Reviews for Paddy Joe at Deep Hollow Farm

The average rating for Paddy Joe at Deep Hollow Farm based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-07-21 00:00:00 Chris Malicek This is Louise Lawrence's second novel, another story for young adults (or at the time of publication, older children, as there was no YA category in the UK in the early 70s). As with her first, the science fiction elements are weak but this novel's human relationships are better. The relationship of the two 17 year boys and 16 year old girl come across as convincingly oblique and edgy, given the tension between the two boys - Jimmy, who has known Jane since their childhood and regards her as part of the furniture, until she acquires a guardian who buys her nice clothes so that she doesn't have to wear school uniform all the time, and Alan the newly arrived boy from a wealthier background who has his own car and treats Jane as an individual from the start. Jane is bitten by a rabbit that appears to give her a 'contamination' from space and soon Jane cannot stand machinery and is able to explode it - with fatal results. Only Jimmy believes this, whereas Alan is falling for Jane and cannot let himself believe until brought face to face with incontrovertible proof. So ironically it is Jimmy who accepts Jane until the end although he is the one trying to stop what she is doing. This book is a little more 'mature' than her first novel, where the girl protagonist was a perfect beautiful character whom everyone except the evil villain loved, and who shared a room with two young men without any attraction emerging between any of them. In The Power of Stars, there is some innocuous 'romance' in that Jimmy invites Jane to the school dance once he realises that she is a girl, and Alan is falling for Jane, although the only oblique reference to sex is when Alan is accused of bringing Jane back to his parents' house after she turns up at her guardian's place at four in the morning, and indignantly denies he would do such a heinous act, and that he took her home at midnight. Without giving away spoilers, the science fictional aspects although weak are not such a stumbling block as they were in Andra where they were central to the story because this book is fantastical: for example, if the energy of stars is sufficient to allow Jane to blow things up, wouldn't the sun's rays be even more efficacious? Yet it is the stars alone that do it. This does allow Lawrence to write some evocative scenes of darkness, stars, and people wandering around at night, so for her it has to be the stars rather than the prosaic scenes that occur in daytime. The SF is really a spurious explanation for what could be a psychic ability in another novel. The original edition's cover blurb admits that, saying that the novel "combined a compelling story of supernatural powers with a deep and sympathetic understanding of young people and their emotional relationships". Some of the aspects of the book truly belong to the 60s or the early 70s when it was published: for example, Jane's guardian, an eccentric female scientist, initially keeps bats locked up - when bats have been protected in the UK for years and couldn't be treated like this legally - and later keeps Jane locked up at night for Jane's and everyone else's own good as she sneaks out to stare at the stars otherwise and charges her machine-destroying batteries, when imprisoning her in this way would be treated as child abuse these days. The only adults featured in the novel are the scientist and Alan's stepfather, also a scientist/doctor: otherwise, the story is rather lacking in adults, as Alan's mother, although referred to, never appears, Jimmy's parents likewise do not appear and Jane is already an orphan living with her grandmother when the story starts. In common with Andra, the viewpoints are really those of the young men, Jimmy and Alan, and Jane is fairly passive though far less irritating than Andra - really because she does far less, just moons around when not blowing things up. In view of the more convincing setup of this book compared to Andra, and the evocation of the setting and mood, I am rating it an additional star, but it is going to frustrate anyone who wants real science fiction.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-12-17 00:00:00 Manuel P�rez Palomo Why was such an ineptly conceived and badly written book published? Am I missing something? Jane lives with her grandmother in the remote British village, Lydcroft. She goes around with two young men: Jimmy, whom she had known since childhood, and Alan, who recently moved to Lydcroft with his stepfather, Nick, a London doctor and researcher. When Jane is bitten by a rabbit, she undergoes a personality change and, intermittently, can play the piano and dance, abilities she lacked before. Machines upset Jane, and when agitated, she telekinetically destroys them. When Jane causes the television to explode, her grandmother is killed. Jane’s scientist neighbor, Miss Cotterel, gives Jane a home, but locks her in at night. Examining Jane’s blood under a microscope, Miss Cotterel and, subsequently, Alan’s stepfather, Nick, learn that Jane is a host for extraterrestrial parasites. Not only is the science utterly unconvincing, but the characters are plunked into the novel with no back-story. Why does Nick, an eminent physician and researcher, leave London for a remote backwater like Lydcroft? Why should Alan and Jimmy, who obviously dislike one another, be inseparable companions? How can Miss Cotterel and Nick INDEPENDENTLY OF ONE ANOTHER conclude from Jane’s blood that she has been infected by extraterrestrial parasites, activated by starlight? Despite its unconvincing science, POWER OF STARS might have worked if the characters had exhibited the slightest tenderness or concern for one another. Lawrence’s characters are continually enraged, interacting only through petty bickering. Stephanie Meyer’s YA novel, THE HOST, provides an instructive contrast. Meyer’s rather silly novel has the same premise: extraterrestrial parasites travel from planet, seeking living entities as hosts. In contrast to POWER OF STARS, however, THE HOST works (sort of) because the reader sympathizes with the unexpected tenderness that develops between human host and alien. In contrast, the reader neither identifies with, nor feels the slightest affection for, anyone in POWER OF STARS.