reeling rather

God, I love Meg Rosoff. What a thoroughly queer and splendid book.

Also, I wish I was Meg Rosoff. Her first book was about war and anorexia, probably my two favourite subjects for fiction (and so rarely combined!), with a stalwart anorexic female war heroine in the lead - and won the Guardian award;* her second book was about fate and responsibility and won the Carnegie medal; and this one is a subtle and strange revisiting of some of the major early children's lit topoi and genres (school story, castaways). And queer as anything, like I said.

(A couple of reservations about the fate of the Gollum character.)

*I am always slightly surprised that I haven't won the Guardian award for children's fiction, but J points out to me that I have not in fact written a children's novel. Which seems a bit of a technicality to me, but I suppose they have to stick to the letter of the law.