Alyzon Whitestarr by Isobelle Carmody is a 2005 paranormal young adult fiction novel with broad ranging themes including the power of creativity and the senses, asylum seekers, good versus evil, and living with disability.

Alyzon Whitestarr was just an ordinary kid in a family of artists and musicians. An accident leaves her in a coma for a month and when she wakes she discovers she’s developed extrasensory perception. Colours are more vibrant, her memory is sharper and she can read people using her sense of smell.

The deepest wounds aren’t the ones we get from other people hurting us. They are the wounds we give ourselves when we hurt other people.

Her father smells of caramelised sugar and coffee grounds, her best friend Gilly smells of an ocean breeze, and the cutest boy in school smells of something rancid or rotting. Alyzon discovers that an evil virus that preys on people’s souls is what causes the rancid odour, and that the spreaders of the illness are after her family. She rallies the help of her kind hearted (and sweet smelling) friends to fight the wrongness that is infecting people and to try to save her family.

I did enjoy Alyzon Whitestarr, in part I think because is has echoes of a book I loved in my childhood called The Forgotten Door about a boy with extrasensory perception who could read people’s minds and talk to animals. Alyzon Whitestarr has held well despite being written almost twenty years ago, though young people might find the rarity of the mobile phone a bit strange.