WINNER: Commonwealth Book Prize, Pacific Region 2012. Looking back, Martha could've said no when Mr Booker first tried to kiss her. That would've been the sensible thing to do. But Martha is sixteen, she lives in a small dull town - a cemetery with lights - her father is mad, her home is stifling, and she's waiting for the rest of her life to begin. Of course Martha would kiss the charming Englishman who brightened her world with style, adventure, whisky, cigarettes and sex. But Martha didn't count on the consequences. Me and Mr Booker is a story about feeling old when you're young and acting young when you're not.
Me and Mr Booker
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'A beautifully paced and endlessly witty novel about love and growing up. Not the inevitable moving into adulthood growing up, but the growing up we all have to do, and keep on doing, allof our lives. I loved this book.' --Isla Dewar
'Me and Mr Booker is sharply observed and blackly comic, but it is also a tender depiction of love, sex, power and one girl's heartbreaking step into adulthood.' --Australian Bookseller + Publisher
--Australian Bookseller + Publisher
'Me and Mr Booker is sharply observed and blackly comic, but it is also a tender depiction of love, sex, power and one girl's heartbreaking step into adulthood.' --Australian Bookseller + Publisher
'Me and Mr Booker is sharply observed and blackly comic, but it is also a tender depiction of love, sex, power and one girl's heartbreaking step into adulthood.' --Australian Bookseller + Publisher
--Australian Bookseller + Publisher
'Me and Mr Booker is sharply observed and blackly comic, but it is also a tender depiction of love, sex, power and one girl's heartbreaking step into adulthood.' --Australian Bookseller + Publisher
About the Author
Cory Taylor is an award-winning screenwriter who has also published short fiction and children's books. She lives in Brisbane. Already a success in her native Australia, the searingly honest, and funny, Me and Mr Booker is her first novel.
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful
By Cloggie Downunder
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
Me and Mr Booker, Cory Taylor's first novel, has been described as a coming of age novel. Martha is sixteen and tells people she is emotionally scarred from her parents' marriage break-up. She considers her unemployed (and seemingly unemployable) father, Victor, mad, and in a frightening rather than an amusing way. Her mother, Jessica, a teacher, throws parties every weekend to ward off the boredom and loneliness of weekends, and her older brother Eddie is away in New Guinea. In this dysfunctional atmosphere, Martha finds herself waiting for something to happen in her life. As luck will have it, that something is Mr Booker: English, sophisticated, charming and impossible to resist, despite the fact that he comes complete with a wife. Very little is learned about Mr Booker (and never his first name) until the last chapter: the very last line of the book reveals much.
Taylor expertly captures the feel of the dull country town, the sense of boredom and even hopelessness. She lets us inside the mind of a sixteen-year-old girl, one who feels "old" because of her parents' attitude and the way men have started to look at her. Her affair with Mr Booker seems inevitable, and Taylor builds the tension throughout the book, giving the reader a sense of "this can't end well". This tension is regularly eased by the witty repartee between the characters. As well as this, Victor's delusions and his letters to Jessica, full of inappropriately grandiloquent language, are quite a source of humour. Some of his later letters are, unintentionally, truly hilarious.
Taylor gives us believable characters and authentic dialogue. As we join Martha's journey towards adulthood and maturity, it is hard not to hope she finds her way without too much heartbreak.... Read more ›
Taylor expertly captures the feel of the dull country town, the sense of boredom and even hopelessness. She lets us inside the mind of a sixteen-year-old girl, one who feels "old" because of her parents' attitude and the way men have started to look at her. Her affair with Mr Booker seems inevitable, and Taylor builds the tension throughout the book, giving the reader a sense of "this can't end well". This tension is regularly eased by the witty repartee between the characters. As well as this, Victor's delusions and his letters to Jessica, full of inappropriately grandiloquent language, are quite a source of humour. Some of his later letters are, unintentionally, truly hilarious.
Taylor gives us believable characters and authentic dialogue. As we join Martha's journey towards adulthood and maturity, it is hard not to hope she finds her way without too much heartbreak.... Read more ›
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
By Julia Flyte
TOP 50 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
Martha is sixteen and lives in a small Australian town. While I'm not sure when the book was set, my impression was that it was probably in the 1980s. Her parents have split, she is precocious and bored, desperate to escape. An English couple aged in their 30s come to live in the town and befriend her and her mother. To Martha the fact that they are from England makes them exotic and glamorous (she is immune to the fact that they hail from a small town on the Welsh border and his parents live in a caravan park). Martha and Mr Booker begin an affair.
This is a very well written book and I admired it tremendously but the sordid nature of their relationship and the way that everyone in the novel was so dislikeable prevented me from really loving it. This is more a reflection on me than on the book. The author captures Martha perfectly - her world-weariness and sense of sophistication, while being far less sophisticated than she realises. The insights into the Bookers - which Martha is oblivious to - are also well portrayed. A clever and memorable novel. I just wished I'd liked it more.
This is a very well written book and I admired it tremendously but the sordid nature of their relationship and the way that everyone in the novel was so dislikeable prevented me from really loving it. This is more a reflection on me than on the book. The author captures Martha perfectly - her world-weariness and sense of sophistication, while being far less sophisticated than she realises. The insights into the Bookers - which Martha is oblivious to - are also well portrayed. A clever and memorable novel. I just wished I'd liked it more.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Roman Clodia
TOP 50 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
This is a book with real personality in its narrative voice. Martha is 16 in a small nowhere-town in Australia - and knows that men are starting to look at her in a certain way. In a bid to escape her dysfunctional family, she's drawn to the `glamorous' English Bookers - and is soon involved in her first sexual affair.
