132,585
edits
Changes
From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to searchFire Colour One by Jenny Valentine (view source)
Revision as of 12:26, 2 March 2018
, 12:26, 2 March 2018no edit summary
{{infoboxinfobox1
|title=Fire Colour One
|author=Jenny Valentine
|reviewer=Jill Murphy
|date=July 2015
|isbn=0007512368
|video=1YfhpAsPqfk
|cover=0007512368
|aznuk=0007512368
|aznus=B00RSOPILW
}}
'''Shortlisted for the 2016 CILIP Carnegie Medal'''
Iris has never known her father. He didn't want her, her mother has always said. He threw them out years ago. But now she's about to meet him again. Her father is rich, you see, and dying, and Iris's mother and stepfather have worn out their welcome in LA. So they're running away from debts and towards a rich, terminally ill old man, ripe for exploitation. There's also the small matter of some of Iris's own bad behaviour. But the less said about that, the better.
Oh, hooray! Finally! A new Jenny Valentine story! I was really looking forward to reading ''Fire Colour One'' and I wasn't disappointed. It's a sad story of an old man's final days. It's a lovely story of a daughter finding - and coming to love - the father she never knew. It's an inspirational story of the power of art to move us, enlighten us and empower us. And it's also a pretty strong indictment of materialism and the life-sucking emptiness of consumer culture. Really. It has all that!
Iris is a compelling central character. You feel for her - she's been deprived of a loving father and her mother is cold, selfish and calculating. Her stepfather is no better. I loved the way Valentine has Iris describe them - ''Looking good is the bedrock f of their moral code. Presentation is ethics to them''. Ouch! But Iris has issues of her own and they can't ''all'' be laid at her mother's door. At some point, she will have to come to terms with them, with the friend she left behind in LA, and with herself.
The book is really divided into those who love art and those who don't. Iris's mother and stepfather don't, obviously. But Iris does, and Ernest does, and Thurston does. And, one way or another, it's art that either saves or condemns each of them.
You might also enjoy [[Naked by Kevin Brooks]], in which music is the artistic drive. Set during the birth of punk in the 1970s, it's also a gorgeous book.
{{amazontextAudtoptentext|amazonlist=ISBNTop Ten Books for Teens 2015}}
{{amazontext|amazon=0007512368}}
