Link Roundup 1/9/13

image by Aimee Fleck

The slow death of Barnes & Noble.

A double-punch from The Awl: Twilight fanfiction (bear with me here), and young adult novelists talking about the first thing they shoplifted. (Best answer by Justine Larbalestier, obviously.)

Problems with food in 50 Shades of Gray.

The Bicholim Conflict and other Wikipedia-based hoaxes. Don’t use it to do your homework, kids! We know you do.

The Whole Story, a DRM-free collection of digital comics by Ryan Andrews, KC Green, Ryan Estrada, and Jang Young for as little as $1. I know what I’m doing with my milk money.

I fangirled over comicker and art student Aimee Fleck at Reading in Skirts today. Go read her comic Tomorrow! (No, don’t read it tomorrow, read it today.)

Wild Seed by Octavia Butler (A More Diverse Universe)

Like a couple of others, I decided to (re)read Wild Seed for Aarti & Co’s More Diverse Universe Blog Tour. Any regular reader of NBP knows that diverse reading is important to me, so signing up for the tour was a no-brainer. The real question was what to read. I have several SF&F books written by POC that have been on my TBR for a while (A Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, Who Fears Death, etc), but I’ve been meaning to reread Wild Seed for years so that I could continue on with the rest of the Patternmaster series which I haven’t read. Since it’s been on my TBR list for the longest, Wild Seed won.

Anyway, tl;dr for why I chose Wild Seed. Onto the book itself!

From Amazon (that link is to just Wild Seed, but I would recommend, if you are interested, in instead getting Seed to Harvest, the compilation of the four Patternmaster books): “Doro is an entity who changes bodies like clothes, killing his hosts by reflex — or design. He fears no one — until he meets Anyanwu. Anyanwu is a shapeshifter who can absorb bullets and heal with a kiss…and savage anyone who threatens those she loves. She fears no one — until she meets Doro. From African jungles to the colonies of America, Doro and Anyanwu weave together a pattern of destiny that not even immortals can imagine.”

The good: I love this book. It explores many of the same themes of other Butler novels: race, gender, sex, power. Butler also explores what it means to be truly immortal, in Doro’s case, or effectively immortal, in Anyanwu’s case. She explores the loneliness that each experience and their differing ways of dealing with it. She explores the relationship between morality and mortality. Wild Seed is about the relationship between Doro and Anyanwu, and is really a prequel to the rest of the series, so there isn’t an arcing plot. I’m fine with that, enjoy it even, but beware if you’re the type of reader who wants a big bad to fight or whatever. I should perhaps mention here that the next section will have spoilers, but given the not-so-plotful nature of the book, I don’t think it will ruin your experience. Still, don’t read the next section if you hate spoilers!

The rough: Many (most? all?) of Butler’s novels have an at least partially uncomfortable sexual and/or romantic relationship and this is no exception. Anyanwu and Doro are very different people and, truthfully, the one thing that keeps them together is that they are the only two immortal people they know of in the world. Doro’s lack of empathy, his obsession with his breeding program, and his ultimate power mean that he uses people, including Anyanwu, in very gross ways. I don’t blame Anyanwu for growing to hate him, and I don’t judge her for growing close to him again, in the end. If I was immortal in a world where almost everybody and everything is mortal, I don’t know that I could forever stay away from another immortal person. Anyanwu realizes this for herself and realizes that her only real choice is to either let herself die (which she can do, and which Doro cannot) or live with him. She chooses the latter and I refuse to belittle her choice. And I strongly disagree with Fangs for the Fantasy that that choice makes Anyanwu a long-suffering mammy. (I also disagree that Anyanwu and Doro’s ability to change sex, whilst still retaining their gender, and having relationships with women and men respectively is in any way excluding LGBT experiences and, in fact, is inclusive of trans* experiences. I do think Fangs for the Fantasy makes an important point about Anyanwu’s healing and what the books says about disability and the problems therein, but I do not think there is as much erasure/negativity as they are saying. I will have to think more on it. Anyway, head on over and see what they had to say!)

The bad/overall: For me, there is nothing, really, to say here. If you like book plots to have a distinct arc, you may have trouble. If you are sensitive to or triggered by race/gender/sex issues, I would recommend it only with extreme caution. Otherwise, I highly recommend it to everyone. If you haven’t read any Butler at all, you are seriously missing out! Get thee to the library/bookstore!

