Between the Covers :: 'The Diet Starts on Monday' by Tamar Chnorokian

...this book has the guts to make it's protagonist fairly unpleasant at the same time as it has you rooting for her to get a little happiness. 

Picking up YA fiction when you are not a young adult should always be accompanied by a degree of critical caution. I'm not particularly enraptured by dub-step either, but I am wise enough to recognise that I am not the target audience.

While I'm never going to be a wide reader of YA fiction, I like to enjoy the forays that I take whilst keeping an open mind about how they contribute to the genre as a whole. And as a genre that spans genres YA seems to struggling to emerge as something more than just inspirationally superhuman adolescents, battling to the end.

Happily The Diet Starts on Monday goes further; offering a tantalizing insight into a realm almost exotic in Australian fiction: Western Sydney. Further it confronts teen bullshit in a thought provoking way, and while it may not always be unique that is hardly the fault of the author; teenagers just tend to perpetrate the same awful crap from generation to generation.

The premise of The Diet Starts on Monday is a fairly standard Cinderella plot line...

Zara Hagopian has a crush on the hot guy at school, but he barely notices her. Maybe it's important that his name is Pablo, that he's a twin and has dreamy eyes and caramel skin. Probably not though as his role is to be the raison d'être for Zara's transformation.

This is not your standard rags to riches transformation however. See Zara is a size 22 and it is unfair to say that she is not noticed. More correctly she enjoys the full attention (and venom & vitriol) we come to expect from insecure teenagers. I'm almost certain life was like this when I was at school and Tamar Chnorhokian ably brings it to life. Trigger warning for formerly fat kids!

Zara's journey raises a lot of issues around societies cult of image and fashion. As she resolves then fails then resolves again to lose weight all for a guy I admit I wondered whether this wasn't just reinforcing the message that girls are for looking at. But if Chnorhokian had presented this differently she would have been ignoring the reality of a lot of young women struggling with who they are in a world that wasn't built for their success.

At least this book has the guts to make it's protagonist fairly unpleasant at the same time as it has you rooting for her to get a little happiness. Because Zara is not simply a princess hidden under a tatty dress. She has a strong family tradition in the Armenian community and must balance her loyalties with her need to be a kid amongst others, all with strong communities. She also must confront the reasons behind her sadness and her weight, before she can accept the antithesis of either.

I didn't like Zara for a large portion of this book, at times wanting to scream at her for the stupid mistakes she making. I also worried that any victory that she felt was pyrrhic. But for that to happen she must have struck me in some way, and that means the novel worked.

 _______

Tamar Chnorhokian and The Diet Starts on Monday emerged through the Western Sydney Sweatshop collective. Their philosophy is to empower and embolden their area through stories and bring these stories to a wider audience who perhaps think of Western Sydney as the bit without the beaches.

This is an accomplished effort to emerge from their workshops and augers well for future offerings...


For the past eighteen months I have been a producer and presenter on 'Final Draft', 2SER 107.3FM's flagship literature program. Between the Covers is my attempt to share some of this wonderful world of books and writing...

You can check out my interview with Tamar Chnorhokian and Mohammed Ahmad from Sweatshop on Final Draft's Podcast page on 2SER.com
Join me on Twitter @rightzblock
Catch me on Goodreads... goodreads.com/AndrewPople

Between The Covers :: 'The Seventh Day' Yu Hua

The Seventh Day is a vision of a novel that has struck me quite unexpectedly as I searched through my reading pile at the beginning of 2015... 

Typically the new year is a time of reflection, resolution and promises of renewal. Even the best of us; those who cynically deny the tricolon and maintain that the new year is simply another day (albeit with more dehydration and nausia). Instead my faux-contemplation was interrupted by musings on life and death far more poignant than promises to eat less and read more.

The Seventh Day follows the recently deceased Yang Fei as he struggles to negotiate his world and the spiritual realm of 'The Land of the Unburied'. Yang Fei wanders for seven days throughout his own life and the lives of his fellow travelers amongst the recently deceased.

Throughout these wanderings Yu Hua does not seek to evoke an all-encompassing vision for the life beyond, nor does he attempt to reconcile spiritual faith(s). Yang Fei's journey feels both incredibly personal and strangely universal. It's a death I'd happily claim as my own.

I am unabashedly a fan of this novel and of Yu Hua's writing, via translator Allan H. Barr. Of course the book I have read is the work of both writers and the issue of translation is one I've enjoyed revisiting on Final Draft. That I found common themes in a work ostensibly foreign to my experience is testament to the power and paradox of the translators work.

In a recent interview Yu Hua reflected on the absurd realities of modern China and their reflections in The Seventh Day's 'The Land of the Unburied'. While these elements are undoubtedly integral to the novel I could only fully appreciate them after having my attention drawn to them through this interview. Instead I found in the land of the unburied immensely entertaining as a conceit examining our lifelong quest to acquire, achieve, and belong. Through Mouse Girl and Wu Chao we vicariously enjoy a bitter requiem to the modern malaise of FOMO.

In short The Seventh Day is a discovery; a book that rewards in the story it tells and the thoughts it provokes. Well worth your time...

For the past eighteen months I have been a producer and presenter on 'Final Draft', 2SER 107.3FM's flagship literature program. Between the Covers is my attempt to share some of this wonderful world of books and writing...

Follow me on Twitter @rightzblock
Catch me on Goodreads... goodreads.com/AndrewPople

Between the Covers :: 'Half World' by Scott O'Connor

"...fear of an ephemeral 'enemy' forced people to commit atrocities against unsuspecting innocents, and the rights of the unsuspecting few were considered ancillary to the purported greater good..."

Half World is the second novel by Scott O'Connor. It's the story of Henry March, a burnt out CIA analyst, turned rogue torturer & pseudo-pharmacologist. Or perhaps it's the fictionalized tale of secret CIA mind control experiments, conducted throughout the fifties and sixties, known MKUltra.



Henry's journey into the underworld is perhaps best understood as a sort of parallel narrative to societies own 'progress' and increasing reliance on soporifics; I mean Dick Ashbie, our hero for the second half of the novel is hooked on the exact same drugs Henry pioneered in the fight against the 'red scare'.


Through both Henry and Dick we are privy to the destructive force of secrets and fear. Both men are compelled to face an external threat they never truly understand and do so at the personal cost of all they hold dear. The notion of duty and honour may figure in a more patriotic review but I can;t help but focus on the classical tragedy of both men's need to serve.

Half World is easy to read as a work of fiction, harder perhaps to countenance as a piece of speculative history. Do we need to believe that a version of this story actually happened to make it compelling?

It's enough to know that fear of an ephemeral 'enemy' forced people to commit atrocities against unsuspecting innocents. That the rights of the unsuspecting few were considered ancillary to the purported 'greater good'. That at some point the horrifying effects these drugs can have on human was discovered and we still embraced them. Anyone else feel it's a lesson worth revisiting?!

The narrative is strong and told in a style reminiscent of Don DeLillio with lashings of almost Kilgore Trout-esque surreal moments as the plot teeters while Dick finds his benzo legs.

Half World relies on your ability to fathom that the unbelievable happens. It is convenient, perhaps too-much so in some of it's encounters but by then you are already immersed and you're on a gripping ride that resonates with our own progressively more fucked-up world...

For the past twelve months I have been a producer and presenter on 'Final Draft', 2SER 107.3FM's flagship literature program. Between the Covers is my attempt to share some of this wonderful world of books and writing...

Join me on Twitter @rightzblock