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by Simmone Howell
This is the story of a wild girl and a ghost girl; a boy who knew nothing and a boy who thought he knew everything.
It's a story about Skylark Martin, who lives with her father and brother in a vintage record shop and is trying to find her place in the world. It's about ten-year-old Super Agent Gully and his case of a lifetime. And about beautiful, reckless, sharp-as-knives Nancy. It's about tragic-hot Luke, and just-plain-tragic Mia Casey. It's about the dark underbelly of a curious neighborhood. It's about summer, and weirdness, and mystery, and music.
And it's about life and death and grief and romance. All the good stuff.
"Starred Review. Funny, observant, a relentless critic of the world's (and her own) flaws, Sky is original, thoroughly authentic and great company." - Kirkus
"Girl Defective is melancholy and haunting, funny and hopeful, and just everything I love in a book." - Trish Doller, author of Where the Stars Still Shine
"Charming, funny, fun…a delightful journey through an Australian teenager's summer of weird and cool." - Rachel Cohn, New York Times bestselling co-author of Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist
"Smart. Edgy. Beautifully written. One of my year's favorites." - Melina Marchetta, Printz Medal winner for Jellicoe Road
This information about Girl Defective was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
I grew up in Melbourne's outer eastern suburbs feeling far away from anything interesting. At eight I raced BMX; at thirteen I was into hair dye and pop music; at fifteen I decided that (like Sheila E) I wanted to lead the glamorous life, but school was a reality I couldn't ignore ' after school I boarded the carousel of casual employment - pubs, cafes and record shops. I read all the time ' I loved the beats, pulp fiction and cult writers. I had lots of literary crushes. I finally went to University where I set up a small press called Vandal Press and began writing seriously.
Then I went overseas, leaving a trail of short stories. In 2002, one of my stories was made into the short film Pity 24. I won the Australian Writers Guild award for the script and travelled with the film to the Los Angeles Shortsfest where I saw the blind guy from Becker, walked on Kim Basinger's red carpet and went to a pool party atop Schwabs Drugstore (and learned that no one swims at LA pool parties, NO ONE...)
Finally I got a proper job working on hit TV show The Secret Life of Us where part of my job was writing the guff - the seven seconds of something that no-one actually hears. And when that job folded, I took all this stuff about movies and false starts and appreciating the background bits and turned them into a novel.
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