Beauty, by Robin McKinley

Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast

by Robin McKinley

“Beauty has never liked her nickname. She is thin and awkward; it is her two sisters who are the beautiful ones. But what she lacks in looks, she can perhaps make up for in courage.

When her father comes home with the tale of an enchanted castle in the forest and the terrible promise he had to make to the Beast who lives there, Beauty knows she must go to the castle, a prisoner of her own free will. Her father protests that he will not let her go, but she answers, “Cannot a Beast be tamed?”

Robin McKinley’s beloved telling illuminates the unusual love story of a most unlikely couple: Beauty and the Beast.” (via Amazon)

Good Things: Okay, you guys know the story. You probably even know Robin McKinley’s version of the story, if you’re the kind of person who reads book blogs. But, you guys!!! This is the fourth Robin McKinley book I’ve read, and she continues to impress me with her…her Robin McKinley-ness. I might even like Beauty better than I liked Chalice, Deerskin, or The Hero and the Crown. Let’s figure out why, shall we?

I think the most immediate thing is that Beauty has a waaaaay better support system at home than the heroines of the other three books I’ve read. Okay, so Aerin in The Hero and the Crown has her father and Tor, but she is also pretty much feared and/or hated by everybody else. Beauty, on the other hand, has a family that loves and supports her–a dead mother, of course, but a pretty stable father and two pretty stable sisters, and friendly, supportive townsfolk besides. Beauty works hard to support them in turn, not just out of duty but out of love. And, you know, it’s nice! Human relationships and simple interactions are one of McKinley’s (many) strengths, and they really shine through in Beauty–which isn’t to say that there aren’t some lovely interactions and relationships in her other novels, but Beauty is coming from a different place than Mirasol, Lissar, and Aerin do, and consequently has different strengths and challenges.

Beauty isn’t so different from McKinley’s other heroines, though. As with her other novels, a large portion of the story has to do with Beauty’s personal growth as she discovers hidden strengths inside herself and really comes into her own. She changes during her time living at the Beast’s enchanted castle, and that change benefits the Beast and ultimately breaks his curse, but in the end, she changes for herself. And that’s one of the things I love most about McKinley’s heroines.

Plus, I really liked the alternate history/future thing that McKinley let us onto with Beauty’s studying, and the not-yet-written books in the Beast’s castle. WHAT! I love the idea of Sophocles existing in the same world as magic and goblins and crap.

Bad Things: Do I sound incredibly suck-uppy if I can’t think of any? There’s a cat on my lap and she’s making it hard to type. It’s a bit short, and Beauty doesn’t quite have the bite of McKinley’s later books (Beauty being her first). The story is pretty quiet and gentle, and the ending, despite some of the drama, ends pretty quietly and gently–there aren’t any towering battles or end-of-the-world magical showdowns. Only a dubious Beauty, a troubled Beast, and a loving family.

Overall:  Sweet! Smart! Beauty is a heroine with punch and sass and I like the heck out of her and her family, and I even like the Beast too. McKinley fleshes the story out and makes it more complex, and I like that too. Go read it if you haven’t! It’ll only take an afternoon or so, and I don’t think you’ll regret it.

What I’ve Been Reading

Mia and I are going to be participating in Dewey’s Read-a-Thon again this weekend, which means a flurry of activity for Nisaba Be Praised. And I was just thinking that the poor dear has been so misused and neglected that to it would struggle under the pressure of a 24 hour read-a-thon. SO, following Miss Amelia’s wonderful review of Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher last month, I’m gonna tell ya’ll what I’ve been reading. (The thought being that this will be like a warm-up or stretching routine for NBP, after months of sitting on its butt.)

I might miss some things, and this is going to be in no sort of order, b/c I’ve been terrible about keeping track:

1) Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey (ooo, bargain price at Amazon!) – “Carey sets this powerful near-future tale in Outpost 12, a small town trapped in a œbuffer zone shielding Texas from pandemic-stricken Mexico. Two half-siblings chafing under General Argyle’s military rule make very different plans to beat the status quo. Tom, the son of a soldier, lives at the gym, where he trains in boxing and hopes to win his freedom from the town by defeating the general’s boxing champion. Loup, who has inherited her escaped father’s oddly engineered genes, joins a group of church wards called the Santitos, a tight gang of vigilantes who masquerade as the local saint, Santa Olivia.”

