A 2016 Goodreads comic of the year nominee, and much deserved, I would say. A couple of my (possibly more comics-experienced) Goodreads friends (malesA 2016 Goodreads comic of the year nominee, and much deserved, I would say. A couple of my (possibly more comics-experienced) Goodreads friends (males of our species) had not liked this series, so I held back for awhile. And I’m not a huge fantasy reader, and this looks like historical fantasy, which I have even less experience with, though it does look it comes with a side of something like steampunk, which I like. . . and there’s some horror in it, okay, good, then many many other friends liked it and I was in to read it. I can say that since this is the first volume they have privileged action and not backstory in the world-building. The action is pretty frenetic, so they’re hoping you will just go with it and just ignore what the hell Lilium is and so forth. Which I sort of did, though I was kind of confused a lot.
What I gather is that there was recently or a while ago a war between humans and animal-hybrids, Arcanics, the surviving members of which are sold as slaves. Cumaea would seem to be the humans—and are they all witch-nuns?--who live off this aforementioned Lilium produced by Arcanics. Whatever that is. Sometimes you don't want to know.
Maika is our main kick-ass woman, who has lost an arm. Others seem to have lost limbs, too. It’s pretty brutal, not kid stuff, this story, let me tell ya. Horror, I said. Maika has some dark past; she’s a killer, and dangerous. Is she a monster or monstress? Masks have power here, not exactly sure how yet, but they look cool. All the costumes and the dark intricate artwork from Takeda are great. The feel is a kind of blend of western and eastern (manga) art and sensibility. I think this is finally a great start. I's more violent than I imagined it would be, that's for sure, which is kind of a good thing.
Merged review:
A 2016 Goodreads comic of the year nominee, and much deserved, I would say. A couple of my (possibly more comics-experienced) Goodreads friends (males of our species) had not liked this series, so I held back for awhile. And I’m not a huge fantasy reader, and this looks like historical fantasy, which I have even less experience with, though it does look it comes with a side of something like steampunk, which I like. . . and there’s some horror in it, okay, good, then many many other friends liked it and I was in to read it. I can say that since this is the first volume they have privileged action and not backstory in the world-building. The action is pretty frenetic, so they’re hoping you will just go with it and just ignore what the hell Lilium is and so forth. Which I sort of did, though I was kind of confused a lot.
What I gather is that there was recently or a while ago a war between humans and animal-hybrids, Arcanics, the surviving members of which are sold as slaves. Cumaea would seem to be the humans—and are they all witch-nuns?--who live off this aforementioned Lilium produced by Arcanics. Whatever that is. Sometimes you don't want to know.
Maika is our main kick-ass woman, who has lost an arm. Others seem to have lost limbs, too. It’s pretty brutal, not kid stuff, this story, let me tell ya. Horror, I said. Maika has some dark past; she’s a killer, and dangerous. Is she a monster or monstress? Masks have power here, not exactly sure how yet, but they look cool. All the costumes and the dark intricate artwork from Takeda are great. The feel is a kind of blend of western and eastern (manga) art and sensibility. I think this is finally a great start. I's more violent than I imagined it would be, that's for sure, which is kind of a good thing....more
My first Quick book, and it turned out far differently than I thought it would. The main character is Finley, Irish, a Philadelphia high school seniorMy first Quick book, and it turned out far differently than I thought it would. The main character is Finley, Irish, a Philadelphia high school senior, rough neighborhood, who lives with his Dad and (legless) Grandpa. Who knows where Mom went. Finley doesn't really talk a lot, but he plays basketball and has a girlfriend he likes to make out with constantly. He's the one white kid on his black bball team.
One day his (black) coach asks (white) Finley to help him successfully help welcome a new kid Russ, who is relocating from the west to the east coast, a much sought after point guard whose parents have been murdered. He was the only black kid on an all white team. He also has a 4.0 gpa and has been hospitalized for some kind of depression/breakdown. He wants to be called Boy 21 and says he will be taken into space by his parents by October. He speaks in some kind of quasi-alien cadence. He seems a little nuts, okay, but maybe you would be, too if your parents were murdered.
Finley befriends Russ at the expense of his starting position on the ball team, which helps Russ a lot, ultimately, he doesn't need that space identity anymore, he is ready to talk about his bad stuff, but Finley goes down hill fast, he's helped the coach and Russ but Finley is on the bench, his coach isn't appreciative, and then (something) happens to Erin and suddenly the book is about something (to me) completely unexpected.
