My annual visit to Kidsbooks to buy presents for *ahem* other people: I spent way more than I was planning, but that's because I didn't realize the third illustrated Harry Potter was out, nor was I anticipating how pricey Bedtime Stories for Rebel Girls would be (but it's worth every penny!) (Really well done: the writing, the art, the covers. I was seriously impressed. Got the box set for my daughter, who told me about them.)
Then my quest for presents for nieces and nephews brought me past the graphic novel section, and I saw that Ben Hatke (of Zita the Spacegirl) has a new series. And I started reading Mighty Jack, and decided I needed to own both of them. The characters are all poignantly wonderful, the story is brilliantly imaginative, and the art is stunning. Just go read this. Best Jack and the Beanstalk retelling ever. (Also, there's a strangely familiar character that will delight Zita fans.)
I'd read some good reviews of The Nameless City, and I've liked everything else I've read by Faith Erin Hicks, and she's a local! So I kind of had to pick up these two, and I'll be getting the third whenever it comes out. Great story of colonization, prejudice and the possibility of peace, centred on a believable friendship, with lovely, intricate art.
If I tell you Landscape with Invisible Hand is about the transformative power of art, will you roll your eyes and move on to the next book? Because you should really stop and read this one before you go. It won't take you long.
This was an artfully crafted little book full of sadness and hope. I thought it was going to be satirical, but really it's just straight up angry. The vuvv have come with advanced technology to solve all the world's problems, but it turns out they only solve them for the rich, and the poor are stuck with unemployment and a ravaged environment. Sound familiar?
By raging against aliens shaped like coffee tables, rather than real-world perpetrators of real-world injustices, Anderson can get away with a lot of serious social commentary without coming across heavy-handed. It's a bleak book with a lot of really, really funny stuff in it. I kept thinking I'd put it down because Adam's life was just getting too depressing, but then a scene would happen that made me go ???!!! I have to see where this is going! (Like the chainsaw artist.) Also Adam's voice is hilarious and I loved being inside his head.
I love that each chapter is a vignette explaining a work of Adam's art. There's layers of—I want to say self-reference, but I'm not sure that's quite what's going on—prose describing art and also describing the artist creating the art and the reactions of people seeing his art, which we can't see but can only imagine. It's interesting and immersive. The art brings Adam's poignant frustrations closer but at the same time sets them in a context that allows perspective. (I guess that's kind of what art does, isn't it!)
I loved the ending; it was funny and hopeful and believable. Remarkably uplifting for such a scathing book.
Miso soup. Just when you think it's too salty, you realize that it's perfectly salty enough.
That Inevitable Victorian Thing is such a quintessentially Canadian book! From the landscape, to the quiet politeness of the narrative, to the unquestioning acceptance of a monarchy we know is ridiculous but we like anyway. Most Canadian of all is the simple, puzzled plea of a theme: why can't we all just get along?
I want to meet E.K. Johnston: she is so fiercely optimistic! I imagine her musing on racism and bigotry of all kinds and thinking, "this is a problem we should be able to solve; I mean, come on, people!" And then thinking, "well, maybe if we altered history just a bit ..."
I won't go into the details of the world-building, because you can get that from the book blurb, but what she's attempted is to draw a picture of a world that isn't racist. Did she do a perfect job? No, of course not, that would be impossible. But it's so, so important to try! We have to be able to visualize what it might look like to have everyone treat each other equally with absolutely no regard for their genetic makeup. Does it seem a little contrived? Well, it would be hard not to. But she's created a quirky, fun sandbox to play in.*
(Can I just say that I am all for imagined futures or alternate presents that are better than the current reality? Enough despair and dystopia! Yes, we need social criticism, but we also need vision! We need our Star Treks!)(End of mini-rant.)
A princess in disguise, a reluctant socialite and a young lumber baron walk into a ball. Our three protagonists are very, very Canadian, both in their identities and their characters. (It's not that all Canadians are nice, but I think we might be unique in the high social value we place on niceness.) Margaret, Helena and August are all genuine, kind and reasonable people. The plot in the first half of the book, in fact, suffers a little from everyone being too nice to each other: there's not a whole lot of conflict, just secrets that everyone is keeping from each other.