I picked this up because I saw it on a list of gay characters in SF&F (which was in response to the recent Gay4YA kerfuffle – asking that people buy books with gay characters so that publishers will publish more of them). I haven’t read anything by Carey, though I’ve been meaning to read Kushiel’s Dart for years. Anyway, I ended up liking this a lot. I don’t want to describe it too much, really, but I loved the main character, the world and worldbuilding, and the supporting characters. The only major weakness for me was some unrealistic dialogue, aka things 17-year-olds would. not. say. Still, as solid a book as I think this is, and unusual enough that I’d like more people to read it, there’s something stopping me from wholeheartedly loving it. And I’m not sure what that is.

2) In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming - “Russ Van Alstyne, police chief of Millers Kill, and Clare Fergusson, new-to-town Episcopal priest, first meet when she reports a baby abandoned at the church. The two later discover the body of the baby’s young mother. As the investigation progresses, Clare runs into opposition from staid church members, two of whom will do anything to adopt the child.”

I grabbed this as a free ebook a few months ago and when I got my nook (my beautiful and beloved nook!) for my birthday, this was one of the first things I read. It’s a mystery novel, which is not one of my usual genres. My mom reads them almost exclusively and so I’ve read plenty of them over the years. In some ways, they’re even more comfortable than books in my favorite genres. There’s just something about a mystery being solved that is so complete and satisfying. Time to get off my tangent: this was great. My favorite thing was the friendship between the two main characters who, shocker of all shockers, are a man and a woman! Oh, also, the woman is a priest! I’d love to read more of the series, because seriously this was great, but I am poor.

3) Swept Off Her Feet by Hester Browne (also bargain price on amazon!) - “Evie Nicholson is in love with the past. An antiques appraiser in a London shop, Evie spins fanciful attachments to Victorian picture frames, French champagne glasses, satin evening gloves, and tattered teddy bears—regardless of their monetary value. Her sister, Alice, is as clutter-free as Evie is a pack rat, and she has the perfect Scottish boyfriend, Fraser, to boot! As a favor to friends of Fraser’s family, Evie jumps at the chance to appraise a Scottish castle full of artifacts and heirlooms. What could be more thrilling than roaming the halls of Kettlesheer and uncovering the McAndrews’ family treasures—and dusty secrets?”

I bought this for my nook a week or two ago around nine o’clock in the evening and I finished it in the early hours of the morning. Seriously, this is one of the biggest strengths of ebooks and ereaders. Craving something at a time when bookstores are not open and getting instant gratification. So… this was a lot of fun. It’s a romance, possibly chick-lit. No, definitely chick-lit, but the sort with a romance. (What’s the difference, o ye of not genre fans? Romance is more focused on the couple, chick-lit is more focused on the woman. Also romance usually has quite a bit of sex and sexual tension, chick-lit does not.) It was exactly what I’d been craving and I’d recommend it in a heartbeat if you’re craving it, too!

4) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie – “Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.”

Um, yeah. This was as amazing as everybody says. If you haven’t read it yet, please do.

5) Chalice by Robin McKinley – “Mirasol is a beekeeper, a honey-gatherer, with an ability to speak to the “earthlines” – the sentient parts of Willowlands, where she lives. The concerns of Master, Chalice, and Circle, who govern Willowlands, have nothing to do with her – until the current Master and Chalice die in a fire and leave no heirs to take their places. The Master’s closest relative has been a priest of Fire for the past seven years; he is not quite human anymore. And then the Circle comes to Marisol and tells her that she is the new Chalice, and it will be up to her to bind the land and its people with a Master, the touch of whose hand can burn human flesh to the bone. . . .”

I loved this. Go read it. It’s slow for YA fantasy and would be, I think, a good crossover for adult readers who aren’t sure about YA.

Short Reports 5/13

I know, I know, I haven’t been around here lately. You-all (our threes and fours of readers) have Mary and Jessica to thank for keeping this site fresh and full of wonderful poetry lately! I love poetry, but as a scholar of prose, poetry is still very mysterious to me. Good poetry is like a herd of ethereal and dainty unicorns, and all I understand are Nubian goats. That’s right, I just compared my literature degree to raising goats. AND I’M NOT SORRY.

Um, anyhow. As Jessica mentioned, I was gone last week in order to say goodbye to one of the people I was closest to in the world. I’m glad I could be with her family, and it was a very fitting farewell, but it’s left me with little energy for my usual hobbies. To wit: I’ve been reading, but haven’t been able to form a coherent thought when it comes time to REVIEW the books I’ve read. So I thought I would try to ease back into things by doing some short reports on what I’ve picked up (and put down again) in the past couple of weeks.

