Joel and Cat Set the Story Straight by Nick Earls and Rebecca Sparrow
Two authors, one book. Is it any surprise that the most convenient format for this story was alternating chapters written by each author? What is surprising is how well it works.
Joel and Cat hate each other. They cannot stand being in the same room. Cat’s best friend and Joel have a ‘history’ and that is never good. Unfortunately through a series of misadventures the two of them are matched up for a creative writing assignment in which they are write a paragraph each day on a short story. The difficulty is that each paragraph must be emailed to the other at the end of the day, and the second one has to pick up the story and continue. So what if Cat’s favourite author is Jane Austen and Joel’s is Matthew Reilly.
The story begins with Cat setting the scene in an early morning, gentle, slow and introspective. Joel’s paragraph introduces high adventure including a skydiving spy. Get the picture? But as the story continues the two of them learn to talk to each other, and more importantly listen, and a friendship is born.
This is a book full of good humour and fun. Neither author takes the project too seriously and the fun they had while writing it literally jumps off the page. Apparently Earls and Sparrow accepted advice from fans via a blog or even SMS as they were writing. Some of the very strange passages from the short story truly indicate the wild imagination as fans tried to set the authors challenges.
Did I like the book? Absolutely. Is it great literature? No, but sometimes it is nice simply to have something fun to read.
