≡ [PDF] So Much to Tell You John Marsden 9781844289462 Books

So Much to Tell You John Marsden 9781844289462 Books

Download As PDF : So Much to Tell You John Marsden 9781844289462 Books

So Much to Tell You John Marsden 9781844289462 Books

This review has been crossposted from my blog at The Cosy Dragon.com. Please head there for more in-depth reviews by me, which appear on a timely schedule.

Marina has been scarred for life, in her interior and on her exterior. She doesn't talk, at all, any more. She shrinks into walls, and has spent a long time in hospital.

There's some really nice insights into the way teenagers feel in this novel. Marina wonders at one point why adults seem so confident. And she asks whether they have lessons after they graduate high school! I kinda wish we adults did get that. But it's all a matter of hard earned experience.

After one of the other novels I had read recently, this short look into family life is relatively beautiful. Marina's family is dysfunctional, and there's no remedy for that, but the other families' lives that she peers into are good.

I like Marina, and at no point did I feel frustrated by the way she was behaving. I understood that there were things going on that she didn't write about, and at the same time felt ok with that.

A boarding school always sounded good to me, because I thought it would be fun. I think that's the fault of Enid Blyton and her 'The Naughtiest Girl in School' series. This boarding school, from Marina's perspective, is both Heaven and Hell. After hating it there, she finds that it is helping her more than she knew.

I'd strongly recommend this novel for teenagers. Angsty, but resolute. Tortured, and yet satisfying. I first read it in high school, a little, unoffensive looking book that has so many feelings inside I'm surprised it can stay on the shelf.

I didn't know until I was looking for images of this book, that it was his debut novel. I think it's the first novel of his I read, but I could be wrong. The rest of his novels are just as unfinished as this one, with the exception of 'Tomorrow When the War Began'. By unfinished, I don't mean not well written. It's that it is up to the reader to work out what comes next.

I went looking for a PDF copy of the half-sequel, 'Take My Word for It', and instead found a fascinating interview/author biography of Marsden. And he has a school! He's the Principal of Candlebark, just north of Melbourne, Victoria. Just as his books promote independence and resilience in children and teens, his school does also.


Tags : So Much to Tell You [John Marsden] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Scarred, literally, by her past, Marina has withdrawn into silence. Then, at her new boarding school,John Marsden,So Much to Tell You,Walker Books Ltd,184428946X,Children's & young adult fiction & true stories,Children: Young Adult (Gr. 7-9)

So Much to Tell You John Marsden 9781844289462 Books Reviews

This isn't a book that I imagine the sequel of. I imagine sequels to many books but surprisingly enough-this one looks as if you'll feel a little 'empty' after finishing it but it does nothing of the sort. I don't enjoy reading groupings of diary entries but these are as well done as Anne's Frank's diary! They may not have amazing descriptive passages but are simple, painful and very frank. I related to many of the passages that I fell into my own thoughts amoungst it.
This book is a short read so it'll be good to read if you are bored. Many won't understand it but those who will know who I'm talking about and 'what' I'm talking about.
Surprisingly enough- the book is like a plain diary. No long incidents are described to explain anything and yet when you finish the book everything will seem completely logical.
John Marsden is an award winning international writer of young adult fiction.

This is an important piece of writing as the tale connects to young adults, particularly young girls, because the central theme of this work is "fitting in", having experienced a horrific trauma, (which the author never specifies) learns to speak again as her only form of communication is through a diary which she is forced to write in the boarding school she is cruelly placed.

The reader does not discover the narrator's name until the end of the tale.

We are only permitted to see her past through her pain, the trauma, and it is vague at best.

The story wanders, spinning off on many tangents that are irrelevant to the plot. Teenagers, though, do the same thing talking about their parents, their close calls with the opposite sex and the obligatory rebelliousness which most Middle School girls' experience. So Much to Tell You is about the thoughts, feelings, fears and hopes of a little girl whose face has been terribly disfigured; we do not know how her face has been damaged and through the entire diary, only catch glimpses of the past.

The text rambles as a young person does. The text is an effort to connect to young people and, from the classes that I've run on the text with these young people, captures their naive and evolving minds.

My only criticism is the major issues in the novel, that is to say, her relationship with her father and mother, as she hates her mother but loves her father though he is in jail; the reason being something connected to her "accident", and her mother disconnecting, opens the door to a task of creative writing for the class.

Interestingly, the young women whose task it was to "fill in the blanks" as it were; in other terms answer the questions the novel fails to do, the young women in my class actually seemed to at least, write `better' than Marsden.

Why?

Because a middle-aged man, no-matter how taletent he is will never write like a 13 year old girl. He did a marvellous job, exceptional in fact, but when I read the actual, he came close but did not hit the mark.

So Much to Tell You is a good piece of young adult fiction that captures a 13 or 14 mind of a teenager on the brink of adulthood.

Marsden upon request wrote a play based on the novel and high schools across Australia have preformed to a successful outcome.

One of the better young adult novels.
It's a play not book
John Marsden has yet to let me down. His writing is always thoughtful, poignant, realistic and adventurous.

"So Much to Tell You" is definitely up to par. I've always found it unfair that his writing is considered at the teenage level, so many people in other age brackets can benefit from the perspective his characters experience.

The story is one people have heard before; a story of a young girl hurt by her family. However, the way Marsden puts you inside of her head is amazing and unique. It's almost to the point you can't tell if he's an author writing about a girl... or an author who has discovered a notebook lying by the side of the road.

This novel is a great exploration of coping with issues, and a highly recommended read for adults as well as teens.
This review has been crossposted from my blog at The Cosy Dragon.com. Please head there for more in-depth reviews by me, which appear on a timely schedule.

Marina has been scarred for life, in her interior and on her exterior. She doesn't talk, at all, any more. She shrinks into walls, and has spent a long time in hospital.

There's some really nice insights into the way teenagers feel in this novel. Marina wonders at one point why adults seem so confident. And she asks whether they have lessons after they graduate high school! I kinda wish we adults did get that. But it's all a matter of hard earned experience.

After one of the other novels I had read recently, this short look into family life is relatively beautiful. Marina's family is dysfunctional, and there's no remedy for that, but the other families' lives that she peers into are good.

I like Marina, and at no point did I feel frustrated by the way she was behaving. I understood that there were things going on that she didn't write about, and at the same time felt ok with that.

A boarding school always sounded good to me, because I thought it would be fun. I think that's the fault of Enid Blyton and her 'The Naughtiest Girl in School' series. This boarding school, from Marina's perspective, is both Heaven and Hell. After hating it there, she finds that it is helping her more than she knew.

I'd strongly recommend this novel for teenagers. Angsty, but resolute. Tortured, and yet satisfying. I first read it in high school, a little, unoffensive looking book that has so many feelings inside I'm surprised it can stay on the shelf.

I didn't know until I was looking for images of this book, that it was his debut novel. I think it's the first novel of his I read, but I could be wrong. The rest of his novels are just as unfinished as this one, with the exception of 'Tomorrow When the War Began'. By unfinished, I don't mean not well written. It's that it is up to the reader to work out what comes next.

I went looking for a PDF copy of the half-sequel, 'Take My Word for It', and instead found a fascinating interview/author biography of Marsden. And he has a school! He's the Principal of Candlebark, just north of Melbourne, Victoria. Just as his books promote independence and resilience in children and teens, his school does also.