I had to change my list a little for my Graphic Novel section because the only copy of Runaways: Pride and Joy was stolen from the library last year and I didn't want to pay for one book. But a friend of mine gave me another option. The Young Avengers. And thankfully my library had volumes 1, 2 and Civil War which includes the Runaways.
I have Vol. 1 five stars, Vol. 2. four stars, and Civil War three stars because though it involved the Runaways, the story was hard to follow and the artwork bugged me.
I really enjoyed vol. 1 and 2 because it incorporated the original Marvel characters and then also brought in a scrappy group of new characters who are pretty awesome. You have Hawkeye, Patriot, Wiccan, Hulkling, and Speed. The story is a pretty basic plotline where the Avengers had disabanded and in their wake these young heroes show up to pick up the slack, which makes both the Avengers and their parents angry.
Marvel has gotten a fair amount of backlash over the fact that they had no gay superheroes until about the last 1980's as far as I can tell. Then they slowly started to integrate them in, but still got backlash for not being as awesome at creating gay characters as DC (that's what I've read, I'm still a little behind on that research) and only recently has there been a new gay superhero who has had his own comic, but I don't really know what's going on with him either. What I did discover was that a lot of comic readers didn't like the inclusion of Teddy (Hulkling) and Billy (Wiccan-his name used to be Asguardian but when people found out about him being gay there was the worry of them making fun of his name and he changed it to Wiccan). Many readers were okay with them being gay, but didn't like the fact that their relationship seemed "transparent".
I liked their story, despite what other people said. That may have been because I don't know much about any other character relationships or how things work in the Marvel universe, but I liked them. I thought it was nice that they were already in a relationship when the story started and that yes, they were gay, but there were bigger picture issues to deal with including Patriot's drug problem, Hulkling's paternity, the fact that Wiccan and his brother (who later joined as Speed) were part of a bigger conspiracy.
The stories were great and I liked the art (except in one section where they looked way too young and shiny. It was a weird art style) but all in all I thought that it was great. I loved the part in the series when the boys are about to tell Billy's parents they're superheroes and trip over their words instead the parents basically misinterpret what they're trying to say and instead hug them, telling them "Oh! We already knew you two were in a relationship, we were just waiting for you to tell us. Welcome to the family Teddy!" It was cute and sweet and I didn't think it was strained at all. I'm still waiting to get my hands on Children's Crusade so maybe something happens in there that made people mad, but as far as I could tell I liked the fact that the boys were gay and in a relationship.
I didn't like the Young Avenger's crossover with Runaways though. The Runaways series is a lot darker than the Young Avengers and it has a weird art style that I didn't really like. But it's a big more diverse in the fact that one of their characters is transgender (not by choice but whatever) and the fact that that character's girlfriend stayed with him/her after the change even though she wasn't considered lesbian to begin with. It basically showed that attraction and love can span even the greatest of changes. But I just wasn't moved by it. I spent the majority of this comic going "okay... and I still have no idea what's going on, can the Young Avengers just come back already?"
In the end I thought the Young Avengers was a great comic, I loved Billy and Teddy, and the female characters, though typically built like female comic book women, didn't bug me as much as they usually do.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
There Are No Words for Proxy by Alex London
Through this list of books I've somehow managed to find books that I either love to death or books that I hate with a fiery passion (I'm looking at you Almost Perfect). Proxy falls into the first category.
This book was designed to be just like any other YA novel with a character who was nothing special, an orphan, basically take a dystopian trope and Proxy fits it. But that's what makes this book so awesome. Proxy is basically a regular YA novel that just happens to have a gay protagonist. He's basically the equivalent of Tris or Katniss but gay and black, which is even better. There's even a ton of Jewish aspects to the story, including the part that Syd, the Proxy, is carrying something called Yovel, a virus meant to bring on the Jubilee--the forgiving of all debts.
I loved everything about this book. The first three chapters were hard to understand, but they set up the tone of the world and from there everything just fell into place. It was fast paced, the characters of Syd and Knox were beautiful. Syd was in a crappy place in life but instead of moping around he was sassy and sarcastic but willing to help those in need. When he was hurt because his Patron, Knox, did something stupid he refused to let them see him cry. He had a great inner strength. Knox is the typical bad boy who made stupid decisions and even got a girl "killed". What I loved about him was that he may have seemed like a straight jock, he later revealed himself to be of the "anything goes" mindset meaning that he was more than willing to flirt and kiss Syd as he was willing to flirt and kiss Marie. It made him interesting and while he was fairly superficial at the beginning, he really did grow over a short 76 hour or so period into someone that I grew to love.
The side characters were a little bland though. Marie was nice but didn't have much of a personality other than being a Causegirl who wanted to bring on the Jubilee. Egan, Syd's friend, had some good points, but he really wasn't all that interesting. He existed just to move Syd and Knox from one place to another and then get killed. The villains were very reminiscent of the Erudite leader from the Divergent Trilogy and honestly the story seemed to move very fast at the end, but it all came together very nicely and left space for the second book which is coming out this year and it left me desperate to find out what the hell happened to Knox.
All in all I loved this book. I loved the futuristic aspect, I loved the fact that this book has the potential to appeal to both male and female readers, I loved the fact that Syd was gay and that his sexuality wasn't part of the story. He just happened to be a gay kid who was bound for greatness. I loved the fact that this story had Jewish elements because that seems to be something you don't see in YA novels. If there's anything remotely religious in the teen novel it tends to be something like Catholicism but even then it's really not there.
This book is filled with so many things to reach a diverse group of readers who may have otherwise felt alienated from the YA genre. I hope to see more books coming out like this one. Also, it's published by Philomel books, which is an imprint of Penguin Books. In the end I give this book a full five stars and I've already preordered the next book, Guardian, out May 29th.
This book was designed to be just like any other YA novel with a character who was nothing special, an orphan, basically take a dystopian trope and Proxy fits it. But that's what makes this book so awesome. Proxy is basically a regular YA novel that just happens to have a gay protagonist. He's basically the equivalent of Tris or Katniss but gay and black, which is even better. There's even a ton of Jewish aspects to the story, including the part that Syd, the Proxy, is carrying something called Yovel, a virus meant to bring on the Jubilee--the forgiving of all debts.
I loved everything about this book. The first three chapters were hard to understand, but they set up the tone of the world and from there everything just fell into place. It was fast paced, the characters of Syd and Knox were beautiful. Syd was in a crappy place in life but instead of moping around he was sassy and sarcastic but willing to help those in need. When he was hurt because his Patron, Knox, did something stupid he refused to let them see him cry. He had a great inner strength. Knox is the typical bad boy who made stupid decisions and even got a girl "killed". What I loved about him was that he may have seemed like a straight jock, he later revealed himself to be of the "anything goes" mindset meaning that he was more than willing to flirt and kiss Syd as he was willing to flirt and kiss Marie. It made him interesting and while he was fairly superficial at the beginning, he really did grow over a short 76 hour or so period into someone that I grew to love.
The side characters were a little bland though. Marie was nice but didn't have much of a personality other than being a Causegirl who wanted to bring on the Jubilee. Egan, Syd's friend, had some good points, but he really wasn't all that interesting. He existed just to move Syd and Knox from one place to another and then get killed. The villains were very reminiscent of the Erudite leader from the Divergent Trilogy and honestly the story seemed to move very fast at the end, but it all came together very nicely and left space for the second book which is coming out this year and it left me desperate to find out what the hell happened to Knox.
All in all I loved this book. I loved the futuristic aspect, I loved the fact that this book has the potential to appeal to both male and female readers, I loved the fact that Syd was gay and that his sexuality wasn't part of the story. He just happened to be a gay kid who was bound for greatness. I loved the fact that this story had Jewish elements because that seems to be something you don't see in YA novels. If there's anything remotely religious in the teen novel it tends to be something like Catholicism but even then it's really not there.
This book is filled with so many things to reach a diverse group of readers who may have otherwise felt alienated from the YA genre. I hope to see more books coming out like this one. Also, it's published by Philomel books, which is an imprint of Penguin Books. In the end I give this book a full five stars and I've already preordered the next book, Guardian, out May 29th.
Monday, March 3, 2014
Why Would Someone Do This to Sage?: Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher
"No one likes a martyr. You're a self centered ass-hole, but this wasn't your fault.
Everything between the beginning and the ending of this book was complete and total insanity and so freaking problematic. Also, it kinda crushed my soul. Seeing Sage say the phrase "I tried and I failed" killed me like no other. It was hard to deal with the last few chapters of this damn book and I really wanted to put it in the freezer (F.R.I.E.N.D.S style).
I'm going to start off with my rating and go from there. I'm giving this book two ratings actually. One is for the story overall and the other is for what kind of message it's sending.For characters and story I'm giving this book 2.5 stars out of 5. For the message I give this book 5 out of 5 stars.
I didn't rate this as 2.5 stars because it was a horrible book. The writing was really good and the character development was pretty awesome once you realize that Katcher was writing Logan as an asshole and that's not how he sees everyone. The fact that he had other characters in the book that could grasp the situation and explain in the way pro trans* advocates would, shows that he knows what he was talking about.
I'm rating the book this way because it tore at my soul, I hated Logan, Sage's actions often pissed me off, and I just desperately wanted it to end. Doesn't mean it's not realistic though. I appreciate it, I just did not like it. I'm never going to read it again and I won't stop someone from reading it either. I just really disliked it, but not enough to give it three or more stars.
I talked to a friend who heard him talk at an ALA conference about this book. He wrote it for a 'gotcha' effect. Brian Katcher, a straight author, wrote Almost Perfect with the intent of making it a love story that would draw in straight readers (and hopefully open minded readers) of a story about a boy falling in love with a quirky new girl named Sage and then hit them with BAM! Sage is a boy! The publishers ruined that though, by spoiling the secret of the front cover, which ruined the effect and made this from a love story into a story about a straight boy dealing with love towards a trans* girl.
I really don't want to get bogged down talking about the intricacies of the book. The story is pretty straightforward and honestly everything goes to shit when Sage tells Logan. Since the story is told from Logan's perspective so we get a lot of his angsting, working through intense homophobia, listening to his narcissistic ramblings, and screaming at his ambivalent actions. He's really not a likeable character except during the first three chapters and a few scenes afterwards.
When Sage reveals herself to him, he threatens to punch her, then works through his anger. Then he ostrocizes her, and then is like 'okay, we can be friends' then he gets jealous when he sees her with other guys and has sex with her, and then when his sister sees her penis (she hasn't gone through the full transition) he freaks out and tells her to leave him alone because he doesn't want to be a fag. And then she gets beaten up and he rushed to her aid and freaks out when she admits that she's going to give up being a girl because it's not worth it and he freaks out again saying that she can't give it up, it's who she is! His character development is mind-boggling and kind of intricate but I still hate him, even though he went on this big life change of acceptance he's still douche-y. For the majority of the book he acts like everything is happening to him, like the universe is out to get him and cause him heartache.
