Rebecca McNutt
Paperback | Pages: 440 pages Rating: 4.28 | 25 Users | 18 Reviews
Identify Regarding Books Smog City (Smog City #1)
| Title | : | Smog City (Smog City #1) |
| Author | : | Rebecca McNutt |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 440 pages |
| Published | : | January 2nd 2015 by Createspace (first published January 1st 2015) |
| Categories | : | Fantasy. Fiction. Novels. Contemporary |
Explanation Toward Books Smog City (Smog City #1)
"Syndrome E meets Marianne Dreams, but Smog City incorporates Cape Breton's industrial past with super 8 found footage which puts it in a class all its own." ~Google BlogsSmog City is a Canadian noir novel written by teenage author Rebecca McNutt in 2011 and published in 2015. It tells the story of a misfit but nonetheless average girl who has a friendship with the personification of a hazardous waste site in Sydney, an industrial steeltown of Atlantic Canada, from the 1980's to 2013.
The year is 1986, and there's a surreal number of events hidden in plain sight. Digital is in and traditional is out, the world is rapidly changing and Eastern Canada is one of many places caught up in it. Mandy Valems is eighteen, planning to go to college soon with dreams of being a photojournalist, but the sudden unexplained death of her older brother has left her emotionally scarred. She's also living on Cape Breton Island, a small but very industrial place in Atlantic Canada, during the environmental movement and the Sydney Tar Ponds case, and her best friend Wendy and her grieving parents aren't much help either... then one day Mandy meets an assumed imaginary friend (who is a super 8 film enthusiast), and as she gets older she finds herself falling deeper and deeper into something dangerous involving a dark secret between pollution and nature. She's too old to have an imaginary friend - at least, she thinks so - but her friend might be the most real friend she's ever had in the world.
The trouble is, he's got the promise of certain death looming over him, unless Mandy can do something to help. Traveling through shocking VHS found footage and nostalgic memories of the past, her confusing life gets out of control and she begins to question society in general - and whether or not the rapid and thoughtless conversion of everything to digital technology is dooming the world. Smog City takes Cape Breton's extensive steelmaking past past and 20th century nostalgia to a whole different level, one where pollution has emotion and two friends try their best to survive in a place where everything is changing.
List Books During Smog City (Smog City #1)
| Original Title: | Sysco |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | Smog City #1 |
| Setting: | Cape Breton, Nova Scotia,1986(Canada) Nova Scotia(Canada) Massachusetts(United States) …more Canada …less |
Rating Regarding Books Smog City (Smog City #1)
Ratings: 4.28 From 25 Users | 18 ReviewsJudge Regarding Books Smog City (Smog City #1)
The writing style reminds me of Faulkner. Clear, precise and to the point. This is a story of a girl whom feels miscast in a place that has become mobilized by technology. Surrounded by new technology she wonders what was wrong with the old. If I is not broken don't fix it. I tend to agree with her. I just recently got a cell phone just to use in case of an emergency last year, I enjoy older music to new, older shows were better and more thought provoking, old film to digital may have takenA remarkable achievement for anyone let alone a 12 year old girl. I bought a copy so I will offer some honest criticism. Instead of just dropping the names of classic rock songs, do more with them like explaining how they affect the scene. For example Joe Hill in The Fireman references the Dire Straits song "Romeo & Juliet" several times with the Fireman asking"you and me babe,how about it?" More effective is his use of the movie "Mary Poppins" and three songs from the movie. A friend of
"What's on your corrupted mind, pretty little Sydney Tar Ponds?" I got a free PDF copy of Smog City from the author, and after reading it I have all sorts of questions racing through my mind. Smog City is depressing and horrific and definitely not a book for younger readers, but I do have to say, it's certainly creative; from an eccentric photojournalist to a toxic waste site personification with a collection of snuff reels in his house, this book sort of wipes away the facade of Cape Breton's
This book was a fun read for me. The main characters, Mandy and Alecto, become friends. I liked this book and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. The story was not what I expected to read from the a cover of this book but I'm glad I read it! * I received this book from LibraryThing giveaway and this is my honest review*
Smog City is an amazing novel in many ways; that it was written by a twelve year old - tackling a hostile environment - makes it all the more so. At that age I would have struggled to construct a sentence, let alone a book!
Smog City has some extremely unique things forming its base. The viewpoint of romanticizing industrial decay and personifying pollution is such a refreshing departure from societys general Earth worship. The protagonists are anti-heroes and the psychological world they choose to inhabit is very dark, surreal and claustrophobic. I say psychological world because Im sure Nova Scotia has much beauty, but the characters shun it.As it stands now, the novel itself is very rough around the edges. There
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