I almost quit reading halfway through, because I thought I could see where it was going. I particularly dislike plots that involve people lying and then things getting messed up and everyone getting hurt because of all the deceit going around. But of course Johnston did entirely different things than I expected. I loved the way all the secrets were revealed, and the consequences that fell out from them.
I laughed out loud at the solution our characters came up with to get out of the tangle they fell into. I had predicted it, but I still laughed when it happened, because of the way it came about. It's an eminently reasonable, practical, Canadian happy-ever-after. (It would never actually work, in the real world, but this is a fairy tale (she tells us so!). Or possibly a Shakespeare play—I'm not well-versed enough to recognize which one it might be, but it has that sort of feeling to it—the comedic inevitability of how everything turns out.)
The whole narrative is suffused with a quiet enjoyment of the absurdity and tenderness of human relations. There's a gentle, self-depreciating humour that sometimes breaks out into hilarity. And sometimes there's just the loveliness of simple pleasures: dressing up for a ball; jumping into a cold lake; baking butter tarts; fishing. Summer in a cottage by a lake. (I was a little disappointed that no one got kidnapped by pirates, but this isn't that kind of a book.)
This isn't a book for everyone. Even if you've liked Johnston's previous work, this one might be a little too slow, the humour too quiet, the plot too quirky. But if you can find your inner Canadian, it will bring a smile to your face and a lingering pleasant aftertaste.
Sparkling raspberry lemonade. (This book would probably be best enjoyed at the height of summer. In a cottage. By a lake. Sipping lemonade.)
*I get far too much glee out of the fact that the pirates on the Great Lakes are Americans. (Sorry!)
I'm a Second Round Judge for the YA Spec Fic category again this year—really looking forward to it!—but I've been a bit preoccupied with Nepal and NaNoWriMo, and I haven't been paying attention to the nominees. Turns out there are a number of awesome books (of course), some of which I've already read, and some of which I happened (completely coincidentally)(except that there's probably a reason the librarians put them out on the New and Notable shelf)(gotta love librarians) to pick up at the library recently.
In this post I'll just quickly let you know which nominees I've read and which books sitting on my shelf are nominees this year. In my next post I'll highlight books I'm excited about for various reasons (mostly because fellow bloggers have raved about them).
Of the books I mentioned in my last post, Maggie Stiefvater's All the Crooked Saints, E.K. Johnston's That Inevitable Victorian Thing, and M.T. Anderson's Landscape with Invisible Hand are all nominees. I (and my librarians) clearly have excellent taste in books. I also was back at the library a few days ago and was thrilled to see a new Kristin Cashore book, Jane Unlimited. So that's now on my shelf, too, and it's a nominee.
And here are a few more Nepal pics. Last time I gave you pretty pics. Here are some more urban scenes:
Colorfully decorated buses
Crazy vehicles in Bhaktapur
Note the sign for the Cyber Cafe in ancient Bhaktapur
Cows really do just wander around everywhere
I found myself using the word "juxtaposition" a lot in Nepal
Colourfully decorated trucks, and the terrifying road we took to get to our trek in Langtang Valley.
I went to the library to get a copy of The Goblin Emperor, so I could reread it and get ideas for twisty court politics (for the novel I'm currently writing)(29287 words so far; I'm falling behind target, but there's still a chance I can make 50,000 by the end of the month!). Also I just love The Goblin Emperor so much.
But look what else I found!
Maggie Stiefvater's latest, All the Crooked Saints: it looks like magic realism and I'm really curious about the miracles. People say it's very different from her other books, but I'm willing to go there with her.
Another new one from E.K. Johnston! I didn't even know this one was coming! Everything about That Inevitable Victorian Thing is exciting to me, from the title and cover to the premise: in a near-future Victorian Empire with genetically arranged matchmaking, a princess, a shipping magnate and a scientist spend a summer together of "high-society debutante balls, politically-charged tea parties, and raucous country dances." What is not to like about that plot?!
