Review of Flip by Martyn Bedford

Alex wakes up one morning after a night out, and he’s in a strange bed in a strange house.  Someone is shouting for him from downstairs, but they’re calling, “Flip!” He’s sure it’s just some kind of mix-up, until he gets his first look in a mirror and doesn’t recognize the person he sees. How did he end up in someone else’s body? Can he get anyone to believe that he isn’t who they think he is? And what happened in the 6 months since his last memory as the old Alex, and his first memory as Flip? About the only one who knows that Alex isn’t Flip is the Garamond family retriever, Beagle, who growls at him each time he sees him. Alex is confused and desperate, but, at the same time, he’s kind of fascinated by his new life and family. There are some great things about being Flip (being popular at school is one.  Having any number of girlfriends is another), but he’d rather be himself again. Flip’s family and friends are bewildered by his new habits (really his old habits), and it’s funny to watch Alex having to deal with a body that doesn’t work the same way his own does. When he abandons cricket and hanging out with his crude friends, his buddies are really worried. Then he falls for a sensitive, intelligent girl. Alex finds other people on the internet who have experienced what they call psychic evacuation –when a soul leaves a body and enters another body, usually because of the imminent death of their own body. I’ve watched lots of movies that involve people swapping bodies, but it’s always with someone they know. It’s really intriguing to watch Alex try to navigate a life as someone he’s never met, and surrounded by people he doesn’t know. There’s plenty of suspense as Alex tries to figure out why his soul took over Flip’s body, and how he can get back into his own before it’s too late. Review by Stacy Church

Want To Read More Books Like Me, the Missing, and the Dead?

Here are some more books about life going on after a death in the family

Defining Dulcie by Paul Acampora

Boy2girl by Terence Blacker

Feels Like Home by e. E. Charlton-Trujillo

A Swift Pure Cry by Siobhan Dowd

The Key to the Golden Firebird by Maureen Johnson

Let's Get Lost by Sarra Manning

Girlhearts by Norma Fox Mazer

After the Wreck, I Picked Myself up, Spread My Wings, and Flew away by Joyce Carol Oates.

Cures for Heartbreak by Margo Rabb

A Gathering of Shades by David Stahler, Jr.

Broken Soup by Jenny Valentine

Jenny Valentine

Here’s what Harper Collins Publishers has to say about Jenny Valentine, author of Me, the Missing, and the Dead:

Jenny Valentine worked in a food shop for fifteen years, where she met many extraordinary people and sold more organic bread than there are words in her first book. She studied English literature at Goldsmith's College, which almost made her stop reading but not quite. Her debut novel, Me, the Missing, and the Dead, won the prestigious Guardian Children's Fiction Prize in the UK under the title Finding Violet Park. Jenny is married to a singer/songwriter and has two children. She lives in Hay on Wye, England.

When asked in an interview by The Bookbag what her inspiration for the book was, Valentine said:

Ah, well I knew a lady called Eileen when I was nineteen and she was about eighty. She was the first disgracefully behaved old lady I had ever met and I thought she was brilliant. When she died she was cremated and her ashes were left on a shelf - not a mini cab office - but somewhere very odd. The difference is I don't think Eileen minded, but Violet does.

This Month’s Book: Me, the Missing, and the Dead by Jenny Valentine

This is a story about looking for clues to solve one mystery, only to find that the solution is inextricably linked to the central mystery of your life. The story starts with Lucas finding “a tenner” in his coat pocket after staying too late at his friend’s house and deciding to take a cab home. In the mini-cab office, he sees an urn up on a shelf and when he asks about it, is told that it was left in a cab 18 months ago. Lucas can’t stop thinking about the abandoned urn; in fact, he thinks the inhabitant is talking to him. He finds out her name is Violet Park, and he concocts a plan with his grandmother, Pansy, (who swears all the time, but without actually saying the word, “just mouths it with her face screwed up”) to liberate Violet from her purgatory. One of the things I really love about this book is how detailed and original the descriptions are. For instance, when Lucas is looking out over the heath, unable to sleep: That part of the heath is covered with enormous crows. They’ve got massive feet like they can’t believe how big they are. They all look like actors with their hands behind their backs, rehearsing the bit in that play when the king says, “Now is the winter of our discontent…” Lucas’s family is pretty messed up –his father disappeared five years ago, and they’ve never been able to move on. Lucas idolizes his father, which drives his mother insane, and his sister is just angry. Lucas has quite a funny voice, and the story is broken up by lists, such as this one about parents. “You start off thinking they own the world, and everything is downhill from there. Parents do so many things to wake you up to the idea that they are less than perfect.