Sage herself is an interesting character. She's tough and strong personality wise, but very willing to be pushed around emotionally by douche-y mcdoucherson, AKA; Logan. She really is female, she feels like she was born in the wrong skin and does her best to embody her gender, even after the first guy she's ever liked hates her for her genitals. It's only when she's physically beaten for them that she decides to give up. It's not worth the hatred and pain to even try anymore and she is institutionalized and tells Logan that she's just going to be a man. And considering the fact that she almost killed herself when she wanted to be a woman and her father told her he wished she'd never been born (and only uses masculine pronouns with her) you know that there's a very large chance that she might try to kill herself again. I'm glad that she tells Logan and the reader that she won't change, but that she wouldn't be with Logan or wait for him. I'm also glad that Logan finally pulled his head out of his ass to realize that not everything was about him and that he shouldn't put his happiness on other people.
Sage and Logan are perfect examples of hatred, trans*phobia, and what society can do to people, how it can shape, build, and even destroy the strongest willed of people. That's why this book hurt the most, because it displayed some of the highest forms of pain that can be delivered to a person, just because they decide to go against the norm. That's why I gave the message 5 stars. It's a tough story told from an unconventional point of view. Usually these stories are told from the point of view of characters who are already marginally open minded, so having it told from a stereotypical American jock p.o.v. made that all the more intense and poignant. This is not a happy book, but it's definitely a book filled with a very strong message and deserves the Stonewall award that it won. But I'm never reading it again if I don't have to.
Everything between the beginning and the ending of this book was complete and total insanity and so freaking problematic. Also, it kinda crushed my soul. Seeing Sage say the phrase "I tried and I failed" killed me like no other. It was hard to deal with the last few chapters of this damn book and I really wanted to put it in the freezer (F.R.I.E.N.D.S style).
I'm going to start off with my rating and go from there. I'm giving this book two ratings actually. One is for the story overall and the other is for what kind of message it's sending.For characters and story I'm giving this book 2.5 stars out of 5. For the message I give this book 5 out of 5 stars.
I didn't rate this as 2.5 stars because it was a horrible book. The writing was really good and the character development was pretty awesome once you realize that Katcher was writing Logan as an asshole and that's not how he sees everyone. The fact that he had other characters in the book that could grasp the situation and explain in the way pro trans* advocates would, shows that he knows what he was talking about.
I'm rating the book this way because it tore at my soul, I hated Logan, Sage's actions often pissed me off, and I just desperately wanted it to end. Doesn't mean it's not realistic though. I appreciate it, I just did not like it. I'm never going to read it again and I won't stop someone from reading it either. I just really disliked it, but not enough to give it three or more stars.
I talked to a friend who heard him talk at an ALA conference about this book. He wrote it for a 'gotcha' effect. Brian Katcher, a straight author, wrote Almost Perfect with the intent of making it a love story that would draw in straight readers (and hopefully open minded readers) of a story about a boy falling in love with a quirky new girl named Sage and then hit them with BAM! Sage is a boy! The publishers ruined that though, by spoiling the secret of the front cover, which ruined the effect and made this from a love story into a story about a straight boy dealing with love towards a trans* girl.
I really don't want to get bogged down talking about the intricacies of the book. The story is pretty straightforward and honestly everything goes to shit when Sage tells Logan. Since the story is told from Logan's perspective so we get a lot of his angsting, working through intense homophobia, listening to his narcissistic ramblings, and screaming at his ambivalent actions. He's really not a likeable character except during the first three chapters and a few scenes afterwards.
When Sage reveals herself to him, he threatens to punch her, then works through his anger. Then he ostrocizes her, and then is like 'okay, we can be friends' then he gets jealous when he sees her with other guys and has sex with her, and then when his sister sees her penis (she hasn't gone through the full transition) he freaks out and tells her to leave him alone because he doesn't want to be a fag. And then she gets beaten up and he rushed to her aid and freaks out when she admits that she's going to give up being a girl because it's not worth it and he freaks out again saying that she can't give it up, it's who she is! His character development is mind-boggling and kind of intricate but I still hate him, even though he went on this big life change of acceptance he's still douche-y. For the majority of the book he acts like everything is happening to him, like the universe is out to get him and cause him heartache.
Sage herself is an interesting character. She's tough and strong personality wise, but very willing to be pushed around emotionally by douche-y mcdoucherson, AKA; Logan. She really is female, she feels like she was born in the wrong skin and does her best to embody her gender, even after the first guy she's ever liked hates her for her genitals. It's only when she's physically beaten for them that she decides to give up. It's not worth the hatred and pain to even try anymore and she is institutionalized and tells Logan that she's just going to be a man. And considering the fact that she almost killed herself when she wanted to be a woman and her father told her he wished she'd never been born (and only uses masculine pronouns with her) you know that there's a very large chance that she might try to kill herself again. I'm glad that she tells Logan and the reader that she won't change, but that she wouldn't be with Logan or wait for him. I'm also glad that Logan finally pulled his head out of his ass to realize that not everything was about him and that he shouldn't put his happiness on other people.
Sage and Logan are perfect examples of hatred, trans*phobia, and what society can do to people, how it can shape, build, and even destroy the strongest willed of people. That's why this book hurt the most, because it displayed some of the highest forms of pain that can be delivered to a person, just because they decide to go against the norm. That's why I gave the message 5 stars. It's a tough story told from an unconventional point of view. Usually these stories are told from the point of view of characters who are already marginally open minded, so having it told from a stereotypical American jock p.o.v. made that all the more intense and poignant. This is not a happy book, but it's definitely a book filled with a very strong message and deserves the Stonewall award that it won. But I'm never reading it again if I don't have to.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
A Plane Full of Beauty Queens Crashes on a Deserted Island. Aaaannd.....Go!: Beauty Queens by Libba Bray
What is it with me and excessively long post titles? Oh well, they're fun.
Also, I'm skipping around a little with my next couple books. I just had access to this book and I wanted to start it. Especially after I found out that David Levithan was her editor.
So, let me start off with: I really liked this book. It was fun. Every single aspect of this book was as sarcastic as possible (sometimes the sarcasm was a little too much, but usually the end result was totally worth it) and formatted in a pretty entertaining way. I listed to part of it on audiobook and found out it was read by the author who was so in tune with her characters that she knew exactly how she wanted them to sound.
The premise itself was pretty straight forward. A plane carrying 50 girls crashes on its way to have the girls film promotional stuff for the "Miss Teen Dream" Beauty Pageant. But something happens and they go down, leaving only twelve survivors. The story is basically Miss Congeniality meets Lost meets Kim Jung Il and Sara Palin.
The essential idea is that the girls are part of a scandal to take down MoMo ChaCha--a dictator--through corporate espionage by using the girls as press when "the dictator" or people that work for the Corporation (the all seeing Big Brother type business that produces all aspects of low culture including beauty products and reality TV). The Sara Palin character, LadyBird Hope, is hoping to use the takedown of MoMo (and the "tragic" death of the girls as a way of gaining power and taking the presidency. So, as you can tell, this entire book is a giant commentary (complete with footnotes) about the corruption of politics and big businesses and how all these things are in bed together. Also it's about girls screwing the patriarchy through girl power, coming into their own, and accepting one another for who they are while empowering other girls to do the same.
But I don't want to focus on the politics. Instead I want to focus on the girls.
The role call goes as such: "Of the fifty states, only twelve girl representatives were accounted for, including Miss California, Shanti Singh; Miss Michigan, Jennifer Huberman; and Miss Rhode Island, Petra West, who, ironically, was the biggest girl in the pageant at nearly six feet. Some girls argued over whether the death of Miss Massachusetts --- favored by bookies to win the whole thing --- meant that the competition would never feel entirely fair."
There's also Adina (New Jersey) who entered the competition to write about it. She calls herself the Che Guevara of Beauty Pageants. Mary Lou from Montana who's rather sweet and considers herself a wild girl if not contained (think sexually active werewolf... without all the extra hair), Sosi from Illinois, Nicole from California, and Miss Texas; Taylor. Taylor is the quintessential beauty queen character from Texas stereotype. She's into guns and very much adheres to the idea of a non-feminist doctrine and basically lives by the Miss Teen Dream manual.
I found four girls in this group the most interesting, and relevant to my studies: Sosie, Jennifer, Petra, and Taylor.
Jennifer and Sosie are pretty straight forward. Sosie is deaf and spends a lot of the book speaking loudly while Jennifer is a juvie kid who was put into this program because the Corporation thought it would be good to have a reformed bad girl. Jennifer seems to initially be the stereotypical "butch" lesbian with the fact that she's rather masculine in her actions and words and she's obsessed with comic books. She forms an attraction to Sosie immediately and they become inseparable. Their side story consists of Sosie wondering if she actually likes Jennifer or if she's just in this because she wants to be Jennifer's best friend. The inclusion of their story was very important, at least to me... even if I couldn't deal with how much the author yelled when she did Sosie's voice. The fact that Jennifer showed a very healthy mix of masculine and feminine attributes (she was the first to offer the option of 'Girl Con' to empower women in all forms of their life) and an openness in her sexuality, even when the Corporation was trying to shut her down is a strong statement that gay female characters can have good story line and remain strong in their sexuality without beating the reader over the head with it.
Petra. Dear Petra. I don't think I've ever found a character so very endearing. Petra (SPOILERS) was a boy. A boy in a Corporation boy band. She was kicked out of the band after it was discovered his inner self was more feminine than masculine. She was offered to have her transition surgery costs paid off if she joined the Miss Teen Dream Pageant, got into the top ten, and then revealed herself afterwards as a pointed message about gender and sexuality roles in these overly feminine pageants. She has the best personality of all the girls, being very down to earth and sure in her femininity and thankfully, like all the girls, she gets a happy ending. When a boat full of hot pirates (another Corporation reality show) lands on the island she immediately wins over the slightly lecherous captain and is surprised when he's incredibly accepting of her gender. The entire reason Petra was created was to lend a voice to trans* people in literature. Usually trans* characters face massive amounts of opposition in literature so the presence of Petra was to show a very strong trans* character in a position where she was able to find love in another person who saw and accepted her as she was. Her story was wonderful and I appreciated the fact that Libba Bray created her and made her very real.
Finally I want to discuss Taylor. Out of all the characters she had the biggest change, being the fact that when they arrived on the island she insisted they keep up their show regiment because they had an obligation as women to give a great show. She honestly seems like a feminist's nightmare, but when Petra's true self is reveled her response is to quote the Miss Teen Dream handbook and state that it doesn't have a clear "no" about trans* people so Petra could stay because she obviously wants to be a girl and she should be allowed that right, since be a woman is awesome. She doesn't seem to take offense at Petra's gender or even Jennifer and Sosie's relationship and instead shows that even the most overly fanatical people can be accepting--even though Taylor's reasons were a little over the top. But I still loved her. Especially after she went insane and took to living in the woods and killing Corporation workers to protect the girls and the integrity of the Miss Teen Dream name while taking their weapons and hiding them under her mud and stick statue called Miss Miss.
