Book Review: Every Heart a Doorway

Book Review: Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire 

Goodreads Description: Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else.

But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.

Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced... they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.

But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter.

No matter the cost.

My Review: Portal fantasies have a long history in children's fiction, but what happens when the portals close and we have to head on home? How do you go back to ordinary after experiencing the extraordinary? Seanan McGuire explores these questions by looking at the psychological effects of losing the one place we really belong. 

When teenagers return from their portal worlds, they’re often confused, lost, and desperate to return to their fantasy worlds, leading parents and friends to think they’ve gone mad. That’s where Eleanor West comes in. A left behind herself, Eleanor has opened a home for children who have walked between worlds to save them from mental institutions or abuse at the hands of their families. Funnily enough, the school Eleanor constructs functions much like a residential treatment facility. The kids live there, they go to school, but they also attend therapy-like sessions where they discuss the worlds they came from, process their experiences, and attempt to move on. While the story doesn't focus on this therapy aspect (as there's a murder mystery afoot), it was refreshing to see therapy represented in a positive light, especially with the fantasy elements layered in. Many writers vilify the therapy process for cheap drama (the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest effect), but Eleanor's home is represented as a safe space, possibly the only one available to them in our world. The teachers/counsellors are gentle and supportive, the environment facilitates healing, and characters are able to self-actualize by being true to themselves, rather than forcing themselves to fit a world that doesn't accept them. It would’ve been cool to see more of this, but there is a murder to solve, so I can’t fault the book from moving on. 

The book also focuses a lot on family – both the found families characters discover within the school, and the original families that may love but never truly understand or accept them. The way the story represents letting go of original and abusive families in order to find love and acceptance in a found family is quite queer. Of course, the book is very queer just based on representation – it has trans, asexual, and gender non-conforming characters – it pretty much covers the whole rainbow, but the approach to otherness and belonging takes on a very queer perspective that many will find comforting. The promise of a world that unconditionally accepts and loves you for who you are is a very tempting premise to queer kids growing up in a world that tells them they're inherently wrong, weird, and disgusting. 

The main character, Nancy, has some of the typical traits of plain or invisible YA protagonists. Some YA protags are Bella Swan clones, with little to no personality (aside from being 'nice') so they can be used as blank slates for readers to project themselves onto. While Nancy does fall into this category of boring, blank main characters, McGuire changes things up by creating relevant plot and character reasons for why Nancy is such a wall flower. Nancy's perfect portal world was the land of the dead, where she spent a lot of time impersonating a statue and aspiring to be unmoving and unfeeling. When she arrives back in the real world, she finds it difficult to reconnect to her body and emotions, triggering catatonic-like behaviours. McGuire's interpretation of the "bland wall flower" is a fascinating deconstruction of a writing trend, but ultimately I still found myself bored and annoyed with Nancy's lack of motivation or personality. I wish she had been a secondary character and allowed someone with more agency to take on the main role. 

All in all, this was a beautiful story with many fascinating aspects that I could probably blather on about for another few paragraphs. I'm not usually a fan of school stories anymore, since they often feel formulaic to me, but the heart at the center of this story -- that queer nonsense about belonging and otherness-- hits the nail so hard on the head that it's an instant win. This book has a way of seeing the unseen, acknowledging that deep desire for love and acceptance, and promising that it's out there, just waiting for you, if you're brave enough to go out and look for it.  

TL;DR: All in all, 4/5 stars. A beautifully queer story that centers around a tense murder mystery.  

Book Review: Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies

Book Review: Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson 

Goodreads Description: Mashkawaji (they/them) lies frozen in the ice, remembering a long-ago time of hopeless connection and now finding freedom and solace in isolated suspension. They introduce us to the seven main characters: Akiwenzii, the old man who represents the narrator’s will; Ninaatig, the maple tree who represents their lungs; Mindimooyenh, the old woman who represents their conscience; Sabe, the giant who represents their marrow; Adik, the caribou who represents their nervous system; Asin, the human who represents their eyes and ears; and Lucy, the human who represents their brain. Each attempts to commune with the unnatural urban-settler world, a world of SpongeBob Band-Aids, Ziploc baggies, Fjällräven Kånken backpacks, and coffee mugs emblazoned with institutional logos. And each searches out the natural world, only to discover those pockets that still exist are owned, contained, counted, and consumed. Cut off from nature, the characters are cut off from their natural selves.

My Review: If you're searching for something out of the box, then Simpson's novel may be just what you're looking for. Noopiming mashes together prose, poetry, and traditional Indigenous storytelling to create a text that defies colonial genre boundaries and narrative conventions. 

Noopiming doesn't follow a traditional plot structure, so giving a description of events is challenging. The text follows seven characters as they navigate their lives in a hyperconsumerist society cut off from nature. Each character is an aspect of Mashkawaji, a being frozen in ice and isolated from the rest of the world, though the text is vague about who or what Mashkawji actually is. The seven eventually unite to resurrect Mashkawaji from their place under the ice, a moment of metaphorical connection that bonds each character into something bigger than themselves. This is largely what the book is about -- isolation and relationships, alienation and connection -- and we see this through the way the characters struggle on their own before ultimately coming together into a community. The book relies heavily on symbolism and metaphor, using a poetic abstractionism to communicate the story through feeling rather than action. Poetry readers will almost certainly have an easier time connecting to the text because of its willingness to eschew narrative for expressionism. 

There’s a beautiful equality all across the text. Human, animal, and spirit characters are on a level playing field – there’s no hierarchy of gods and monsters here. Every character resists the effects of colonialism, from animals dealing with loss of land, to nature reeling from climate change, to Indigenous people themselves displaced and disconnected from nature. This equalization crosses into gender as well – while there is the old man, the old woman, and gendered figures, almost all characters use ‘they/them’ pronouns. Simpson downplays pronouns and gendered indicators for most characters to allow the space to focus on other aspects of their personhood. The text is by no means genderless - it simply places their gender secondary to who they are as people. 

Noopiming is a bit of a strange beast and it's certainly not for everyone. It's not really a novel, or a prose poem, not fantasy or contemporary. It asks some hard questions about capitalism, consumerism, commodification and climate change, but wraps it in poetic symbolism that asks you to feel more than analyze. Lovers of poetry, nature, and spirituality may really resonate with this text, but if you're a fan of traditional western storytelling, this one might be worth skipping. 

TL;DR: 4/5 stars. An intense intermeshing of prose, poetry, and Indigenous storytelling that takes a hard look at colonialism and consumerism. 

Book Review: The Narrows

Book Review: The Narrows by Ann Petry 

Goodreads Description: Link Williams is a handsome and brilliant Dartmouth graduate who tends bar for a lack of better opportunities for an African American man in a staid mid-century Connecticut town. The routine of Link’s life is interrupted when he intervenes to save a woman from a late-night attack. When they enter a bar together after the incident, “Camilo” discovers that her rescuer is African American and he that she is a wealthy, married, white woman who’s crossed the town’s racial divide to relieve her life’s tedium. Thus brought together by chance, Link and Camilo draw each other into furtive encounters against the rigid and uncompromising social codes of their town and times.

My Review: I really wanted to like this book. Over her life, Ann Petry worked as a social worker and a journalist, taught courses and wrote for the NAACP, and conducted sociological studies on the influence of segregation on children. This work gave her a very sociological perspective on the world and ultimately influenced the creation of The Narrows, which breaks down systematic racism to illustrate how many moving pieces intersect to justify the vilification and murder of black people. In Petry’s own words: “My aim is to show how simply and easily the environment can change the course of a person’s life.” When I step back and consider the book in whole, it’s so beautiful I could cry, because Petry demonstrates a nuanced understanding of how sociology and psychology shape oppression. However, the experience of reading this book is painful. Beyond that, when taking any of the book’s parts on their own, there’s almost nothing to like about them. It’s like throwing a bunch of garbage at a canvas, yet it somehow makes the Mona Lisa. 

