Alice OsemanGet cosy and listen to me read the first chapter of my new book I WAS BORN FOR THIS on a rainy day! Here we meet Angel, an extreme fangirl of a boyband called The Ark...
Alice Oseman reads I Was Born for This: Chapter 1Alice Oseman2018-03-30 | Get cosy and listen to me read the first chapter of my new book I WAS BORN FOR THIS on a rainy day! Here we meet Angel, an extreme fangirl of a boyband called The Ark...
I'm SO excited to be turning my webcomic into a physical book! Help me make this dream come true by pledging to the Kickstarter and getting lots of cool merch (and the book) in return.
... I am not in love with you, but you, my friend, I want to tell you everything. Long ago I was afflicted with a terrible predisposition to never say a word, and I honestly cannot understand why or how that happened. C’est la vie. But there is something about you which makes me wish I could speak like you do – I’ve watched you from afar and you really are the best person that I have met in my whole life. You possess the ability to make people listen to you without question, even if you don’t often use it. I almost want to be you. Does that make any sense? I bet it doesn’t. I’m just rambling on. I’m sorry. Anyway. I hope, when one day we meet again, you will listen to me, and pay attention. I do not have anyone else to whom I could say these things. You might not even be listening now. Then again, you do not have to listen if you do not want to. Who am I to make you do anything? I’m not, I’m nothing. But you – oh, you – why, I’d listen to you for hours. ...
... Every week something happens and it feels strained. The truth is, old sport, sometimes there isn’t anything to report. Sometimes I might exaggerate a bit, just so I have something exciting to say. That time I told you I surfed the BOT22 down to Leftley Square? Well – that was a lie. It was only a BOT18. I lied. I really, really lied. And I am sorry. I feel a bit like a BOT18 sometimes. Old and rusty, aching and sleepy. Wandering through the city, lost, circling, alone. No gears left in my heart, no code whirring in my brain. Just kinetic energy, being pushed gently onwards by other forces – sound, light, dust waves, the quakes. I’m as lost as ever, friends. Can you tell? I’d like it if someone were to rescue me soon. Oh, I’d like that very much. I’d like that. I’d like that very much indeed. ...
... I wonder why you’re even listening to this in the first place! Are you just turning your radio on each week to listen to some funny story about silly old Radio and their friends zapping a new monster and solving the mystery like we’re the bloody twenty-sixth century Scooby Doo gang? I can see you now. Having a right old laugh to yourselves while we’re here, slowly dying from the city fumes, being murdered in our sleep. I bet you have the power to contact us, but you just can’t be bothered. Have you even been listening to anything I’ve been saying? You’re just the same as everyone I knew in the old world. You can’t be bothered to do anything. ...
... I hid for forty-seven minutes exactly – I had my moonometer with me – in the telephone box by the power station on Tomsby Street. Nobody thinks to look for anyone there. Everyone knows the box is haunted. I don’t want to talk about what I saw. While I was hiding and waiting, I was also thinking and deciding. Was I going to let the cyborg chase me forever? Was I going to have to turn my back every two minutes to check for those marble eyes and spitting circuits? No. That’s no way to live. Not even in the vicious, cruel barricades of the City of the Universe. I can take a little beating now and then, old sport, believe me. I’ve been in this City for as long as I can remember, it seems. This hardly qualifies as a distress call any more – by gods, if anyone was listening, I would have heard from you by now. I can take a little beating now and then. I’m a tough one. I’m a star. I’m steel-chested and diamond-eyed. Cyborgs live and then they break, but I’ll never break. Even when my bone dust drifts over the City walls, I’ll be living and I’ll be flying, and I will wave and laugh. ...
... Do you remember how the rabbits glared as we drove down the road? Jealous, maybe, or scared. I was always behind her waiting for the window to drop. The Latin name for the fox is Vulpes vulpes. You always thought that sounded nice. I’m so angry about these ghost school problems. ‘Problems’ feels like an overstate- ment. Are you gonna go smoke your little cigarettes while you lean out of the window under the stars? You were always brave enough to get burned in the Fire. I wonder if you regret your obsession with Bukowski. I regret it and it wasn’t even me who had it. At least you were careless enough to admit that you were obsessed with something. I only say horrible things because I feel guilty. I don’t want anything to do with this any more, I hate people telling me what I have to do. Why should I have to go just because everyone’s telling me to? My m-mother? Nobody should be able to make my decisions for me. I’m here now and I’m waiting and it’s going to happen. Was there even any choice involved? Do I sound like I care about school? I don’t remember it happening. I don’t remember anything I’ve done, or why. Everything’s very confused. Everything’s better under the stars, I suppose. If we get another life after we die, I’ll meet you there, old sport... ...