• Speak like they think teenagers speak (always wrong, excruciatingly wrong).
• Get drunk too quickly or too much.
• Be rude to people they don’t know.
• Flirt with your teacher and your friends..
• Forget their age.
• Use their age against you.
• Get piercings.
• Wear leather trousers (both sexes).
• Drive badly (without admitting it).
• Cook badly (ditto).
• Go to seed.
• Sing in the shower/car/public.
• Don’t say sorry when they’re wrong.
• Shout at you or each other.
• Hit you or each other.
• Steal from you or each other.
• Lie to you or each other.
• Tell dirty jokes in front of your friends.
• Give you grief in front of your friends.
• Try to be your mate when it suits them.”

As I’ve already hinted, by the end of the book, Lucas has solved more than one mystery, and has come to some sort of peace with the world, and his mother especially.  Review by Stacy Chur

What Inspired Chris Wooding To Write The Haunting…?

The story came out of the scenery really. I had just moved to London from Leicester (where I’d returned after Uni in Sheffield), and I absolutely hated it. I just couldn’t get on with the Underground, the unbelievable amount of time it took to get anywhere, the sheer size and riotous expense of the place. The dark, perpetually foggy and dangerous city in the book was just an exaggeration of what I felt, and the rest fell out from there. It started as a riff on how much I disliked living in London, mixed in with a bunch of H.P.Lovecraft that I was heavily into at the time, and somewhere along the line it developed subtext, themes and even, dare I say, a message. –from http://www.chriswooding.com

This month’s book: The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray by Chris Wooding

This is a very creepy book. It's set in London in what appears to be the 19th century, but none of the events described in the story have any real place in history. In this parallel London, the city was bombed and nearly destroyed by a German airship fleet, and in the ensuing years becomes overrun by wych-kin, supernatural monsters that prey on human beings. The only protection comes from wych-hunters who use ancient rituals to track them and kill them. Thaniel Fox is a 17-year-old wych-hunter who learned the craft from his father, and then his mentor, Cathaline. The book opens with Thaniel chasing a Cradlejack (much more dangerous than it sounds: it's like a vampire that preys on babies) into an abandoned building where he stumbles across a crazed young woman who attacks him and then collapses. He takes her home, and with Cathaline's help, tries to unravel her mystery. The only thing she remembers is her name: Alaizabel Cray. Cathaline surrounds her room with talismans to ward off any evil pursuers, but Alaizabel insists that during the night something cold, wet and horrible tried to get into her room, even though no one else heard or felt anything. Is she insane or is something really trying to get her? Thaniel and Cathaline soon realize that the girl they saved is the key to a conspiracy that could bring the ultimate evil into the world. Along the way, they join forces with the vagrants, pickpockets and other unsavory people who inhabit the Old Quarter, an area of London most people avoid. Besides the wych-kin and wolves that inhabit the Old Quarter, there's also the serial killer Stitch-face, clearly modelled on Jack the Ripper. This is a real page-turner, but don't read it unless you have a strong stomach for gore. Review by Stacy Church

Favorite Quotes from The Edenville Owls

“In bad weather, especially when it was raining and windy, I used to like to go down to the empty bandstand and sit in it alone, protected by the pointed roof, and look at the way the rain and the wind made the harbor look.” (page 23)

“There was something in his voice, like a piece of broken glass.” (page 31)

“I wondered if it was a sin to think about her with her clothes off.  I hoped it was only a venial sin.  I mean, guys thought about stuff like that.” (page 33)

“Well, so far I’ve lied and broken my word and skipped school and broken into Miss Delaney’s house,” I said  “I mean, am I a good guy or a bad guy?” (;age 108)