My power list - female influencers

BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour has revealed its list of 10 female influencers, featuring names such as Nicola Sturgeon, Angelina Jolie and Anna Wintour. It's a great list, but it got me thinking about the women that influence me. Obviously, my mum tops the list, but as she's not on social media here are 11 other women, in no particular order, that influence me and that I think you should be paying attention to.

Top 10 Tuesday (#16) - best books I read in 2013

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish, where the writers, like me, are particularly fond of lists. 

This week's topic is...top 10 books I read in 2013. This is a tough one, since I read a lot of great books, and this list will probably change right after I compile it!

Reviews:

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
The Siege, Three Days of Terror Inside the Taj by Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
Noble Conflict by Malorie Blackman
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Fortunately, the Milk... by Neil Gaiman
Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas
Scarlet by Marissa Meyer
Lean In - Women, Work and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

I'd love to do a honourable mentions list, but it would get ridiculously long, so I'll leave it with my top 10. What were your favourite reads of 2013?

Book of the month - August 2013

A few days late, but the best book I read in August was...

 

Noble Conflict by Malorie Blackman was a great dystopian novel, with brilliant characterisations and a great plot (my review here). Go read it if you haven't!

What was the best book you read in August?

The Sunday Post (#20) and Showcase Sunday (#6)

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer, and Showcase Sunday is hosted by Books, Biscuits and Tea and inspired by Pop Culture Junkie and the Story Siren. They're a chance to share news, a post to recap the past week on your blog, highlight our newest books and see what everyone else received for review, borrowed from libraries, or bought.

Book stuff this week on Girl!Reporter
Review - Notorious Nineteen by Janet Evanovich
Top 10 Tuesday (#12) - things that make life as a reader/blogger easier
Elmore Leonard's 10 rules of writing
Review - Noble Conflict by Malorie Blackman
My week in books (#6) - a Roald Dahl competition, Margaret Atwood and how to get children reading

Books I added to my shelves

It's been a quiet week, which is no bad thing considering the amount of unread books I already own.

I won a copy of Hetty Feather by Jacqueline Wilson from Random House (thanks!) through a Goodreads competition. This will be the first Wilson book I'll ever read - I think I was a bit too old for her novels so missed the boat, and have never got into them. I will say that I know how popular she is from when I worked at Cheltenham Festival of Literature - the queue for her book signing was longer than anyone else's!







My brother lent me A Fort of Nine Towers by Qais Akbar Omar, which is a true story. It looks pretty good.














What have you been up to this week?

Book review: Noble Conflict by Malorie Blackman

There's a reason Malorie Blackman has been made Children's Laureate, and that reason is that she is an excellent storyteller.

Noble Conflict is a layered look at a dystopian world where deadly force is not deployed against enemies. Instead, "terrorists" are stunned, and they are always treated well, even getting medical help before Alliance Guardians are.

Into this world comes Kasper, who has just completed his training as a Guardian. Proud to be serving his country - like his dead parents before him who were legendary Guardians - Kasper soon starts to realise everything is not as it seems. As he learns more and more about the world around him, he discovers that what he believes in and is fighting for may have been constructed on lies.

Knowledge is at the centre of Blackman's book - Kasper quickly learns that knowledge is power, but that the leaders of his world are working on the basis that the ignorance of their population is what makes them powerful.

It's a chance encounter with an Insurgent, the fighting arm of the Alliance's enemies the Crusaders, that sets Kasper on his path to knowledge, although you can see the cogs beginning to turn even before that. This is what I liked most about Kasper - he wasn't afraid to question things, and to fight for what he believed was right. It's that belief that kept him going throughout Noble Conflict, even when the boundaries of his world changed.

Rhea, the Insurgent Kasper meets, is an interesting character, but one we only really know through Kasper. Literally. After their encounter Kasper gets flashes of her life, and it's through these that he, and we, begin to suspect something is up. Kasper's encounters with Rhea reveal a lot - both about the Alliance and the Crusaders, and about Kasper himself.

Aside from Rhea, Noble Conflict is full of strong female characters, such as Guardians Janna and Mariska, who we only see briefly but who kick arse. 

I loved Mac especially, the nerdy librarian who helps Kasper with his research and opens up a world of learning for him. If this was a conventional YA novel, Rhea, Kasper and Mac's relationship would be a love triangle. Luckily, this isn't a conventional novel, and although Mac and Rhea are pitted as opposites, they're never pitted against each other as rivals for Kasper's affections. 

This choice is one of the reasons why Noble Conflict is higher class of YA novel than some out there. The other reasons include that it's a thought provoking novel about how we should question our leaders, and another still is that it's a beautifully crafted story - Blackman tells you everything her characters know and need to know, and nothing more. It makes for something quite poignant (even though I spent the last third of the novel yelling at various characters in my head), and as a standalone I thought it ended just right. 

How I got this book: From the library