M. T. Anderson has a really intriguing-looking short book called Landscape With Invisible Hand, about invading aliens who have a thing for "classic" Earth culture. Sounds like lots of potential for satire. The name of the aliens (the vuvv) totally reminds me of The True Meaning of Smekday, one of the funniest books of all time, so I am predisposed to like this one.
Spare and Found Parts, a debut novel by Sarah Maria Griffin about a girl with a mechanical heart who decides to build the boy of her dreams. Sounds cool!
I haven't had time to read any of these, yet, but I'll let you know when I do!
In the meantime, a few pics from Nepal:
Okay, not technically in Nepal. But we stopped to see the Taj Mahal on the way! (Along with 20,000 other people, of course.)
Typical scenery: rice paddies, hills, and four-story buildings.
Hey, all. I've been taking a bit of a blog hiatus, but I had a good excuse: I was in Nepal for most of October. Very cool place. When I'm finished sorting through the 1700-odd photos I took, I might post a few of them!
I probably won't be posting much in November, either, since I've decided to participate in NaNoWriMo. It always seemed like a rather ridiculous thing to do (as in: there's no way I could ever do that!), but I'm at the stage in my WIP where a clearly defined writing goal will be a good thing. Right? This is going to work for me. I have confidence. Ahem.
I didn't get as much reading done in Nepal as I thought I would (and I was reading more non-fiction than fiction), but I did finish E.K. Johnston's companion novel to A Thousand Nights, and it was every bit as good. My only complaint was that it ended too soon!
Spindle is set generations after the events of A Thousand Nights, and you don't have to have read the first book before you read Spindle (Spindle does spoil A Thousand Nights, though). Spindle is another transformative reinterpretation of a fairy tale, this time (as you might guess) Sleeping Beauty.
I love me a good fairy-tale retelling.
Spindle's narrator and protagonist is Yashaa, the son of one of the spinners who are out of a job (and exiled from the kingdom) after a demon curses the Little Rose. I love, love, love, that Johnston explores the realistic, economic implications of ending an entire industry. "And then they burnt all the spindles in the land." That's going to have consequences, people!
The curse itself is fascinating and complex (and an important part of the plot, so I can't tell you about it without spoilers). Yashaa and his three friends (also impacted by the above economic consequences) go on a quest to end the curse which is destroying not just their lives but the entire kingdom. I love, love, love that this is a buddy story: Yashaa, Arwa, Tariq and Saoud are all flawed, lovable characters in their own right, and their bond of friendship and loyalty is a treat to watch. There's a sweet little romance, but it's not the focus.
The demon is also an interesting character; Johnston almost gets us to sympathize with her. She's got a long-term, carefully planned out scheme to regain the power stolen from her people, and she just has to be patient a little longer before it all pays off, if those stupid meddling kids don't mess everything up! I really enjoyed the scenes from her point of view.
The magic creatures are lovely and magical, and I wanted more of them. I also wanted more of the ending: Johnston could have written another hundred pages and I would have gladly read them. (A warning of sorts: Johnston's endings always take a left turn from where you think they're going. It's as though you think you're reading a certain kind of story that's going to have a certain kind of ending, but really she was writing a different story all along, and the ending you were expecting is more of an afterthought. Those of you who've read it, what did you think of the ending?)
Spindle was delicious and multi-layered and resonant with magic. Backlava, I think, oozing honey and crunchy nuttiness. I sure love E.K. Johnston's writing!
Isn't it wonderful when you love a book and then the second book surpasses it in every possible way?The first book of this duology, Wolf by Wolf, was breathtaking in an edge-of-your-seat, forget-to-breathe kind of way. This book left me wordless in a punch-to-the-gut, I-can't-believe-the-writer-just-did-that-kind-of-way.
