Loveozya - Blog Posts
Happy Halloween 2021! - here’s ‘The Monster Of Her Age’ vibing with other the-story-behind-Horror books 🧟♂️📖 and also the 👑, Shelley’s Frankenstein. A meta (sorry 😬) way to engage with the genre if Horror is not your thing, and also if you really want a YA queer kissing book 😘 Also featured are:
🎃 ‘Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction’ by Lisa Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson
🎃 ‘She Made a Monster: How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein’ by Lynn Fulton, illustrated by Felicita Sala
‘The Monster of Her Age’ drops on July 28 with Hachette Books Australia. Here are some reviews that mention similar-reads;
“This book is all kinds of wonderful. From its smart and nuanced look at how we respond to art, to questions of whether it's possible to separate art from its problematic artist, Binks has written a book I so wish existed when I was a film-obsessed teen. It brought to mind ‘Actress’ by Anne Enright and ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo’ by Taylor Jenkins Reid but also ‘Looking for Alibrandi’ in the way it untangled secrets and pain passed down from grandmother to mother to daughter. The chats about the horror genre are so well done and made me immediately want to join a film group. The queer love story is beautifully told. And the look at how a family manages death is beautiful and real and profound. The chapter closes are all so nicely done too which is a minor point but shows that care was paid to both the big and the small. All up this is my favourite kind of contemporary YA and this book is perfection.” — Jaclyn Crupi
“A warm hug of a book that's packed to the brim with tenderness, truth, and timeless charm. ‘The Monster of Her Age’ is as much an homage to film as it is to family and heart-fluttering crushes. A must-read for fans of Nina LaCour.” — SARAH ROBINSON-HATCH, The YA Room
How do you ruin someone's childhood?
Ellie Marsden was born into the legendary Lovinger acting dynasty. Granddaughter of the infamous Lottie Lovinger, as a child Ellie shared the silver screen with Lottie in her one-and-only role playing the child monster in a cult horror movie. The experience left Ellie deeply traumatised and estranged from people she loved.
Now seventeen, Ellie has returned home to Hobart for the first time in years. Lottie is dying and Ellie wants to make peace with her before it's too late.
When a chance encounter with a young film buff leads her to a feminist horror film collective, Ellie meets Riya, a girl who she might be able to show her real self to, and at last comes to understand her family's legacy.
When your book-cover illustrator gifts you the original! 🥺🥰
In a neo-Gothic mansion in a city at the end of the world, Ellie finds there's room enough for art, family, forgiveness and love. A coming-of-age story about embracing the things that scare us from the author of ‘The Year the Maps Changed.’
How do you ruin someone's childhood? You let them make-believe that they are a monster. But sooner or later, the mask must come off...
Ellie Marsden was born into the legendary Lovinger acting dynasty. Granddaughter of the infamous Lottie Lovinger, as a child Ellie shared the silver screen with Lottie in her one-and-only role playing the child monster in a cult horror movie. The experience left Ellie deeply traumatised and estranged from people she loved.
Now seventeen, Ellie has returned home to Hobart for the first time in years. Lottie is dying and Ellie wants to make peace with her before it's too late. But forgiveness feels like playing make-believe, and memories are like ghosts.
When a chance encounter with a young film buff leads her to a feminist horror film collective, Ellie meets Riya, a girl who she might be able to show her real self to, and last comes to understand her family's legacy - and her own part in it.
A story of love, loss, family and film - a stirring, insightful novel about letting go of anger and learning to forgive without forgetting. And about embracing the things that scare us, in order to be braver.
First pages back for the forthcoming YA novel ...
‘The Monster of Her Age’ by Danielle Binks - coming August 2021
In a neo-Gothic mansion in a city at the end of the world, Ellie finds there's room enough for art, family, forgiveness and love. A coming-of-age story about embracing the things that scare us from the author of ‘The Year the Maps Changed.’
How do you ruin someone's childhood? You let them make-believe that they are a monster. But sooner or later, the mask must come off...
Ellie Marsden was born into the legendary Lovinger acting dynasty. Granddaughter of the infamous Lottie Lovinger, as a child Ellie shared the silver screen with Lottie in her one-and-only role playing the child monster in a cult horror movie. The experience left Ellie deeply traumatised and estranged from people she loved.
Now seventeen, Ellie has returned home to Hobart for the first time in years. Lottie is dying and Ellie wants to make peace with her before it's too late. But forgiveness feels like playing make-believe, and memories are like ghosts.
When a chance encounter with a young film buff leads her to a feminist horror film collective, Ellie meets Riya, a girl who she might be able to show her real self to, and last comes to understand her family's legacy - and her own part in it.
A story of love, loss, family and film - a stirring, insightful novel about letting go of anger and learning to forgive without forgetting. And about embracing the things that scare us, in order to be braver.
‘Sunburnt Veils’ by Sara Haghdoosti
Girl meets boy, ghosts his text messages, then convinces him to help her run for the student union. Just your typical love story with a hijabi twist.
Tara wears hijab even though her parents hate it, and in a swipe right world she's looking for the 'will go to the ends of the earth for you' type of love. Or, she would be, if she hadn't sworn off boys to focus on getting into med. Besides, what's wrong with just crushing on the assassins, mages and thieves in the fantasy books she reads?
When a bomb threat on her first day of university throws her together with totally annoying party king and oh-so-entitled politician's son Alex, things get complicated. Tara needs to decide if she's happy reading about heroes, or if she's ready to step up and be one herself.