Petry wrote the book with a reflective perspective, using repetition and flashbacks to show how the past continuously interjects into the present and influences our behaviour. It doesn’t matter that Othello was written over 500 years ago, the story of a successful black man marrying a white woman to the displeasure of white men still influences the world around us, shaping perspectives and stereotypes. Petry also uses this reflective structure to demonstrate how childhood trauma shapes us long into adulthood. This reflective style is the crux of my problem with this book, because on the one hand, it is utterly brilliant. It artfully (and accurately) represents how the brain processes memory, how our social environment builds our identity from the ground up, and how we fall back onto sociological programming in times of stress. Yet on the other hand, this writing style is frustrating and boring to read. At times, the repetition becomes so overwhelming that it borders on obnoxious, which robs it of its power. Some scenes took forever to get through simply because the story had to continuously stop to repeat mantras or plot points that we've already seen a dozen times already. If not for this reflective perspective, the book could have easily been half or a third its size. While I think there's something meaningful to be found in this style, it certainly could have been cut down. 

On top of the irritating writing style, every character is terrible. Not even in a “they have flaws” kind of way, but in a "they're a freaking monster" way that left little for me to relate to, attach to, or root for. Link, the main character, beats his love interest (though this is played off as romantic "lovers' quarrels," which... certainly says something about the author and the time period). Bill Hod, a quasi-father figure, beats Link as a child, Camilla betrays her love interest in a sickeningly anti-feminist way, and Abbie cares more about being an upstanding citizen of “the Race” than being a good mother. Even characters who don’t do anything overtly wrong are presented with a kind of sleaziness – from Mamie Powther who is presented as sexually devious, to Jubine the photographer who exposes injustices perpetuated by the rich, but is described as little more than a "greedy voyeur." While this is largely influenced by the POV character and often reveals more about the speaker than the subject (Abbie perceives Mamie as disgustingly sexual, for example), every character's perspective is coloured by this pessimism towards other people, and by the end of the book, all that negativity begins to weigh on the narrative. While the book attempts to present every character with duality, it leans too far into their flaws, leaving little good behind to appreciate. There’s lots of fascinating psychological angles to this story, but likeability is hard to come by. 

As you can see, this book is a frustrating one for me. On the whole, I think it brilliantly explores how historical sociological scripts intersect with an individual's trauma and environment to shape oppression, but I can’t point to a single character or scene that I actually like. The reading experience is so dreadful that I can't in good faith recommend it to anyone, unless you're a literary scholar that's more interested in meaning than your own enjoyment. It's a real shame, too, because I do believe this book is something special, if only reading it wasn't such a drag. 

TL;DR: 2/5 stars. A painfully dreadful read that culminates in an insightful deconstruction of systematic racism. 

Book Review: Romance in Marseille

 

Book Review: Romance in Marseille by Claude McKay 

Goodreads Description: Buried in the archive for almost ninety years, Claude McKay's Romance in Marseille traces the adventures of a rowdy troupe of dockworkers, prostitutes, and political organizers--collectively straight and queer, disabled and able-bodied, African, European, Caribbean, and American. Set largely in the culture-blending Vieux Port of Marseille at the height of the Jazz Age, the novel takes flight along with Lafala, an acutely disabled but abruptly wealthy West African sailor. While stowing away on a transatlantic freighter, Lafala is discovered and locked in a frigid closet. Badly frostbitten by the time the boat docks, the once-nimble dancer loses both of his lower legs, emerging from life-saving surgery as what he terms "an amputated man." Thanks to an improbably successful lawsuit against the shipping line, however, Lafala scores big in the litigious United States. Feeling flush after his legal payout, Lafala doubles back to Marseille and resumes his trans-African affair with Aslima, a Moroccan courtesan. With its scenes of black bodies fighting for pleasure and liberty even when stolen, shipped, and sold for parts, McKay's novel explores the heritage of slavery amid an unforgiving modern economy. This first-ever edition of Romance in Marseille includes an introduction by McKay scholars Gary Edward Holcomb and William J. Maxwell that places the novel within both the "stowaway era" of black cultural politics and McKay's challenging career as a star and skeptic of the Harlem Renaissance.

My Review: If I had to sum up Claude McKay’s Romance in Marseille in three words, it’d be: queer, punny, and unsatisfying. There’s a lot of elements to like: disability rep, a black man’s success against white society, gender play and fluid openness to sexuality, but the ending undermined a lot of the positives and left a bad taste in my mouth. 

Lafala is a young sailor who travels the world guided by his wit and whimsy, but while stowed away on an American ship, he ends up with frostbite that requires him to amputate both feet. In a twist of fate, Lafala meets a white lawyer while lying in recovery who helps him sue the shipping company for damages. After winning his case, Lafala skips town before the lawyer is able to scam him out of his share and returns to the port town Marseille to reconnect with old friends. Now a rich man, the people of Marseille clamor for Lafala's attention-- and his money-- but Lafala manages to stay one step ahead of his potential scammers at every turn. In this way, the novel is great. It's the story of a black man who, despite his hardships, outsmarts scammers and white oppressors to escape to paradise. Unfortunately, this feels muddied at the end, as his found family are also the people attempting to scam him, confusing their motivations and allegiances. This is what makes the book interesting to some, as they can analyze the characters from multiple perspectives, but to me it reads like a tragedy wherein greed wins over love, loyalty or friendship. The found family that’s established is sacrificed so Lafala remains the smartest man in the room, and the payoff doesn’t feel worth the sacrifice. 

The representation in this book is wonderful. While there’s not a lot of outwardly queer characters, there is heavy implication that certain characters are gay. Characters also question and play with gender, whether through clothing, joking around, or debating the nature of gender roles. As well, Lafala spends the entire book without legs and is never defined by his disability. There’s a nice balance between how it affects his life/mental health and how it doesn't make him less of a person. McKay’s writing is also delightfully punny. He plays with metaphor and symbols, twists language to suit his needs, and utilizes sharp-witted wordplay that is both funny and thought provoking. 

TL;DR: 3/5 stars. A sharp-witted queer tale with excellent disability rep and an unsatisfying finish. 

Book Review: Tilly and the Crazy Eights

Book Review: Tilly and the Crazy Eights by Monique Gray Smith 

Goodreads Description: When Tilly receives an invitation to help drive eight elders on their ultimate bucket list road trip to Albuquerque for the Gathering of Nations Pow Wow, she impulsively says yes. Before she knows it, Tilly has said goodbye to her family and is behind the wheel--ready to embark on an adventure that will transform her in ways she could not predict. Just as it will for each and every one of the elders on the trip, who soon dub themselves "the Crazy Eights."

Tilly and the Crazy Eights each choose a stop to make along the way--somewhere they've always wanted to go or something they've wanted to experience. Their plan is to travel to Las Vegas, Sedona, and the Redwood Forests, with each destination the inspiration for secrets and stories to be revealed. The trip proves to be powerful medicine as they laugh, heal, argue, and reveal hopes and dreams along the way.

With friendships forged, love found, hearts broken and mended, Tilly and the Crazy Eights feel ready for anything by the time their bus rolls to a stop in New Mexico. But are they?

My Review: This character-driven story, filled with Indigenous humour and wisdom, takes readers on a journey of healing across the United States. When Tilly is dragged on the cross-country journey with eight eccentric elders, she leaves behind her unsatisfying marriage to think about her future - and whether divorce may be the answer. Though the journey challenges Tilly, through the wisdom of the elders around her, she finds clarity on her marriage and returns home to make the best choice for herself. 