How unexpected? Well, let me just say that Russ is not the only relocation project in this book. Part of it involves an explanation of why it is Finley's mother is gone, why Grandpa is legless, and so on. Something to do the Irish mob, and silence, necessary or not. It's seen by some as a book about basketball, and Quick talks bball well enough, but it is not about basketball, not really. Themes of violence and silence and voice are central, and that part works pretty well for me. This idea of relocation for mental health/new starts seems important to this story, though I am not sure what to make of it, exactly. It's maybe just a key issue with the plot, makes an issue of growing up into a kind of thriller. Family violence is central to Finley and Russ to their relationship, and finally talking.
There is an undercurrent of racial issues to my view not adequately addressed, and there's some Harry Potter story stuff--a Potter reading group, reading about a boy who lost HIS parents who has access to magic--that is not very well developed, but is a talking point. The space theme is always present throughout and not entirely convincing or evocative to me, but it is like Harry Potter, yes, a way to escape from terrible things. The whole Boy 21 space cadet stuff wasn't entirely convincing to me, though, and his shift to suddenly articulate and suddenly okay because of basketball happens too quickly and not quite convincingly to me. But I do like Finley, and the book seems to rise above predictable YA when that something happens to Erin I won't tell you about. That it surprised me made me like it better, a little. I think it's good, but I had issues with it, too.
I think this is a good YA book. I do. And I am glad Saenz wrote it. Almost all my Goodreads friends at a glance seem to have given it four or five staI think this is a good YA book. I do. And I am glad Saenz wrote it. Almost all my Goodreads friends at a glance seem to have given it four or five stars, gulp. Well, here goes: This is the story of El Paso loner quiet fifteen year old Ari whose brother is in prison, whose Viet Nam vet father also never talks. He loves his parents and talks about this all the time. He isn't comfortable around typical boys most of the time. The family doesn't talk about the brother, about Vietnam, about Aunt Ophelia that they haven't seen for years. This silence in Ari and Ari's house seems to be making him angry. He and his Dad have bad dreams they don't talk about for almost the whole book.
Ari meets Dante, who is more confident, who teaches him to swim, they become best friends. Ari has parents he also loves like crazy. This is unique in YA to have such great parents. Not dysfunctional at all, in most ways. Love is the main word they use as a family. Ari and Dante are good students, good boys, beautiful boys, and not really all that interesting to me; there's nothing original about the things they think, but they like each other. It feels nice. The dialogue is pretty flat, but generally sweet. They think a lot about how Mexican they really are. They look at stars and birds and do almost nothing and say almost nothing to each other for most of the book. But Ari saves Dante from being hit by a car, almost getting killed in the process. It makes Ari mad that Dante and his family are grateful for this.
Ari leaves El Paso for Chicago for a year; in that year they try out beer, pot and kissing girls. They keep in touch. When Dante comes back he also comes out to Ari, they try to kiss and it works for Dante, not Ari, but they stay friends. This not a "problem" book in that a lot of trauma happens, which makes it kind of unique. It is about two relatively normal boys and their relatively happy families. One family with secrets and silence, but still, lots of love. It's about the struggle to live your life according to your own rules, and less by societal, cultural rules. Rules/freedom is the central theme of the book. And friendship/love.
The book is 359 pages. For roughly 280 pages almost nothing actually happens, except this accident. Oh, the first kiss is sort of a big deal, I suppose, but not as big a deal as what happens later. It is not until the very last page of the book that the central concern of the book, which is a romantic one, is resolved. In the last eighty pages, we learn about Ari's aunt, his brother, Viet Nam, we begin to talk. We learn lots of connections between Ari and his bro Bernardo and Dante and societal homophobic rage.
