Welcome to THE BOOK LOG - Originally a series of book reviews, maybe I should rename this section NEWS? It now contains updates on publications and events plus occasional thoughts on writing. But there's still reviews of stuff I've read and enjoyed. Such as...

JUST IN CASE by Meg Rosoff

Meg Rosoff’s JUST IN CASE is an extraordinary book. Her writing knows no inhibitions and the story she tells here is variously wise, bold, beautiful, gripping, playful, brutal, frightening, delightful and more. This book made me wish I owned a greyhound, even though the greyhound it features isn’t even a real one. It made me want to own a large rabbit. Again. (Strangely, JUST IN CASE features a male rabbit called Alice. We once had a female rabbit called Luke). My wife and teenage daughter both hated Agnes. For myself, I have to confess I was every bit as beguiled as, Justin, the story’s main character, is. Through her writing, Meg Rosoff seems able to make the imaginary feel startlingly corporal. Every character, even peripheral ones, possesses a weight of their own, and they inhabit their place in the narrative with an almost physical authority. How she does this I am not entirely sure. Perhaps it’s that she succeeds in evoking tangible details of description that are at once startlingly familiar and yet remarkably fresh. A genuinely original voice in young adult fiction.