-Dairy Queen, by Catherine Gilbert Murdock:

I LOVE YOU, D.J. SCHWENK. Okay, folks, if you’re at all a fan of YA, please go pick this up and read it. D.J. is a small-town Wisconsin girl who has been tasked with basically running her parents’ farm while her dad is out of commission. Tough stuff. Family politics and a growing sense of unhappiness with her lot in life don’t make it any easier. But, you guys–D.J. is so charming! Her voice is so honest and fresh and funny. I often feel dissatisfied with a lot of the YA I read because, while the side characters have gobs and gobs of personality, the narrator sometimes tends to be a little bit bland. Maybe so the reader can identify with her more? D.J. doesn’t suffer from Bland Hero Disorder, though; I felt that I got a very clear feeling of who she is, and who she’s trying to become through the course of the novel. And the person that she is, I want her to be my GOOD BUDDY FOR LIFE.

Bonus material (and SPOILERS, so cover your eyes if you haven’t read the novel!): I looked up Dairy Queen on Wikipedia because I cannot remember Catherine Gilbert Murdock’s name to save my life for some reason, and the summary of the novel has this AMAZING line of information:

Then Amber reveals, “You’re with me. You’re not with him. It’s the two of us. Don’t you see that?” It then occurs to D.J. that Amber is in love with her (Which is how you know that Amber is a lesbian.)

I love whichever fifteen-year-old wrote that. “Which is how you know” indeed.

(Okay, you can stop covering your eyes now.)

- The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie: I’m still boarding the YA train, so I haven’t had the chance to read many of the titles that have been raised on high as being The Young Adult Novels To Read. To that end, I picked this one up at the library, since it seems to turn lead to gold wherever it goes. Sadly, though, I can’t tell you whether I liked it or not, and I don’t think I will be able to for a long time: I read the first twenty pages, came across the part that has detailed descriptions of a dog getting sick and having to be put down, and was absolutely DESTROYED. It more or less turned me into a useless ball of sadness for the rest of the evening. I know it sounds silly, but there are boundaries I recognize in myself for what I can and cannot read at the moment, and that sort of thing is definitely not on the list to get into the club. This isn’t the fault of the book or the author, but I think I’ll be returning this unread and pick it up some other time.

- Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld: Another DNF, although not for the same reasons. I just…I was bored, you guys! I don’t know, I just wasn’t compelled by the world or the story that is being told. I’d say it’s because I’m tired of dystopia in my reading material, but I recently read The Giver for the first time and was completely blown away by it, and Riddley Walker (which EVERYONE SHOULD READ STARTING RIGHT NOW. I’M SERIOUS. READY STEADY GO!) is still one of my favorite novels of all time, so, who knows? I put it down when I realized that I just didn’t care. While I can appreciate the message of loving yourself the way you are and not, you know, submitting teenagers to compulsory plastic surgery, I didn’t feel like it brought anything particularly new or interesting to the table.

- The Old Kingdom Trilogy, by Garth Nix:

Whoa. Whoa whoa whoa. How did I not read these before? I want to go back in time and give these to twelve-year-old Mia so that she can spend less time idealizing vampires (yeah, that’s right, I was ahead of the trend by ten years, bitches!) and more time idealizing CRAZY AWESOME NECROMANCERS. Sabriel and Lirael are two of the bad-assin’-est main characters I’ve read about in years! And that’s saying something, because I recently read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire in two consecutive days. Forget Katniss, give me the Abhorsen! Although I have to admit that, at the beginning of her titular novel, Lirael was cracking me the heck up with her mopey-teenager-turned-up-to-11 behavior. NOBODY UNDERSTANDS ME, NOBODY LIKES ME, I’M GOING TO THROW MYSELF OFF OF THIS GLACIER. Um, Lirael, if you talked to people and opened yourself up a little bit, maybe it wouldn’t matter so much that you don’t have the Sight like the other Clayr? Then again, maybe she’s a teeny bit justified since she spent her entire life around people who can see the future when she couldn’t. I’m sure if I were a clairvoyant precognative I’d spend most of my waking hours talking about how awesome it was, too. Anyway: it’s got dead spirits, good and evil necromancy, amazing and thorough worldbuilding, a pseudo-England of the WWII era right across the wall from a magic-and-mayhem world, and the Disreputable Dog (oh my god do I love the Disreputable Dog). Good, good stuff. And all the titles have beautifully illustrated covers that capture well the feeling of the Old Kingdom.

