Dear John Marsden,I already knew you were the almighty king of Aussie YA after reading the Tomorrow series, but now I'm going to throw in a crown, a sceptre and a huge, lavish coronation ceremony to make it all official.Love,Me.As much as I love the premise and the characters and the voice of the Tomorrow books, John Marsden has proven to me once and for all that his books don't need a background of terror and war, or the incredible, indomitable Ellie Linton, to be gut-wrenchingly good. This was a simple, short read, a collection of letters written by the teenaged Tony to his lady love, Miffy, but it shouldn't be mistaken for just a love story. It's that in places, to be sure, but it's also vulgar -- which I can attest that Aussie teenage boys really are, more often than not -- jarring, dark, depressing and well-told. I thought I knew precisely what the big reveal was going to be and I could not have been more dead wrong. The real reveal -- uncovered in a slow-burn of bits and pieces, peeled back slowly like a Band-Aid -- was far more surprising and far more unsettling than what I'd had in mind.The thing that really threw me headlong into the character of Tony and what happened to him, though, was the fact that I have known scores of teenage boys just like him: school-wagging delinquent no-hopers who never bothered with being smart. I never thought much of them, and when I did I did so with some contempt, I have to admit. Tony's story has made me regret that, and wonder whether anything half as terrible has happened to any of them.I see what you did there, Mr Marsden. Kudos.