While Tilly's story is heartwarming, nothing about it resonated with me enough to make me fall in love, leading to its mediocre rating. The book is a short journey story where each character undergoes a personal transformation that reflects back on Tilly's struggle with her marriage. Despite it being a bit predictable, the characters are presented with an authenticity to them that helps the story stick its landing. The characters appear a bit flat at the beginning, but as the journey unfolds, their bucket list experiences reveal more depth and open opportunities for reader identification. 

The book is comprised of short chapters (sometimes only 2 pages), which does jolt readers out of the story. Just as a scene gets going, it stops and the book moves to a completely different scene with other characters. While this is disjointing, it does create a snapshot atmosphere that reminds me of vacation photos. The story also doesn't focus on one character and spends equal time exploring each elder's personal journey, which can make the story feel scattered. Each elder's journey is largely separate from the rest and feels loosely connected to Tilly's struggle, which is supposed to serve as the emotional throughline. The writing is straight to the point and doesn't linger on poetic language, but does contain some solid metaphoric descriptions.

Tilly and the Crazy Eights is a cute journey story with some poignant wisdom, but it just failed to connect with me in a meaningful way. Because the characters deal with issues like empty nest syndrome and physical aging, older readers may have an easier time relating to the story if they've experienced similar life events. 

TL:DR: 3/5 stars. A cute story about healing that feels a little scattered. 

Book Review: The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour

Book Review: The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour by Dawn Dumont

Goodreads Description: 'The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour' is loosely based - like, hospital-gown loose - on the true story of a group of Indigenous dancers who left Saskatchewan and toured through Europe in the 1970s. Dawn Dumont brings her signature razor-sharp wit and impeccable comedic timing to this hilarious, warm, and wildly entertaining novel.

My Review: When the usual dance troupe gets food poisoning. John Greyeyes is tasked with leading a replacement troupe through a series of powwows across Europe -- except the replacement dancers can't dance, and John only has a few days to whip them into shape. Along the tour, the crew stumbles into a series of wacky adventures, including a plane hijacking, an FBI smuggling investigation, identity theft, and a break and enter at the Vatican that lands one of the dancers in jail. Dawn Dumont has crafted a riot of a book that is both utterly ridiculous and grounds readers with solid, heartfelt moments. 

While Prairie Chicken is a wild ride shot through with humour, it does address topics like racism, residential schools, and homophobia with the seriousness that they deserve. It doesn't linger on these topics, but they surface as important aspects to character arcs. Due to trauma, several characters are closed off to love, but over the course of the novel, they begin to heal their trauma and open themselves up to love again (including self-love). Watching these silly little characters grow and learn to love themselves despite their flaws was truly endearing. It's hard not to fall in love these characters, even if we don't spend much time directly in their heads. 

The narrative has next to no introspection -- the prose is entirely focused on the action of the scene. And holy, there is a lot. The book features a large cast of main characters and they all take part in almost every scene, which makes things busy. The book also doesn't linger on moments and keeps the action moving as much as possible. While some might find the busyness overwhelming, the writing is balanced and scenes flow so the reader doesn't lose the thread of the narrative. Coupled with it's style of humour, the book feels like a Benny Hill sketch, in a good way. 

At the end of the day, The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour is pure, heartwarming fun. I laughed so much while reading it and it still brightens my day to think of this ridiculous story. Plus it's got a gay Indigenous cowboy who is Done With Everyone's Shit™, so it's got a special place in my heart. 

TL;DR: 5/5 stars. A hilarious and heartfelt story of a ragtag crew that crosses Europe to find themselves.

Book Review: Passing

Book Review: Passing by Nella Larsen 

Goodreads Description: Irene Redfield is a Black woman living an affluent, comfortable life with her husband and children in the thriving neighborhood of Harlem in the 1920s. When she reconnects with her childhood friend Clare Kendry, who is similarly light-skinned, Irene discovers that Clare has been passing for a white woman after severing ties to her past--even hiding the truth from her racist husband.

Clare finds herself drawn to Irene's sense of ease and security with her Black identity and longs for the community (and, increasingly, the woman) she lost. Irene is both riveted and repulsed by Clare and her dangerous secret, as Clare begins to insert herself--and her deception--into every part of Irene's stable existence. First published in 1929, Larsen's brilliant examination of the various ways in which we all seek to "pass," is as timely as ever. 

My Review: "It's funny about 'passing.' We disapprove of it and at the same time condone it. It excites our contempt and yet we rather admire it. We shy away from it with an odd kind of revulsion, but we protect it." 

Nella Larsen's Passing is a tour-de-force of character study and political commentary. As the title implies, it takes a closer look at the act of passing, where a minoritized person is able to pass as a member of the dominant group, and the resulting effects on one's psyche. 

The story follows Irene, a light-skinned black woman who has spent her life doing everything she's supposed to - she's a good wife and mother, a law-abiding citizen, and an upstanding member of "the race." Yet within the first few pages, we can see Irene's repressed desires lurking just below the surface. She wants to be a good representative of "the race," yet she wants freedom from that responsibility. She wants her husband to want her, yet she's so enamored with her beautiful friend, Claire, that it borders on homoerotic. Claire is a light-skinned black woman who has been living her life as a white person, passing even to her racist white husband. For some reason, Claire can have it all - life as a white person and confidence in her black identity, and it drives Irene mad. Envy becomes obsession, until Irene starts to feel threatened by Claire's challenge to her worldview, and decides she must defend herself. Though the book is a character study on the psychological effects of repression and racism on identity, Larsen never lets us get too close to Irene's thoughts, inviting an air of mystery. Does Irene hate Claire because she passes as white? Is she jealous? Does Claire actually threaten Irene's marriage, or was it all in her head? 

This book has so much longing slammed in its less than 100 pages - desire to be someone else, desire to be free, desire for a better life, desire to return home to your people, desire for queer love - and it's contrasted against intense repression and restraints - racism, segregation, heteronormativity, doing what's expected - making it a masterwork of tension. Irene wants so much, but the major thing holding her back is herself, which becomes very obvious once Claire re-enters her life. She is both victim and oppressor, having internalized society's messages about what she's expected to do to the point where she's sacrificed her own wants and happiness in exchange for security. This book is not a queer story, but it is heavily queer coded. Irene is very focused on Claire's beauty and irresistibility throughout the text. She insists to herself that she wants nothing to do with Claire, but as soon as Claire makes contact, Irene falls over herself to see her. She also expresses that she's powerless against Claire's influence, which gives the impression of a queer person struggling with their attraction. Irene's eventual vilification of Claire also speaks to Irene's attempt to distance herself from those feelings in order to retain the stability and safety that comes from her straight marriage. 

I really loved this book. As someone who can relate to the act of passing, it offers an incredibly interesting perspective on the practice. I also love diving into the minds of unreliable, flawed narrators, especially when they make you doubt if you're really getting the whole story. 

TL;DR: All in all, 5/5 stars. A high tension, psychological character study exploring the nuances of passing, deception, and repression. 

Book Review: Firekeeper's Daughter

 

Book Review: Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley 

Goodreads Description: As a biracial, unenrolled tribal member and the product of a scandal, Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in—both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. When her family is struck by tragedy, Daunis puts her dreams on hold to care for her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother’s hockey team.

After Daunis witnesses a shocking murder that thrusts her into a criminal investigation, she agrees to go undercover. But the deceptions—and deaths—keep piling up and soon the threat strikes too close to home. How far will she go to protect her community if it means tearing apart the only world she’s ever known?

My Review: Alright, peeps, I've got a good one for you today. This was, hands down, the best YA novel I've read in years. Every element was expertly handled, from the characters, to the plot, to its believability, all the way to its spectacular ending. Best of all, it doesn't reinvent the wheel when it comes to YA fiction - it honours many well-loved tropes while also breathing new life into these plot elements through a fresh Anishinaabe perspective.

