If I Am Missing or Dead by Janine Latus

It's not all chocolate and child geniuses here, you know. Let's talk about If I Am Missing or Dead: A Sister's Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation by Janine Latus.

Firstly, the title of this book is a misnomer.

What I am about to say will sound awful, I know, but I believe that a deliberate, cynical choice was made in the selection of this book title.

Publishers don't spend thousands of dollars printing and promoting a book unless they're certain they've made it as alluring as possible to their target market. The provocative title was a choice calculated to attract as many readers as possible, even though it does not fully align with the contents of the book.

I'm not the only one who thinks this, judging from many of today's 1-star and 2-star reviews on Amazon about this book.

So, the title is, "If I Am Missing or Dead: A Sister's Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation".

Ah, you think, the author is going to tell us the story of her missing or dead sister.

Wrong!

You read, then scour, the book looking for Amy, the sister who was murdered under awful circumstances by her emotionally distant loser-boyfriend.

Instead you find the life story of Janine Latus up to the time of her sister's death.

It is still one woman's interesting and eventful personal history, and a warning about how horrible parenting can have far-reaching effects on one's adult life. It shows that intelligent people can still make the same bad choices over and over again.

But it is not Amy's story.

Amy does come into it, here and there, like a weekend guest. She flits in via childhood memories, phone conversations, and towards the end, anecdotes painted with love and agony by friends and relatives. But she is still just a visitor. We are left hungry for more of Amy's story, and full of questions that the book doesn't answer.

What was it like for Amy, going away on holiday with their icky father, and having people believe that she was his partner? Why didn't she mind spending so much time with him? What was her everyday life like with Ron Ball, her murderer?

Reading this book was an experience in itself. I spent most of the time with my mouth agape, or reading out bits to my partner, prefixed with the cry, "Listen to this bit!"

By the end I started to feel that good men are few and far between, and we ladies should hie ourselves to a convent in the Austrian Alps, post-haste.

I don't know if Janine Latus has forgiven her father for what he did to her and her family; he is such a strange and sorry individual. If he accidentally travelled to another dimension ruled by female warriors, he would have been dipped in honey and staked to an ant hill before the day was out.

If I Am Missing or Dead: A Sister's Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation is an intense read, but approach it with care. Now that you know what you're in for.

Alternative reading

If you are looking for a first-class read in the true crime genre, look for Joe Cinque's Consolationby Helen Garner. It is about how Anu Singh, a student at the Australian National University, schemed to murder her boyfriend, Joe Cinque. She doped him with Rohypnol and injected him with heroin, then watched him die slowly in their bed.

Garner's book describes the court proceedings and the interviews she conducted with Cinque's grief-stricken parents. It takes a long, hard look at crime and punishment, and also provides the perspective of the heavy-hearted judge who delivered Singh's sentence.

I was so enthralled by this book that I read it in a single sitting.

Joe Cinque's Consolation is an Australian publication. Some sources say it is out of print, but you may have more luck finding it in an Australian bookstore like Fishpond. I also see it quite often in second-hand bookstores here in Perth.

Hands off our library books!

Apparently the West Australian state government is proposing to cut funding for library books by millions of dollars a year.

Stuff like this makes me wonder if the government has a secret agenda to raise a generation of illiterate thugs. Really, I don't know how I much tighter I can clutch my handbag when I go out, without cutting off the circulation to my hands.

Our local library is a haven and a hub for the community. I am always amazed at the diversity of the people I find there: Mums and Dads, children discovering new worlds, students hammering away quietly at their studies, workers searching for a relaxing weekend read, retirees catching up on today's news ...

It goes without saying that books are the lifeblood of a library, and the collections now include growing numbers of newspapers, magazines, graphic novels, CDs and DVDs.

If the state government proceeds with this course of action, the number of library books (and all the other resources I mentioned) will dwindle, because the libraries will have less new stock to share and exchange. They will stagnate. This was the word my librarian used to predict the future of our libraries, when I asked her what she thought of the funding cuts.

Please spread the word. We readers may be quiet, but we're not pushovers.

Neil Gaiman: "Libraries are as important as anything gets."

P.S. The library doesn't stop me from buying books, it helps me to make better-informed choices about what books I purchase.

Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris

Strange, I didn't like most of the characters in Five Quarters of the Orange, and yet I couldn't put it down.

Apart from old Paul Hourias, most of the people you meet, including the narrator, are so uptight that you wish someone would spike the local water supply, The Men Who Stare At Goats-style.

Luckily, Harris's writing is as mesmerising as ever. You just keep reading because you want to know what's going to happen next.

What heinous act drove Framboise and her family from their village during the Second World War? It must have been a corker, because she still doesn't want anyone to find out who she is, more than fifty years later.

Why is Framboise's mother such a cow, and what confidences does she keep in her super-secret, private, ciphered diary cum recipe book? Come to think of it, why is young Framboise so catty towards her mother? (I know most adolescents have a tumultuous relationship with their parents, but 'Boise makes today's teens look like fluffy bunnies.) And why is she so obsessed with catching a slimy, giant pike?

The narrative skips between the present and World War II, between old Framboise's battle with her greedy relatives over her mother's recipes, and the slow-cooker destruction of young 'Boise's family in a village stifled by Nazi occupation. I'm not crazy about this sort of time-travelling writing style, but I was certainly never bored while reading this book.

The star of Five Quarters of the Orange, is, of course, the food. Food that is baked, fried, stewed, rolled, pressed, picked, and so fresh you can almost smell it coming off the pages. Reading something that Joanne Harris has written about food is second only to eating it.

If you like Joanne Harris, this book will not disappoint, but my favourite Harris confection is still everyone's favourite: Chocolat (after you finish reading the book, follow it up with the movie for even more cocoa-buttery goodness). 

After this, if you're still in the mood for chocolate, then pick up Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, another book that was faithfully adapted into a delicious movie. You will want to bludgeon the feckless Pedro with a meat tenderiser, but the female characters are amazing, as are the recipes.

Genius Squad by Catherine Jinks

Cadel is 15. He doesn't know who his father is, and it's really bothering him. He was trained at an early age on how to be an evil genius, specialising in IT and computer hacking, but decided not to follow the career path of a criminal mastermind. This is why he's in so much trouble right now.

Cadel and his best friend, Sonja, a mathematics virtuoso with cerebral palsy, are drafted into Genius Squad, a group of talented children whose mission is to infiltrate GenoME, a genetics laboratory run by some very shifty characters.

I thought I'd hate Cadel within the first ten pages, but it's just not possible. Jinks has taken the familiar young hero with mysterious beginnings, impressive abilities and a life of impossible conflict, and still managed to make him a nice kid. Cadel battles computer viruses, kidnapping conspiracies, and masters of disguise, but never loses his gift for compassion and insight.

Genius Squad by Catherine Jinks is a book for young adults who like reading about geniuses, technology, and spies.

If you like the sound of Genius Squad, give these thought-provoking books for young adults a try (they're by Australian authors too):

• Tomorrow, When the War Began (The Tomorrow Series #1) by John Marsden. Be warned: this powerful book may cause your teenager to, 1) realise that their lot in life isn't as miserable and oppressed as they think, and 2) become paranoid and depressed about world events. 
• In the Blood by Jackie French, an intelligent, futuristic take on vampires. In the Blood is out of print now but your local library should have a copy. I really wish they would start printing this novel again, because I want one for myself!