Book Review: A Little Wanting Song

So after the magic that was Graffiti Moon, I reached for another Cath Crowley book, A Little Wanting Song.

It was everything I hoped it would be - sweet, funny, poignant, with beautiful, heart-breaking prose, characters you fall in love with and find a bit of yourself in, and music (pun intended) woven between the lines.

Graffiti Moon, which I raved about a while back, is a quiet, funny, and bittersweet contemporary novel about two people trying to find a place for themselves and their art. It inspired me to write Until Morning, and now I'm a die-hard Cath Crowley fan. I'd read ANYTHING she writes, including those strange, beautiful prose and poems on her blog.

The premise for A Little Wanting Song is music instead. It's about how shy Charlie Duskin, who lost her mother seven years ago and is still reeling in the aftermath of her loss, relies on her music to get her through life with her emotionally distant father.

Love and loss are themes done to death before, and by so many fantastic authors like Sarah Dessen and Christie Hodgen, but the thing about Cath Crowley's writing is that she leaves a lot of things unsaid. So it seems like a very simple YA story told from a teenage narrator's POV, but there are so many emotions and layers you can get to if you know where to look.

Her prose just DOES THINGS TO ME I CAN'T EVEN EXPLAIN IT.

*insert incoherent babbling and flapping here*

I want to do that too, with my writing. I want to reduce my readers to a sobbing, laughing puddle of emotions and incoherent thoughts.



I'm convinced there's something in that Australian soil that produces writers like Cath Crowley, Vikki Wakefield, Karen Foxlee, Lucy Christopher and Melina Marchetta. How can I ever write like thaaaaaat.

*

Okay, I set out partly to talk about that beautiful book, and also to complain this writing rut I'm in (NOT writer's block - I refuse to fall back on that excuse), about how I can't find anything that makes me want to write and lose myself in the magic of words again. But then I headed over to Laini Taylor's blog, like I always do when I need something reassuring and uplifting, and it's helped LOADS.

Seriously, just reading one of her blog posts (she updates less regularly now, alas!) puts me in the happy, hopeful mood. And it makes me want to write! HOW is that possible?! It's not even a post about writing, but about a friend, Kiersten White's book (which, by the way, now I'm DYING to read).

But yes, the problem still stands. I still don't believe in No Room in Neverland enough to write it. And I'm afraid to work all the way to 289 pages before I realise it's not working again. Okay, time to re-read THIS POST!

Also, this little pep talk from best-selling author, and writer of this hysterically funny and on-point post, couldn't be more timely. I SPURTED OUT MY TEA READING THIS, CHUCK WENDIG, THANKS FOR THAT.

Have a great mid-week! :0)