Firekeeper's Daughter is a crime story done right. Many YA crime novels struggle with believability and don't fully justify why teenagers are the leads in criminal investigations when the police are RIGHT THERE. Why would an adult put a child in danger when there are so many other options they could take? For this story, it's the isolation and insular Ojibway community that justifies Daunis' involvement in the undercover case. The police have already introduced an Indigenous undercover cop pretending to be a teenager to get into the crime ring, but due to the community's culture, the police can't get close enough to the suspects to gather evidence. Daunis, however, is someone who can get them in - not only is she Indigenous with direct ties to the community, but she also has direct ties to the suspects, the land, and is well-versed in chemistry. The plot kicks off with the murder of Daunis' best friend, which reveals that on Daunis' reserve, someone has built a drug trafficking ring that stretches across multiple states. A group has been synthesizing powerful meth with an unknown compound, likely a plant that grows around the reservation, and it's the intersection of culture, intelligence, and her social positioning in the community that gives Daunis the edge in solving the case. I loved that this book took the labour out of my suspension of disbelief. 

Daunis has become one of my favourite YA heroines, possibly ever. She's got a distinct personality that resists falling into the "good girl/good student" trope that plagues many YA heroines. Daunis may be smart and more or less on the straight and narrow, but she resists black and white binaries -- she drinks and parties with her friends, she isn't scared of the meth users in her community, even if she doesn't partake, and she has no guilt over using prescription pain medications to cope with hard times. The book doesn't problematize her substance use or riskier behaviours, and instead treats them as a couple of dots on the diverse pointillism painting that is Daunis. Many YA novels seem preoccupied with "right" and "wrong" behaviours, especially from the main character, and end up pushing puritans ideals of the Madonna-whore complex, even if they don't mean to. Most often, they lean towards the "good girl" trope, where the MC wouldn't dream of drinking or drugs, though some protagonists do lean into their problematic behaviours and the narrative is quick to reinforce these behaviours as wrong, dangerous, or shameful. Firekeeper's Daughter avoids all of that moralizing by showing that these points of Daunis' character, whether it's something "good" like her intelligence or "bad" like her substance use, never end up defining her.

Boulley's masterful character crafting skills go beyond her main character -- everyone in this book was so realistic and well-rounded, but they also engage with character tropes in fascinating ways. Boulley is also quite subtle about this character depth, introducing small moments that don't stand out, but add layers to the roles we're used to seeing. Lily, the best friend with the big personality, becomes more than just the side-kick. Boulley contrasts the strong parts of her personality with gentler moments and circumstances while still honouring the original trope. Lily is loud but small, protector but also victim, and the wise one whose always getting into trouble. Jamie, the new love interest in town, also engages with traditional tropes in an interesting way. He is very much the Bland Boyfriend trope - a seemingly perfect man with no personality outside of the protagonist, yet Boulley gives us plot reasons for why he's like this. The fact that he's largely disconnected from his roots also becomes a major point in their relationship later in the story, which is a fascinating twist on what's usually just lazy writing. The Fake Boyfriend trope also plays a part in the story, but unlike most versions of this trope, it doesn't feel contrived, which is saying something for a trope that's best described as, "There were a thousand other ways out of this situation, why did you pick this one?" 

All in all, a really riveting book that takes what's familiar and beloved about YA and elevates it to new levels. The writing is crisp, clear, and beautiful, with many lines oozing wisdom and maturity. The way plot elements collide with aspects of Indigenous culture and spirituality is proof that you can take a story that's been done a thousand times and completely transform it with a diverse setting and perspective. If you only pick up one book this year, make it this one. I can't recommend it enough. 

TL;DR: 5/5 stars. The best YA crime novel out there. Period. 

Book Review: This Dark Endeavour

 

Book Review: This Dark Endevour by Kenneth Oppel 

Goodreads Description: Victor Frankenstein leads a charmed life. He and his twin brother, Konrad, and their beautiful cousin Elizabeth take lessons at home and spend their spare time fencing and horseback riding. Along with their friend Henry, they have explored all the hidden passageways and secret rooms of the palatial Frankenstein chateau. Except one.

The Dark Library contains ancient tomes written in strange languages and filled with forbidden knowledge. Their father makes them promise never to visit the library, but when Konrad becomes deathly ill, Victor knows he must find the book that contains the recipe for the legendary Elixir of Life.

The elixir needs only three ingredients. But impossible odds, dangerous alchemy and a bitter love triangle threaten their quest at every turn.

Victor knows he must not fail. Yet his success depends on how far he is willing to push the boundaries of nature, science and love—and how much he is willing to sacrifice.

My Review: Kenneth Oppel has had a special place in my heart since I was a kid, when his bat-tastic Silverwing series swooped into my life and made my oddball ass feel less alone. So, years ago, when I spotted a Frankenstein prequel by Kenneth Oppel, I was quick to snatch it up, but the book languished on my TBR shelf the last few years as more pressing titles jumped the queue. I finally found the time to pick it up, and to say I was disappointed would have been an understatement. This Dark Endevour is DULL. It's predictable. It's more than forgettable, it's why-bother-reading-able. The book's greatest weakness is that it's a Frankenstein prequel; its saving grace the target audience, who likely have not read the original Frankenstein and can't compare Oppel's changes to the original text. Yet even then, the book falls flat: the story is uninspired, the romantic and plot twists are contrived, lacking any sense of stakes, and the characters feel ripped out of the wrong time period. 

Slapping Frankenstein on this book leads to natural comparisons between the texts, but ironically, knowing the basics of Frankenstein makes the plot and twist ending of This Dark Endevour painfully obvious. Oppel introduces readers to his Frankenstein twins: Victor Frankenstein, the savant scientist that science-fiction knows all too well, and Oppel's creation, Konrad - the virtuous mirror-inversion of Victor, whose flaws have been bent backwards into much a nobler configuration. Konrad is sweet, he's compassionate, he's sensitive and gentle, but also brave, just, and level-headed - often the voice of reason, reigning Victor in when his lofty ideals pull them off the moral path. Yet this inversion of Victor's traits also reveals that Oppel either dislikes or doesn't understand the nuance within Shelley's Victor Frankenstein, as Oppel emphasizes Victor's negative traits - greed, ambition, stubbornness, solipsism - and crafts Konrad as the opposite of that, making both characters feel partly artificial and casting them in 'angel' and 'devil' roles. In the original text, Victor spent much of his time reigning himself back in, and the balance between doing wrong and trying to correct course is what made him so fascinating. Oppel's Victor feels more akin to the mad-scientist representations of Victor Frankenstein that pop-culture is more familiar with. 

Early in the book, Konrad falls deathly ill, motivating Victor and his friends Elizabeth and Henry to seek out alchemic knowledge that would lead them to the Elixir of Life to safe Konrad's life. At this point, the fact that this is a Frankenstein tale immediately gave away the ending. This is, after all, Victor Frankenstein, the man known for bringing back the dead, not for saving the living, so before I'd even opened the book (as Konrad's illness is spelled out on the back cover), it was painfully obvious that despite all efforts, Konrad wasn't going to make it. Oppel tries to combat this by drawing out the tension of Konrad's illness and faking out the reader in regards to his recovery, but the efforts fall painfully flat.  

The overall plot is organized around a three-point fetch quest that quickly became predictable and dull. Victor and his friends connect with an alchemist who tasks them with collecting the three ingredients needed to save Konrad, and holy crap was this boring. No amount of cool glow-in-the-dark moss, demon fish, or wolf's eye alchemy could distract from the terrifyingly predictable arcs of find thing - attacked by monsters - barely escape with item. This formula repeats again at the finale as trusted characters turn on each other and the actual creation of the Elixir becomes yet another fetch mission. The story could have worked if it was in a video game, where the agency of players could have mitigated some of the boredom from the plot's predictability. Instead, the reader is dragged along, beat by expected beat, without anything to change up the formula.