Tl;dr: the end idea is that each female character represented a stereotype of women in media and how they're treated. Putting them on an island created a more female power situation rather than a Lord of the Flies situation. Though a lot of stuff is shoved into this book, the real story in this book is the story each girl carries with her and what she stands for. I gave this book a 4.5 out of 5 basically because sometimes the sarcasm got to be a bit much and I couldn't stand the MoMo ChaCha and LadyBird storyline... though it was worth it to listen to her voice read in the best Sara Palin accent... next to Tina Fay's.
Also, I'm skipping around a little with my next couple books. I just had access to this book and I wanted to start it. Especially after I found out that David Levithan was her editor.
So, let me start off with: I really liked this book. It was fun. Every single aspect of this book was as sarcastic as possible (sometimes the sarcasm was a little too much, but usually the end result was totally worth it) and formatted in a pretty entertaining way. I listed to part of it on audiobook and found out it was read by the author who was so in tune with her characters that she knew exactly how she wanted them to sound.
The premise itself was pretty straight forward. A plane carrying 50 girls crashes on its way to have the girls film promotional stuff for the "Miss Teen Dream" Beauty Pageant. But something happens and they go down, leaving only twelve survivors. The story is basically Miss Congeniality meets Lost meets Kim Jung Il and Sara Palin.
The essential idea is that the girls are part of a scandal to take down MoMo ChaCha--a dictator--through corporate espionage by using the girls as press when "the dictator" or people that work for the Corporation (the all seeing Big Brother type business that produces all aspects of low culture including beauty products and reality TV). The Sara Palin character, LadyBird Hope, is hoping to use the takedown of MoMo (and the "tragic" death of the girls as a way of gaining power and taking the presidency. So, as you can tell, this entire book is a giant commentary (complete with footnotes) about the corruption of politics and big businesses and how all these things are in bed together. Also it's about girls screwing the patriarchy through girl power, coming into their own, and accepting one another for who they are while empowering other girls to do the same.
But I don't want to focus on the politics. Instead I want to focus on the girls.
The role call goes as such: "Of the fifty states, only twelve girl representatives were accounted for, including Miss California, Shanti Singh; Miss Michigan, Jennifer Huberman; and Miss Rhode Island, Petra West, who, ironically, was the biggest girl in the pageant at nearly six feet. Some girls argued over whether the death of Miss Massachusetts --- favored by bookies to win the whole thing --- meant that the competition would never feel entirely fair."
There's also Adina (New Jersey) who entered the competition to write about it. She calls herself the Che Guevara of Beauty Pageants. Mary Lou from Montana who's rather sweet and considers herself a wild girl if not contained (think sexually active werewolf... without all the extra hair), Sosi from Illinois, Nicole from California, and Miss Texas; Taylor. Taylor is the quintessential beauty queen character from Texas stereotype. She's into guns and very much adheres to the idea of a non-feminist doctrine and basically lives by the Miss Teen Dream manual.
I found four girls in this group the most interesting, and relevant to my studies: Sosie, Jennifer, Petra, and Taylor.
Jennifer and Sosie are pretty straight forward. Sosie is deaf and spends a lot of the book speaking loudly while Jennifer is a juvie kid who was put into this program because the Corporation thought it would be good to have a reformed bad girl. Jennifer seems to initially be the stereotypical "butch" lesbian with the fact that she's rather masculine in her actions and words and she's obsessed with comic books. She forms an attraction to Sosie immediately and they become inseparable. Their side story consists of Sosie wondering if she actually likes Jennifer or if she's just in this because she wants to be Jennifer's best friend. The inclusion of their story was very important, at least to me... even if I couldn't deal with how much the author yelled when she did Sosie's voice. The fact that Jennifer showed a very healthy mix of masculine and feminine attributes (she was the first to offer the option of 'Girl Con' to empower women in all forms of their life) and an openness in her sexuality, even when the Corporation was trying to shut her down is a strong statement that gay female characters can have good story line and remain strong in their sexuality without beating the reader over the head with it.
Petra. Dear Petra. I don't think I've ever found a character so very endearing. Petra (SPOILERS) was a boy. A boy in a Corporation boy band. She was kicked out of the band after it was discovered his inner self was more feminine than masculine. She was offered to have her transition surgery costs paid off if she joined the Miss Teen Dream Pageant, got into the top ten, and then revealed herself afterwards as a pointed message about gender and sexuality roles in these overly feminine pageants. She has the best personality of all the girls, being very down to earth and sure in her femininity and thankfully, like all the girls, she gets a happy ending. When a boat full of hot pirates (another Corporation reality show) lands on the island she immediately wins over the slightly lecherous captain and is surprised when he's incredibly accepting of her gender. The entire reason Petra was created was to lend a voice to trans* people in literature. Usually trans* characters face massive amounts of opposition in literature so the presence of Petra was to show a very strong trans* character in a position where she was able to find love in another person who saw and accepted her as she was. Her story was wonderful and I appreciated the fact that Libba Bray created her and made her very real.
Finally I want to discuss Taylor. Out of all the characters she had the biggest change, being the fact that when they arrived on the island she insisted they keep up their show regiment because they had an obligation as women to give a great show. She honestly seems like a feminist's nightmare, but when Petra's true self is reveled her response is to quote the Miss Teen Dream handbook and state that it doesn't have a clear "no" about trans* people so Petra could stay because she obviously wants to be a girl and she should be allowed that right, since be a woman is awesome. She doesn't seem to take offense at Petra's gender or even Jennifer and Sosie's relationship and instead shows that even the most overly fanatical people can be accepting--even though Taylor's reasons were a little over the top. But I still loved her. Especially after she went insane and took to living in the woods and killing Corporation workers to protect the girls and the integrity of the Miss Teen Dream name while taking their weapons and hiding them under her mud and stick statue called Miss Miss.
Tl;dr: the end idea is that each female character represented a stereotype of women in media and how they're treated. Putting them on an island created a more female power situation rather than a Lord of the Flies situation. Though a lot of stuff is shoved into this book, the real story in this book is the story each girl carries with her and what she stands for. I gave this book a 4.5 out of 5 basically because sometimes the sarcasm got to be a bit much and I couldn't stand the MoMo ChaCha and LadyBird storyline... though it was worth it to listen to her voice read in the best Sara Palin accent... next to Tina Fay's.
Monday, February 17, 2014
Premises, Premises: Boy Meets Boy, by David Levithan.
I'm going to preface this post with a small note about how desperately I wanted to like this book. I love David Levithan ever since I read Everyday. I thought, sweet! Boy Meets Boy. It feels like a cute Valentines Day book and knowing Levithan's style of writing it won't be heavy handed or anything like that. And it really wasn't, but then again, it kinda was with how overly utopiotic it felt.
So, thinking of it that way, Boy Meets Boy was a bit of a let down.
Putting aside my love for David Levithan... it was still a little bit of a let down.
I've noticed that Levithan is a fan of premises. Most can be summed up in a sentence or two. Everyday: 'A' wakes up every morning in the body of a different person until 'A' falls in love with the Manic Pixie Dream girl trope. Will Grayson, Will Grayson: Two boys with the same name meet and it all leads to the world's most amazing musical. He's a friend of Libba Bray and was the inspiration for her story "Beauty Queens" which I'll cover later on in my readings. But in an interview she said one day he turned to her and said, "A plane full of beauty queens crashes on an island. Aaand.... go."
Boy Meets Boy is definitely one of his pet premise stories set up as a love story that takes place in a utopian society where almost everyone is accepted for who they are. Everything in this book is basically a unicorn tail. All rainbows and sparkles. The quarterback is a drag queen named Infinite Darlene and she's also homecoming queen. Vegetarians overtook the McDonalds and turned it into a Veggie D's. Homosexuality is almost completely accepted by the entire population (by everyone except the religious nuts). The list goes on.
Paul is the narrator of the story who is openly out (ever since his second grade teacher made the note that he was 'DEFINITELY GAY. and had a 'WONDERFUL SENSE OF SELF'). He meets Noah in a quirky way and they immediately fall into infatuation before Paul's ex-bf Kyle shows up and tries to win him back. It's basically a rom com.
It took me forever to figure out what was wrong with it, and then it finally hit me: It's a fan fiction.
Boy Meets Boy is basically David Levithan's version of fan fiction. It has a quick romantic build up between the two main characters, a wrench in the form of another boy, quirky outside characters that don't seem to completely fit, and a random song that filled up a few pages. So, in the end it's either a fan fiction or it's a John Hughes film. I honestly can't decide.
It's interesting to actually study this book though. In my pop culture class we've been discussing the four romantic comedy sub-plots and honestly this showed all the ear marks of a redemption and a pursuit plot. Which is interesting because that would mean that Noah is the one being pursued while Paul is the one who needs to be redeemed, turning this into a hetero-normative romcom played out as an LGBT love story. Which, if you think about it is kind of smart on Levithan's part, since he always hides a message about equality and love in his books.
In the end I really don't know how I feel about it. I can tell that Levithan was trying to create a book for gay readers that would be just like any other "straight book" but something about it felt off. Like he was trying too hard to create some form of utopia for his readers that felt a little too forced. I did like Paul and his love with Noah was cute and everything about the entire book was cute. Everyone was happy and cute. Overall I'm going to give this a 3.5 for a rating just because it felt weirdly forced and not quite... right. It's hard to explain what I'm not satisfied with it other than it just wasn't... enough...
So, thinking of it that way, Boy Meets Boy was a bit of a let down.
Putting aside my love for David Levithan... it was still a little bit of a let down.
I've noticed that Levithan is a fan of premises. Most can be summed up in a sentence or two. Everyday: 'A' wakes up every morning in the body of a different person until 'A' falls in love with the Manic Pixie Dream girl trope. Will Grayson, Will Grayson: Two boys with the same name meet and it all leads to the world's most amazing musical. He's a friend of Libba Bray and was the inspiration for her story "Beauty Queens" which I'll cover later on in my readings. But in an interview she said one day he turned to her and said, "A plane full of beauty queens crashes on an island. Aaand.... go."
Boy Meets Boy is definitely one of his pet premise stories set up as a love story that takes place in a utopian society where almost everyone is accepted for who they are. Everything in this book is basically a unicorn tail. All rainbows and sparkles. The quarterback is a drag queen named Infinite Darlene and she's also homecoming queen. Vegetarians overtook the McDonalds and turned it into a Veggie D's. Homosexuality is almost completely accepted by the entire population (by everyone except the religious nuts). The list goes on.
Paul is the narrator of the story who is openly out (ever since his second grade teacher made the note that he was 'DEFINITELY GAY. and had a 'WONDERFUL SENSE OF SELF'). He meets Noah in a quirky way and they immediately fall into infatuation before Paul's ex-bf Kyle shows up and tries to win him back. It's basically a rom com.
It took me forever to figure out what was wrong with it, and then it finally hit me: It's a fan fiction.
Boy Meets Boy is basically David Levithan's version of fan fiction. It has a quick romantic build up between the two main characters, a wrench in the form of another boy, quirky outside characters that don't seem to completely fit, and a random song that filled up a few pages. So, in the end it's either a fan fiction or it's a John Hughes film. I honestly can't decide.