Martha's voice is ebullient and honest as she negotiates adulthood in the face of her parents' messy divorce, her absent older brother, and various family friends. Taylor is very clever in the way she layers Martha's view of Mr Booker with our response to this 34-year old man with his white linen suits, red handkerchiefs, equally provincial background and corny double-entendres. And I liked that this doesn't make anyone into a simple, one-dimensional character.
Beneath the animated surface of this book is a sad story of disappointed lives as people struggle with disillusionment, regret, frustration and failure. And we're left at the end not completely sure whether Martha herself has escaped this fate or not. Recommended.
Martha's voice is ebullient and honest as she negotiates adulthood in the face of her parents' messy divorce, her absent older brother, and various family friends. Taylor is very clever in the way she layers Martha's view of Mr Booker with our response to this 34-year old man with his white linen suits, red handkerchiefs, equally provincial background and corny double-entendres. And I liked that this doesn't make anyone into a simple, one-dimensional character.
Beneath the animated surface of this book is a sad story of disappointed lives as people struggle with disillusionment, regret, frustration and failure. And we're left at the end not completely sure whether Martha herself has escaped this fate or not. Recommended.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Noel
TOP 50 REVIEWER
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Set in a small Australian town, "Me and Mr Booker" is about an affair between 16 year old schoolgirl Martha, the book's narrator, and a 32 year old married university teacher from Britain called Mr Booker. Cory Taylor captures the voice of a 16 year old and the frustration she feels at living in a small town very well. That restless yearning to grow up, move out, and see the world is something a lot of people can relate to and Martha is a convincingly real person.
The novel explores the angle that young people, particularly teenagers, feel that they know everything and see things more clearly than their elders. Through Martha's narration, we see a more complex relationship between Mr and Mrs Booker than the simplistic "he's unhappy with his wife" motif that Martha imagines. Martha's naivety is highlighted through her constantly asking Mr Booker when he will leave his wife, when they will start their new life together, and it's painfully clear to the reader that Martha really doesn't understand the nature of their relationship or much at all about Mr and Mrs Booker's.
But the novel is too long. At 220 pages, it's not a long book but despite this brevity the book felt overlong by half. Once Taylor establishes the main characters, they continue in their way straight through until the end with little variation. Martha doesn't seem to change much and neither do the other characters. This stasis isn't helped by a lack of plot, and the novel meanders aimlessly repeating sex scenes, clandestine meetings, and secrets hidden in public appearances. It gets very tired after a while.
There also isn't a single likeable character in the book. Martha is bratty, deluded and a tool. Mr Booker is worse because he's just a loser.... Read more ›
The novel explores the angle that young people, particularly teenagers, feel that they know everything and see things more clearly than their elders. Through Martha's narration, we see a more complex relationship between Mr and Mrs Booker than the simplistic "he's unhappy with his wife" motif that Martha imagines. Martha's naivety is highlighted through her constantly asking Mr Booker when he will leave his wife, when they will start their new life together, and it's painfully clear to the reader that Martha really doesn't understand the nature of their relationship or much at all about Mr and Mrs Booker's.
But the novel is too long. At 220 pages, it's not a long book but despite this brevity the book felt overlong by half. Once Taylor establishes the main characters, they continue in their way straight through until the end with little variation. Martha doesn't seem to change much and neither do the other characters. This stasis isn't helped by a lack of plot, and the novel meanders aimlessly repeating sex scenes, clandestine meetings, and secrets hidden in public appearances. It gets very tired after a while.
There also isn't a single likeable character in the book. Martha is bratty, deluded and a tool. Mr Booker is worse because he's just a loser.... Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Dull
I didn't care for this book, which is especially disappointing because I really thought it would be better. Read more
Published 27 days ago by Theo
3.0 out of 5 stars
Hard work...
This book was okay, the sort of story about a young girl and an older man set in Australia. It focuses on their 'relationship' but not much more than that really. Read more
Published 1 month ago by A. Douglas
3.0 out of 5 stars
Erm ok..
This book was ok and wasted away the hours I spend on the train everyday but I just didn't really see the point in it. It was just the same all the way through. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Jodie Lenton
1.0 out of 5 stars
Tried too hard
The author really tried too hard to create unusual characters and situations. I thought it was dreadful and gave up!
Published 2 months ago by maeelizabeth
4.0 out of 5 stars
me and mr booker
WINNER: Commonwealth Book Prize, Pacific Region 2012.
I saw this book reviewed and discussed at the beginning of 2011 in Australia and the way it was talked about made... Read more
I saw this book reviewed and discussed at the beginning of 2011 in Australia and the way it was talked about made... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Green Book Addict Librarian
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautifully written, unusual little book
I absolutely loved this book. It was so beautifully and cleverly written, I couldn't put it down. Sometimes a story can be so well written it doesn't need a twist or a shocking... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Dulcie Button
1.0 out of 5 stars
Me and Mr Booker
A very poor story line, I felt I was wasting my time reading such rubbish but hoped it would improve - but it didn't.
Published 4 months ago by freda
2.0 out of 5 stars
Pretty awful story
Bad storyline, poorly written. The plot never really develops. You never really get to know any of the characters, which makes them all deeply unlike able. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Jess
2.0 out of 5 stars
not my thing.
very slow could not connect with the characters at all, not my type of book bt did persevere to the end, wished i hadnt bothered.
Published 4 months ago by Angeline Vincent
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not my type of book
This book was ok but I wouldnt really recommend it to anyone. The story was far fetched and not very interesting
Published 4 months ago by dianemle
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