Finally, the characters. As I already mentioned, Victor and Konrad are two-dimensional representations of the "good" and "bad" twin, although thankfully this becomes less pronounced as Konrad becomes bedridden and less of an active character. Elizabeth was also difficult to stomach through much of the text. Many times, she asserts her equality to the boys by declaring that she's braver, stronger, and more tenacious than others (certainly Henry). The characters often have a "Don't You Know, Bob?" moment where they recount when Elizabeth bested the boys, was braver than them, or, GASP - wore trousers. These conversations feel so contrived, like Elizabeth is arguing against someone that isn't even there, asserting her autonomy and independence when no one was questioning it (other characters, narrative, even audience). I can't help but wonder why Oppel felt the need to assure audiences of Elizabeth's Girl Power! and can only assume it's because of the time period the book is set in. Finally, Oppel establishes an interesting romantic conflict between Victor, Elizabeth, and Konrad, but introduces this too late (so it feels like it comes out of nowhere, when this romantic tension could and should have been underlying their interactions from the beginning). This tension also doesn't lead to much besides some simmering resentment and moments of will-they-won't-they. I wish this romantic tension was better defined, upped the stakes, and actually lead to consequences in their relationship. It would have been nice to see that simmering resentment actually pitch up to a boil. 

All in all, this book isn't worth the read. Even as a fun, dumb pulp read, there's nothing really fun about it. With how predictable the whole plotline was, it would have been smarter to start the plot at book 2, where Konrad is already dead and build to how Victor plans to bring him back, even if that would have had its own complications. That concept at least has some creative possibilities within in, but this book left such a bad taste in my mouth that I don't care to see where Oppel takes this concept. It's dead in the water if you ask me, and not worth the lightning for its resurrection. 

TL;DR: 2/5 stars. Boring and uninspired. 

Book Review: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Book Review: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston 

Goodreads Description: Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person—no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots.

My Review: When it was originally released in 1937, Their Eyes Were Watching God drew considerable backlash for its depiction of "average" black Americans, especially from other prominent writers of the Harlem Renaissance. The authors of this movement used art to argue for social change by depicting black people as educated, artistic, and activist - bucking against long-held racist beliefs that black people were intellectually or culturally inferior. However, these authors were largely trapped within, and often conformed to, white standards of success in order to gain equality and approval in America. Zora Neale Hurtson's book took a completely different approach. Hurston worked as an anthropologist as well as a writer, and was more interested in examining what made black communities unique. She depicted "average" black Americans without judgement -- reveling in various accents and speaking habits, depicted communal storytelling and humour that some might consider Vaudeville-esque -- and even critiqued the educated black characters within her text for their condescension and arrogance. This drew a fair bit of backlash from other black writers who argued that the book resembled caricaturesque minstrel shows, however, this feels like a grave misunderstanding of the nuance within Hurston's book. When analyzed today, we can see how Hurston's book is a celebration of black culture in America, with its insistence to see these people fully realized, with all their jokes, language, and culture accepted as is. While respectability politics has had its uses throughout civil rights movements, Hurston's book reminds us that if people of colour only measure their success through white standards, it ultimately leaves them isolated from themselves and their community. In that way, Their Eyes feels ahead of its time, pushing for a radical acceptance of people as they are rather than purposing an ideal for what they should be. 

As you can tell from the short summary, it's difficult to pin down the exact plot of Their Eyes. This book is a lot of things. It's a love story, a coming-of-age tale, it's a feminist text, a story of self-actualization, it's an anthropologic and linguistic exploration of black culture, with a profoundly optimistic look on race relations. It focuses on Janie Crawford as she grows up through her three marriages, coming to understand the meaning of love, marriage, and agency. As many coming of age stories are, the book is slow paced, focusing on slow-burning character arcs and mundane plot events over dramatic twists. Over the course of the book, Janie subtly moves away from the expectations of white culture and finds self-actualization and agency through embracing "blackness." Janie's first husband unquestioningly follows white culture and heteronormativity, expecting Janie to fall into her "wifely" role. Despite living in a black community, her second husband pushes both himself and Janie towards classist elitism that pits "respectable blackness" against the "common folk," and ends up isolating Janie from her community and culture. Janie resists this influence, and through her third husband, connects with the black community and finds more happiness, passion, equality, and agency, despite living closer to poverty and instability. In this way, Hurston bucks against respectability politics and shows that if black people "behaved like whites wanted them to," it would leave them isolated from each other, their culture, and themselves. 

Hurston's novel also showcases a profound optimism when it comes to race relations - focusing very little on racism and instead showing black people living their lives, largely unhindered by oppression. She features the town of Eatonville as a major setting, which was a real town and the first self-governing all-black municipality in the United States (incorporated in 1887). Eatonville in the book faces no trouble from white people and exists unremarkably. Hurston doesn't fluff up the town's importance or incite any racist drama, it's just another setting. The book still features racism in pieces, such as when one of Janie's husbands is forced by the Red Cross to do manual labor and he has to run from gunfire to escape, but the book doesn't linger on these moments, giving it a strange sort of optimism and freedom, despite the time period it's set in. 

The book features a lot of heavy accents, phonetic spelling, and slang to really capture the "language" these communities spoke, and don't get me wrong, Hurston does an excellent job with these accents. She captures their mannerisms and culture in a way that feels rich, realistic, and nuanced, but every character speaks with a heavy accent. Every. One. Not to mention, this book is very dialogue heavy. There are whole pages where two or more characters are talking, wherein the conversation is lobbed between two speakers without much to break it up. Even white characters, when they appear, speak in their own heavy, difficult-to-read accents. While this dialogue is fascinating from an anthropological/sociological/linguistic point of view, I really hated reading it. Just trying to decode what characters are actually saying, with all the dropped letters, creative spelling, and phonetic sounds was a nightmare. I read this book at a snail's pace and all the decoding left little energy to actually enjoy the story. Many words had to be sounded out aloud, because they were spelled to recreate a sound, rather than a real word. "Ah" is used almost exclusively instead of "I," for example. Despite that, I have a hard time imagining this book without the accents. It feels like something would be lost without them, which reminds me of the saying, "it's not about the destination, it's about the journey." For these characters, it's not so much what they say, but how they say it. 

Aside from the heavily accented dialogue, the narrative is written in gorgeous prose that's littered with wise insights on the world, love, marriage, and growing up. Hurston especially has a lot to say about the intersection of race and gender (and to a lesser extent, class), commenting often on how oppression affects black men versus black women, while also exploring the power dynamics between married couples. The book culminates in a storm and legal trial that tests Janie's beliefs about love and marriage, both in personal and legal frameworks, and pushes her to establish agency and self-advocacy. The climax feels believable but dramatic. It fits in well with the humdrum normalcy of married life, but also instills the larger-than-life, once-in-a-lifetime type of conflict that elevates the text to the next level - pushing Janie to fully embody what she's learned about love, marriage, and agency in order to survive and thrive going forward. 

TL;DR: 3/5 stars. A fascinating text that analyzes the intersection of race, gender, and class from a black feminist perspective.

Book Review: The Weary Blues

Book Review: The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes 

Goodreads Description: The Weary Blues is Langston Hughes's first published collection of poems, immediately celebrated as a tour de force upon its release. Over ninety years after its publication, it remains a critically acclaimed literary work and still evokes a fresh, contemporary feeling and offers a powerful reflection of the Black experience. From the title poem "The Weary Blues," echoing the sounds of the blues, to "Dream Variation," ringing with joyfulness, to the "Epilogue" that mimics Walt Whitman in its opening line, "I, too, sing America," Hughes writes clearly and colorfully, and his words remain prophetic and relevant today.

