Frank Cottrell Boyce - Millions

I had to note the irony that the 2004 Carnegie winner was the one I was reading the day Britain announced it had voted to exit the European Union, when a large part of Millions' plot is based around the UK having become so closely integrated with its European neighbours that we have actually agreed to adapt the Euro as our currency (and even more astonishingly, no one seems to care or even comment about this rather drastic turnaround in the UK's attitude towards the common currency).

The millions of the title is also a tad misleading: our two protagonists, narrator Damian and his older brother Anthony, do discover a huge wodge of money (£229,370, to be precise) but it's not quite the amount the title suggests. Still, the money's all in the old British currency, and will become obsolete before the year is out, leaving our boys with a rather pressing dilemma; how exactly can you spend this much money in such a short amount of time - especially if you don't want to draw the attention of your father, concerned school teachers, or most crucially of all, the train robbers who'd nicked several mill in the first place, and are now hunting high and low for the missing bag of money.

Millions is intended to be a comical, light-hearted read first and foremost - so the threat of the robbers lurks more in the background rather than providing the main thrust of the plot. Even as they get closer to tracking down the boys towards the end, we never feel as though they are going to be in any real danger. More than anything, the book is a humorously drawn and occasionally poignant portrayal of two young lads struggling to come to terms with the loss of their mother not long ago.

Boyce has a sense of humour that has an irresistibly 'Scouse' feel to it - sardonic, sarcastic, but affectionate and able to poke fun at itself and this comes across effortlessly as the book skips merrily on from chapter to chapter - I particularly loved Damian's obsession with Saints and the constant facts and references about them he peppers the story with throughout, and the back-and-forth between Damian and Anthony has a real, well-observed and very amusing brotherly tang to it. The dry humour of Millions is not as easy to pull off as it looks - in fact humour in books is difficult to pull off, full stop - Boyce's success at this is what gives Millions its flavour and likely made it an awards fave throughout 2004.

Millions has a very visual, cinematic feel to it throughout: you can almost hear Damian's voice providing the narration in Chapter One over the opening credits, and many of the book's chapters play out like little scenes. It was no surprise to me to find out that Boyce had actually turned his script from Danny Boyle's 2004 film into the book, rather than vice versa. The main problem I had with the book, apart from the rather episodic feel this 'reverse adaptation' gives it at times, is the ending: too quick, too convenient and left me feeling a bit 'well, what happens next?' It left me feeling that the book was slight and rushed (maybe Boyce wanted it finished and in the shops before the film was released, I don't know), but it could have done with a slower release of the tension built up as the robbers got closer to tracking down the missing money - maybe a switch from humour to a more suspenseful conclusion would have worked better too, or it may have been a step too far for Boyce to be able to change tack at that point and work it into the plot convincingly.

Millions is a nice little story and wittier for any reader of any age than a book for this age range could really be intended to be, but that sense of disappointment as I closed the book lingers. Fun, but ultimately forgetful in the long run.

Mal Peet - Tamar

 

Tamar veers back and forth between two different timelines: 1945, as hunger and fear continue to grip the Netherlands as the Second World War draws to a close; and 1995, as Tamar, a 16-year-old girl, tries to unravel a box of mysterious clues left to her by her recently deceased grandfather.

Tamar has been named after the code name given to her grandfather during the war, not the actual river itself that runs between Devon and Cornwall - although the box of clues sends her on a journey of discovery down said river as she tries to figure out the meaning of the rather obscure hints left to her and also develops romantic feelings for her distant cousin who accompanies her on the way. Meanwhile, Tamar and another secret operative, Dart, are parachuted into Holland as part of the resistance and are faced with a whole heap of problems - from organising and maintaining the peace amongst the differing resistance groups throughout the country, to communicating in secret back to London, rationing food during a desperate winter shortage, and dealing with a group of local resistance fighters who demand more overt action in order to overthrow the Nazi regime (bringing about some rather nasty troubles as a consequence of this). To further complicate matters, Dart has fallen for Marijke, a local woman who is already in love with Tamar.

A lot of Tamar's narrative strength lies in its Sixth-Sense-esque element of surprise - rather like that film, if you know the twist, it spoils a lot of the fun for you. Unfortunately, I'd figured it out less than halfway through. Whether this was a result of Peet providing too many obvious signposts throughout both timelines, or some lucky guessing/hunches on my part, I'm not sure.

