MMGM: Children of the Quicksands, by Efua Tratore

A Middle-Grade Spec Fic finalist for the Cybils, Children of the Quicksands was one of my top choices for winner. (Here is my review of The Mirrorwood, the one we picked.)

We begin in Lagos, Nigeria, with the common middle-grade trope of the city child being sent to stay with a relative in the country. And of course there's going to be something mysterious going on in the forest behind grandmother's cottage. But this isn't Kansas, and these are not the European folk tales we've seen so much of! 

Simi is such a likeable protagonist, and she drew me right into her voice and her world. I loved being immersed in modern-day Nigeria, and then I loved being taken with Simi into a country village, where we gradually learn about her grandmother's Yoruba religion and the mythic dangers hidden in the forest. 

The magical and the real are integrated seamlessly; I loved that this is a story set firmly in the "real" world, and the world under the quicksands that Simi falls into is just one more part of reality. I loved that this is a story about families, about relationships, healing and forgiveness, whether it's within mortal families or relationships between gods.

Every character is rich and rounded; there is convincing conflict without anyone being a villain. I loved how the interplay between religion and politics was represented—simply enough for a middle-grade audience, but nuanced. There are all sorts of interesting themes going on, but the story never bogged down, never faltered from its clear arc of Simi discovering her heritage and reuniting her family.

Have I mentioned how much I love Simi? And her grandmother, and Jay, the son of the chief, who insists on becoming Simi's friend. Lots of humour and very relatable situations.

The writing is excellent, the descriptions vivid, the dialog easy to hear—and I loved the incorporation of Yoruba language into the text (with a helpful glossary).

I can't claim to have eaten authentic Nigerian food, but I am now looking up Nigerian restaurants in Vancouver, and I shall correct that lack with all due haste. I do love peanut soup, which is at least West African in origin—maybe that's what I'll have for dinner tonight!

Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday is hosted by Greg Pattrige at Always in the Middle, and is always an excellent source of middle-grade recommendations.

The Iron Will of Genie Lo, by F. C. Yee

I was really excited about The Iron Will of Genie Lo, and I wasn't disappointed. It's every bit as good as The Epic Crush of Genie Lo, and my one disappointment is that it appears to conclude the series—I would have read a lot more adventures of Genie and Quentin! (Though Yee might have decided there was no way he could top the stakes of this one, and I respect walking away from the mike drop!)

The Monkey King is a great trickster character from Chinese mythology, and Yee has so much fun with him and his partner in mayhem, over-achieving California high-school student Genie Lo. I loved Genie's character: she's flawed, she recognizes her flaws, she's trying to do the right thing, and she gets so relateably exasperated with herself, and with everyone else who makes it so hard to figure out what the right thing is. There's enough character development that I would read a book just about Genie trying to figure out college choices and her relationship with her parents and how to communicate with her boyfriend. Throw in demons and a bunch of Chinese gods being petty and manipulative, and Genie doing her best to fulfil a divine mandate while still getting good grades and protecting her best friend Yunie from all the supernatural stuff going down—so much fun! And I cared so much about all of them.

Everyone from the Goddess of Mercy to the ant leader of the demon horde to Yunie's hilariously true-to-life cousin at college was an interesting character that I wanted to know more about. Yee has a way of summing up people and situations in unexpected but perfect metaphors:

How was I supposed to keep my life options open if I didn’t at least double major? The concept was rationally appealing but still unpalatable, like cilantro.

... a wizened, disproportionately deep voice. He could have narrated a nature documentary about himself.

The writing is just really, really funny—sometimes quite sly, always very perceptive. 

it looked like we were having a funny, lighthearted conversation, like women in stock photos. All we needed were some salads.

There are a lot of similarities between this book and Victories Greater Than Death, which I ended up getting bored with and not finishing: colorful, larger-than-life characters, lots of crazy action in imaginative settings, juxtaposition of normal teen-age angst with save-the-universe stakes. So why did Iron Will work for me where Victories fell flat? I think it's in how much Yee respects both his material and his audience. I didn't get the sense that Anders believed in her aliens; they felt more like props to make the story more exciting, and the story was there so that her teen characters could Learn Something. Yee's gods and monsters were every bit as over-the-top weird, but they felt real to me. And Genie wasn't there to learn a lesson: she was there to kick butt and yell at people to stop being stupid. That she figures out how to be true to herself and still live up to everyone's expectations (including her own) is an inevitable result of her character intersecting the story.