My Review: Nearly 100 years ago, Langston Hughes published his first poetry collection, The Weary Blues, a modern classic that propelled him to the top of the literary scene in Harlem in the 1930s. The Weary Blues takes us on a wide journey through various aspects of Hughes' life, introducing us to Harlem in its heyday, the impact of the Blues, and the beauty and strength of the black community. Hughes combines familiar contemporary language with classical poetry forms, structures, and allusions to give his poetry a sense of timelessness, which makes it accessible to a wide variety of readers. Hughes' collection constantly brings together opposing dichotomies on the page to demonstrate their ultimate similarity: ugliness and beauty, black and white, joy and suffering. In this way, The Weary Blues draws on multiple aspects of the human experience to create a rich image of life as a black man in 1920s America. 

Langston Hughes is known for his involvement with the Harlem Renaissance, a period of cultural revival for black art during the 1920-30s, which laid the groundwork for civil rights movements and the Black Arts Movement of the 1960-70s. Throughout his poems, Hughes plays with major ideas that shaped the Harlem Renaissance - such as art as propaganda to support black civil rights movements, and double consciousness - the idea that black people experience two separate 'consciousnesses': life as a black person and an American. Hughes utilizes his poems as a form of propaganda to fight back against white oppression by showcasing blackness and black people as divinely beautiful, while highlighting the suffering and disconnect that comes from systematic oppression. In that way, many of his works are extremely powerful, and when taking the collection in whole, it's hard not see the outpouring of love that Hughes has for his community, his heritage, his country, and ultimately himself. It's this self-love and self-respect that allows Hughes' art to advocate for his community while refusing to submit to a lesser station in society to earn acceptance. His poetry loudly states: we are beautiful, we are strong, and we are capable of greatness, so why don't we deserve a seat at the table? It's a message that never gets old. 

The influence of Blues music remains strong throughout the entire collection. Hughes had a deep understanding of rhythm and infused this into the bones of his poems. The titular poem, "The Weary Blues" does an excellent job at recreating the sound of a Blues song, but it's "The Cat and the Saxophone" that really captures this Blusey feeling for me. The poem feels a bit all over the place, with people talking over a Blues song, but the use of caps, line breaks, rhythms, and stresses expertly recreates the sound of a swinging trumpet and its long soulful notes. The parts of the collection that are less focused on music, such as the sailor arc, utilize different rhythms that emphasize silence (think calming ocean white noise) which sharply contrast with the Blues pieces. This is what makes the Blusey pieces really pop, as readers can hear the difference between the various rhythms. The collection utilizes classical poetry forms throughout, while also mixing in more expressive free verse poems that capture the lack of structure during certain parts of Hughes' life (his sea-faring poems are largely freeverse). This change of form and style gives a refreshing diversity to the pieces in this collection, however, Hughes largely sticks to simple page arrangements while constructing his poems, leaving little for the eye to feast on besides the meat of the stanzas themselves. Many of the poems are short, some even only three lines long, and while his short pieces are meaningful, it feels like a potential is missed out on by not experimenting more with the white space. This may be an unfair criticism, since concrete poetry and experiments in white space didn't really kick off until the 1950s, but I did find myself really missing the aesthetic arrangement, especially for those really short, powerful pieces. 

All in all, Langston Hughes' first poetry collection is filled with joy, pain, music, and wisdom, all packed within tight little stanzas. Even after 100 years, his astute observations and use of language resonates with readers of any background and makes The Weary Blues an excellent addition to any poetry collection. 

TL;DR: 3/5 stars. A modern classic that celebrates the beauty and majesty of the black community. 

Book Review: Peter Darling

Book Review: Peter Darling by Austin Chant 

Goodreads Description: The Lost Boys say that Peter Pan went back to England because of Wendy Darling, but Wendy is just an old life he left behind. Neverland is his real home. So when Peter returns to it after ten years in the real world, he’s surprised to find a Neverland that no longer seems to need him.

The only person who truly missed Peter is Captain James Hook, who is delighted to have his old rival back. But when a new war ignites between the Lost Boys and Hook’s pirates, the ensuing bloodshed becomes all too real – and Peter’s rivalry with Hook starts to blur into something far more complicated, sensual, and deadly.

My Review: This review contains minor spoilers. 

Peter Darling is an interesting blend of contradictions. I first stumbled across the book while killing time on trans subreddits, where fans were raving about its trans and mlm representation. The book has apparently found its online niche-- its Goodreads page has over 8k ratings and 2k reviews, with over 70% of those ratings at either 4 or 5 stars, and fans are singing its praises across online networks. If this book had come to me about 15 years ago, I'd likely be another diehard fan hailing it as a triumph, because the book does have some solid emotionally-resonate moments of representation. Yet on the whole, it fails to achieve a cohesive narrative due to inconsistent character motivations, poor characterization, and enough head-hopping to make someone motion sick. 

Let's start with the positives. This book won the 2017 Rainbow Award for Best Cover, Best Debut Transgender Book, and Best Transgender Sci-fi/Fantasy, and was a runner up for Best Transgender Book, mainly for its female-to-male trans representation. I can see why this book was on the radar, as it does more than present a trans man's circumstances -- rather it pierces right into the heart of what it feels like to be a trans man. Capturing some of the emotionality of what it means to be trans is what gives this book its power. As well, Chant builds solid tension through the slow reveal of Peter's "secret" by blending it into Neverland lore - why did Peter disappear to for so long? Why did he come back? And who really is Peter 'Pan', anyway? This evolving tension connects well with the setting (Neverland as an escapist fantasy from a transphobic world), the themes of the text (forging identity through story), and Peter and James' struggles to assert themselves against the world. 

Most of the book is the 'trapped together' trope, which may not be to everyone's taste, but for those who do enjoy it, the story fully embraces the trope without edging too far into sappy territory. Chant's writing is also quite beautiful at times. There were many lines that I highlighted for their lyrical composition as well as their wisdom. As demonstrated in the prologue, Chant can set a decent atmosphere that draws in reader interest, but sadly underutilizes atmosphere and scene-setting throughout the rest of the book. 

The author is obviously familiar with JM Barrie's original Peter and Wendy novel, as many characters and references from Barrie's text pop up in Peter Darling. While these references were a great addition to fill out Chant's story, they also draw a direct connection to Barrie's work, which made the shortcomings of Peter Darling all the more obvious. Barrie's original text idealized childhood as a time of wonder and wildness, as different but on equal footing with adult experiences. Through Peter Pan, Barrie represents childhood as a Romantic would nature - beautiful, powerful, chaotic, illogical, yet also whole, idyllic, life-giving, unknowable, and awe-inspiring. Barrie represented children as holding a unique perspective and wisdom towards the world that is lost once we transition to adulthood. Chant's text doesn't engage with this conception of childhood and instead reduces Peter's violence and illogical reasoning to something 'childish' that is lesser than the 'adult' treaties and peace negotiations that have taken place across Neverland since his departure. Chant even differentiates adult and child war, implying that people die in adult wars and thus they are far more serious, something Barrie never did. It strikes me as strange for Chant to disregard childhood as somehow lesser when Barrie went out of his way to idealize childhood - warts and all - and put it on equal footing with adult experiences, which is what made the untamable image of Peter Pan so enticing. 

Overall, my main struggles with Peter Darling were the inconsistent characterizations and motivations that made it difficult to understand why anyone did anything. Peter begins the book with a vague, ill-defined memory loss that is never explained. He quickly regains his memories, but his morals and perspective are so unclear that his actions often come across as contradictory. It's clear that Peter is supposed to act more like Barrie's iteration in the beginning - irrational, violent, uncaring of people around him - slowly realize his 'childish' ways are selfish and hurting people, and ultimately grow up into a more compassionate individual. However, Peter's motivation before and after the change are not clearly communicated, so it's hard to understand why he makes those changes, or why he was attached to his original perspective in the first place. Even when these changes happen, they're half-assed in a way that makes it unclear if any change has actually occurred. Even after Peter sees the Lost Boys as more than just disposable soldiers, the narrative undermines this by revealing that everyone except himself and Hook are imaginary, and thus not worth caring about as 'real' people. This gives Peter permission to go back to being a compassionless jerk and ignore the found family he was trying to build relationships with so he can focus on his own selfish romantic pursuits. This inconsistent motivation translated to other characters - mostly Hook, as he's the only other 'real' character for much of the book. Hook's motivation for pirating and being Captain Hook are largely unexplored outside of his drive for treasure. We could assume he doesn't need motivation for being a pirate outside of treasure and joy for the lifestyle, yet when Peter returns and challenges him to war games (as they had done before his disappearance), Hook rejects him and then chides Peter for his childish desire for violence. Because of that, it's hard to understand how this Captain Hook is the same one from Barrie's story, who reveled in violence and piracy, yet we also get no explanation for why he's changed. Chant appears to want his cake and eat it too -- he flip flops between honouring Barrie's characters and criticizing them without any clear statement or conclusion, leading to a jumbled mess of characterization. 

