantastic way of understanding Marsha better, her way of coping with things.

The topic of virginity and first time sex is covered through Marsha’s conversations with Beth. When Beth gets a boyfriend, she starts worrying about having sex with him, and asks Marsha to talk to her about her own first time. Although Marsha tries to make it clear to Beth that it’s her own choice to sleep with her boyfriend or not, she’s not completely truthful about her own experience, she gets too frustrated with Beth and her opinion that Beth should sleep with him comes through. There’s a bit of peer pressure too in that Marsha and Faith laugh at Beth’s complete innocence, and Beth feels she needs to be more like them.

Sexually Transmitted Diseases are also covered in Screwed, and it is dealt with by Kenrick brilliantly, through Marsha’s worry when Faith tells her that she caught something off a boy they both slept with.

“Of course I knew about sexually transmitted diseases – well, sort of. I knew there were things you could catch from having sex, like AIDS, but I never really thought it could be applied to me. It hadn’t occurred to me that I could actually catch something from the boys I slept with.”
P. 126.

We get to see Marsha go to the doctors and see a nurse, and read the actual conversation they have, which I think is just brilliant. We don’t see Marsha having a swab taken, but she talks about it afterwards, and it’s all explained and easy to understand. I really think this is just superb, as I think it could really hit home to some teenage readers that it can happen to anyone, and it’s helpful to show what would happen when at the doctors.

Overall, Screwed was such a fantastic and heartbreaking novel that is about so much more than just casual sex. The only thing I didn't like about it was that it ended. It was brilliant, and I would recommend it to everyone. It might have just become one of my favourite novels.

Luisa's Thoughts:

As a reader: My favourite thing about this book was the focus on the girls and their emotions, and I found all the characters three-dimensional, the boys as well as the girls.
As a parent: I absolutely love the way this book didn't moralise, but told a story that focuses on the problems of low self-esteem and peer pressure. It was explicit but never gratuitous. Everyone should read it.
As a writer: I admired the sparky and authentic dialogue.

Published: 2008
Publisher: Faber
Buy on Amazon UK
Buy on The Book Depository - free shipping worldwide
Joanna Kenrick's website

Other Reviews of Screwed:
Chicklish

A Favour to Ask:

When emailing Joanna about the interview for Screwed, she told me how Screwed has gone under the radar as some adults, such as librarians, won't buy it because of the cover and the title. I feel this is such an important book, one all teenagers should read, and should be compulsory reading in PHSE lessons (in the UK), as I think it would really effect teenagers in a way Sex Ed doesn't - yet people aren't buying it. This book only came out last year, and Joanna thinks Screwed will go out of print soon. This book is far too important to just slip by, so I'm urging all YA book reviewers out there to please, please get a hold of this book, review it, and get more exposure for it. I've enquired about if there's anything that can be done, but other than us reviewing it and letting people know about it, there isn't anything. So please, give this book a try, it really needs some help, and it looks like Joanna is fighting a losing battle.

Continue reading Review: Screwed by Joanna Kenrick

SiTL Month Updates

I thought putting all updates in one post would be neater. You may want to check back a few times to see if there are any other updates as the days go on.

Update - 4th June - Serena Robar:

Serena Robar, author of up-coming YA novel Giving Up the V, has passed my details on to her publicist to send me a copy of her book, and has agreed to be interviewed for Sex in Teen Lit Month! Fantastic news, in my opinion!

Really, the list of books will stop now. I'm really not the fastest reader in the world, and I wouldn't want this going over a month.

Update - 10th June - SiTL Month will be held in July, and getting hold of the books:

Just to let you know, I've got everything sorted, so now SiTL Month will be held in July.

I already have a few posts written for the month, one including my review for Extreme Kisses by Luisa Plaja, which was awesome, and I'm off to the library today to get some of the books I need to read. The rest I'm waiting to be delivered.

Just a question. If you're planning on reading along - though you don't have to! - would you mind letting me know, just so I know roughly how many people are thinking of doing so. Thanks!

If any American or Canadian people wish to read along, you might have a bit of trouble getting hold of the books, as most tend to be buy UK authors. If you find this to be the case, you may wish to try using The Book Depository to buy the books, as it's an online UK bookstore, and it has freeshipping worldwide. It might be the best way to get hold of the books - and it tends to be cheaper than Amazon UK, I've found.

Update - 11th June - Will be interviewing Joanna Kenrick:

The wonderful Luisa has been her usual super self, and in response to my previous post asking if there are any other authors who wish to contribute, mentioned SiTL Month to the Scattered Authors Society and asked if anyone was interested - and if they were, to email me. Thank you Luisa, you are a star!

A few people have emailed be about contributing, one of whom is Joanna Kenrick, author of Screwed, who has agreed to be interviewed for the Month! This month just keeps getting better and better, and it hasn't even started yet!

Just to recap, I'll now be interviewing Luisa Plaja, Tanya Lee Stone, Sara Hantz, Serena Robar, and Joanna Kenrick.

This is going to be one hell of a month!

Update - 12th June - Will be interviewing Melvin Burgess:

Yep, I got in contact with Melvin Burgess, author of Doing It, yesterday about a possible interview, and he has agreed!

This is just seriously amazing. This Month is going to turn out so much better than I first thought. I only though I'd be reviewing a few books, maybe a few disussion posts, and hoping people go involved. It's got so much bigger! It's so exciting!

Update - 14th June - Tanya Lee Stone will answer questions:

Author Tanya Lee Stone has agreed to pop on over a few times a day when her interview goes live - which looks to be on 1st July - to answer any questions you guys may have.

If you've read A Bad Boy Can be Good for a Girl , and have any questions, make a note of them somewhere so she can answer them for you!

Thank you, Tanya!

Update - 17th June - Laura Ruby has agreed to be interviewed:

Laura Ruby, author of Good Girls, has agreed to be interviewed! This is just awesome news!

But if that wasn't enough, both Sara Hantz and Joanna Kenrick have agreed to pop over on the days their interviews go live to answer any more questions you guys might have! This is all depending on when the interviews go live; I don't know when that will be yet, as I want to get a few more posts typed up before I start setting out a time table, and so they can't say for definite, but it's a possibility!

All good news, eh? :)

Update - 19th June - Mary Hooper has agreed to be interviewed:

Mary Hooper, author of the Megan Series, has agreed to be interview, which is just fantastic!

The Megan novels focus on teenage pregnancy, so it will be awesome to read about. I'm really looking forward to reading them!

Update - 28th June - Not reading the whole Megan series:

I got back from childminding my cousin for a week yesterday, and didn't get much reading done while I was there. As July is fast approaching, and I still have a few books to get through, I'll be reading only the first Megan book in the trilogy by Mary Hooper.

I'm quite upset at having to do this, as I wanted to read them all - and will eventually - but I have other books to read, posts to write (reviews, interviews, so on), etc, I'm not sure I would get it all done. To take off some of the pressure, I'm sticking to just the first book. I'm trying to get through the rest of the books quickly and get the posts sorted so I can enjoy the month with you all rather than trying to finish off and rushing, and not enjoying it as much.

Sorry to let you down.

Continue reading SiTL Month Updates