Aristotle, Dante? Great thinkers? This is a YA novel about the philosophy of the everyday, about learning "secrets of the universe" that has to do with living with pain and learning to talk about it. I liked it. I didn't like that nothing happened for so long. I would have liked to know more about Ari's friends Gina and others, who appear about half way. I would have liked to know more about Aunt Ophelia and Viet Nam, but this is more about Ari and Dante. I didn't like that Ari--who wants to break free from all others who rule his life, is told (NOW SPOILER ALERT) by his parents that he is actually gay and in love with Dante. THEY tell him; he doesn't make that decision, independently, which disappointed me. But over all I did like it, and in my YA class, most of my students really liked it. The last 80 pages are pretty great, a relief after all the silence. Maybe it pushed it close to 3.5 for me, that flurry of reveals....more
As we recognize the beginning of yet another school year, and as I teach a YA class, I call attention to this book that is not just write FOR kids butAs we recognize the beginning of yet another school year, and as I teach a YA class, I call attention to this book that is not just write FOR kids but BY kids and in collaboration with teachers, comics artists. What can kids do? Yes, what can they do? We adults sometimes make assumptions about generations X and Y (are we up to Z yet?) as selfish and clueless and materialistic, but as we also know some youth pushback to the politics/crises of the day comes in and through various instantiations of Occupy, Black Lives Matter, an increase in marches, protests, youth-led. And this. And things like this, that we have to support and enact.
World War 3 is the longest running political comic in the world, thanks to Top Shelf, who produces this volume. A collection of activist comics on various topics. Peter Kuper and Seth Tobocman started this in 1979. This one is unique, though, in that it focuses on climate change and how kids confront the various climates--social, cultural, political--they face, and--get this--features work by kids, what a concept. This is a tradition I want to see started right here with this volume, since, as they used to say but still must be true, "our children are the future." Keep having kids and collaborations between artists and kids!!! Here and everywhere!
I like seeing comics artists working here with kids like Peter Kuper, Eric Drooker, Kevin Pyle, English teacher and comics artist Lisa Wilde, others. You can help #47 get funded through Kickstarter, through liking it on Facebook. Great stuff, so yes, you CAN do great activist things with kids. Schools and other learning environments can be sites for change....more
A fuller review to follow, but this is a very meta book, a book is about a fictional character, Simon, who was tHow to Make Harry Potter Fan Fiction.
A fuller review to follow, but this is a very meta book, a book is about a fictional character, Simon, who was the the focus in another fictional character's life in Fangirl. It's based on "an amalgam of Chosen One" stories, she says, but it is clear it is mainly about Harry Potter, assuming Harry is gay, with more (gay) romance, and classic Rowell characters swearing, and more humor, and less plot. I mean besides the basic point that Harry is gay and the Chosen One, apparently, and then basically chosen to kiss a boy a lot and fall in love with him. And in this one Dumbledore would seem to be like Voldemort, too, in way.
So it's a story about a fictional character from a fictional series that's based on a fictional series. Maybe 3.5, I'd say, but it's 517 pages, for what is essentially fan fiction from fan fiction and so on, meta meta meta, and well, it's interesting, but not 517 pages interesting, imo. But I have not yet read Fangirl, so maybe I will begin to envision this larger fangirl fiction admiration project that Rowell is enacting, enfolding in book after book. . . maybe....more
3.5 for me. But the GR average for this is much higher, so consider the audience here. Cute and sweet teen romance where the two principal characters 3.5 for me. But the GR average for this is much higher, so consider the audience here. Cute and sweet teen romance where the two principal characters happen to be gay. Refreshing in a few ways, this book could not have been written as a realistic depiction of any world twenty years ago. Set in what would appear to be mainly white suburbia, and mostly in and through various social media (email, Tumblr), this book features clever and funny and charming Simon (and his clever and charming and sweet friends) who through a secret identity falls in love online with another boy. Much of the book is epistolary, which is to say an exchange of emails (with the "perfect grammar" Simon craves, and also lots of swearing) between "Jacques" and "Blue." Much of the book is also a mystery where we try to figure out who this other guy is; many of us reading it figure it out fairly early on, but it is still an obsession for Simon, and us, to see who it is.
This is also a teen coming out book, and there are so many of these today, but this one is a kind of reflection on coming-out-as-a-process best named by each person, at his/her/their own pace. Some things go badly in this process for Simon, but on the whole, coming out is not that momentous a deal for him; his family and friends he knows will be largely supportive. That's how the book looks different than coming out/romances of twenty years ago. Books like this which are essentially romantic comedies just didn't exist for the world then, and so the world has changed.
And then race figures in the story in a surprising way, though I would have to say this is not a huge social issues book. Nor is it about careful descriptions of actions or setting. This story happens to be set in the South, but there's nothing identifiable about the town in it. It's character-driven, and almost completely dialogue-central, as if it were movie-ready.
