Author: impossiblegirl

Theme Prompt

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Because I’m so excited about the upcoming release of The Book Thief movie – as it was one of my favourite books, and is such an incredibly life-changing story that it’s always top of my recommendation list – I’m stealing today’s theme idea from Markus Zusak himself.

Write a short story in which Death is the narrator.

I’ve never done this before…

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This is going to sound strange, because it seems such a taboo for someone who loves literature and poetry and original writing to review, of all things, fanfiction. But what I want to do is highlight a particular author I found two years ago, back in my fanfic-reading days, around a time I had pretty much despaired of ever finding someone who could write, and I mean really WRITE, on fanfiction.net.

I’m sure there are others out there, I have no doubt of that. And you’re more than welcome to share your favourites in the comments. And this particular author has limited their stories to Gossip Girl, Harry Potter and Glee, so if you don’t like any of them, you’re out of luck.

But this author is amazing. I don’t know who she is. I don’t know if she only writes fanfics, or if she has novels in the works (or published). But if she doesn’t, it’s a crime against nature and she should, because you only have to read her writing to know that it’s what she was put on earth to do.

Her name is possibilist, and you can find her work here on ffnet, or here on her tumblr.

Please don’t be put off just because she is a fanfiction author. I think that anyone who has a real talent for writing should be recognised and encouraged. Please just read a chapter or two. And then tell her she should write a novel. Because I’ve been waiting two years for one, and it’s clearly her calling.

Review: All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill

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9781408835197

 

Rating: 4.5/5

I have to admit, I’ve steered clear of YA, especially dystopian romances, for a while. In fact, I only picked up All Our Yesterdays because it was $8.00 at K-Mart and I needed something to read. After other disappointments with YA in general, I really didn’t expect to like this book as much as I did.

All Our Yesterdays is Terrill’s debut, and it’s a good one. We open on protagonist, Em, locked in a cell sometime in the near future and being tortured for information. This dark scenario is interspersed with glimpses of the contrastingly shallow, boy-obsessed Marina. It’s a bit of fun trying to piece together how the two are connected, and at first when I figured it out early on, I (wrongly) assumed that I had bested the big mystery of the book in under two chapters.

Terrill’s fast-paced and thought-provoking sci-fi has more to offer than that, though, cleverly weaving the good old theme of time-travel in with politics, intrigue and action balanced on the increasingly fine line between right and wrong. Even the romance/love triangle element didn’t annoy the hell out of me like it usually does, because Terrill manages to grow the character of Marina beautifully, from lovesick teen to someone mature enough to question the reasoning and rightness behind her infatuation.

What All Our Yesterdays brings to the table in terms of the time-travel genre is a well-explained, brilliantly thought out explanation of the laws of time, with Doctor Who-esque justifications of paradoxes and how changing the past can affect the future. This novel does just what any good sci-fi should; it takes the improbable and creates a world just possible enough to make you wonder – and yes, the politics behind the world created are touched on enough to make this future seem not only believable, but scary.

The book also explores good and evil, not as polar opposites, but as things present in all of us. If you knew you had to kill someone to make the future a better place, could you do it? Even if that person was someone you loved? Even if his younger self only acted according to what he thought was the ‘greater good’? The character of James is especially interesting in his growth and development, as he struggles against his supposed future whilst rushing towards it at the same time.

Cristin Terrill has swayed me on the subject of YA, and now I eagerly await the promised sequel. Picking up All Our Yesterdays turned out to be a good decision, and I encourage others to do the same.

 

Review by Chloe