It's interesting to actually study this book though. In my pop culture class we've been discussing the four romantic comedy sub-plots and honestly this showed all the ear marks of a redemption and a pursuit plot. Which is interesting because that would mean that Noah is the one being pursued while Paul is the one who needs to be redeemed, turning this into a hetero-normative romcom played out as an LGBT love story. Which, if you think about it is kind of smart on Levithan's part, since he always hides a message about equality and love in his books.
In the end I really don't know how I feel about it. I can tell that Levithan was trying to create a book for gay readers that would be just like any other "straight book" but something about it felt off. Like he was trying too hard to create some form of utopia for his readers that felt a little too forced. I did like Paul and his love with Noah was cute and everything about the entire book was cute. Everyone was happy and cute. Overall I'm going to give this a 3.5 for a rating just because it felt weirdly forced and not quite... right. It's hard to explain what I'm not satisfied with it other than it just wasn't... enough...
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Catcher in the Rye.
So evidently, I am a blog slacker, but I promise I have been doing some major reading. In fact, I found this fabulous book at the library which analyzes the adolescent woman in literature. It is so helpful for my thesis/idea for this class. It's got a fair amount of psychoanalysis in it, and basically I am in love with it.
I am not however, in love with The Catcher in the Rye. I know it's a classic read for high school kids, but I just can't like it. The only thing I did enjoy was Holden's sarcasm. It felt like a rip off of Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise. Also, it was not particularly helpful in discovering how adolescent women view their bodies. It was helpful in how men view them, as sexual objects, which we already knew. Nonetheless, I wanted to see how Jane felt about her body and how she dealt with her sexuality and body image. She attempts to tap into her sexuality with Holden, such as when she puts her hand on the back of his neck, but she is almost completely closed off when it comes to their relationship, which probably stems from the implied sexual abuse at the hands of her booze headed step father.
The way Phoebe travels back and forth between acting like a little kid and grown-up is remiscent of Holden himself. It's almost as though Phoebe's a younger version of himself; no wonder he wants to protect her so badly.
What is up with the butt-pinching? When Holden sneaks into Phoebe's room, he reaches out and gives her a "pinch on the behind. It was sticking way out in the breeze … She has hardly any behind" When he talks about other women's behinds he always calls them "butts" or "asses." And he spends a lot of time admiring Sally Hayes's cute little ass even if he thinks she's phony for twitching it around in front of him. So, when he pinches Phoebe's behind, is it sexual? Or is he just reassuring himself that she is still innocent?
So basically, book that are written with a male protagonist, are seemingly going to have a male POV towards women, and I'm not going to learn much about how they feel about themselves, because I am learning how the male characters view them. Which, now that I think about it, makes sense, but it's a tiny bit irritating. Added to the fact this book and I are not going to be headed to bed together any time soon.
I am not however, in love with The Catcher in the Rye. I know it's a classic read for high school kids, but I just can't like it. The only thing I did enjoy was Holden's sarcasm. It felt like a rip off of Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise. Also, it was not particularly helpful in discovering how adolescent women view their bodies. It was helpful in how men view them, as sexual objects, which we already knew. Nonetheless, I wanted to see how Jane felt about her body and how she dealt with her sexuality and body image. She attempts to tap into her sexuality with Holden, such as when she puts her hand on the back of his neck, but she is almost completely closed off when it comes to their relationship, which probably stems from the implied sexual abuse at the hands of her booze headed step father.
The way Phoebe travels back and forth between acting like a little kid and grown-up is remiscent of Holden himself. It's almost as though Phoebe's a younger version of himself; no wonder he wants to protect her so badly.
What is up with the butt-pinching? When Holden sneaks into Phoebe's room, he reaches out and gives her a "pinch on the behind. It was sticking way out in the breeze … She has hardly any behind" When he talks about other women's behinds he always calls them "butts" or "asses." And he spends a lot of time admiring Sally Hayes's cute little ass even if he thinks she's phony for twitching it around in front of him. So, when he pinches Phoebe's behind, is it sexual? Or is he just reassuring himself that she is still innocent?
So basically, book that are written with a male protagonist, are seemingly going to have a male POV towards women, and I'm not going to learn much about how they feel about themselves, because I am learning how the male characters view them. Which, now that I think about it, makes sense, but it's a tiny bit irritating. Added to the fact this book and I are not going to be headed to bed together any time soon.
Monday, February 10, 2014
The YA Genre: Themes and Tropes
It's been fun reading your posts about all the books you are reading. It seems like love--or at least the promise of love--is paramount to everything all three of you have read. It makes sense since love and relationships are central preoccupations for most teen readers.
Beyond love, though, what themes and tropes are common throughout these books? I've been immersed in my own reading (recall that my focus is on popular YA published since 2005). Here are the commonalities I've discovered so far:
- First-person narrators--A first-person narrator does personalize a story; however, it also limits the viewpoint so much. I suppose the narrator's myopic view of the world nicely replicates how readers feel. We're all narrating our own stories, obsessing about the details, and limited to the information we have in front of us.
- Love triangles--Oh, lord, the love triangles! It's hard to feel sorry for main characters who have to choose between two equally perfect males.
- Good girls and bad girls--The delineation is uncomfortably clear. It's that age-old stereotype: Good girls are worthy protagonists; bad girls have oral sex.
- Girls who are seemingly ordinary but are actually very special--I think that's a common fantasy for teen readers--that no one as yet recognized just how special they are. Fear of being average or ordinary is a huge trope that runs throughout many of these books.
- Parents who are clueless or neglectful--Getting rid of the parents (either by physically removing them or by making them too stupid or preoccupied to be good parents) allows teen characters to find their own way, just as readers are metaphorically separating themselves from their own parents.
YA definitely has a limited formula, but there's not much that separates it from adult fiction. What is it that makes a YA book YA? One obvious answer is where it's shelved in the library or bookstore. But if someone mysteriously unshelved all the YA and removed the labels, would we still be able to identify it? What would be our clues? Do we need the larger genre to understand the work these narratives are doing?
Beyond love, though, what themes and tropes are common throughout these books? I've been immersed in my own reading (recall that my focus is on popular YA published since 2005). Here are the commonalities I've discovered so far:
- First-person narrators--A first-person narrator does personalize a story; however, it also limits the viewpoint so much. I suppose the narrator's myopic view of the world nicely replicates how readers feel. We're all narrating our own stories, obsessing about the details, and limited to the information we have in front of us.
- Love triangles--Oh, lord, the love triangles! It's hard to feel sorry for main characters who have to choose between two equally perfect males.
- Good girls and bad girls--The delineation is uncomfortably clear. It's that age-old stereotype: Good girls are worthy protagonists; bad girls have oral sex.
- Girls who are seemingly ordinary but are actually very special--I think that's a common fantasy for teen readers--that no one as yet recognized just how special they are. Fear of being average or ordinary is a huge trope that runs throughout many of these books.
- Parents who are clueless or neglectful--Getting rid of the parents (either by physically removing them or by making them too stupid or preoccupied to be good parents) allows teen characters to find their own way, just as readers are metaphorically separating themselves from their own parents.
YA definitely has a limited formula, but there's not much that separates it from adult fiction. What is it that makes a YA book YA? One obvious answer is where it's shelved in the library or bookstore. But if someone mysteriously unshelved all the YA and removed the labels, would we still be able to identify it? What would be our clues? Do we need the larger genre to understand the work these narratives are doing?
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Ari, You're Fighting This War in the Worst Possible Way: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alre Saenz
"The problem with my life was that it was someone else’s idea."
Imagine a book with no clear plot. Imagine a book with little to no exposition. Imagine a book where the story wasn't about politics or sexual revolutions. Imagine a book about two boys raised in El Paso in the late 80's where they spend their summers saving birds, and each other.
I absolutely loved 'Aristotle and Dante...". The story is told from the point of Aristotle, or Ari, for short. Ari has a very straight forward point of view. He doesn't waste words on long explanations or descriptions of things. I think the majority of Ari's description goes into the description of his old Cherry Red Ford truck with Chrome. Anyway, Dante is described as a "lighter skinned Mexican" than Ari who considers himself a "Mexican", meaning that he's far more part of the culture than Dante, whose parent are a therapist and English professor. Dante even confesses to Ari that he doesn't like the fact that he's Mexican and seems to want to keep himself as far as he can from his culture.
A lot of issues are squeezed into 'Aristotle and Dante...' such as accepting race, social barriers, sexuality, gender, politics but for the most part they're not as big as they would seem. This story is told like a free form poem, but in verse. There's no major plot other than Aristotle just trying to get through the summer unscathed, which really doesn't happen. He meets Dante, who teaches him how to swim and over the course of the summer becomes his best friend, which is something neither kid has ever had.
I loved the way 'Aristotle and Dante...' treated sexuality and love. Nothing ever seemed to be forced. For the most part Ari was a angry kid with an older brother in prison, with no real understanding as to why he was there, fighting with the fact that he didn't know what to do with his life and living in self-doubt. He kept his emotions locked away which made him a stark comparison to Dante who was passionate about almost everything. He cried and read and drew and ran after kids who shot birds with BB guns. Through their many oppositions they peel away at one another's emotional layers until both are bare and exposed to the elements.
Ari's love story with Dante is a very powerful one driven by friendship and the love of their parents. Both Dante and Ari are blessed by devoted parents, though both sets are just as different as the boys. Dante's parents are loving and expressive, taking Ari under their wings immediately. Ari's parents are a little less 'together' in the sense that Ari's father is a returned Vietnam Vet, emotionally scarred and quiet, and his mother is sincere and insanely loyal to her husband and son. But they represent the deep bond that parents can share with their children and how far love can go.
For the most part a major theme in this book is that of loyalty. Loyalty in love and friendship and how far love and loyalty can go. Ari feels a deep sense of loyalty to Dante and, though he has trouble expressing it verbally, he expressed it with how far he goes to take care of and protect Dante from kids that hurt birds, careening cars, and homophobic boys.
Overall, I loved this book. The prose is beautiful, the characters complex, and the message meaningful. To me it was more about accepting love than accepting sexuality. To Dante it didn't seem strange at all for him to love a boy, to want to kiss a boy, and while it took Ari a while to get there (along with some prodding from his awesome parents) he figured out how much he loved Dante. Because, after all how could Ari be ashamed of loving Dante Quintana?
I wish there was a way to really fully express my love for this book. I feel that this is a perfect love story and a great step for writers of LGBT YA literature, because it shows a love story. It's not a political statement or a carrier of a heavy handed message. Instead it just tells a story about two stupid boys trying to figure out what the hell they're doing. My rating? 5 out of 5. I'd give it a 6, but that feels a little like overkill.
Imagine a book with no clear plot. Imagine a book with little to no exposition. Imagine a book where the story wasn't about politics or sexual revolutions. Imagine a book about two boys raised in El Paso in the late 80's where they spend their summers saving birds, and each other.