Which is not to say I didn't like it; I did. The dialogue is very now and sharp and I think perfect for contemporary (maybe primarily bright suburban) teens. Very specific musical references, such as Simon's favorite Elliot Smith. Lots of pop references from movies and occasional literary references, though these are not important thematically, I think. Just world-building, to get the talk right, kids talking about what they like. And these kids are clever and funny but they aren't super smart and philosophical like Aristotle and Dante (Benjamin Saenz's teen YA text); they just feel very much (to me) "regular" middle class suburban American kids. Which is maybe the point, that we are in the South, the conservative South, but not the rural South, and this story takes place, and though race is relevant, race and sexual identity are not that big a deal to these kids. So it's a kind of snapshot of the times, in a way, that it's largely a romantic comedy. Not much happens in this story except romance, but that's fine! Whew!...more
I read this in 2015 and it was one of my favorite books of the year. I just read it again for a YA class and will amend the review a little to accountI read this in 2015 and it was one of my favorite books of the year. I just read it again for a YA class and will amend the review a little to account for my current view of it.
I quote Richie Partington's review: "Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy; The Wednesday Wars; and Trouble are three well-known historical novels for young people by Gary D. Schmidt. Each of the three contains a complex, exceptionally well-drawn father character. Each of the three fictional fathers exhibits notable blind spots and character flaws. These sophisticated portrayals of father characters are one of the reasons that Gary Schmidt is one of my all-time favorite authors."
Ditto for me. This has been described as the third in a trilogy, but if so, it is a loosely based trilogy, which sort of begins (order doesn't really matter, maybe?) with Wednesday Wars, continues with Okay for Now, and concludes with Orbiting Jupiter . In all three of these books there are characters from the same fictional Vermont town. Minor characters from one book become more central characters in the next book. Themes interlock, as Partington alludes to, above. You don't need to have read any of the others to get what is going on. These books are for middle school, I think, though tweens also read and love them.
I am somewhat influenced in my reading of this book by my former student's--Emily, an English teacher--fine MA thesis on this book, so since I liked the thesis I have read from Emily, I am sometimes sharing insights she has put forth, and will try to credit her, but I say nothing I don't believe.
This novel is about fatherhood, parenting, brotherhood, and love, but principally it's a book about grace. About grace, and/or something that Schmidt calls "greater love." All of Schmidt's books are about grace, seems to me. And the opposite of grace, too, the horrors that young people face as they grow up without decent parenting, guidance, love. The book works as Schmidt usually does through repetition of images, humor, and parallelism. I can't show you some of the key parallels without spoilers, but an early dramatic incident at an icy river is the precursor to something that happens later in the book. Contrasts happen, to help you see what this grace might be about, yet I wouldn't call the book didactic.
What we know at the outset is that 14 year old Joseph has been released from prison for attempting to kill his teacher. We later find out why, but hearing this information doesn't make us or anyone in this town likely to be particularly sympathetic to him. We know these stories of classroom violence from the news, and there's no excuse for it. When we read these things in the paper, we think, or some us think: Monsters. Joseph is also the father of a baby, Jupiter, and the son of an abusive father. Jupiter was born to 13 year old Maddie, who (spoiler alert) died of complications giving birth. He loved Maddie and his rage in part derives from that loss, of course. He's moved into a foster family's farm after being released from prison, and he thus becomes the brother of Jack, 12, who "has his back" right from the beginning. Joseph goes to school and does well,and he learns to milk and love cows, and he's both supported (by a few) and bullied/shunned (by most) in school and his new town, but his main goal in life is to find Jupiter, who has herself been put in foster care in lieu of adoption. What does it mean to be a father? Can Joseph be a father? Can a foster parent be a father to Joseph? What does it in fact mean to be a father? Is it a name on a birth certificate, or something else? Can Jack's Dad be a better Dad for Joseph than Joseph's biologcal father? How do you get to be a "brother"?
I loved Okay for Now, and Wednesday Wars, which layered things throughout the central story like Shakespeare, baseball, and art, and masterfully. So when I didn't see these same kinds of layers quite as much in Orbiting Jupiter, I felt initially a little like it was a fault. Like it was too lean, not substantial enough. This is how English types are about books sometimes. The more complex the better. But this book is more direct, less metaphorical, and I don't think it is a fault, finally, that there are fewer layers of meaning. There's the repeated mention of a book Joseph is reading, Octavian Nothing, which is relevant, but there's not much else in the way of extra-narrative thematic links as with the other books. The planet Jupiter is Jospeh's favorite, and it's the name of his daughter. It's like it was written in a kind of white heat, without artifice, more direct. Leaner, and maybe meaner, closer to the core, the source, soul. Obviously the grace and fatherhood issues are everywhere, though.
