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Tales from the Bitface (version 4.2)

Writer. Software developer.

ya

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    The Time of the Ghost by Diana Wynne Jones (Books 2021, 24)

    I read this because I happened on an article about it on Tor.com: ‘Diana Wynne Jones’ The Time of the Ghost Breaks All the Rules of How To Write a Book’, by Emily Tesh. Let’s ignore the incorrect possessive apostrophe in the title1; it was the assertion about it breaking all the rules that drew me, made me want to read the article. A few paragraphs in I realised that I wanted to read the book, and the article was heading deep into spoiler territory. So I stopped reading it and downloaded the book. Read it as soon as I finished the last one.

    It’s the story of four neglected sisters, whose parents run a boys' boarding school and have no time for anything else, including their daughters; and of a ghost that is haunting them, and who might be one of them. And of an ancient darkness that the sisters accidentally invoked.

    But the real darkness is the neglect.

    Highly recommended, and the article I linked above is very good and insightful (but deeply spoilerific) too.

    1. Jones is not plural, so it should be Jones’s. ↩︎

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    The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (Books 2020, 28)

    Read this for the young adult (YA) section of the Genre module on my course. It’s a powerful story inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement.

    In an unnamed US city, a teenaged girl is the only witness to her friend being murdered by a police officer. She has to find her way through the complexities that follow, including family, school, friendships, the law, and the streets of the neighbourhood she grew up in.

    It’s a tough read at times, as is it should be. But it’s also very funny in places. Well worth checking out.