I absolutely loved 'Aristotle and Dante...". The story is told from the point of Aristotle, or Ari, for short. Ari has a very straight forward point of view. He doesn't waste words on long explanations or descriptions of things. I think the majority of Ari's description goes into the description of his old Cherry Red Ford truck with Chrome. Anyway, Dante is described as a "lighter skinned Mexican" than Ari who considers himself a "Mexican", meaning that he's far more part of the culture than Dante, whose parent are a therapist and English professor. Dante even confesses to Ari that he doesn't like the fact that he's Mexican and seems to want to keep himself as far as he can from his culture.
A lot of issues are squeezed into 'Aristotle and Dante...' such as accepting race, social barriers, sexuality, gender, politics but for the most part they're not as big as they would seem. This story is told like a free form poem, but in verse. There's no major plot other than Aristotle just trying to get through the summer unscathed, which really doesn't happen. He meets Dante, who teaches him how to swim and over the course of the summer becomes his best friend, which is something neither kid has ever had.
I loved the way 'Aristotle and Dante...' treated sexuality and love. Nothing ever seemed to be forced. For the most part Ari was a angry kid with an older brother in prison, with no real understanding as to why he was there, fighting with the fact that he didn't know what to do with his life and living in self-doubt. He kept his emotions locked away which made him a stark comparison to Dante who was passionate about almost everything. He cried and read and drew and ran after kids who shot birds with BB guns. Through their many oppositions they peel away at one another's emotional layers until both are bare and exposed to the elements.
Ari's love story with Dante is a very powerful one driven by friendship and the love of their parents. Both Dante and Ari are blessed by devoted parents, though both sets are just as different as the boys. Dante's parents are loving and expressive, taking Ari under their wings immediately. Ari's parents are a little less 'together' in the sense that Ari's father is a returned Vietnam Vet, emotionally scarred and quiet, and his mother is sincere and insanely loyal to her husband and son. But they represent the deep bond that parents can share with their children and how far love can go.
For the most part a major theme in this book is that of loyalty. Loyalty in love and friendship and how far love and loyalty can go. Ari feels a deep sense of loyalty to Dante and, though he has trouble expressing it verbally, he expressed it with how far he goes to take care of and protect Dante from kids that hurt birds, careening cars, and homophobic boys.
Overall, I loved this book. The prose is beautiful, the characters complex, and the message meaningful. To me it was more about accepting love than accepting sexuality. To Dante it didn't seem strange at all for him to love a boy, to want to kiss a boy, and while it took Ari a while to get there (along with some prodding from his awesome parents) he figured out how much he loved Dante. Because, after all how could Ari be ashamed of loving Dante Quintana?
I wish there was a way to really fully express my love for this book. I feel that this is a perfect love story and a great step for writers of LGBT YA literature, because it shows a love story. It's not a political statement or a carrier of a heavy handed message. Instead it just tells a story about two stupid boys trying to figure out what the hell they're doing. My rating? 5 out of 5. I'd give it a 6, but that feels a little like overkill.
Monday, February 3, 2014
Revised or Modern Fairy-Tale?: Scarlet in the Snow by Sophie Masson
Sorry this has taken a little longer. I've been so focused on narrowing my study, I forget to tell you all about the wonderful findings I've gained from my reading.
As I've been narrowing my field of study, what seems to be a strong aspect of YA "fantasy" is this flexibility and multi-dimensionality of characters, settings, and the immense power that gives the reader. You find yourself disappearing into the story rather than the story making an impact on you. That may seem like a bad thing, but it allows the reader to unconsciously make connections to the story, rather than consciously focusing on the themes that relate to them. It's a strange kind of freedom, that lets you escape into the novel--which is the one of the large draws of most leisure reading--but allows the reader to maintain a working relation to the lessons and/or commentaries being presented under the guise of entertainment. Sophie Masson's Scarlet in the Snow definitely falls into this category, almost forcing you to stop thinking so hard.
All right, I'll admit: this is one of my favorite fairy tales and as such I'm biased to like it. But "Beauty and the Beast" has been revisited so many times in a variety of different ways over the years, one more shouldn't make much of an impact. But in Scarlet in the Snow, everything you may have thought about the tale before is blown into oblivion. Okay, that may be exaggerating a bit, but you can't read it and expect the traditional storyline, because there really isn't one. Sure, you have traditional elements that distinguish it as a B&TB story: a curse, the magical castle, a disturbingly intelligent man-beast, and the plucky beauty determined to break the spell. And the rose. Always the rose. However, in the entire 318 pages of the novel, the traditional story begins and ends within the first quarter of the book, leaving the rest to completely turn the story inside out. Just because the spell has been broken doesn't necessarily mean the beast has been saved/redeemed/etc. In fact, THAT moment is when the story really turns into a quest for truth, redemption, and love.
A brief summary--as I don't wish to give anything good away-- is needed since this is not traditional for a revised fairy tale. Natasha, the youngest of three daughters, lives with her painter mother in Ruvenya, a somewhat Russian feeling country. One night, after delivering a requisitioned painting, she is caught in a terrible blizzard, where wolves chase her to the gates of a grand mansion where the blizzard ends within the grounds. Wandering through the empty halls, she finally comes upon a garden, where she sees a single miraculous red rose blooming. When she reaches out to touch it, it withers and dies, summoning a very angry beast to punish her. Instead of her death, however, she is to repay her debt by replacing "a joy for a joy" and remaining at the mansion until her debt is repaid. Clever as she is, Natasha quickly figures out that the beast is under a dangerous and powerful spell. She determines to break it and help him in whatever way she can...until she is told marriage is the key. After about three days, the Beast, who she has decided to name Ivan, refuses to keep her there against her will and sends her home, giving her a parting gift: a petal from the rose, which will connect them should she ever wish to return. While researching the Beast's past, she is confronted by a pawn of the sorceror responsible for the curse. To save her, Ivan appears and consents to give himself up to the madman. As he does so, the spell is broken and both men disappear. Natasha, who has fallen in love with Ivan, makes it her mission to track him down and save him from the evil plots of the sorceror. She travels through many different countries, meeting many strange allies along the way, and eventually discovers her beast. But saving him will be the hardest part of the journey, requiring her to face magic so evil and powerful that it is banned by humans and fae alike.
One of the things that I found most interesting about this novel was the nebulous setting of the events. In later English studies, we learn that there is a lot of symbolism associated with the city and the country as general settings, and this story is no exception. While Natasha, our beauty, is primarily with her family on a modest estate in rural Ruvenya, the tone of the story mirrors that of most fairy-tales, meaning you think older eras (maybe 14th or 15th-century) with dark forests, witches/demons, sleighs and horse drawn carriages, and where nightfall never bodes well for those caught outside. And for the most part, that feeling is upheld by the actions and people who live there. But there are details that belie that assumption: an alarm clock Natasha turns off, electricity, an "underground train" I assume to be a subway system, and a highly advanced fingerprint scanner used as a lock. While the alarm clock and electricity are present in Natasha's home life, the city tends to encompass everything else modern, which also makes sense. But the way that the author incorporates these two highly different eras is either very sloppy or ingenious. I'm never entirely sure. When in the country, as a reader, I find myself drifting into the mystical mindset of olden days but then, just as suddenly, can come face to face with a reminder that this is at the very least a fairly modern setting. In the sense of this belonging to a fantasy genre, it has more than enough to recommend it, magic and fantastical creatures specifically. But to also mix modernity with the supernatural makes it difficult to discern what the rules are for this world. We aren't allowed to wipe the slate clean as with most fantasy worlds, knowing there's an entirely different set of rules and limitations than the real world, but real world structures and boundaries exist simultaneously. This novel also places a huge emphasis on the arts, literally and figuratively. The story revolves around paintings and artists, but also shows the importance of the humanities in society through the characters and their situations.
All in all, besides making my new favorite book list, I would give this story a 4.5 stars, based on the imaginative and engaging plot, ingenious(or crazy) use of setting, and for generally refreshing the reader used to the same old story.
As I've been narrowing my field of study, what seems to be a strong aspect of YA "fantasy" is this flexibility and multi-dimensionality of characters, settings, and the immense power that gives the reader. You find yourself disappearing into the story rather than the story making an impact on you. That may seem like a bad thing, but it allows the reader to unconsciously make connections to the story, rather than consciously focusing on the themes that relate to them. It's a strange kind of freedom, that lets you escape into the novel--which is the one of the large draws of most leisure reading--but allows the reader to maintain a working relation to the lessons and/or commentaries being presented under the guise of entertainment. Sophie Masson's Scarlet in the Snow definitely falls into this category, almost forcing you to stop thinking so hard.
All right, I'll admit: this is one of my favorite fairy tales and as such I'm biased to like it. But "Beauty and the Beast" has been revisited so many times in a variety of different ways over the years, one more shouldn't make much of an impact. But in Scarlet in the Snow, everything you may have thought about the tale before is blown into oblivion. Okay, that may be exaggerating a bit, but you can't read it and expect the traditional storyline, because there really isn't one. Sure, you have traditional elements that distinguish it as a B&TB story: a curse, the magical castle, a disturbingly intelligent man-beast, and the plucky beauty determined to break the spell. And the rose. Always the rose. However, in the entire 318 pages of the novel, the traditional story begins and ends within the first quarter of the book, leaving the rest to completely turn the story inside out. Just because the spell has been broken doesn't necessarily mean the beast has been saved/redeemed/etc. In fact, THAT moment is when the story really turns into a quest for truth, redemption, and love.
A brief summary--as I don't wish to give anything good away-- is needed since this is not traditional for a revised fairy tale. Natasha, the youngest of three daughters, lives with her painter mother in Ruvenya, a somewhat Russian feeling country. One night, after delivering a requisitioned painting, she is caught in a terrible blizzard, where wolves chase her to the gates of a grand mansion where the blizzard ends within the grounds. Wandering through the empty halls, she finally comes upon a garden, where she sees a single miraculous red rose blooming. When she reaches out to touch it, it withers and dies, summoning a very angry beast to punish her. Instead of her death, however, she is to repay her debt by replacing "a joy for a joy" and remaining at the mansion until her debt is repaid. Clever as she is, Natasha quickly figures out that the beast is under a dangerous and powerful spell. She determines to break it and help him in whatever way she can...until she is told marriage is the key. After about three days, the Beast, who she has decided to name Ivan, refuses to keep her there against her will and sends her home, giving her a parting gift: a petal from the rose, which will connect them should she ever wish to return. While researching the Beast's past, she is confronted by a pawn of the sorceror responsible for the curse. To save her, Ivan appears and consents to give himself up to the madman. As he does so, the spell is broken and both men disappear. Natasha, who has fallen in love with Ivan, makes it her mission to track him down and save him from the evil plots of the sorceror. She travels through many different countries, meeting many strange allies along the way, and eventually discovers her beast. But saving him will be the hardest part of the journey, requiring her to face magic so evil and powerful that it is banned by humans and fae alike.
