My attempt at the 2009 100+ Reading Challenge starts here.
Fate has brought you to this sketchbook - a slice of life behind the eyes of a seventeen-year-old Filipina residing in sunny England.
Title: Spies and Lies (from the Girl Writer series)
Author: Ros Asquith
Rating: 3/5
Book 10 of 100: (The 100+ Reading Challenge)
Cordelia Arbuthnott desperately wants to be a successful writer. She’s hard at work on her latest novel, The Girl with the Golden Pun - a spy story about Jane Bond. As always, Cordelia’s life is a source of inspiration for her novel. A new boy in her class, Vladimir Vyshinsky, or Vlad the Lad as he becomes known, has all the girls swooning. But this mysterious Russian raises Cordelia’s suspicions with his strange behaviour.
After reading The Time Traveler’s Wife, I opted for a lighter and shorter read. What better place to look than the children’s section? :] Spies and Lies is a fun and easy book to follow, not only because it’s for children ages ten and such, but also because I could really relate to it. When I was little, I had this thing about writing (which I think I have lost recently. The world is cruel about following your dreams, don’t you think?). I don’t even compare now to the writer I was years ago. =/
This book is filled with tips for the budding writer. Along with the story on Cordelia’s daily adventures comes her novel, The Girl with the Golden Pun which lays parallel to it. The things that happen in her life eventually get tailored into her writing, which I think is nice. Every writer, to start with, has to write about what he or she knows, am I correct?
The friendship she forms with Vlad was a good turning point. And what was she thinking when she assumed Vlad was a terrorist? :]
I do think this book is read-worthy although predictable (for my age, anyway). I have not read any books of the Girl Writer series before but I didn’t feel I needed to read the first two in order to understand what goes on in Spies and Lies, the third book.