What I am sure about, however, is how difficult it has been to find anything much to say about what is at a glance a well-written and multi-layered novel. One part of the problem for me appears to be the 1945 sections. Peet spends too long on these and not enough on the 1995 story - resulting in the 1995 chapters always feeling as though they are interrupting the flow of what Peet is really wanting to tell us for the sake of maintaining the dual narrative. Also, I found the 3 main characters from 1945 a little flatly drawn. Marijke didn't seem to have enough personality and general life to her in order for both men to fall for her so hard; meanwhile Peet does a good job of taking us inside both Dart and Tamar's heads, but never quite succeeded in making me truly care about them as people.

The two narrative structure does, at times, feel rather like two different books glued together - although there are common themes and symbols and recurring characters, the effect for me felt rather like trying to squeeze together two bits of a jigsaw that don't quite fit right. The chief issue is that 1945 reads more like work for an adult audience than for young adults; the 1995 section the exact opposite. Maybe it's the would-be writer in me casting too critical an eye over the structure, but I couldn't help but thinking how different edits and changes to the two timelines would have resulted in a rather different story, and how I would have changed this to better suit my own tastes.

Mal Peet has done a reasonable job with this book. It's interestingly structured, has some powerful imagery, tough character choices and shows the brutal implications that taking action during the war could result in, and he can clearly come up with some excellent metaphors and narrative descriptions that contributed to my enjoyment of the story. I also liked the nicely ambiguous questions he raised at the end about the character of Tamar’s grandfather and his actions. But considering the barrage of effusive praise that this novel received (see its inner jacket for commendations from such luminaries as multi-Carnegie winner Jan Mark), I was rather left feeling a little disappointed. Tamar is a nice read, but although everything about its plotlines suggest it packs a heck of an emotional punch, for me it just missed the mark. An average novel rather than a great one, but many would disagree.

 

Sarah Crossan - One

One was announced as the 2016 Carnegie Medal winner a few weeks ago, so I've interrupted my own working-backwards-from-the-most-recent-to-the-beginning approach to my Carnegie reviews project to include it here. One's USP amongst the rest of the 70-odd prior winners of the award is that it is the first winner written entirely in free verse. So, a rare victory for the increasingly marginalised forms of poetry and verse over prose, and happily, it is well-suited to Crossan's chosen subject matter.

One is concerned with twins Grace and Tippi - two separate bodies, minds and personalities, conjoined at the hip since birth and recently turned sixteen. Crossan doesn't shy away from the cruelties and casually invasive attitudes of strangers towards the twins - the nasty notes pinned to school lockers; the stares, whispers and slyly taken photos and videos taken when out in public. Nor are the twins' immediate family portrayed as holier-than-thou types who bend over backwards to give the girls a life as normal as possible (a pet hate of mine in this genre) - instead, Dad's struggling to find work and manage a drinking problem, Mum is trying to make ends meet while coping with the desperately high cost of the twins' medical bills (the story is set in the USA) and the girls' older sister, Dragon, appears to be suffering from an eating disorder and has to watch her own dreams of becoming a ballet dancer shunted to one side by the family as money gets too tight to mention.

One is not just an abject study of misery and medical drama, though: in fact, it can actually be wryly amusing in its own way. The twins are forced to attend a local school to save money (having been home schooled until 16), and Crossan observes the girls making friends, experiencing crushes, smoking and drinking and behaving like typical teenagers with an arched, non-judgmental eyebrow. There's no great revelation when the girls suddenly realise that maybe all this stuff might be bad for them and vow to behave better in future - they enjoy what they're doing; in short, acting like teenagers do in real life and experiencing all the things they are told they shouldn't do. And although the inevitable 'cruel twist of fate' does arrive midway through the story, this is where Crossan's choice of free verse comes into its own; rather than overstuffing the final pages of the story with weeping and emotion and OTT hysterics, the minimalist style leaves us to fill in many of the blanks ourselves, and is no less powerful for it - it is poignant and tragic without having to hammer the message home too hard to its reader.

One is a quick read - I'd finished it in a couple of hours, but it's the sort of work that could be transformed into something completely different by reading aloud, allowing its words and spaces and pauses to be savoured and contemplated, as opposed to my usual style of rush-reading without paying enough attention to the rhythm of the writing that this style demands. It's not perfect; Crossan tells the story entirely from Grace's point of view, when I would have liked to have seen Tippi's perspective on things from time to time; some of the family problems are a little too easily and conveniently resolved and a bit towards the end where the girls fulfil a lifetime wish of climbing a tree steers a little too close to twee cliché for my liking. However, it's heart-rending, sympathetic and knowledgeable of its characters' plight without making them appear as victims and maintains an undercurrent of humour and hope throughout. The Carnegie Medal has often pushed boundaries and rewarded the unusual, experimental and controversial; One is nothing ground-breaking in terms of its plot, but its free verse style makes it stand out from the 2016 crowd - probably not my choice for this year's winner, but not a terrible option for the judges to choose nonetheless.