Ever since I read “Memoirs of a Geisha” I’ve wanted to read this one, as Arthur Golden mentions this book as being one of his inspirations. So when I managed to find it in a bookshop, I immediately bought it. It did not disappoint. Where MoaG takes place around World War 2, this one describes the life of a Geisha in the 60s and 70s. You get to read about how Mineko meets Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth and several other celebrities that we ‘know’. Fascinating book.

Ella Minnow Pea is a girl living happily on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina. Nollop was named after Nevin Nollop, author of the immortal pangram, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” Now Ella finds herself acting to save her friends, family, and fellow citizens from the encroaching totalitarianism of the island’s Council, which has banned the use of certain letters of the alphabet as they fall from a memorial statue of Nevin Nollop. As the letters progressively drop from the statue they also disappear from the novel.

This book is absolutely hilarious, reading how Ella slowly learns to substitute words as more and more letters are banned. ‘Day’ becomes ‘sun-to-sun’ when ‘d’ disappears and then ‘night-to-night’ when ‘u’ disappears. Lovely book and a quick read. I read it in one sitting – didn’t take more than an hour or two.

Though I’ve read many adaptions of this story (among others a Disney version with Scrooge and Donald Duck in the main roles – obviously ;) ) I’d never actually read the original, so in December I felt it was time. It’s pretty good, but I wasn’t as impressed by it, as I’d expected to be. Perhaps this is because I listened to it as an audiobook instead of reading it myself. It’s worth a read, but won’t make it to my list of favourites.

Good quality teen fiction is hard to find these days. With the notable exceptions of Stephanie Meyer and Tamora Pierce most YA writers tend to ‘talk down’ to their readers, and their books read more like the script to movies like “Clueless” (am in no way mocking that movie – I love it – but it doesn’t mean it makes for a good book) than to fiction worth reading.

“Just Listen” is a delightful change to this ‘norm’. It was well written, well thought out and not just concerned about “who’s in love with whom”. Though I’m probably somewhat older than the target audience, I really enjoyed it. The characters were three-dimensional and you got to know and care about them. This is the first Sarah Dessen book I’ve read, but I’ll be sure to check out more of her books after this.

I remembered the main outline of the plot of this one, having seen the movie ages ago, but it’s actually the first AC book I’ve ever read. I quite enjoyed it, but found the ending somewhat far-fetched. Pretty amazing that Poirut managed to put all those clues together in so short a time, eh? I prefer crimes that don’t ‘cheat’ – i.e. where the reader could also have put together the clues him-/herself without further information, but it was still fun.