What do y’all think? Have you read any of these? What did you think of them? Do you have any quick-fire capital-”O” Opinions on books you’ve read lately? Speak up!

Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves

I don’t know about anyone else, but I thought the African American Read-In was a huge success! I really enjoy talking with people about books, but that usually happens one-on-one. It was fun and enlightening to hear so many people’s thoughts. Thank you so much to Ari, Doret, and Edi for hosting!

Everybody reads reviews differently, so for those who like it short and sweet: I loved Bleeding Violet and heartily recommend it. For those who like to know a bit more about a book before buying/borrowing it, there’s a bit of plot at the bottom of the review  under “Regarding Plot” (really, it’s what *I* would have put on the back cover instead of what was actually there). And for the rest of you, just read on!

Inside Cover Copy: “Hanna simply wants to be loved.”

Regarding Character: There’s more to the cover copy than that, of course, hinting at some of Hanna’s problems and how she tries to solve them, but that is, without a doubt, the most important sentence. She just wants to be loved. The other important thing to know, what will put the rest of my ruminations in context, is that the book is a fantasy novel. It takes place in a small town in Texas, Portero, where strange and scary things happen all the time. But to get back to Hanna…

She simply wants to be loved.

That’s important to remember, because it is, at times, the only identifiable thing about her. Hanna is beautiful, utterly gorgeous, and confident with the opposite sex. She’s also diagnosed as bipolar and has a hard time wanting to take her pills. She uses people and is, time and again, reckless with herself and others. There were a number of people at the Read-In who struggled with Hanna. Bleeding Violet is in first person, so disliking the main character makes the whole book a struggle.

I didn’t have that problem. I read the whole book one night and only put it down long enough to grab three hours of sleep before finishing it in the morning. I suppose I may identify with Hanna more than some because I am diagnosed as clinically depressed. I identified with Hanna’s frustration with non-crazy people and their lack of understanding, as well as her inner struggle with trying to figure out who she wants to be and how her mental illness fits in with her own identity.

On the other hand, Hanna is incredibly different from me. I doubt I would have made any of the same choices as she did. But isn’t that what fiction is for? To explore places I can’t go and meet people I likely never will? To try to understand and empathize those people by being inside their brains in a way that is much harder and rarer in the real world?

Hanna’s main motivation is love, as I have said. But specifically, she’s looking for the love of her mother, Rosalee, who she hasn’t seen since, well, she was born! We talked a fair amount about that at the Read-In: beyond Hanna’s craziness and Portero’s craziness lies a foundational story of a daughter seeking the love of her estranged mother. When you keep that in mind, I think Hanna’s actions become a lot more understandable.

Regarding Plot: I don’t want to make this humongously long and there are a million and a half more things I could write about (this was a big book, with any definition of big you want to put on it), but I will leave off with my own back cover copy. It’s going to be more boring than the one that came with the book, but I think it will also be more accurate. *glowers at the crappy copy*

Hanna simply wants to be loved. (What? That one line was good so I’m stealing it!) Her Swedish dad loved her and she loved him, madly. But then he died and, mostly, left her (she still hears his voice sometimes). In search of love, Hanna travels to Portero, Texas in search of her estranged mother, Rosalee. She expects to be the craziest thing in town, but then nobody reacts when she has a weird hallucination and everybody’s calling her a transy, whatever the hell that means. But there’s a cute boy named Wyatt and her Swan and Hanna knows that she can make Rosalee love her. Soon she’ll figure out what’s going on, uncovering the town’s history and secrets, uncovering Rosalee’s history and secrets, and she’ll turn everything topsy turvy.

Disclosure: Borrowed from the library!

The Goose Girl – Shannon Hale

IQ: “In the dizziness of early morning and little sleep, Ani wondered what she would find outside, if the night and the water had washed it all away, the pasture, the walls, the guards, the palace, and left her with her name again standing in mud and darkness.” (p 155)

Recently, I have been craving, or I guess needing, really immersive fantasy when it comes to reading material. A close friend of mine passed away recently, and while I spend a good deal of time thinking about her and the time we had together, sometimes I need to think about something else, and that’s when I turn–as always–to books.

By a stroke of luck, another couple of friends (really friends of my boyfriend, but a cooler pair of twins I could not know, and I’d like to think of them as my friends too) lent me some of their library about a month ago, and among the selection was Shannon Hale’s Book of a Thousand Days. That one I picked first and devoured, so when I was at the library recently looking for good fantasy, I grabbed another Shannon Hale–this time, The Goose Girl–in the hopes that it would be as satisfying and amazing as Book of a Thousand Days.