April 1. Wakefield Press. Australia.
Entirely possible we’ve all been in iso too long - but to celebrate BSC on Netflix and a resurgence in the books, my local indie bookstore (Readings) turned me into a spin-off! 😍
‘The Year the Maps Changed’
Book launch in the time of COVID! Wasn’t exactly what I’d planned, but it was still joyous and exciting!
Hard times ahead - but books community is exactly that, and we help each other ❤️
“I am haunted by humans.”
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
I don’t know why it had to hurt, the way she dialled the world with her little finger.
'Girl Defective' by Simmone Howell
Grief settles comfortably into any host; it is an ever-mutating, vigorous organism with an ever-renewing customer base. It generates a never-ending hunger, a never-ending ache, an unassuageable pain to new hearts, brains, guts every minute, every day, every year.It is the razor edge of a loose tooth shrieking to be pressed again and again into the soft pink sore gum. It’s a one-way tunnel with no proof of another exit.
'Wildlife' by Fiona Wood
‘One day,’ Froi said, clearing his voice of emotion, ‘I’ll introduce you to my queen and my king and my captain; and Lord August and Lady Abian, who have given me a home; and the Priestking and Perri and Tesadora and my friend Lucian; and then you’ll understand that I would never have met them if you hadn’t journeyed to Sarnak all those years ago, Arjuro. And if the gods were to give me a choice between living a better life, having not met them, or a wretched life with the slightest chance of crossing their path, then I'd pick the wretched life over and over again.’
'Quintana of Charyn' by Melina Marchetta
'You know what they say about mistakes though,' she said, all breathy and half-lipsy. 'It's the only way you ever learn anything.' And she leant forward and kissed him. Right there, in the middle of the bar. Right there, in the middle of his lips.
'Beatle Meets Destiny' by Gabrielle Williams
Without a keeper of words, stories tumble and fall, eventually melting into the ether, never to be heard of again. Stories link us to our mob, doesn't matter if you are Koorie, Irish, Kiwi, Welsh or Indian. It’s the listening and telling of these stories that bring our people close, both young and old. Stories keep our culture and our faith alive.
'Grace Beside Me' by Sue McPherson
Am I sounding creepy? Love is sort of creepy. When you fall in love, you presuppose all sorts of things about the person. You superimpose all kinds of ideals and fantasies on them. You create all manner of unrealistic, untenable, unsatisfiable criteria for that person, automatically guaranteeing their failure and your heartbreak. And what do we call it? Romance. Now, that’s creepy.
'Creepy and Maud' by Dianne Touchell
It's a weird smile, but it reaches his eyes and I bottle it. And I put it in my ammo pack that's kept right next to my soul and Justine's spirit and Siobhan's hope and Tara's passions. Because if I'm going to wake up one morning and not be able to get out of bed, I'm going to need everything I've got to fight this disease that could be sleeping inside of me.
'Saving Francesca' by Melina Marchetta
Everything in the world's got a voice; most people don't hear hard enough is all. Sunrise sounds like slow chords dripping from my guitar this morning. Sad chords, in B-flat.
'Chasing Charlie Duskin' by Cath Crowley
I fall in love with these kids over and over again and my heart aches for their tragedies and marvels at their friendship.
'On the Jellicoe Road' by Melina Marchetta
I bury my face in my hands. And then Ryan does such a nice thing. He wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me in against him. I can feel his body heat through his cotton T-shirt, and directly in front of me are the worn, faded knees of his jeans. But most of all, I can smell him. And he smells sandy-warm, like a beach. No one can see my face in there protected by his chest. Which is good because I can’t stop crying. I mean, I’m really going for the world record in terms of an inappropriate public breakdown. But it doesn’t matter, it just doesn’t matter. I’m sheltered.
'Raw Blue' by Kirsty Eagar
I guess love's kind of like a marshmallow in a microwave on high. After it explodes it's still a marshmallow. But, you know, now it's a complicated marshmallow.
'Graffiti Moon' by Cath Crowley
I howl. I howl at the roof like a hotted-up bomb doing donuts, full of screeches. I howl like an air-raid siren, my arms stretched out wide. Howls are like songs. They can’t be summoned; they just happen. They come from a place that I barely understand. And then something else climbs to the surface, something black and jagged, something from the deep. Imagine all your worst feelings surfacing. Imagine coughing up razor blades. Imagine not being able to stop the pain from coming out, and not knowing when it’s going to end.
'This is Shyness' by Leanne Hall
I’m glad it was Dylan who laughed first. Once he did I felt myself unravel. I giggled and he giggled. We were the experiment. And then there came a time when we weren’t laughing. When we locked eyes and breathed each other’s breath. Ohmystars! The firmament shakes and then everything settles. In the end everything settles.
'Everything Beautiful' by Simmone Howell
“Because without our language, we have lost ourselves. Who are we without our words?”
'Finnikin of the Rock' Lumatere Chronicles #1 by Melina Marchetta
"Every time he looked at me I felt like I'd touched my tongue to the tip of a battery. In art class I'd watch him lean back and listen and I was nothing but zing and tingle. After a while, the tingle turned to electricity, and when he asked me out my whole body amped to a level where technically I should have been dead. I had nothing in common with a sheddy like him, but a girl doesn't think straight when she's that close to electrocution."
'Graffiti Moon' by Cath Crowley
"I’m scared I’m going to spend the rest of my life in a state of yearning, regardless of where I am."
'The Piper's Son' by Melina Marchetta