Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Children’s, Teenage & Educational
Weblink
www.SimmoneHowell.com

GIRL DEFECTIVE

Simmone Howell

"Nancy and I were up on the roof, up to no good. We'd already eaten dinner al fresco; stolen a bottle of Dad's homebrew; discussed the poetry of T.S. Eliot; the preponderance of facial hair on twenty-something rock guys; and now we'd moved onto discussing weird ways to die. Nancy was seventeen and sharp as knives. I was fifteen and defective."

A year ago sixteen-year-old Mia Casey was found floating face down in the Elwood Canal. Was it suicide, a big night gone bad, or something more sinister? Her brother Ben's been in a juvenile detention center. Now he's out, and he wants answers. Mia wasn't a party girl, but in their childhood hidey-hole Ben found a box containing Mia's secret life: a photo of Mia wearing a loved-up look and a purple scarf, a cocktail umbrella and a mix-tape full of old songs made on a cassette exclusive to Bill's Wishing Well, the last record and tape store in town.

Sky Martin is 15 and a misfit. She lives with her dad above their record store, Bill's Wishing Well. Six months ago she had an operation to patch up the hole in her heart and now she's drifting. Sky has no ambitions outside working in the shop and hanging out with Nancy, her ex-babysitter, who tells Sky wild stories. Sky has a crush on Nancy but Sky's not sure what she is straight or gay all she does know is that Nancy's world is a whole lot more interesting than her own.

When Ben starts working in her father's store, Sky is inadvertently drawn into his quest to solve his sister's murder and finds she feels a curious connection to the dead girl whom she had never met. Could the up and-coming son of a former rock star be somehow involved? What's the link between Mia Casey and the underground parties Nancy's so keen on attending? Just as Sky and Ben start to figure things out, Nancy disappears.

Simmone Howell is the award-winning author of Notes from the Teenage Underground and Everything Beautiful. Before becoming a writer she worked in a multitude of secondhand bookstores and record shops, and as a result her house looks like one. She lives with her husband and son and crazy dog in Melbourne, Australia.

Available products
Book Published 2014-09-02 by Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Book Published 2014-09-02 by Atheneum Books for Young Readers

Comments

It's this perfect blend of naivety banging up against loss of innocence and the underside of a very gritty world. It's hopeful and lonely and full of longing and wishes and, on one hand you see how idealistic the characters can be while at the same time they come to terms with just how real and tough the world can be…This is such a beautiful and original book.

With investigations, new friendships and experiencing the world with all its quirks and problems, Girl Defective, simply put, is brilliant. Once again, Simmone Howell captures her audience with unique characters, captivating situations and a creativity that always astounds me. I know it’s early days but I can’t see anything beating this one for my book of the year!

Skylark Martin lives above her family’s vintage vinyl shop that—like its merchandise—is an endangered species in their re-gentrified, forward-looking Melbourne suburb. In the five years since Mum left to “follow her art” in Japan, Dad’s kept the shop going, drinking homebrew and mourning the past (musical and otherwise). Sky, 15, and Gully, 10, aka Agent Seagull Martin, who wears a pig-snout mask 24/7 and views the world as a crime scene waiting to be investigated, hold down the fort. Sky harbors no illusions about their dreary status quo—Dad’s drinking, Gully’s issues, her own social stasis—but she does have dreams, recently ignited by a new friend, the beautiful, wild and fearless Nancy. Other agents of change include Eve, Dad’s old flame, and Luke, the shop’s attractive, moody new hire. Drawn, mothlike, to Nancy’s flame, Sky’s dreams are haunted by Luke’s sister, whose similarly wild lifestyle led to tragedy. The family business grounds Sky. Its used records and cassettes, like time capsules, store music that evokes the past’s rich emotional complexity for the Martins and their quirky customers, while the eternal present and frantic quest for the next big thing hold no appeal. Funny, observant, a relentless critic of the world’s (and her own) flaws, Sky is original, thoroughly authentic and great company, decorating her astute, irreverent commentary with vivid Aussie references; chasing these down should provide foreign readers with hours of online fun.

Charming, funny, fun...a delightful journey through an Australian teenager's summer of weird and cool.