Review: Saltwater Vampires by Kirsty Eagar

Tags: young adult, paranormal, thriller, vampires, Australian lit, surfing

Summary

This New Year, Jamie and his avid surfing friends have more on their mind than catching good waves, making money, and enjoying themselves at the local music festival when they stumble upon a 400-year-old vampire plot and employ all the resources they have on hand in order to save their town.

Review

There are few authors I would trust to write a truly original and good vampire story. Kirsty Eagar is one of them, and she delivers beautifully with SALTWATER VAMPIRES, her sophomore novel. Quirky, fast-paced, and sprawling, SALTWATER VAMPIRES should be your next read if you’re looking for a book that’s, well, pretty much like no other.

Usually the adjectives “quirky,” “fast-paced,” and “sprawling” aren’t used together to describe one book, but hey, this is Kirsty Eagar we’re talking about here, and she defies norms. SALTWATER VAMPIRES is quirky because, as others have said, it is a purely Australian vampire thriller. It combines elements of the paranormal, thriller, horror, and YA contemporary, presented in a distinctly Australian writing style, by which I mean, in addition to some Australian slang, a deep respect for readers’ intelligences: the book is not going to pause for you to get with it, so you had better not have a lazy reading mind and expect everything to be laid out clearly for you.

SALTWATER VAMPIRES’ fast pace comes from its thriller aspect. The book channels some Dan Brown and Stieg Larsson for its exciting premise. Don’t expect a melodramatic romance here: these 15-year-olds are trying to save their town, and their actions and reactions befit that of one of their age and predicament—that is, they (especially the boys) are going to occasionally say some really stupid things that make you want to clip them upside the head the way you would a younger brother. I truly enjoyed how realistic yet personable the characters were, and would not trade their occasional awkwardness and dramatically heroic decisions for the much more boring and unbelievable antics of a pair (or trio) of luv-struck-dumb teenagers.

Finally, this book is sprawling because of the way it successfully handles its convergence of multiple genres, time periods, and perspectives. In between setting up the Batavia backstory to following the thoughts of some vampire-connected adults on their journey to Australia, the book remains true to its YA genre by treating its teenaged characters the way they should be treated: sympathetically, but with attention paid to their idiosyncracies and (occasional) idiocies.

SALTWATER VAMPIRES doesn’t make vampires out to be anything other than single-minded monsters. It also doesn’t delve too much into the subtle mindsets of adolescents, so if you’re looking for something akin to Raw Blue, you won’t find it here. On the other hand, if you want an exciting read unhampered by teenager melodrama, you’ll want to basically date this book.

Similar Authors
Dan Brown
Stieg Larsson
Jonathan Maberry

Cover discussion: Erm, I'm not the biggest fan of it--books with staring eyes on them creep me out--but I can see why it fits the horror/thriller-esque mood of this book.

Penguin Books Australia / Aug. 30, 2010 / Paperback / 384pp. / $23.99

Personal copy.

Why New Adult Lit is the Next Cool Thing

Awesome bloggers Nic from Irresistible Reads and Linds from Bibliophile Brouhaha have teamed together to host Kirsty Eagar Week, in which a bunch of bloggers, of which I am one, are posting to promote this lovely Australian author. Check out Nic's introductory post here! I had the fortune of reading Raw Blue a while ago and it was stunning, so I'm honored to be a part of this week. My post is on older YA--or, as it has been referred to, New Adult Literature.

"Why New Adult Lit is the Next Cool Thing"

Recently I reread Anne of the Island, the third book in L. M. Montgomery's eternally lovely series. This is the book in which WONDERFULLY ROMANTIC THINGS happen because hey, guess what? Anne is old enough to go through those emotions. She finally realizes that she's actually in love with her best friend, Gilbert Blythe, and things that we were desperately waiting for three books to happen finally happen. Life is well in Anne's (and my) romantic dreams.

Anne of the Island spans Anne's college years, where she blossoms from a poised but still emotionally young 18-year-old to a 22-year-old woman with a much better understanding of her emotions. The entire Anne series is generally considered children's literature, but, age-wise, Anne in this installment fits neatly into the infant literary sub-genre some are calling "New Adult Literature."

It’s not quite an officially recognized genre just yet, always faltering in shelf placement between the YA or adult sections, but I think it’s only a matter of time before New Adult Lit takes off. Just like teens benefit emotionally, mentally, and intellectually from having their own literary genre, so can real-life young adults benefit from books that feature people their own age, who are going through what they are going through. I am a recent college graduate and distinctly feel that my reading tastes have shifted from primarily YA to…what? Thus far, there is no “other” where I feel like I belong. I want stories of growth and discovery in the college years. I want adventures of recent college graduates, stressing out over the instability of the job market or being overwhelmed by the newness of their first fulltime job. Much like how, 40 years ago, teens demanded literature that represented what life was really like for them, I want the same for my newly minted “young adult” status!