Brilliant premise: Hitler won WWII and now the Third Reich covers most of the world. Death camps and terrible experiments keep going on, and one of the experiments results in people who can shift their appearance to mimic anyone. Our heroine, Yael, is one of these skinshifters. Wolf by Wolf was all about a plot to use Yael's ability to get close enough to Hitler to assassinate him. I won't spoil the ending, but suffice it to say Blood for Blooddeals with the aftermath.
There's plenty of plot to go on with--nail-biting escapes, really evil villains, unexpected twists, desperate fights and terrifying sneaking into enemy territory--but these are books about character. Yael, Luka and Felix are figuring out who they are, how their history and their choices shape them. We get flashbacks to key moments in their pasts, and the narrative spends time in each of their heads, so we come to understand and care deeply about all three. The agonizing choices they each make are, well, agonizing. Each learns in their own way not to let other people define them, no matter what is done to them.
The book I thought of after finishing Blood for Blood was Rose Under Fire, by Elizabeth Wein. Yes, because the WWII setting is similar, but mostly because of the powerful theme of identity and personhood. And because of the feels. Ryan Graudin has prose that gets you right in the solar plexus.
His apology felt so small. A feathered hawk speck against a wide-world sky, suspended on wind currents.No rise, no fall, just flight without motion, hovering between them.
Nothing in Vlad's training had prepared her for this: returning to the edge of devouring, staring back at it, stepping in.
I just can't spend time on the internet in summer, but I spend a lot of time reading, which means I have lots of books I should review but don't. So here's a quickie list to get me caught up, plus a few other things I've been enjoying.
When Dimple Met Rishi, by Sandhya Menon. This book was completely delightful in every possible way. Does looking at the cover make you happy? Reading the book will make you even happier. Fun, funny, cute, sweet, real: all the good things. (Yes, it's a romance.)
The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden. This book had so much in it and I wanted more of all of it: Russian history, Russian folklore, sibling relationships, strong, compassionate women, deep sense of place, a compelling heroine who insists on being herself. Veered a little more toward horror than the synopsis led me to expect, but I loved the way the horror of the monsters was the same as the horror of starvation. Wonderful characterization, wonderful, evocative writing. Ends satisfactorily, but when I heard there was a sequel I was greatly relieved!
The Naming, by Alison Croggon. I see why the people who share my taste in books love this series: it has everything we loved in Tolkien, Robin McKinley, Patricia McKillip. In some ways it felt derivative, but she takes all the tropes and makes them her own with vivid, complex characters and lovely, lovely writing.
Traitor to the Throne, by Alwyn Hamilton. Well. This series keeps blowing me away. Rebel of the Sands was a hoot, full of action with a great setting, hot romance and cool magic. Traitor to the Throne takes it to another level entirely. Hamilton avoids Meandering Second Book Syndrome by skipping ahead several months (past some fairly significant events: here's hoping she's planning to write a few short stories about them!); then she plops Amani down in the middle of the enemy, away from all her friends (and Jin! Jin doesn't get nearly enough page time in this book. But I'm whining.), in a situation that requires her to be patient and clever and strategic, none of which are Amani's strengths. There are great new characters, even cooler, steampunky additions to the magic, and lots of twists, surprises, betrayals. That ending. Aieee! Need third book now.
Binti, by Nnedi Okorafor. A fascinating little novella/parable about interspecies communication. I loved how real Binti's culture feels, and the way Okorafor explores the experience of foreignness and the remarkable feeling of finally understanding someone who was completely opaque to you.
The Masked City and The Burning Page, by Genevieve Cogman. The next two Invisible Library books were just as much fun as the first, with more Fae and dragons and Irene being awesome. Loved Vale and Kai and their three-way friendship. Loved alternate Venice and St. Petersburg. There's nothing not to love in these; I'll be grabbing book 4 asap.
Also, Ireland is every bit as green and gorgeous and full of old things as I had imagined it to be. And my life is now complete because I've been in the Trinity College Library in Dublin. (I seriously had a moment when I walked into that room. As in, tears in the eyes and everything!)
And we may not have had great views on our backpacking trip, because there are terrible wildfires all across BC and the smoke is blanketing a good chunk of the province, but the flowers were sure spectacular.
