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| Matt Whyman |
| Hodder |
| 0340945338 |
| Aug 2007 |
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In �XY - a toolkit for life�, Matt Whyman achieved that rare balance of finding a chatty and informal voice and means for communicating information about puberty � the bits that everyone wants to know but that few feel comfortable in asking, or by turns in answering.
�Unzipped � a toolkit for life� is a welcome return of the winning format used previously but here updated for revised. Carefully interwoven firsthand experiences and the occasional joke prevent the book from becoming a diatribe of paternalistic guidance and advice diminishing the very real concerns that can accompany adolescence. Written and designed with precision, many will feel as comfortable with reading this as with FHM, Loaded, Nuts or any of the other boorish magazines aimed at the young male market and further restricting popular constructions of masculinity through positing football, cars and sexual bigotry as the unique preserves of the male and denying all that is emotional or cerebral in content. Matt Whyman�s skill is in appropriating this style but through subtle awareness of the head of emotional steam that lies behind all as they encounter the transition from childhood to adulthood, paying tribute to the emotional concerns that lie beyond the front, a standpoint worthy of applause.
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Teen/YA: September 2007 Archives
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| Catherine MacPhail |
| Bloomsbury |
| 0747582769 |
| Feb 2007 |
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Pithy and packing a considerable punch to the solar-plexus, Catherine MacPhail�s latest novel explores gang mentalities and the often fickle sense of ethics and allegiance that accompany these. Coursing beneath this is an intricate network of character exposition and story strands that serve to stimulate much debate and consideration into social class and the status and stereotyping that is assumed around this.
Suffering a slight at the hands of the �Lip Gloss Girls� after having been accused of betraying her former best-friend, Erin, Hannah Driscoll feels isolated, ostracised and caught between her former gang and their rivals, the �Hell Cats�. In an abrupt � though totally convincing � plot turn, Hannah becomes accepted into the rival gang, allowing for the dynamics of group mentalities to be exposed and for a series of lively revelations as to the characteristics and motivations of both groups of girls to be played out against one another expertly. As ever, Catherine MacPhail shows deftness of in having crafted a thoroughly readable and compelling novel that has a needle-point sharpness in its no-bars-held insight into the types of assumption and prejudice concerning the stigma and prejudiced expectations that arise concerning �class� both in educational and social settings.
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