... I think by now, February, we’ve, as they say, ‘lost touch’. Not that we ever touched in the first place. In the end I’m still only ever looking where you’ve looked, I’m only ever walking where you’ve walked, I’m in your dark blue shadow and you never seem to turn around to find me there. I wonder sometimes whether you’ve exploded already, like a star, and what I’m seeing is you three million years into the past, and you’re not here any more. How can we be together here, now, when you are so far away? When you are so far ago? I’m shouting so loudly, but you never turn around to see me. Perhaps it is I who have already exploded. Either way, we are going to bring beautiful things into the universe. ...
On the Importance of the Magic in the Pipes Below Us
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... A spot of computer magic. That’s really all it needs, friends. When you live in a city as big as this, how else are you to communicate, but by computer magic? The Governors recently repaired all the pipes – one of the few good things they’ve done for us recently. I swear I can feel something evil about them, but ignorance is bliss, I suppose. I’ve got contacts all over the place. More useful than friends, really. I have eyes and ears everywhere, I see and hear everything. I’m ready for whatever they’re going to throw at me. I know they’re going to throw something at me. I’ve seen it in my dreams and in my fortune mirror. I can see it from a mile away, from ten miles away. It’s coming. But I have computer magic on my side. I have my friends–– no, contacts. Way more valuable, old sport, I really am telling you. There’s magic under our feet, not just in our eyes. ...
I’ll be taking on allies from now on. Until I hear from you, survival will be my priority.
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... He has a brilliant bike, I can tell you that. Three wheels and glow-in-the-dark. And of course, it’s useful to have someone around who has the use of his bare hands. I can’t tell you what a pain it is to have to keep these gloves on all the time. I’m still not sure why I asked for his help. I’ve survived for this long by myself. But since talking to you, I suppose... I suppose I’ve had a slight change of heart. If I’m to get out of here, I’m going to have to team up with some city folk every now and then. There are things in Universe City that you cannot possibly imagine out there in the real world, creeping around in the metallic dust. Monsters and demons and synthetic abominations. Every day you hear of the latest fatality – some poor loner wandering back from a lecture, a tired geek in the back corner of the library, a miserable young girl alone in her bed. And this is what I’m getting at, old sport: I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s impossible to survive alone in Universe City. ...
Hello. I hope somebody is listening. I’m sending out this call via radio signal – long out-dated, I know, but perhaps one of the few methods of communication the City has forgotten to monitor – in a dark and desperate cry for help. Things in Universe City are not what they seem. I cannot tell you who I am. Please call me... please just call me Radio. Radio Silence. I am, after all, only a voice on a radio, and there may not be anyone listening. I wonder – if nobody is listening to my voice, am I making any sound at all? ...
The second novel by the phenomenally talented author of Solitaire, Alice Oseman – the most talked-about YA writer right now.
What if everything you set yourself up to be was wrong?
Frances has always been a study machine with one goal, elite university. Nothing will stand in her way; not friends, not a guilty secret – not even the person she is on the inside.
But when Frances meets Aled, the shy genius behind her favourite podcast, she discovers a new freedom. He unlocks the door to Real Frances and for the first time she experiences true friendship, unafraid to be herself. Then the podcast goes viral and the fragile trust between them is broken.
Caught between who she was and who she longs to be, Frances’ dreams come crashing down. Suffocating with guilt, she knows that she has to confront her past… She has to confess why Carys disappeared…
Meanwhile at uni, Aled is alone, fighting even darker secrets.
It’s only by facing up to your fears that you can overcome them. And it’s only by being your true self that you can find happiness.
Frances is going to need every bit of courage she has.
A YA coming of age read that tackles issues of identity, the pressure to succeed, diversity and freedom to choose, Radio Silence is a tour de force by the most exciting writer of her generation.
almost all of the footage i've used are things i've filmed in the past two and half years that i've been at university - so from 2013-now! for example, it includes footage of my first year college room (i'm now in third year), and footage of my journey (by car and train) to and from university.
big thanks to Aysha Kala and the team at HarperAudio for the (brilliant) excerpts from the Radio Silence audiobook.SOLITAIRE by Alice Oseman | Book TrailerAlice Oseman2015-08-05 | hello. this is a trailer i made for my debut novel 'solitaire'. because why not.
i'll probably be very embarrassed of this in a few weeks' time.
solitaire is a coming-of-age contemporary/realistic YA novel and was first published on the 31st July 2014.
*** My name is Tori Spring. I like to sleep and I like to blog. Last year – before all that stuff with Charlie and before I had to face the harsh realities of A-Levels and university applications and the fact that one day I really will have to start talking to people – I had friends. Things were very different, I guess, but that’s all over now.
Now there’s Solitaire. And Michael Holden.
I don’t know what Solitaire are trying to do, and I don’t care about Michael Holden. I really don’t. ***