I’m glad to say it definitely is.

The Goose Girl, like Book of a Thousand Days, is based on a Grimm fairy tale; Ani, a shy and awkward princess of the kingdom of Kildenree, is sent to the neighboring kingdom Bayern to marry a prince she has never met. Due to a coup during the journey, she must flee and hide under a false name as a goose-herder in Bayern, alone and afraid for her life. It’s a story of personal and physical journey, as are many young adult books, peppered with humor and romance to counter the trials.

The Goose Girl scratched a slightly different itch for me than Book of a Thousand Days; it’s longer, with slightly more trauma in the main character’s narrative, and Ani the princess is a very different protagonist from Dashti the mucker maid. Book of a Thousand Days was also somewhat more alluring to me at first glance because of its psudeo-Mongolian setting, while The Goose Girl springboards off of the fairly common western-Europe fantasy setting.

What the two books have in common, though, are main characters who go through interesting and believable changes and growths, a lively and detailed world, and wonderfully evocative prose that accomplishes a lot in terms of both storytelling and lyricism without being overly flowery. They have that fairy-tale feeling to them, warm and familiar (despite being fairly obscure tales), but Hale weaves strong characterization and worldbuilding into the framework to create something new.

This has become more of a Shannon-Hale-post instead of the Goose-Girl post I was intending, so let me just say this. Ani, not a particularly likable character in the beginning, struggles through a great deal of hardships (though not as many as the titular character of Plain Kate, another book I read recently–a beautiful book, but harrowing and rather painful to read, especially at this juncture in my life) and learns how to be strong for her own sake and develop her own identity, which is a very satisfying place to see her reach. The humor is fun and appropriate, and her awkward romance with Geric is charming to watch unfold.

Though I’ll have to return The Goose Girl to the library (and Book of a Thousand Days to my friends),  I would gladly welcome any of Shannon Hale’s work on my already-overflowing shelves. I greatly look forward to reading Enna Burning, another book based in Bayern, following one of the side characters from The Goose Girl. Hale shows a lot of skill in harnessing fairy tales and making them her own.

P.S. Don’t forget to sign up for our giveaway of A Girl Named Disaster! We’re already halfway to a winner!

A Girl Named Disaster – Nancy Farmer

Boy, Nisaba Be Praised is just growing and growing, isn’t it? I’m Mia, Jessica’s college friend and fellow book addict. I’m not as cool as Mary, since my literature degree stopped at a B.A., but rest assured my love of reading burns bright! I’m no stranger to writing about what I’ve read, and while this is a new environment and I’m not (to my knowledge) being graded*, I hope that I’ll make a good showing nevertheless.

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*Mwahahaha, that’s what she thinks! – Jessica**

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**I knew it! -Mia

Jessica: Mia and I both belong to a Young Adult book club with a few other friends. Last month Mia picked our book: A Girl Named Disaster by Nancy Farmer. By chance, both of us had read it for the first time when we were younger, at similar ages, so it was interesting for both of us to revisit it from a more critical mindset.

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IQ: “Her body worked all day planting, weeding, baby-sitting, washing – oh, so many chores! – but her spirit had nothing to do. It became restless, and so she gave it work, too.
aaaIt learned how the Matabele ants carried their young at the center of a line while the soldiers ran along the outside. It learned that when Uncle Kufa pursed his lips as he was eating, he was angry at Aunt Chipo. It learned that the wind smelled one way when it blew from the stream and another when it came from the forest.
aaaNhamo’s spirit had to be kept very busy to keep her from losing her temper.
aaaThe other girls in the village never felt restless. Nhamo was like a pot of boiling water. “I want… I want…,” she whispered to herself, but she didn’t know what she wanted and so she had no idea how to find it.” (pages 1-2)

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Nhamo is essentially an orphan. Her mother is dead and her father… who knows? Her aunt and uncle are cruel, but Nhamo can withstand the many chores and hateful glances. But when they tell her she must marry an old, stupid man with three wives to break her father’s curse, she cannot stand it anymore. Ambuya, her grandmother, tells her to go to Zimbabwe, which is only a few days away by boat. Unfortunately, Nhamo GETS LOST AND HAS A GREAT AND LONELY ADVENTURE…. or maybe Little did Ambuya know, but Nhamo’s journey would take much longer…. DUN DUN DUN

Mia: You can see how much both of us enjoy writing summaries. Nhamo has a long adventure in the forest and on the water where she is, more or less, by herself. Her experiences bring up a lot of questions about lines between the human, animal, and spirit worlds; what makes a family; and the strength of body and mind in trying times.