The ending felt a bit rushed to me: this could totally have been a trilogy, and I have to respect that Yee didn't drag the story out on purpose to make it three books, but I would have happily read a third one! (Have I hinted strongly enough that I want another book? What about a novella? I'd be happy with a short story: pretty please with a cherry on top?)

Steamed BBQ pork buns, the kind you get at dim sum. Actually, this book is dim sum: so many different delicious things coming around on carts! You might not recognize many of them if this isn't your cultural background, but you'll want to try them all. And it's really sad that there's no way you have room to eat one of everything!

Gods of Jade and Shadow, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

I don't blog much in the summer anyway, but this year I've been in quite the reading funk and haven't had anything to say about books for a while. It happens, I guess. Sometimes life gets in the way of reading.

But when my friend's book came out I had to read it, of course. And if you need a book to get you out of a slump, have I got a book for you!

Gods of Jade and Shadow has to be the sweetest dark fantasy about homicidal death gods ever written! If Jazz Age meets Mayan death god sounds intriguing, I can promise you won't be disappointed: you get Mayan mythology and 1920's Mexico in equally vivid realism. The intersection of Xibalba, the Mayan underworld, with a Mexico on the verge of change is convincing, terrifying, and so much fun. Witches and demons lurk in strange mansions and the streets of Carnival; fancy new hotels can be portals to hell.

The protagonist leading you through both worlds is a clear-headed, no-nonsense dreamer with a temper that gets her in trouble and a dry, self-depreciating wit that gets her through it. Casiopea is named after a Greek myth and knows her stories, and when she accidentally resurrects a death god she takes it all in stride—after all, he's going to get her out of her grandfather's house and the drab town that "scorch[es] out dreams." And maybe, if she survives the vengeful spirits and the Black Roads of Xibalba and her ever-awful cousin Martín, she might get a chance to realize one or two of her own carefully hoarded dreams.

Hun-Kamé, Lord of Shadows and rightful ruler of Xibalba, is an equally delightful travel companion. Arrogant and careless as any god when we first meet him, he becomes more and more human as he journeys with Casiopea (due to a particularly well-done mythical plot twist). Casiopea's relationship with Hun-Kamé is the fascinating, piquant heart of the story: she fears him, stands up to him anyway, serves him, refuses to put up with his crap, chooses to stick with him, and comes to have compassion for him. The impossible romance that blooms ever-so-tentatively between them is entirely believable and beautifully bittersweet.

The writing is lovely and often quite funny. Hun-Kamé is prone to grave utterances that the other characters refuse to take seriously.

"Death enters all dwellings."
"Death has no manners."

But then sometimes he ends up being quite profound.

"Death speaks all languages."
"But I am not death."
"You wear me like a jewel upon your finger, Casiopea."

The plot has the pleasing inevitability of a folktale but the satisfaction of watching characters with agency change their world. "'Very well,'" says Casiopea at the beginning, "and with these two words she accepted her fate, horrid or wonderful as it might be." By the end of her Odyssey, she is defying gods and monsters (and the ever-awful Martín)(but even he gets some compassion, because Casiopea is just that awesome) and it turns out the fate of the world is in her hands. "'I wish you were a coward instead of a hero,'" says Hun-Kamé. But we've known from the start that Casiopea is no coward. Her triumph at the end is earned and fitting. I particularly enjoyed the form her happily-ever-after took!

If you're bored with endlessly replicated fantasy settings, annoyed with heroines whose one characteristic is spunky or kick-ass, have had it up to here with insta-love and angst—this is the book to cleanse your palate and renew your faith in speculative fiction.

Home-made corn tortillas with carnitas, queso fresco and a really spicy pico de gallo. Also a salsa made from blackened habaneros that will scorch your tongue off.

And here's some of what I've been doing instead of reading this summer:

Cross-posted on Goodreads (without the hiking photos!).