It's a real shame, because there's a lot to like about this book. If you're looking for a simple mlm romance with great trans representation that builds off long-loved fanfiction tropes, then this is the book for you. However, the inconsistent motivations did disrupt my enjoyment on even that factor, so if you do choose to dive in, make sure to turn your brain all the way off for full enjoyment. 

TL;DR: 2/5 stars. A trans retelling of Peter Pan with great prose but aggravating characterization. 

Book Review: The Hidden Oracle

Book Review: The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan 

Goodreads Description: How do you punish an immortal?

By making him human.

After angering his father Zeus, the god Apollo is cast down from Olympus. Weak and disorientated, he lands in New York City as a regular teenage boy. Now, without his godly powers, the four-thousand-year-old deity must learn to survive in the modern world until he can somehow find a way to regain Zeus's favour.

But Apollo has many enemies—gods, monsters and mortals who would love to see the former Olympian permanently destroyed. Apollo needs help, and he can think of only one place to go... an enclave of modern demigods known as Camp Half-Blood.

My Review: Spoilers ahead for the book's main twist. Proceed with caution. 

Here we are again, back with another Riordan book. I was expecting the usual delightful romp through the Percy Jackson universe, but was surprised to find The Hidden Oracle has a completely different vibe than previous installments, both in good and bad ways. 

As punishment for indirectly aiding Gaea and the giants in their war against the Gods in the previous series, Apollo is cast down to Earth in mortal form and must reclaim the five Oracles that have gone mysteriously silent. Due to his circumstances, Apollo is not the jovial or wide-eyed protagonist that usually appears in the Riordanverse: he's irritable, arrogant, cowardly, and most importantly, an adult. While his memories are hazy enough that "Lester" is able to embody a somewhat juvenile perspective on the world, Apollo's characterization still feels like a bored adult being forced to endure this magical childlike adventure, and his cynicism at times brought me out of the fun of the story. It's hard to say if it's me, or Riordan, or his choice of protagonist (perhaps all of the above), but this book felt like it was bored of its own formula. It constantly tries to buck against its universe's well-cemented formula with differing levels of effectiveness, with Apollo's characterization being the most difficult change to climatize to. He does transform over the book, as well as the series, and his more grating traits are sanded down as he learns and grows. I have read the third book in this series (you can find my review for it here) and Apollo's arrogance, cowardice, and his negative attitude towards the quest are toned down to a much more tolerable degree by that point in the series. In this book, though, it can be a bit much. However, there's still a lot to like about this protagonist. Apollo, as a lover-not-a-fighter God, often tries to avoid solving conflicts with force, like previous demigod protagonists, and is often using music to overwhelm his enemies or advance his quest. As much as Apollo's attitude can be somewhat grating, it was refreshing to follow a pacifist character who will wander off in hilarious directions to avoid a fist fight, and whose creative approach to problem solving breathes new life into a series that has largely solved problems through finding different flavours of how to hit someone. 

Apollo's characterization is far from the biggest formula shake-up. Historically, Riordanverse villains have been large, mythical beasts and creatures, and while The Trials of Apollo still features the existentialist monsters we know and love from Greek myth, the new series features a host of "god-emperors" to join the cast of baddies - real historical figures that have ascended to legend status due to their stories being told again and again. While previous Riordan books have featured humans or demigods working alongside the primordial baddies, the god-emperors from this series are "bosses" while previous humans and even demigods like Luke were treated and behaved more like disposable "peons" or "soldiers." These god-emperors are not only part of the problem, they are leading the problem, and this creates room to question the goodness of humans, the evil within monsters, and everything in between. 

The book raises questions about the capacity of good and evil not only in its villains, but also in its protagonists. Meg, daughter of Demeter, is presented like no other demigod up until this point. Her story doesn't follow the typical pipeline of discovering powers-traveling to Camp Half-Blood-being claimed-establish self at camp-define oneself through questing. When Apollo meets her early on in the book, she already knows how to fight of monsters, has some conception of her powers and origin, and is content to survive in the urban jungles on her own than journey to a camp to be trained like a traditional hero. Meg presents as neurodivergent throughout the novel, from her antisocial tendencies, her lack of concern for hygiene, poor social skills, and odd behaviour, including behaviours that could be considered "stimming." Because she isn't a high-functioning charismatic attractive teenager, Apollo clearly doesn't like her and is even grossed out by her, but as time passes he grows to see past her presentation and comes to care for her compassion, tenacity, and resilience. Because she presents so differently than most other characters, Meg gives readers who may be neurodivergent themselves, or who may feel like the 'weird outcast,' a character they can really connect to. Many of Riordan's character, like Percy himself, are larger than life - a little too charismatic, a little too friendly and patient, a little too eloquent, a little too perfect. While these characters can be excellent aspiration models, it can be intimidating to compare your messy human self to a character so perfect. Meg's imperfections felt like a release of tension in comparison. It also creates a bit of mystery, as Meg doesn't always communicate her thoughts with Apollo or the reader, opening space to question her motivations by the time she comes to betray Apollo to Nero, one of the god-emperors. It's revealed that Meg was actually working alongside Nero throughout the entire book and her betrayal leaves the ending uncertain, a sort of cliff hanger that allows readers to wonder in what capacity Meg will return -- as a villain, as someone who needs rescuing, or as someone who need redemption? Only time, and pages, will tell. 

All in all, I enjoyed The Hidden Oracle for what it was. I enjoyed the change-ups to the formula, and the honest attempt to scratch at good and evil while staying within the bounds of a middle grade formulaic novel, but these change ups both helped and hurt in many ways. Ultimately, it was Apollo's negativity and bitterness that dragged the vibe down and made it hard to enjoy the mythical romp. 

TL;DR: 3/5 stars. A solid Riordan romp that changes up the formula to open up conversations on villains and heroes, good and evil. 

Book Review: Book of Rhymes

Book Review: Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop by Adam Bradley 

Goodreads Description: If asked to list the greatest innovators of modern American poetry, few of us would think to include Jay-Z or Eminem in their number. And yet hip hop is the source of some of the most exciting developments in verse today. The media uproar in response to its controversial lyrical content has obscured hip hop's revolution of poetic craft and experience: Only in rap music can the beat of a song render poetic meter audible, allowing an MC's wordplay to move a club-full of eager listeners.

Examining rap history's most memorable lyricists and their inimitable techniques, literary scholar Adam Bradley argues that we must understand rap as poetry or miss the vanguard of poetry today. Book of Rhymes explores America's least understood poets, unpacking their surprisingly complex craft, and according rap poetry the respect it deserves. 

My Review: This book is Adam Bradley's love letter to rap, and what a letter it is. Despite being a nonfiction book set on teaching readers about the fundamentals of rap poetry, Bradley writes this book more like a memoir, centering his real-life experiences of studying and loving hip-hop. In this way, the book feels intimate and personal, while making solid arguments for the recognition of an art form that promotes community pride, encourages activism, and rebels against a system that has actively oppressed minorities since its inception. 

