Girl Defective

August 4, 2014
Like a cross between High Fidelity and The Killing, Australian novelist Howell’s (Everything Beautiful) story alternates between cheeky and dark. After Skylark Martin’s mother abandoned the family in Australia to go “follow her art” in Japan, Skylark’s father was left to run the Wishing Well, the family’s vintage record shop. Around the same time, Sky’s father was drinking again, and Gully, her socially challenged younger brother, started wearing a pig-snout mask while masquerading as a sort of male Harriet the Spy. Now that Sky is about to turn 16, life is getting more thrilling. Thanks to her budding friendship with Nancy, the older girl Sky’s father hired to help keep the shop and kids in order, Sky now knows more about boys and taking risks. There’s also Luke, a scruffy new employee, to keep track of—and maybe kiss. However, an unsettling plot development involving a local rock star, secret drug parties, prostitution, and the truth about Luke’s sister’s death happens too late in the game to have the impact it might. Ages 14–up. Agent: Jill Grinberg, Jill Grinberg Literary Management.

Starred review from August 1, 2014
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. (Fiction. 14 & up)

COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from November 1, 2014

Gr 9 Up-Australian author Howell brings stateside her intriguing story of a coming-of-age summer for 15-year-old Skylark Martin. The teen lives above the family record store in a small Melbourne suburb with her home-brewing, stuck-in-the-past father, and endearing younger brother, Gully, whose social issues have manifested as an obsession with being a detective and near-permanent wearing of a pig-snout mask. Sky is blunt in her depictions of them and her mother, who left the family to reinvent herself as performance artist Galaxy Strobe ("What can you say about your mother in darkness, wearing an outfit fringed with seventy thousand tampons?"). Flawed but likable Sky is drawn to the 19-year-old, enigmatic, worldly Nancy, who introduces her both to recreational drugs and underground parties. There's an element of mystery to the story, with posters around town of a girl who died and has some connection to both those parties and the record store's attractive new hire, Luke. But while Nancy is outrunning her past, and Luke seeks to make sense of his own, Sky finds a future that holds some promise. Howell's writing is engaging and well suited to the pacing of the story, and the Aussie references are part of the charm.-Amanda Mastrull, Library Journal

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.