Skip to main content

August 2014

Watermark (Penelope Todd)

A short but memorable novel about the effects that choice and fate can have over a very short period of time, Watermark is set in the beautiful but isolated backdrop of the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island.

 Zillah is a "normal" teenager who is the recipient of a mysterious letter written by an unknown acquaintance.  The letter invites her to visit Roimata, ask no questions, and bring very little.  Knowing that her predictable mother would strictly forbid accepting such a strange offer, Zillah makes her plans in secret, and in so doing makes her first "choice", and starts along her fateful journey.

 Faced with all manner of strange scenarios and people, Zillah learns how to trust herself and her instincts, but also learns how sometimes it doesn't matter whether something is a choice or fate, either can still have unpredictable outcomes and consequences.  In the end, Zillah learns that it is how prepared you are for life, and how you deal with the people and situations that come your way, that is what truly counts.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Using librarian skills to uncover a network of dodgy shopping sites!

In all my posts over the years I'm not sure if I ever mentioned I am an avid steampunker.  Like many of my quirky fellow librarians, I love a good dress up and recently found myself searching for a great pair of boots to go with the Steampunk Aviator Superhero costume I'm assembling (trust me, it will work!). One evening whilst idly thumbing through Pinterest I found a picture of these undeniably AWESOME combat-boot style boots.  I followed the link to the website ( www.chichola.com ) and although it didn't look dodgy and offered PayPal, I am a cautious online shopper and always check the customer reviews first.  They were 1000% abysmal.  Like the kind of reviews that say SCAM, THEFT and CAN I LEAVE 0 STARS.  So despite loving the shoes, I was definitely not parting with my money on this occasion. Fast forward a couple of months and I see an ad for Victorian-style cosplay boots in my Insta feed.  Did I mention that I am an avid steampunker? ...
24 comments
Read more

Saturday Librarian be like...

It's Saturday.  I'm at work. I work Saturdays - Saturday is my permanent shift and I gotta say I am used to working them now, it also helps that I don't have any other family routines to conflict with the concept of the weekend.  I used to think that one day was pretty much like the other.  The sun rises, you do stuff, the sun sets.  Turns out though the cultural attitudes and expectations that are associated with certain days (Monday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday), still linger quite strongly, even if your schedule is no longer based upon the routines that give these days their flavour. So now my Saturday is like my....  Tuesday.  Kind of.  Friday is Monday.  Monday is Friday.  Does that make sense?  Probably not.  Either way, working in an institution that is open every day is a little weird (and I'm also talking Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years, even if it just for chute clearing).  The entire year just morphs into a ...
Post a Comment
Read more

February 2016

SUNSHINE, DECKS AND GRAPHIC NOVELS So, that's another year out of the way! I hope you enjoyed the school holidays.  I certainly did.  For me, it wasn't so much bookish as practical.  I cleared some land, levelled it, landscaped it and made a deck.  Not much time for reading in between all that but it was therapeutic to get out in the sun. Because all this practicality left me little time to actually read, I decided to focus on something a little less wordy, but no less relevant - the graphic novel.  Now, I did read a few but they are a little too adult to be termed YA so I probably won't review them here (one was an excellent memoir of growing up in Yorkshire when the Yorkshire Ripper was on the loose - highly recommended, but not particularly YA friendly). Devouring these graphic novels made me realise that literature comes in so many forms these days.  Traditionalists may find it easy to dismiss the graphic novel, but having read several excell...
Post a Comment
Read more