One of the things that I found most interesting about this novel was the nebulous setting of the events. In later English studies, we learn that there is a lot of symbolism associated with the city and the country as general settings, and this story is no exception. While Natasha, our beauty, is primarily with her family on a modest estate in rural Ruvenya, the tone of the story mirrors that of most fairy-tales, meaning you think older eras (maybe 14th or 15th-century) with dark forests, witches/demons, sleighs and horse drawn carriages, and where nightfall never bodes well for those caught outside. And for the most part, that feeling is upheld by the actions and people who live there. But there are details that belie that assumption: an alarm clock Natasha turns off, electricity, an "underground train" I assume to be a subway system, and a highly advanced fingerprint scanner used as a lock. While the alarm clock and electricity are present in Natasha's home life, the city tends to encompass everything else modern, which also makes sense. But the way that the author incorporates these two highly different eras is either very sloppy or ingenious. I'm never entirely sure. When in the country, as a reader, I find myself drifting into the mystical mindset of olden days but then, just as suddenly, can come face to face with a reminder that this is at the very least a fairly modern setting. In the sense of this belonging to a fantasy genre, it has more than enough to recommend it, magic and fantastical creatures specifically. But to also mix modernity with the supernatural makes it difficult to discern what the rules are for this world. We aren't allowed to wipe the slate clean as with most fantasy worlds, knowing there's an entirely different set of rules and limitations than the real world, but real world structures and boundaries exist simultaneously. This novel also places a huge emphasis on the arts, literally and figuratively. The story revolves around paintings and artists, but also shows the importance of the humanities in society through the characters and their situations.
All in all, besides making my new favorite book list, I would give this story a 4.5 stars, based on the imaginative and engaging plot, ingenious(or crazy) use of setting, and for generally refreshing the reader used to the same old story.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Fairytale? Gender equality statement? Love story? Hard to tell: Ash by Melinda Lo
Never have I felt so ambivalent towards a YA novel. Usually it's pretty clean cut. But this one was difficult for me to figure out, so I guess I'll start with what I knew I liked.
I liked the writing and the story itself. It was written just like a Grimm's fairytale or a Hans Christian Anderson story. The landscapes were heavily wooded, the clothing beautiful, and the secondary characters lacked depth or backgrounds. In most books this would be a really really bad thing but with Ash it worked. The story is a reworking of a fairytale and it's awesome that Melinda Lo was able to create a recognizably fairytale world in a YA novel.
The story itself is a retelling of Cinderella but in this one the prince is basically forgotten except as a target for Aisling (Ash's) vain stepsister. The fairy godmother is still a fairy, but not in the Disney way. No this godmother is an original fairie who lures away unsuspecting travelers and kills them. Also, she's no longer a woman. Instead Ash's "godmother" is a beautiful male fairy who is sad and cursed. Also, there's a huntress who works for the prince and honestly really has no discernible background or personality other than to be basically awesome and wholly good. Which Lo pulls off very well considering that I knew nothing about the huntress other than her name was Kaisa, she's open with her interest in women, she's pretty kick-ass, and she started working for the King at the age of twelve.
Ash's mother dies young after a potential run in with fairies and her father marries a wicked woman with two vaguely evil daughters. Because Ash was raised on superstitions and fairytales she runs off into the forest whenever she's even remotely upset and every time she's saved by a beautiful fairy man named Shidean who refuses to let the fairy people take her for some strange reason, claiming that no one ever knows both sides of the story. The dad dies and Ash is moved with her sisters away from the wood that she grew up in and in order to pay off her father's debt she must now work for her step mother. It's the basic Cinderella story. But wait! There's the twist where Ash meets the Prince's Huntress, Kaisa, and discovers that y'know what? She really thinks Kaisa is awesome but becuase she's a serving girl she isn't allowed to go on the Hunt with Kaisa or to the Yule celebration or the Masquerade ball so she asks Shidean for his help and he offers it, with one stipulation. When she is ready, she will come to him and be his.
So all of that that I described? I liked all of that. It was what lay underneath that bothered me and I can't decide if I liked it. And if I did like it, how I felt about having such a gendered statement hidden beneath the text of what could have been a very awesome fairy tale/love story.
The whole story lies on the fact that [spoilers for anyone who wants to read the book and be surprised by the ending--
I liked the writing and the story itself. It was written just like a Grimm's fairytale or a Hans Christian Anderson story. The landscapes were heavily wooded, the clothing beautiful, and the secondary characters lacked depth or backgrounds. In most books this would be a really really bad thing but with Ash it worked. The story is a reworking of a fairytale and it's awesome that Melinda Lo was able to create a recognizably fairytale world in a YA novel.
The story itself is a retelling of Cinderella but in this one the prince is basically forgotten except as a target for Aisling (Ash's) vain stepsister. The fairy godmother is still a fairy, but not in the Disney way. No this godmother is an original fairie who lures away unsuspecting travelers and kills them. Also, she's no longer a woman. Instead Ash's "godmother" is a beautiful male fairy who is sad and cursed. Also, there's a huntress who works for the prince and honestly really has no discernible background or personality other than to be basically awesome and wholly good. Which Lo pulls off very well considering that I knew nothing about the huntress other than her name was Kaisa, she's open with her interest in women, she's pretty kick-ass, and she started working for the King at the age of twelve.
Ash's mother dies young after a potential run in with fairies and her father marries a wicked woman with two vaguely evil daughters. Because Ash was raised on superstitions and fairytales she runs off into the forest whenever she's even remotely upset and every time she's saved by a beautiful fairy man named Shidean who refuses to let the fairy people take her for some strange reason, claiming that no one ever knows both sides of the story. The dad dies and Ash is moved with her sisters away from the wood that she grew up in and in order to pay off her father's debt she must now work for her step mother. It's the basic Cinderella story. But wait! There's the twist where Ash meets the Prince's Huntress, Kaisa, and discovers that y'know what? She really thinks Kaisa is awesome but becuase she's a serving girl she isn't allowed to go on the Hunt with Kaisa or to the Yule celebration or the Masquerade ball so she asks Shidean for his help and he offers it, with one stipulation. When she is ready, she will come to him and be his.
So all of that that I described? I liked all of that. It was what lay underneath that bothered me and I can't decide if I liked it. And if I did like it, how I felt about having such a gendered statement hidden beneath the text of what could have been a very awesome fairy tale/love story.
The whole story lies on the fact that [spoilers for anyone who wants to read the book and be surprised by the ending--
Thursday, January 23, 2014
A Life of Sepia and "God's Will": The Miseducation of Cameron Post
The Miseducation of Cameron Post acts like two different novels packed into one almost 500 page tome. And yes, I said 500 pages. Well, more like 470 but close enough. The first part features a landscape of sepia tone Montana backdrops and long luxurious romps through old lake beds and half remembered romances. The other half is a sterile and gray imprisonment in a school designed to fix those who have experienced "inappropriate sexual attraction to the wrong gender".
I honestly fell in love with the Miseducation of Cameron Post. Cameron was one of the more realistic characters I've read in a lot time. After dealing with the death of her parents (which she initially associates with God rebuking her for kissing a girl) she hides her real feelings behind sarcastic humor, smokes pot with the guys in her town, and decorates a doll house her dad made for her before his death.
Cameron was one of those characters that you could see being your best friend, which it why it hurts when her family and the girl she loves turns against her and send her away. Cam endears herself to the reader. You become her confidante, the one person she can express her love for Coley to, the one who she can cry to about when Irene Klauson treats her like nothing, the person that gets angry for her as she's sent away to God's Promise school, a place meant to "de-gay" troubled youth by using mental warfare to teach students that everything they love is wrong. It's heartbreaking and the entire time you feel her anguish.
The first part of the story has all the earmarks of a coming out love story starting with Cam's first crush; Irene, Cam's "lesbian fairy godmother" Lindsey, the older college love Mona, and finally Coley; the one who broke Cam's heart. Coley is straight and very sweet to Cam and even has the idea that Cam loves her but only uses her for experimentation before getting scared and turning her in to their pastor. Lindsey acts as Cam's foil by being loud and out and rejecting of many 1990's lesbian stereotypes while also giving Cam someone to cling to while fighting her feelings for Coley.
The second part turns into a detailed diary showing the inner workings of de-gaying programs shown on news shows. It doesn't seem completely real at times but still Cam acts as the reader's connection to her inner thoughts, showing how the program works to try and tear her apart. Thankfully the entire beginning of the novel sets up to show just how strong Cam can be, giving the reader hope that at the end of those 470 pages she will still be the strong girl they fell in love with.
Despite her time at Promise school the book is actually very uplifting and inspiring. Even for non-LGBT readers this book is empowering. It shows a girl who, while getting off to a rocky start with her life, becomes strong in her belief in herself. She isn't beaten by God's Promise, she rises above her insane aunt and the anger of her past, and she starts to look forward to the life she can build for herself.
There have been very few books that I've power read through and considering that I read all 470 pages of this in less than three days that definitely says something. My overall rating? A solid five stars. It's well written, witty, down to earth with a strong and endearing female lead who is a great boon for the LGBT community.
I honestly fell in love with the Miseducation of Cameron Post. Cameron was one of the more realistic characters I've read in a lot time. After dealing with the death of her parents (which she initially associates with God rebuking her for kissing a girl) she hides her real feelings behind sarcastic humor, smokes pot with the guys in her town, and decorates a doll house her dad made for her before his death.
Cameron was one of those characters that you could see being your best friend, which it why it hurts when her family and the girl she loves turns against her and send her away. Cam endears herself to the reader. You become her confidante, the one person she can express her love for Coley to, the one who she can cry to about when Irene Klauson treats her like nothing, the person that gets angry for her as she's sent away to God's Promise school, a place meant to "de-gay" troubled youth by using mental warfare to teach students that everything they love is wrong. It's heartbreaking and the entire time you feel her anguish.
The first part of the story has all the earmarks of a coming out love story starting with Cam's first crush; Irene, Cam's "lesbian fairy godmother" Lindsey, the older college love Mona, and finally Coley; the one who broke Cam's heart. Coley is straight and very sweet to Cam and even has the idea that Cam loves her but only uses her for experimentation before getting scared and turning her in to their pastor. Lindsey acts as Cam's foil by being loud and out and rejecting of many 1990's lesbian stereotypes while also giving Cam someone to cling to while fighting her feelings for Coley.
The second part turns into a detailed diary showing the inner workings of de-gaying programs shown on news shows. It doesn't seem completely real at times but still Cam acts as the reader's connection to her inner thoughts, showing how the program works to try and tear her apart. Thankfully the entire beginning of the novel sets up to show just how strong Cam can be, giving the reader hope that at the end of those 470 pages she will still be the strong girl they fell in love with.
Despite her time at Promise school the book is actually very uplifting and inspiring. Even for non-LGBT readers this book is empowering. It shows a girl who, while getting off to a rocky start with her life, becomes strong in her belief in herself. She isn't beaten by God's Promise, she rises above her insane aunt and the anger of her past, and she starts to look forward to the life she can build for herself.
There have been very few books that I've power read through and considering that I read all 470 pages of this in less than three days that definitely says something. My overall rating? A solid five stars. It's well written, witty, down to earth with a strong and endearing female lead who is a great boon for the LGBT community.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Seventeenth Summer
So, I have finally decided and narrowed down what I want to study in my books. I'm going to look at the way the teenage girls in these novels treat their bodies. Girls (and boys) are reading these books and taking some of their cues from these novels, in regards to sexuality, physical health, self-harm etc. I don't really want to call it body image because that feels a bit restrictive, but I'm not sure what to call it. Does this make sense?