Aughh! I'm so behind on reviewing books I've read! Blame my garden. I'm leaving for Ireland in an hour, (mom, aunt, sister trip; going to be awesome; we've never been!) and I'm actually all packed and ready (I think: what have I forgotten??), so I can spare a quick post to tell you what I'm bringing to read.
After hearing about it from several bloggers I trust (we should make a new acronym: from here on you are BITs!), I finally ordered Alison Croggon's The Naming from Interlibrary Loan. It just arrived, so of course I'm taking it on the plane (I promise I won't lose it!).
Also from the library, in hardcover, and it's really thick, so not an ideal plane read, (The Naming is pretty thick too) but whatever! The second book in Alwyn Hamilton's Rebel of the Sands trilogy. I'm excited about Traitor to the Throne!
In keeping with the same theme I thought I'd try Djengo Wexler's YA book The Forbidden Library.
And there was a book I'd never heard of called Palace of Spies, by Sarah Zettel, that I thought I'd try because it looks fun.
Purchased for my Kindle:
Blood for Blood, the sequel to Ryan Graudin's Wolf by Wolf. (I know I said I was going to read the sequel right away, but I got distracted.) A Peace Divided, the next in Tanya Huff's Peacekeeper series. In the Garden of Iden, the first book in Kage Baker's Company series.
This is another random choice from the New shelves at my library. The tagline, "A cappella just got a makeover" drew my eye, and the premise hooked me (but you have to know that I've sung in choirs all my life and I love a cappella music, so I couldn't really help it): girl with a low voice pretends to be a guy so she can get into the exclusive all-guy a cappella group on campus.
Noteworthy could have been a cute cross-dressing caper and I would have liked it, but it turned out to be so, so much more.
For starters, the writing is fantastic. Redgate crafts her sentences with tight finesse (rather like a good choir arrangement). Here's a random example:
I snuck the word out into the air. "Yeah." It hung there for a moment, hesitant, before settling. Then smiles started creasing faces, heads started bobbing, and the inimitable relief of crossing some sort of finish line rushed into me, cold and overwhelming.
I may be using a lot of music analogies to describe this book, because Redgate is musician herself and it shows. She interweaves themes like she's writing a symphony. Friendship, identity, belonging, truth—plus some countermelodies about race, sexuality, privilege, status, family dynamics—if you look at all the things she manages to cover you might wonder if it's a mess, but everything ties together harmoniously.
Also, all the songs in the book are Redgate's songs. As in, she wrote them. And sings them. Can I just spend a moment here to be envious of the girl with all the gifts?
Our narrator, Jordan/Julian, is a wonderful head to be in: dryly self-depreciating, witty, brave, open and thoughtful.
Find a dog whistle and blow it, try to sing that note, and the resulting gurgling shriek will probably sound like my attempt to sing a high F-sharp.
I loved all the Sharpshooters, each with their own sense of humour, their own passions and hangups and fears. Redgate describes them all so well, physically and personality-wise, that I would instantly recognize them if I saw them in a cafe. It was a pleasure to spend time with them. The Crow's Nest is a vividly realized hang-out space that made me wish I'd gone to school at an uppity New England college that might have an old tower room like that. (And I've never, ever before wished I'd gone to an uppity New England college!)
The book Noteworthy most reminds me of, despite being not the least bit fantastical, is Stiefvater's Raven Boys. Redgate is just as good at characters, and at showing the bonds of a friendship so real it feels like another character. The members of the Sharpshooters coalesce into a family full of jokes and tension, secrets and loyalty. Jordan/Julian is lonely for various reasons—I love all the ways that she is an outsider, because every reader will find at least one to relate to—and she values her connection with them so much it's painful. She risks so much, because it's so worth it.
When I was looking through for quotations to use, I got sucked right back into the story and probably would have reread the whole thing if I'd had time. I love writing like that, so comfortable and assured that I can feel at home in it.