Bradley breaks down rap into six major elements and spends a chunk of the book looking into each element: rhythm, rhyme, wordplay, style, signifying, and storytelling. Bradley begins the book by digging into rap's influence on the world, its historical roots, role in black communities, and what separates it from other forms of poetry or music. He directly tackles difficult questions that have plagued rap for years and seeks to "explain without apologizing" when it comes to the genre's homophobic, misogynistic, or violent lyrics that appears antithesis to political activism. He does this by framing hip-hop within the socio-economic environment from which it grows, its lyrics therefore a reflection of the intergenerational trauma of black communities and their desire to be heard, to have a voice. As any troubled kid looking for attention will tell you, sometimes being unapologetically offensive is the best way to make society pay attention to what you have to say. Rap's authenticity resonates because it doesn't censor its expression; it just spits feeling onto the page and lets the dominos fall where they may. Unfortunately, that leads to some problematic lyrics now and again. 

Bradley splices in bits of history, interviews, and quotes from famous rappers, industry professionals, poets, English scholars, as well as plenty of rap lyrics, to illustrate hip-hop's place in the wider linguistic, poetic, and musical world. Bradley's writing is easy to read and engaging, and by centering his own passion for the subject in first person reflections, readers are able to easily connect to the subject matter through Bradley's enthusiasm. At times, his wordplay rivals the lyricists he is praising, ultimately leading to a delightful read obviously imbued with substantial passion for the art form. 

TL;DR: 3/5 stars. A well-written and passionate analysis of rap poetics. 

Book Review: Far From You

Book Review: Far From You by Tess Sharpe 

Goodreads Description: Sophie Winters nearly died. Twice. The first time, she's fourteen, and escapes a near-fatal car accident with scars, a bum leg, and an addiction to Oxy that'll take years to kick. 

The second time, she's seventeen, and it's no accident. Sophie and her best friend, Mina, are confronted by a masked man in the woods. Sophie survives, but Mina is not so lucky. When the cops deem Mina's murder a drug deal gone wrong, casting partial blame on Sophie, no one will believe the truth: Sophie has been clean for months, and it was Mina who led her into the woods that night. 

After a forced stint in rehab, Sophie returns home to find a chilly new reality. Mina's brother won't speak to her, her parents fear she'll relapse, old friends have become enemies, and Sophie has to learn how to live without her other half. To make matters worse, no one is looking in the right places, so Sophie must search for Mina's murderer on her own. But with every step, Sophie comes closer to revealing all: about herself, about Mina, and about the secret they shared. 

My Review: Sharpe's Far From You exists in a nebulous space for me. Even after several months, I still can't decide how I feel about it. It's a mixed bag; while the positives are on point, the negatives make me so frustrated that I wanted to throw the whole book out, good parts be damned. For one, it's an excellent read, full of twists, turns, red herrings and scattered clues that make it a satisfying mystery to unravel. It also has a deep emotional core that sits atop a romance that meshes together so many confusing adolescent feelings and experiences: love, jealousy, anxiety, social stigma, interpersonal drama, grief, and loss. The romance captures a realistic look at teenage social dynamics that spiked a wave of nostalgia for my own adolescence, where the interpersonal drama and intense emotional reactions were all claustrophobically bottled up within our tight-knit teenage cliques. Yet despite the realism, the book falls into the YA publishing trap when it comes to depicting teenage drug use: wanting to borrow the drama of addiction while failing to actually represent people with addiction. YA publishing errs on the side of caution when tackling these stories, preferring to depict addicts as victims rather than as having an active hand in their own addiction. While this is the safer approach when appealing to parent pocketbooks, it purposefully skews the perception of addiction and differentiates between "deserving" and "undeserving" addicts. When the point of writing a story like this is to encourage empathy towards people living in different circumstances, creating this distinction in fiction that isn't reflective of reality is more problematic than not publishing fiction on addiction in the first place. 

Before I elaborate on its problematic elements-- we'll start with the basics. The book features a first person POV with a writing style focused primarily on action, with little introspection or lyricism to its style. This helps to keep the pacing swift as the mystery builds upon itself layer by layer. The text also features heavy flashbacks that jump all over the timeline, and this scattered sense of events shows the reader how Sophie's trauma and addiction have rattled her memory and ultimately the story of her life. The book is gritty, managing a noir detective-like tone, but not as much as one would expect -- Sophie largely hangs out with non-drug users, which significantly reduces opportunities for sketchier scenes. The book's focus on the romance subplot also detracts from its 'edginess.' The depictions of drug use are minimal and purposefully vague, which ultimately prevents glamorization and copycat behaviours. There are just enough signal words, like 'snorted,' to give hints to the methods, but no overt descriptions of her use.  

As far as queer representation goes, this book is wonderful. It features a relationship between a bisexual woman and a lesbian, and explores the nuances of how labels affect them - Sophie's ability to love men as well as women allows her to blend in with heteronormative society, while Mina doesn't have that option. The book also beautifully conflates the stigmas of addiction with WLW attraction - showcasing how both addicts and LGBTQ2S+ people live dual or shadowed lives that prevent them from self-actualization. The text also digs into how homophobia manifests differently for bisexual vs lesbian women, which is just... *chef's kiss* Books that dig into the nuances of identity and interpersonal relationships really get my motor running, because expanding empathetic understanding for those different from you is what writing is all about. 

Which is why the depiction of drug addiction left me seriously disappointed. Firstly, I want to be clear: Far From You is not completely unrealistic. There are a lot of very real elements to Sophie's addiction that do speak truth to the experience, but the narrative still falls into the same victimization pits that claim many other YA books dealing with the topic. The origin of Sophie's addiction is revealed within the first few pages: a car accident left her with chronic pain and a near--unlimited access to prescription painkillers. The addiction that develops almost feels inevitable. The 'car accident' narrative is extremely popular in YA when tackling drug addiction, because it removes a character's personal responsibility for their addiction. This unfortunately creates a distinction between "deserving" and "undeserving" addicts --  those who are victims of treatment mismanagement are therefore worthy of our attention, support, and treatment, while characters who instigate their own addiction through the use of street drugs are ultimately "monsters" who deserve to be vilified and forgotten. Unfortunately, Far From You highlights who is "deserving" and "undeserving" very clearly when Sophie encounters a teenage meth addict later in the book who is trying to get clean -- she is incredibly rude to him, condescending, and treats him as the liar 'addict' stereotype - a stereotype she vehemently fought against when parents and adults pinned it on her. This lack of empathy for someone going through nearly the exact same situation as her feels strange - I could write it off as a character flaw, if the narrative itself didn't treat Sophie and Matt so differently. Matt is in recovery, yet spoken about like garbage, the worst is assumed about him, he goes to NA meetings, and he is heavily watched by his entire family. He's treated as dangerous, as a bomb that's about to blow, while Sophie, on the other hand, gets incredible freedom, and people act like they're just disappointed in her -- when Sophie is the one who has supposedly gotten someone murdered. 

This unbalanced treatment left a bad taste in my mouth, especially because in my experience working in a youth detox/rehab facility, teenagers don't follow Sophie's trajectory of car accident, pain killers, addiction. They usually look more like Matt, and have chosen to use substances to cope with trauma, or because their parents did it, or because of abusive peer pressure, and now find themselves powerless against their addiction. The Matts of the world are just as deserving as the Sophies, and I'm tired of fiction that draws a line between types of addicts, because this distinction influences our politics, our laws, and how we treat the most vulnerable in our society. Frankly, I think understanding what makes someone reach for a pipe is far more fascinating than borrowing the drama of drug addiction through a victimization narrative that allows characters to "play bad" without being "one of them." 

TL;DR: All in all, 4/5 stars. A story about love and loss that enmeshes the stigmas of homophobia and drug addiction, while ultimately failing the addicts it hopes to represent.