So, I am analyzing how the female characters treat their bodies, and I wanted to look at the changes through the decades of YA Lit. So I have a book form each decade, and a few more from the 90's and the 00's, since these are more likely to be read by present generations.
I started with Seventeenth Summer. 1942 folks. Considered one of the first YA novels. Overall, I found it very whimsical and a light, fun read. However it ended a bit abruptly, and there were several instances in the novel where the narrator foreshadows things, that end up not being as dramatic as one would think. But then i have to stop and remind myself, this was 1942, and really, the most exciting thing to take place in a small town such as the one in the novel, would be to go get Cokes at the drugstore. Which they do a lot. I certainly hope they removed the cocaine from the cola before this tykes were drinking so much of it.
So, this girl Angie, has just graduated high school, and will be headed to Chicago in the fall for college. She comes from an upper middle class family, and is the third of four sisters. This book narrates her sister's lives, especially the older twos romantic involvements, as well as her own with Jack, a boy from the local 'public' high school. Her father travels and is only home on the weekends. Her mother is a fairly strong and independent woman, who is obsessed with her garden. She doesn't really think it's proper for Angie to be spending SO much time with Jack, but in the end always allows her to go out with him.
You learn about Angie through the way she talks about other people. Margaret, her oldest sister is beautiful, and intelligent, and witty, and engaged. Her next sister Lorraine, is always experimenting with hairstyles and makeup, and you get the idea that she is not as pretty as Margaret. And Kitty, the youngest, is not old enough to be analyzed much.
Angie is often comparing her self to Jane, a girl in town who once dated Jack, and has beautiful blonde hair and can dance softly, and laughs like a bell. Evidently, Angie finds herself prettier than Lorraine, but not as smooth as Jane.
The most dramatic moment is when Jack drags Angie out to look for firewood, and awkwardly proposes to her, as she is moving to college, and he is moving to Oklahoma with his family. She just cries. But, she ends up going to school and leaves us on the train stating that she'll always remember that seventeenth summer, while clutching Jack's class ring. I really wanted some resolution.
There is no sex in this book. They do kiss, and the do hold hands, but the details are not very detailed. Which is interesting, because the book has so much details about the landscape and nature. It just drips with beautiful language describing her feelings about the lake, and the air, and the garden and the stars, but she it comes to Jack, she doesn't say much. I'm not sure if the intent was to show how confused she was, this was her first relationship, or really what the point was. She doesn't talk about herself much either, just her actions, but not her inner thoughts and feelings really.
So the majority of what I have to study in this novel is the way she describes other women, mostly Margaret, Lorraine and Jane, and base what she must think of herself by what she doesn't say. I sam interested to see how this little technique will change or adapt as I travel through the decades.
So, I am analyzing how the female characters treat their bodies, and I wanted to look at the changes through the decades of YA Lit. So I have a book form each decade, and a few more from the 90's and the 00's, since these are more likely to be read by present generations.
I started with Seventeenth Summer. 1942 folks. Considered one of the first YA novels. Overall, I found it very whimsical and a light, fun read. However it ended a bit abruptly, and there were several instances in the novel where the narrator foreshadows things, that end up not being as dramatic as one would think. But then i have to stop and remind myself, this was 1942, and really, the most exciting thing to take place in a small town such as the one in the novel, would be to go get Cokes at the drugstore. Which they do a lot. I certainly hope they removed the cocaine from the cola before this tykes were drinking so much of it.
So, this girl Angie, has just graduated high school, and will be headed to Chicago in the fall for college. She comes from an upper middle class family, and is the third of four sisters. This book narrates her sister's lives, especially the older twos romantic involvements, as well as her own with Jack, a boy from the local 'public' high school. Her father travels and is only home on the weekends. Her mother is a fairly strong and independent woman, who is obsessed with her garden. She doesn't really think it's proper for Angie to be spending SO much time with Jack, but in the end always allows her to go out with him.
You learn about Angie through the way she talks about other people. Margaret, her oldest sister is beautiful, and intelligent, and witty, and engaged. Her next sister Lorraine, is always experimenting with hairstyles and makeup, and you get the idea that she is not as pretty as Margaret. And Kitty, the youngest, is not old enough to be analyzed much.
Angie is often comparing her self to Jane, a girl in town who once dated Jack, and has beautiful blonde hair and can dance softly, and laughs like a bell. Evidently, Angie finds herself prettier than Lorraine, but not as smooth as Jane.
The most dramatic moment is when Jack drags Angie out to look for firewood, and awkwardly proposes to her, as she is moving to college, and he is moving to Oklahoma with his family. She just cries. But, she ends up going to school and leaves us on the train stating that she'll always remember that seventeenth summer, while clutching Jack's class ring. I really wanted some resolution.
There is no sex in this book. They do kiss, and the do hold hands, but the details are not very detailed. Which is interesting, because the book has so much details about the landscape and nature. It just drips with beautiful language describing her feelings about the lake, and the air, and the garden and the stars, but she it comes to Jack, she doesn't say much. I'm not sure if the intent was to show how confused she was, this was her first relationship, or really what the point was. She doesn't talk about herself much either, just her actions, but not her inner thoughts and feelings really.
So the majority of what I have to study in this novel is the way she describes other women, mostly Margaret, Lorraine and Jane, and base what she must think of herself by what she doesn't say. I sam interested to see how this little technique will change or adapt as I travel through the decades.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Two Sides To Every Coin: Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers
While I'm glad I'm not the first post here, it makes it harder to follow.
As I have focused my studies on the fantasy/supernatural elements in YA Literature, I have discovered quickly that this is a difficult area to judge in terms of literary value. Fantasy novels are generally defined by "imaginary worlds that differ from the modern world in ways that science can't explain, imaginary worlds of magical and supernatural beings and events" ("Fantasy"). In fact, fantasy can be thought of as the genre of the impossible. Fantasy novels are based on something other than the "real" world or are placed in a setting that offers magical or supernatural elements that allow a person to really escape into them. This is why it happens to be my personal favorite among genres. But taken in the context of YA Lit, it is harder to critique using the same aspects and characteristics looked for in adult fantasy. In a way, YA Lit has its own set of fundamental features that appeal to young readers (and in some cases, older readers as well). While I believe that the same themes and features of contemporary stories in YA lit are just as prevalent in fantasy, the manner in which they are presented is vastly different and thus more difficult to discern.
I began my studies with a historical fantasy novel, Grave Mercy by Robin La Fevers, which I would give four to four and a half stars.The plot was well-paced, the style engaging, and the story itself full of a myriad of small gems. As I mentioned, it is harder to find literary value in such novels, as many are easier read as simply entertainment, but it is there. In this novel, it addresses the themes of choice and trust, both highly popular for this age group as they are forming their own identities of themselves and others.
The story focuses on Ismae Reinne, a seventeen year old girl, born regardless of the abortive attempts made by her mother but scarred. From then on, she is treated harshly by all who know her as a devil "sired by Death". Rescued from a brutal arranged marriage at the age of fourteen and sent to a convent devoted to Saint Mortain, the patron god of Death, she is taught in the tools used by Death, including poisons, weapons, and "the womanly arts" of seduction. In short, she becomes a handmaiden of Death itself, a highly skilled assassin. She learns that she has also been given gifts by the god himself--immunity to poison, unnaturally quick healing, and the ability to look beyond the veil and communicate (in a way) with the souls of the recently dead. As a handmaiden of Death, she is also granted the ability to see marques: a black stain placed on the victims the god has deemed unworthy to remain in the world.
Ismae's most important assignment takes her straight into the heart of the royal court of Brittony, posing as the mistress of the mysterious Gavriel Duval, a bastard son of the late Duke and half-sister to the young duchess, who has fallen under suspicion as a traitor to his country. While there, Ismae discovers she is woefully unprepared for the deadly games of intrigue and love, but also for the impossible choices she is faced with. As the dangers surrounding the young duchess grow thicker, the more Ismae is convinced that Duval is nothing more than what he seems: a kind, devoted and loyal supporter of the duchess and an honorable man. She begins to question the reliability of the convent's information and subsequent assignments, the deeper meaning of the marques, and her own part in this masquerade. As the novel progresses, she must decide where she stands in the schemes and plots around her and how to act on those decisions once made. Is it with Mortain, the god she has faithfully served for three years? The convent, who gave her the chance to live her life without the constraints of society? Or herself, trusting Duval and aiding him in the fight to save the duchy from the machinations of France and interior betrayals?
Though it sounds like nothing more than an adventure, this book was compelling when addressing these questions. Something I found especially interesting was the way the author separated Ismae's duty to the god, Mortain, and the convent--the abbess, in particular--who dispense the assignments and speak for the god. One of Ismae's greatest struggles is reconciling her desire to serve Death yet questioning the instructions sent to her from the convent as entirely credible. "The nuns don't make mistakes" she repeats many times, but again and again she stays her hand or disobeys her orders in favor of her personal instinct and other more merciful options. This struggle based around her religion, which is exactly what the old gods represent, is highly relevant to today's youth, who are frequently unsure where they should declare their spiritual beliefs or if they should have any. More often than not, children inherit their parent's religious outlooks and later question or abandon them. The process involved in such decisions is complex, made up of events, other personal standards, or experience that leads them to rethink that part of their identity. In Ismae's case, she finds a way to reconcile her battling emotions by serving Death's merciful hand, rather than His wrathful justice.
And, of course, there is the romance between Duval and Ismae. What YA novel is complete without some kind of love story? The soul-wrenching decision of trust is strongly tied directly back to this relationship. Although Ismae is constantly attempting to figure out who is on which side within the duchess's court, her relationship with Duval is a triple whammy: she is investigating his loyalties while trusting him as her only true ally in the court, and THEN she finds herself falling for him. Trust is another huge factor in a young adult's formative years, if not always represented in the literature. The fact that is is an intricate part of a romantic relationship is also one of the key concepts of the novel. While young adults are all obsessed with the idea of having a girlfriend/boyfriend, the nature of their relationships, I believe, are highly superficial. Trusting that person with not only your physical well-being, but your emotional baggage is something that is extremely hard to do. And it is a two-sided arrangement. Both Ismae and Duval have to overcome their own fears and doubts in order to come together as people and allies in a court that is dominated by betrayal, greed, and ambition. One of the hardest things for Ismae, in this arena, is the moment when she allows Duval to stitch a deep wound to her back. While it is not the most vulnerable moment in the story for her, I think it is one of the most crucial. She is still balancing on the edge provided by the three converging problems associated with Duval, unsure of any of them, yet she opens herself in the most trusting way she possibly can at this point, rather than later once she's ascertained one or more answers to her doubts.To do this, Duval would be exposed to her bare back, and more importantly, the scar left from the poison used in the womb. This scar represents years of hatred and fear from those who saw it and reviled her as evil and touched by Death. She has already come to care for Duval enough that it matters what he thinks and how he will react to this imperfection. His rejection, while working to remind her of her purpose, would also be terribly painful for her. Yet, she lets him, and he accepts it. "There is no shame in scars," he tells her. Yet the line refers not only to physical scars, but emotional ones, and the book explores and exploits them throughout the book.