Jessica: So Mia, do you remember how you responded to this book as a kid? I only read it the one time, but I know you read it a few times.

Mia: Well, I mostly remember being absolutely captivated by the adventure story the book provided. Nhamo’s strength through adversity and her experiences were utterly outside of everything I knew, and Nancy Farmer does a great job of keeping the story at a clipping pace while maintaining a pretty-but-practical style of writing–which to my mind matches Nhamo’s personality well. What were your impressions?

J: You know, I don’t really remember! I definitely loved it. I think I probably gobbled it up in one bite. The adventure is definitely a big draw, especially for girls. There are so few adventure books that feature heroines. On Amazon there were a few reviews that were obviously written by boys who said things like “It was too boring” and “This is a girl’s book!” which broke my heart.

M: Boring? What! I never. I am a big fan of rereading books, especially since I tend to read things quickly on the first time through, and this is one that definitely drew me back again and again. There are so many facets to the story–adventure, family, the spirit world, storytelling–that I could always look for something different when I picked it back up.

J: Yeah, I really enjoyed rereading it. I’ve always meant to, so thanks for picking it! The quote we picked up there is one I really identify with now. You mentioned it, and it was exactly the one I wanted to feature, as well. I wonder, though… I can’t remember if that quote jumped out at me back then. I associate that sentiment, wanting but not knowing what you want, with twenty-somethings more than any other age group. Aside from maybe babies!

M: Babies indeed. The fact that you don’t really remember the quote affecting you then speaks to me quite well of the importance for looking back at books you loved or even liked as a child. For most of us, our priorities have changed drastically from what they were when we were preteens, and in reading books that shaped us (or didn’t) as young adults, we get a chance to reflect on what we wanted, or thought we wanted, or didn’t know we wanted. This segues us back to the book, though. Jessica, do you think Nhamo has any better idea of what she wants at the end of the book than she did at the beginning?

J: (My dad never rereads books. He reads primarily for plot, so it’s understandable, but I still think he’s missing out on SO MUCH!) That’s a really interesting question. I think she’s definitely more fulfilled, but maybe that desire for the unknown is something that stays with us always. Here’s another question, since I don’t know what else to say: Nhamo ends the book (SPOILER ALERT, OBVIOUSLY) being bookish and smart and in a modern place. I think Farmer does a pretty good job of not favoring the modern over the traditional (that’s assuming a false dichotomy, but we’ll leave that alone for now). BUT we have that ever-so-common trope of the bookish and intelligent girl in a book whose audience is primarily bookish and intelligent girls. When Nhamo learns to read and thinks about going back to her village where there aren’t any books (combined with her reaction to Uncle Kufa’s misspelled letter)… I don’t know, it seemed almost… too easy? We talked in book club about how it seems pretty obvious that the audience she is writing for is mostly white, and definitely not African. It almost felt to me like it was a Western idea of a happy ending for this girl. What do you think?

M: It’s easy to look at Nhamo’s choice to embrace modernization as a Westernized betrayal of her roots, but I think largely it’s a choice made largely out of practicality for Nhamo. Electricity and stoves mean no more cookfires for which she has to gather fuel, plumbing means she doesn’t have to haul water from the stream, and in general her daily life is made much easier and more convenient. One could say–and I’m doing this because I’m not sure if this is what I believe myself, so I’m saying that one COULD say–that with so much time freed up that she doesn’t have to use doing chores, a more intellectual approach is natural, especially as the other characters keep emphasizing what a smart girl Nhamo is and how many opportunities her intelligence could afford her. (This was one thing that bothered me about the book–I think Nhamo showed us quite well how intelligent and capable she is through her adventure, and it felt a little strange to have the other characters keep saying that.)

J: I agree with you, and I don’t think it’s an odd ending, really. I guess I just wonder if Farmer chose Nhamo to end up at Efifi, either consciously or unconsciously, because of her background as an educated, scientific type woman and because her audience is primarily educated, middle-class girls. Anyway, this is getting LONG and we should probably wrap up. Is there anything else you wanted to mention/discuss? The spirit world/characters? Nancy Farmer being white but having lived and worked in Mozambique? Something else?

