Cordelia Strube writes sharp-edged, very funny novels.

The title character in Strube's new book, Lemon (Coach House Books), is a teenager with a big mouth and a razor tongue. Her friends are obsessed with sex, drugs and violence, and the adults around her are incompetent, in one way or another. Thinks Lemon, "Sometimes I want to kill people but I don't think that qualifies as clinical depression."

Strube stands by her character. "She's completely fearless in her opinions, which not many of us are anymore.

"I just love her, but then I love all my characters," adds Strube, who teaches at Ryerson University. "She does horrible things, but then, so do many characters we love. I tell my students, 'I don't care if I like your character, I just have to know what they're like.'"

Lemon lives in a pretty dark world. Her stepmother, a high-school principal, was stabbed in school. A schoolmate is bullied and sexually assaulted.

"All the violence I took from real incidents," Strube says. "I read about a principal getting stabbed and thought, 'My God. That shit does happen all the time.' I really wanted to look at the violence and see how desensitized young people are becoming to it.

"I'd like to say I made that stuff up but I didn't.

"Why are any of us harsh?" Strube asks. "We're afraid. Every time Lemon's revealed herself, she's been hurt. She's learned early on she can't count on the adults in her life."

By the end of the novel, Lemon has figured out a thing or two and is ready to start again.

"You know what you do to characters?" Strube asks. "You set them up and tear them to shreds. Then you reach out your hand."

. . .

Bunny Munro is coarse, confident, deluded and profoundly, hilariously priapic. He's obsessed with female genitalia.

He's the, um, hero of the terrific new novel by musician, songwriter and intellectual Nick Cave, the Bad Seed himself. The Death of Bunny Munro (Harper Collins) covers the same themes as Cave's music - sex, tragedy and very dark humour - with the same intelligence and panache.

Bunny is a traveling salesman of beauty products in the south of England. After his long-suffering wife dies suddenly (his best mate's girlfriend gives him a mercy fuck after the wake), Bunny has to figure out what to do with his son, Bunny Jr. The two Bunnys go on a road trip so the old man can show his adoring kid the ropes. Things go awfully, screamingly awry.

If you read the book (and I think you should), you'll see why Cave thanks Kylie Minogue and Avril Lavigne, with "love, respect and apologies."