Pragmatically, new adult lit is a definite potential market. Many of the age groups we now take for granted, such as toddlers, were actually coined by companies to launch a new line of products for their new age groups as recently as 50 years ago. Why couldn’t, or shouldn’t, the same apply to book publishing? Ten years ago you would be hard-pressed to find a YA section in a bookstore. Now, a bookstore without a YA section feels almost out-of-date. As the generation of teenagers who coincided with this most recent explosion of YA literature graduate high school and enter college, what will there be for them to read? A separate bookstore section for New Adult Lit might be difficult to imagine now, but I predict that by 2020 there will be more than a handful of stores featuring a distinct shelf for a burgeoning genre nestled between YA and adult fiction.

Hopefully, within the next few years, authors will not be asked to lower the ages of their protagonists to better fit the established YA lit parameters. Publishers will take the leap and tap into the overdue potential of stories featuring college-age characters and the unique arena of freedom and fear that coexist during these years. Readers are already clamoring for stories set in college—and, as we know, the customer is always (okay: mostly, usually) right.

So why shouldn't there be a New Adult genre?

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Be sure to check out the Kirsty Eagar Week schedule on Nic's blog to hear what other bloggers have to say about Kirsty, Kirsty's books, older YA lit, and more. There are also giveaways, so go go go! :)

(Oh, and also, pick up Kirsty's books if you have the opportunity. You won't be sorry.)

Review: Raw Blue by Kirsty Eagar

Tags: YA, Australian lit, surfing, rape

Summary

19-year-old Carly spends her days surfing on Australia’s northern beaches and her nights working as a cook. For her, surfing is everything—everything else must revolve around it. This lifestyle is the only way she can temporarily forget the horrible thing that happened to her almost two years ago, the thing that still gives her nightmares occasionally and makes it difficult for her to trust anyone.

However, Carly’s life keeps on crashing against others’, despite her best efforts to remain alone. She befriends a variety of interesting characters, such as her Dutch neighbor, a fun-loving, separated older woman named Hannah, and Danny, a younger fellow surfer with synaesthesia. And when Carly gets to know Ryan, a local surfer, she finds it hard to hold onto her former feelings of determined detachment. But will allowing someone to get close to her only end up hurting her again? Must she live with the permanent psychological effects of her past, or can she find a way to not let her past dictate her future?

Review

I’ve heard of and wanted to read RAW BLUE, an Australian debut novel, for two years before I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a copy, thanks to the amazing generosity of a blogger friend who is a staunch RAW BLUE evangelist. The verdict? Oh boy, was it worth the years of quiet and patient waiting. I wish more people know about this powerful, heartbreaking, and full novel.

RAW BLUE is not an easy read. Carly is an emotionally damaged young woman who pushes people away as much as possible. Eagar does not shy from using the language of a hardcore Australian surfer. And the plot is quiet, with over half the book passing by the time I realized that what I had read was not merely exposition, but the meat of the story. Despite what it sounds, however, it is far from being a slow and frustrating book.

A rape survivor, Carly tries to drown her memories away with the routine of cooking and surfing. It was heartwarming to read about Carly’s slow and painful healing, because it’s such an internal process that we can all relate to it at some level. RAW BLUE is, above all, subtle. It does not use any drastic events or scenarios to move the plot along. It is really just Carly going about her daily routine, not realizing that she is changing even as she is. And that’s arguably the best kind of realistic fiction, because it’s most like the almost unnoticeable process of growth that we undergo in real life.

When Eagar’s talent for stunning prose meets a protagonist whom we love despite her best attempts to dissuade us, the result is a beautiful and lingering story that reinfuses life into us. I finished RAW BLUE with an optimistic sense of the immensity of the world, of all the little things that we don’t stop to think about that can impact our lives forever.

Similar Authors
Melina Marchetta (Jellicoe Road)
Cath Crowley (A Little Wanting Song)
Elisa Carbone (Jump)

Writing: 5/5
Characters: 4/5
Plot: 4/5

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5


Cover discussion: It's a pretty typical contemporary YA fiction cover, but something about it really draws me. The starkness of the blue and white probably has something to do with it. I like this even more after reading the book. It's like the cover evokes the book-proven idea that Carly's story does not fit into the typical contemporary fiction narrative.

Penguin Books Australia / Jan. 29, 2009 / Paperback / 274pp.

Received as part of blog tour organized by Linds of Bibliophile Brouhaha. Thank you SO much!