M: I feel like any of those topics would bring us along another five or ten pages, so I’m a little wary of jumping into the fray.

J: I’m definitely with you! Maybe it’s enough to say that there is a LOT more we could discuss about this fantastic book, eh?

M: Rather! I wonder what LeVar Burton would say.

J: Don’t take our word for it! Go and read it yourself!

(Still Jessica…) Actually, we’ll make that super easy. I know I have a copy of Girl Named Disaster in a box somewhere, but I bought a new (used) copy for the book club SO I’M GONNA GIVE IT AWAY.

Here’s the deal: write a comment (make sure to include your email!). When I get ten comments, I’ll draw a random number and email the winner! I’m going to have to limit this to the US and Canada as I am very poor, sorry!

Books read in 2010 #5

1. Heir Apparent by Vivian Vande Velde
2. Locked Inside by Nancy Werline
3. Chew Volume 1: Taster’s Choice by John Layman and Rob Guillory
4. Princess Academy by Shannon Hale
5. Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale – Um, love, again. Why did I wait so long to read anything by Hale? I’m not going to do the summary thing tonight, it’s too late and I’m tired. But some highlights: oh, what a beautiful romance. Oh, fantasy based on a non-Western culture (in this case, something East Asian. I think it’s Chinese, but it could be Korean, or even South-East Asian, like Vietnamese. I should look this up instead of guessing, huh? Again, too tired.)!!! Oh, what a lovely plot and complex relationships between characters. Oh, fantasy without huge blatant magic (i.e. energy blasts and other silly things). Oh, oh, oh. I loved this.

And lest you think I’m not reading anything for school, I am. I just haven’t finished any of the books, and I can hardly count articles and short stories in a list called “Books read in 2010,” now can I? But to prove that I am doing my school reading, here is a line by a Vietnamese Buddhist monk that sucker-punched me: “Our people are less beautiful than they were in the past.” He’s talking about the damage done by the Vietnam war and why he focuses more on educating young people. “There is so much suspicion, hatred, and misunderstanding. Weeds and thorns have grown everywhere in the soil of their minds.”

In fact, I should go finish that. See ya later!

Books Read in 2010

I might as well keep track of this on my blog:

1. Heir Apparent by Vivian Vande Velde
2. Locked Inside by Nancy Werline
3. Chew Volume 1: Taster’s Choice by John Layman and Rob Guillory
4. Princess Academy by Shannon Hale – Since I haven’t reviewed this yet, I may as well write something short about it. In the shortest kind of short, I LOVED it and must read more by Hale. This is a book with a back-seat romance (as are all of the books I’ve read so far this year, actually) and features really strong female friendships. I wish I lived in a world where strong female friendships were commonplace enough that it wouldn’t be a huge plus that this book features them, but c’est la vie. Princess Academy is a fantasy, but the magic is so laid-back that it’s almost non-existent, which is refreshing. I’ve noticed that I dislike talking about plot or many specifics, probably because I think it’s generally more fun and illuminating to read books where you don’t know much about.

But, if you’re dying to know, Miri (the protag) lives in Mount Eskel with her da and older sister. Mount Eskel is a mining town, and everybody participates in mining the precious linder stone. Everyone, that is, except Miri. Born early and always weak, her father won’t let her work in the quarry like the rest of the village. Instead she tends the house and her family’s goats, but she wants for nothing more than to be of help to the village by working in the quarry. Then, one trading day, a delegate from the capital comes. The priests, according to ancient tradition, have divined that the new princess will come from Mount Eskel. And so they gather all the girls of the appropriate age into a building a few hour’s walk from the village and start to teach them everything they need to know to become a princess, starting with how to read. In a year’s time, the prince will come and choose his bride. How will Miri cope with all of these changes? For a girl who has barely had thoughts outside of Mount Eskel and her family, the world is starting to look awfully big. Are these lowlanders telling the truth? Could she really be… a princess?

Those last few sentences point to one of my favorite parts of the book, namely Miri’s intellectual blossoming. It would be so easy to do that in a cheesy way, but Hale doesn’t fall into any cliched traps. Miri’s struggles with her newfound knowledge and her neverending love of her family and home are completely convincing and well before the book is through, you’ll be cheering for her, and the rest of the girls at the Academy, and the whole of Mount Eskel. Hale also ties up the book very satisfactorily. There was one plot thread that came together rather quickly at the end, but I am honestly so pleased with how everything turned out, I just don’t care!