I could continue on this in more detail, but I'll just leave it to you to read the book if you so choose. It explores these concepts much better than I do, anyway.
Citation
"Fantasy." The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory. Hoboken: Wiley, 2011. Credo Reference. Web. 18 January 2014.
As I have focused my studies on the fantasy/supernatural elements in YA Literature, I have discovered quickly that this is a difficult area to judge in terms of literary value. Fantasy novels are generally defined by "imaginary worlds that differ from the modern world in ways that science can't explain, imaginary worlds of magical and supernatural beings and events" ("Fantasy"). In fact, fantasy can be thought of as the genre of the impossible. Fantasy novels are based on something other than the "real" world or are placed in a setting that offers magical or supernatural elements that allow a person to really escape into them. This is why it happens to be my personal favorite among genres. But taken in the context of YA Lit, it is harder to critique using the same aspects and characteristics looked for in adult fantasy. In a way, YA Lit has its own set of fundamental features that appeal to young readers (and in some cases, older readers as well). While I believe that the same themes and features of contemporary stories in YA lit are just as prevalent in fantasy, the manner in which they are presented is vastly different and thus more difficult to discern.
I began my studies with a historical fantasy novel, Grave Mercy by Robin La Fevers, which I would give four to four and a half stars.The plot was well-paced, the style engaging, and the story itself full of a myriad of small gems. As I mentioned, it is harder to find literary value in such novels, as many are easier read as simply entertainment, but it is there. In this novel, it addresses the themes of choice and trust, both highly popular for this age group as they are forming their own identities of themselves and others.
The story focuses on Ismae Reinne, a seventeen year old girl, born regardless of the abortive attempts made by her mother but scarred. From then on, she is treated harshly by all who know her as a devil "sired by Death". Rescued from a brutal arranged marriage at the age of fourteen and sent to a convent devoted to Saint Mortain, the patron god of Death, she is taught in the tools used by Death, including poisons, weapons, and "the womanly arts" of seduction. In short, she becomes a handmaiden of Death itself, a highly skilled assassin. She learns that she has also been given gifts by the god himself--immunity to poison, unnaturally quick healing, and the ability to look beyond the veil and communicate (in a way) with the souls of the recently dead. As a handmaiden of Death, she is also granted the ability to see marques: a black stain placed on the victims the god has deemed unworthy to remain in the world.
Ismae's most important assignment takes her straight into the heart of the royal court of Brittony, posing as the mistress of the mysterious Gavriel Duval, a bastard son of the late Duke and half-sister to the young duchess, who has fallen under suspicion as a traitor to his country. While there, Ismae discovers she is woefully unprepared for the deadly games of intrigue and love, but also for the impossible choices she is faced with. As the dangers surrounding the young duchess grow thicker, the more Ismae is convinced that Duval is nothing more than what he seems: a kind, devoted and loyal supporter of the duchess and an honorable man. She begins to question the reliability of the convent's information and subsequent assignments, the deeper meaning of the marques, and her own part in this masquerade. As the novel progresses, she must decide where she stands in the schemes and plots around her and how to act on those decisions once made. Is it with Mortain, the god she has faithfully served for three years? The convent, who gave her the chance to live her life without the constraints of society? Or herself, trusting Duval and aiding him in the fight to save the duchy from the machinations of France and interior betrayals?
Though it sounds like nothing more than an adventure, this book was compelling when addressing these questions. Something I found especially interesting was the way the author separated Ismae's duty to the god, Mortain, and the convent--the abbess, in particular--who dispense the assignments and speak for the god. One of Ismae's greatest struggles is reconciling her desire to serve Death yet questioning the instructions sent to her from the convent as entirely credible. "The nuns don't make mistakes" she repeats many times, but again and again she stays her hand or disobeys her orders in favor of her personal instinct and other more merciful options. This struggle based around her religion, which is exactly what the old gods represent, is highly relevant to today's youth, who are frequently unsure where they should declare their spiritual beliefs or if they should have any. More often than not, children inherit their parent's religious outlooks and later question or abandon them. The process involved in such decisions is complex, made up of events, other personal standards, or experience that leads them to rethink that part of their identity. In Ismae's case, she finds a way to reconcile her battling emotions by serving Death's merciful hand, rather than His wrathful justice.
And, of course, there is the romance between Duval and Ismae. What YA novel is complete without some kind of love story? The soul-wrenching decision of trust is strongly tied directly back to this relationship. Although Ismae is constantly attempting to figure out who is on which side within the duchess's court, her relationship with Duval is a triple whammy: she is investigating his loyalties while trusting him as her only true ally in the court, and THEN she finds herself falling for him. Trust is another huge factor in a young adult's formative years, if not always represented in the literature. The fact that is is an intricate part of a romantic relationship is also one of the key concepts of the novel. While young adults are all obsessed with the idea of having a girlfriend/boyfriend, the nature of their relationships, I believe, are highly superficial. Trusting that person with not only your physical well-being, but your emotional baggage is something that is extremely hard to do. And it is a two-sided arrangement. Both Ismae and Duval have to overcome their own fears and doubts in order to come together as people and allies in a court that is dominated by betrayal, greed, and ambition. One of the hardest things for Ismae, in this arena, is the moment when she allows Duval to stitch a deep wound to her back. While it is not the most vulnerable moment in the story for her, I think it is one of the most crucial. She is still balancing on the edge provided by the three converging problems associated with Duval, unsure of any of them, yet she opens herself in the most trusting way she possibly can at this point, rather than later once she's ascertained one or more answers to her doubts.To do this, Duval would be exposed to her bare back, and more importantly, the scar left from the poison used in the womb. This scar represents years of hatred and fear from those who saw it and reviled her as evil and touched by Death. She has already come to care for Duval enough that it matters what he thinks and how he will react to this imperfection. His rejection, while working to remind her of her purpose, would also be terribly painful for her. Yet, she lets him, and he accepts it. "There is no shame in scars," he tells her. Yet the line refers not only to physical scars, but emotional ones, and the book explores and exploits them throughout the book.
I could continue on this in more detail, but I'll just leave it to you to read the book if you so choose. It explores these concepts much better than I do, anyway.
Citation
"Fantasy." The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory. Hoboken: Wiley, 2011. Credo Reference. Web. 18 January 2014.
A Good Jumping off Point: Ask the Passengers by A.S. King
As I begin my explorations with YA LGBTQ Lit (wow that's a lot of letters) I had to do a little search on modern LGBTQ lit being published--modern meaning in the last 7-10 years. I found out that according to YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) "There are 55 queer YA novels being published in in 2012, meaning that queer YA is just 1.6% of all YA coming out this year" and those numbers haven't really increased since then.
So, to start off the Lesbian literature section of my directed study I began with Ask the Passengers by A.S. King.
My initial review: lackluster but good.
When looking for outstanding teen literature this book is more the quintessential coming of age novel that is highly prevalent in the LGBTQ field. Astrid Jones is quirky and clever and if judging the book on her personality alone, then it would be a very good book. The basic idea of the novel is that Astrid lives in a small close minded town ironically named "Unity Valley" after moving there from New York. Her sister does everything in her power to fit in, even though she plays field hockey (and according to her "not all field hockey players are lesbians, c'mon, get a life, even though there are like two on the other team but whatever"). Her mom is high strung and basically dislikes Astrid, and her father smokes pot in the shed and builds bird houses to cope with the fact that the biggest scandal in his workplace is the STAPLER THIEF.
Astrid spends her life in school enjoying philosophy, hating trigonometry and being an all around outcast. She has a "hidden" girlfriend named Dee who keeps pressuring her to go farther than she's really ready to and hiding the secret that her two best friends, the homecoming couple, are actually both gay and using each other as beards.
For the most part the dialogue is wonderful and flows easily even as Astrid speaks about Zeno and the fact that his idea that "motion doesn't exist" is stupid. The best part for me was when Astrid, trying to find a way to cope in a town of fake love, goes out to her backyard to stare up at the sky and send love to the passengers in airplanes. Often times her mind drifts up to the plane and lets the reader see what's happening in the plane to lend a theme of magical realism.
One thing that bothered me with the book was the fact that at the beginning of the novel Astrid claims to have liked a boy, romantically, but when her family discovers Dee and demands for her to figure out her sexual identity the idea of bisexuality never comes up. A general consensus amongst the LGBTQ community is that the B and T of that alphabet soup tend to be mostly overlooked or minimized. While I understand this is a "lesbian text" it still strikes me that Astrid being bi wasn't even a possibility.
My overall rating depending on what it could add to the LGBT teen lit canon, creativity, and general story-ness? Three stars out of five. It's a good, basic text with a good message for something just coming into lesbian literature and the writing is very nice, it's just not all that different from a lot of coming out texts focused for teen readers.
So, to start off the Lesbian literature section of my directed study I began with Ask the Passengers by A.S. King.
My initial review: lackluster but good.
When looking for outstanding teen literature this book is more the quintessential coming of age novel that is highly prevalent in the LGBTQ field. Astrid Jones is quirky and clever and if judging the book on her personality alone, then it would be a very good book. The basic idea of the novel is that Astrid lives in a small close minded town ironically named "Unity Valley" after moving there from New York. Her sister does everything in her power to fit in, even though she plays field hockey (and according to her "not all field hockey players are lesbians, c'mon, get a life, even though there are like two on the other team but whatever"). Her mom is high strung and basically dislikes Astrid, and her father smokes pot in the shed and builds bird houses to cope with the fact that the biggest scandal in his workplace is the STAPLER THIEF.
Astrid spends her life in school enjoying philosophy, hating trigonometry and being an all around outcast. She has a "hidden" girlfriend named Dee who keeps pressuring her to go farther than she's really ready to and hiding the secret that her two best friends, the homecoming couple, are actually both gay and using each other as beards.
For the most part the dialogue is wonderful and flows easily even as Astrid speaks about Zeno and the fact that his idea that "motion doesn't exist" is stupid. The best part for me was when Astrid, trying to find a way to cope in a town of fake love, goes out to her backyard to stare up at the sky and send love to the passengers in airplanes. Often times her mind drifts up to the plane and lets the reader see what's happening in the plane to lend a theme of magical realism.
One thing that bothered me with the book was the fact that at the beginning of the novel Astrid claims to have liked a boy, romantically, but when her family discovers Dee and demands for her to figure out her sexual identity the idea of bisexuality never comes up. A general consensus amongst the LGBTQ community is that the B and T of that alphabet soup tend to be mostly overlooked or minimized. While I understand this is a "lesbian text" it still strikes me that Astrid being bi wasn't even a possibility.
My overall rating depending on what it could add to the LGBT teen lit canon, creativity, and general story-ness? Three stars out of five. It's a good, basic text with a good message for something just coming into lesbian literature and the writing is very nice, it's just not all that different from a lot of coming out texts focused for teen readers.
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