Must do a music analogy for this one, of course. It's not an a cappella choir, but Vienna Teng's "Level Up" is both upbeat and heartfelt enough to capture the feel of the novel. (I love the video: the dancing is beautiful.)
And if you want a choral version of it, I love this choir. The expressions on the kids' faces make me so happy.
I also adore this song, (also Vienna Teng), and hey, it's a cappella:
And now I'm going to drop everything else I was doing and watch all the rest of the videos from Indiekör. This choir is awesome!
The Invisible Library was utterly delightful, with huge servings of awesome-sauce on the side. It gave me the happies on almost every page. I mean, there's a Library, so, yeah. And dragons. You'd think that would be enough (that would be enough for me). But, no, there's more! There's a super-smart detective who could convincingly be played by Benedict Cumberbatch. And airships. And remotely-controlled alligators, because, every plot can be improved by the addition of remote-control alligators.
(And Cogman gets the tone pitch perfect: just self-aware enough to take itself seriously without being ridiculous.)
Irene is a fabulous character, right up there with Prunella (from Sorcerer to the Crown. This book is right up there with Sorcerer to the Crown. Possibly even surpasses it. Wouldn't want my life to depend on picking one over the other.) She's competent, firm, thinks on her feet, rises to the occasion, but she's also still a junior Librarian who doesn't have all the information or experience she needs. She has moments of panic, doubt and sheer frustration and it's lovely to watch her deal with them—actually, it's lovely to listen to her narrate how she deals with them.
It gets better. There are, not one, but two really hot guys who spend the whole book being impressed by Irene, talking to her as equals and respecting her opinions and decisions. I could eat this stuff with a spoon; it's better than ice cream. There is a wonderfully complex rivalry between Irene and another woman Librarian. There's a fascinating alternate London, plausibly steampunk and infested with chaos (in the form of Fae, vampires and werewolves, among other things). And there's the Library, with its strange rules, twisted politics and mysterious purpose.
It's all fun as heck, and I can't wait to dive into the next book!
This might not technically be YA, since the characters are over twenty, but it would work just as well for YA or adult.
I'm feeling another music analogy this time: "Starlight" by Muse.
I picked Iron Cast up from the New shelf at the library, and it turned out to be a great debut from a novelist I will follow eagerly. The gorgeous cover drew me in, and the setting matches: 1919 Boston, the Cast Iron nightclub. It's right before Prohibition, but there's still something illegal going on at the Cast Iron: hemopaths are performing.
I love the 1920's—flappers, speak-easies, jazz, independent women, gangsters and shady backroom deals. Add magic and you've got a smoky, intoxicating backdrop for a tale of two girls from the opposite sides of town with a friendship strong enough to take on the world.
The magic was intriguing—hemopaths have an "affliction of the blood" that makes iron painful to them but gives them various magical talents, like manipulating emotions, creating illusions, changing their appearance. I loved how the magic was associated with an art: musicians use their music to make people feel emotions; wordsmiths use poetry to create illusions, actors can change their appearance.
The plot was twisty with betrayals and the looming menace of the Haversham Asylum (what exactly are they doing to hemopaths in the basement???). All sorts of divisions—class, money, race, background—are mined for all the tension and mistrust they create. But holding fast at the centre of it all is the friendship between Ava and Corinne. Rich, white, high society Corinne and poor, black, immigrant Ava have an unshakeable loyalty and trust between them that was a pleasure to watch. So many fist-pumping moments where one girl comes through for the other, who never doubted she would.
I also loved the two romantic relationships, which were realistic and respectful (I mean both the characters' treatment of each other and the author's treatment of the characters: they were all real people who weren't being crammed into a plot device), but I was very happy that the key relationships were the friendships. As this goodreads reviewer cleverly points out, Iron Cast is all about trust, and it was explored in so many different ways through all the different characters.
So many happy things about this book! I don't know much about '20s food, so I'll compare it to jazz—not the boring kind, but the swinging, be bop kind you can dance to. Sing Sing Sing (here it is with awesome dancing from that fantastic movie Swing Kids):
