Review of Girl Saves Boy by Steph Bowe (+interview)… Everything is Illuminated

To celebrate the release of Steph’s novel and her debutante turn at the 2010 Melbourne Writers Festival, I’m pleased to bring you an advanced review of Girls Saves Boy and welcome this blog’s very first special guest: yes! SB herself!

You may know Steph Bowe as blogger of Hey! Teenager of the Year, which reviews teen fiction with YA related writing, opinion and statement pieces. I love this blog because the posts are always so well written – insightful, thoughtful, critical, fair. So it thrilled me no end to know that Steph Bowe had a book in the pipeline – I wondered what Steph would be capable of given the length and scope of a novel.

Girl Saves Boy is a story about a Girl (Jewel Valentine) and Boy (Sacha Thomas) who meet when Jewel pulls Sacha out of a lake where he tries to drown himself. They are both quirky and damaged souls that are instantly attracted to each other. Their lives from that point become intertwined and over a series of beautifully set up scenes, we see a friendship and then something like love, blossom.

I can best describe Girls Saves Boy as being given the most gorgeous looking and delicious chiffon cake baked by an intelligent and sometimes-sad girl. After I devoured it, I was filled with a longing of having tasted something bittersweet and rare, glad of being given such a gift. I’m a black-wearing, smudgy eyed bogan (y’know, I like to write about…murder) and most likely an opposite-Steph Bowe, but I think I just wrote the prettiest two sentences I have ever written. This book makes me feel pretty.

I don’t think writers should be judged by their age, but age is important when we look at what it brings to the writing. I’m a twenty-something-odd writer and what I write of love is mostly jaded. Writers older than me tend to identify with parental characters and often invest adult characters with the problems that the teenage protagonists have to deal with. What I find most impressive is that simultaneously, Steph manages to write a love story in the most pure, joyful way (some of the scenes send chills down my spine) and at the same time gives the central problems to her teens. Sacha is the one dealing with a terminal disease and suicidal intentions and Jewel is the one coming to grips with post traumatic stress and depression. This book is important because it’s respecting young people and not shying away from the fact that yes, they have issues too! And this is without turning it into one of those “topic” novel about teen suicide/eating disorders/cyber bullying/insert your choice here. How refreshing.

Steph’s writing is reminiscent for me of Carson McCullers, also a prodigious writer who was published at a very young age with “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter”. Steph’s writing is sparse, clean, very keen and to the bone. She incorporates modern teenage speech and words without sounding contrived (“He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. It was the first time I had worn a dress in forever”), or deliberately wanting to sound trendy. It is a mix that produces writing that sounds incredibly fresh, but at the same time sounds like it comes from a very old and wise soul, therefore lending a timeless quality. There’s something Jane Austen about Steph, in that she observes the people of her age group in modern society perfectly and also when you least expect it, is wickedly witty (“There was a split-second of silence, but it seemed to drag on forever, like I was caught in a single frame of claymation.”)

I also enjoyed the sharpness to it. I mean, there are black jokes about dying that only someone with a deft and unflinching hand could pull off and I loved that. This book, more than anything I have ever read, captures 100% the sense of what it means to be a young person in today’s world from someone who still inhibits it. I simply can’t wait to see what Steph comes up with next.

If I have any words for Steph (Shirley, what are you? Some Mother Hen?) is that on occasions I found some characters acting in strange and unexplainable ways when it came down to important revelations or situations that didn’t seem to make sense in the light of the ways their background have been so solidly developed. I can’t be clearer or else it will be spoiler city. So I will say that the motivation behind each individual character is perfect (like the chapter exploring Jewel’s internal thoughts), but something for Steph to develop further in time is the fine-tuning of how her characters choose to act plot-wise.

This book is recommended to anyone who reads YA and wants something contemporary, emotion-driven and melancholic with a sharp enough edge. I can see teen girls relating to this immediately.

I was thinking of one word to described Girl Saves Boy. Turning the book around in my hands and looking at the colour of the purpling sky and the pretty foil-embossed fairy lights on the front, it struck me that the perfect word is this: luminous.

This review also appears here on Goodreads.com

TA-DA! Interview with beautiful Steph Bowe herself.

Text Publishing describes Girl Saves Boy as “an extraordinary debut novel by sixteen year-old Steph Bowe”. Obviously there are pros and cons about having your age highlighted, how do you personally feel about it?

It’s not something I really like being highlighted, but the fact is that it’s a marketing angle. I think that all people are individuals (i.e. not all teenagers are terrible writers), and being a good writer is not dependent on your age. Obviously the first book you write isn’t going to be as good as your fifth or tenth or thirtieth book, irrespective of your age (I’m sure I’ll be mortified by Girl Saves Boy in a year or two). I’m comfortable with people placing the same expectations on me as they would on an adult writer.

When did you first discover your passion for writing?

I’ve always written, ever since I was really tiny, typing out stories on an old computer (as in super-old. With a 40mb hard drive!) and erasing them as soon as I finished because I loved the writing part, not the having-a-finished-story part (thank goodness I stopped doing that!). I decided when I was seven that I wanted to become a published author, but I’ve loved writing ever since I can remember.

Do you plan to pursue writing as a career in the future and in what form would you like it to take?

I’d love to write fiction full time. I wouldn’t mind doing some journalism as well, but I especially love making stuff up and writing it down.

Girl Saves Boy is written in alternate view points from Girl (Jewel Valentine) and Boy (Sacha Thomas). What made you choose this unique structure?

I first wrote Sacha’s part, then realised that Jewel had a story to tell as well… I think it makes for a more rounded novel, and I love books with multiple narrators, so it makes sense that I’d write one myself.

Is the “Grand Theft Garden Gnome” and “Lobster Liberation” based on true life events? Are we about to discover there is a dark side to Steph Bowe?

No, totally fictional! There is no dark side to Steph Bowe (of course that is exactly the sort of thing someone with a dark side would say…). The lobster story is inspired by an anecdote someone told me once, a long time ago.

What is next for Steph Bowe the Author, do you have a scoop for us about a follow-up novel?

I’m focusing on writing book two and finishing high school by correspondence… I can’t tell you anything about the next book, because I’ll jinx it!

Just for the fun of it (because who doesn’t love a weird cross-over question)

Eliza Boans and Jewel Valentine bump into each other at a party wearing the same gorgeous frock. What would happen?

I don’t think Jewel would be too fussed – maybe she’d be a bit embarrassed, but she wouldn’t say anything, she’d be able to have a good time anyway (even if she feels terribly awkward while doing so)… but I think Eliza would be super annoyed! It’d ruin her night! The claws would come out! I wouldn’t want to be nearby when they bumped into each other (because of course I’m at this party with fictional characters!).

PS – I wish Steph the very best with the success of her debut novel! And for all those who have read both Girl Saves Boy and Fury, yes for sure Eliza would make some stupid scene, but it’s because on the inside she is is an extremely insecure person. She’d be jealous of Jewel cos let’s face it, Jewel is a much more mature and a better person than her!