Part of what makes me think that one reason for the "less literariness" is that Schmidt lost his wife on Christmas eve a couple of years ago. That loss permeates this work, as he says, in an interview. Orbiting Jupiter takes place in the fall leading to Christmas. Joseph and Maddie's giving birth to Jupiter parallels the Joseph and Mary story, in certain ways, and Joseph hears this story in church Christmas eve, and queries the minister about the story, one he had never heard, never having been to church growing up. At the end of the service, Joseph walks up to Pastor Ballou and asks him how much of the story is true.
“I think it all has to be true, or none of it,” he said. “The angels?” said Joseph. “Really?” “Why would you not believe it?” said Reverend Ballou. “Because bad things happen,” said Joseph. “If there were angels, then bad things wouldn’t happen.” “Maybe angels aren’t always meant to stop bad things.” “So what good are they?” “To be with us when bad things happen.” Joseph looked at him. “Then where the hell were they?” he said. I thought Reverend Ballou was going to start bawling. And that was the end of our Christmas Eve service at new First Congregational (Orbiting 69).
I think Schmidt knows something about love and grace, and also has to deal with the fact that bad things sometimes happen to good people like himself, and kids like Joseph. Where God is in a sometimes terrible world is a question anyone must reasonably ask, I think. But Jack and his family have an answer to that, and a powerful one. And I'm not at all religious anymore, though I grew up in the same faith Schmidt did. But read it to find out.
Cows and milking play a part in this story that I like. The cows "speak" without words, and this is in part what Schmidt has in mind, I think, when he writes about grace and love. Ach, I can't say much else without spoilers! Except this is a lovely, lovely moving book, for maybe fifth grade through high school readers. And me. So, so much for me....more
3/5/24: Rereading for Spring 24 YAL class; A queer gothic romance set in sunny California??! But don't worry, there is a kind of castle and an anguish3/5/24: Rereading for Spring 24 YAL class; A queer gothic romance set in sunny California??! But don't worry, there is a kind of castle and an anguished artist in it, for all the sunny skies. . . No one in the class didn't like this book and some people loved it. Two had read it in hgi school and liked it and reread it and loved it.
I read that Nelson is working on another novel.
Printz Award winner, 2015
9/29/21: A rereading with a YA class in Fall 2021. I really think most of the class loves it and we had a great discussion touching on topics such as the function of reading romance in the development of adolescent identity. It's way over-the-top, but so are teens and artists and love generally for some people. Fun stuff.
4/9/20: I read this in my spring Growing Up class that met yesterday via Zoom to talk about YA romances. I gave them several options and most did not read the same one, though a couple of us read this one, one of my favorite YA romances, and all of them said they liked their books and were more inclined to read romances than previously. They loved the page-turner/feelings aspects of it that is highlighted, and though most of us seem to prefer romances that deal with social issues, and this really does not, it was still way enjoyable. I say below that I like for the gothic elements in it, but I tend to agree with student JS in the class that we wish she had gone full-on gothic, that the ghosts would be unquestionably real, not in question, that it be even more irrational (vs. rational).
9/13/18: “I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart’s affections and the truth of the imagination"—John Keats
Re-read for fall YA class with a focus on romance, the gothic, Chicago. This one has some gothic elements, though it is set in sunny California! My students mostly love it, and so I encouraged them to read Emily May's hilariously scathing review, which I love but disagree with, to see if they also agree the book sucks big time. I think I liked this book even more than I did the first two reads.
Revised review 3/29/17:
"Best to bet on all the horses"--Grandma
Precocious. Am I talking about Jandy Nelson? I dunno. Kinda! This is the first (of two) books I have read from her, both bearing similar emotionally intense and verbal tendencies, but her two central twin characters, Noah and Jude, are certainly ecstatic/precocious artist teens, one gay, one straight, who speak endlessly in metaphors, in lusty anti-Hemingway prose. All John Green characters speak like they are all smart and precocious and all speak (humorously, snarkily) like John Green, which at first is breathtaking and then, I say, too much, too Green? Too soon to say for me if this is too Nelson, because I've only read two of her books, and sometimes the talk from the brilliant privileged (SF) Bay Area kids drives me crazy, but after awhile, I was just won over by this story of twins who are connected, then not, then are, and of their hippie art critic mom and their scientist Dad, and Oscar the James Dean hunk, the on again/off again Jude loving Brian, all the rockstar suffering, Heathcliffish seething artist Guillermo Garcia and the ecstatic impulse and "split-aparts" that seem to need to take place in order for people to get together.
“Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?”--John Keats
Oh, and it is young adult literature, so you have to consider the intended audience. Most of my teen and early twenties students love this book.
And there are ghosts, such as Grandma. And a parrot that only says "Where the hell is Ralph?" And aphorisms galore and good luck tokens and psychic convergence and people quoting great literature and "if you give an orange to someone you are going to fall in love with them" (that Jude-Oscar exchange is silly but still adorable to me). Everyone is into color, thinks in color, notices colors of eyes, and so on.
Jude has Raphael's cherubs tattooed on her belly. That's either cute or too precocious for 14, I can't quite decide, but I'm leaning to like if not love.
Noah imagines self portraits constantly for every situation. Funny, cute, too self-involved? Too much, after the 75th one? I can't quite decide, but I'm leaning to being pretty okay with it. Both of these kids are pretty adorable to me, finally. Oh, it's a romance among artists, it's all creativity and self-involvement. No one's trying to save the world here, but okay, not every book has to do that, this is about Love! Like I said:
“I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination"--John Keats
So Noah and Jude are twins, very different--Noah's internal and self-focused (see self-portraits, above) and anguished/sad, and Jude is more social. And then those tendencies seem to switch, in doppleganger (or is it just something to do with twins or being a teen?) fashion. So the story proceeds in alternating Noah and Jude chapters, but interestingly, Noah's are at 13-14 before *something important* happens, and Jude's chapters are at 16 after *that* happened. Great effects from this strategy. They become different because of what happens, of course.
I had not wanted to read a book, clearly a YA romance, entitled, sappily, I'll Give You The Sun, but we come to find the exchange of different parts of the universe happens between Noah and Jude, who actually almost never talk with each other. . . except much later in the book and after having hurt each other a lot. You see, after the opening sappy sickly sweet metaphor-fest, we find the kids have an evil streak, they can be very mean, and in fact all the characters are deeply and interestingly flawed. It's not their sweetness that interests me so much (though ecstasy is interesting, seductive, of course), but their bitterness, the Dark Side they represent, finally. California (upper-middle-class) post-"hippies" with (sometimes) attitude.
Lust is everywhere in this book, but interestingly, the issue of minors having sex with slightly older boys is addressed: A girl at 14 with a boy of 16? Girl of 16 and boy 19? Nelson suggests not okay to either of these. And "do you really want to be that girl, Jude?" Mom asks. And well, adultery/an affair happens in the book, speaking of crossing ethical lines, though that line seems more acceptably crossable than sex with minors for Nelson. The heart wants what it wants, Nelson seems to say, unless one is too young. So there are limits to this seemingly boundless commitment to love (or sex, anyway).
In general, an epigraph for the book is a guide to its morality (noting those exceptions):
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there"--Rumi
It's a romance, gay romance, straight romance, much much awarded everywhere, and for good reasons, and as in many of Shakespeare's comedies, everything pretty much works out in the end. Everything. But why EV-ER-Y-THING??! Well, it's a romance, so that is built into the worlds of some romances, it's not literary realism, so sometimes you want everything to work out exactly as you want it to and in books like this you sometimes actually get what you want. It's a book about the heart, and art. Maybe Grandma's right when she says, "Best to bet on all the horses." Because in Nelson's world, everybody wins. I just read The Brothers Karamazov, a book of great feeling I love where mostly people are miserable. Why not more Joy for a change?
Or, as Grandma also says, "Maybe some people are just meant to be in the same story." It sure seems like Nelson agrees with Grandma here by making sure all these characters are in her one happy family.
In my second reading of the book I noticed something I had not seen in the first reading: This is not just a YA romance, it is a contemporary YA GOTHIC romance, with tortured Romantic artists Garcia and Noah, with all this highly ecstatic metaphorical language, with this ecstatic impulse, with all the artists, with a Lost Cove and gothic house with dark corridors that Garcia lives in, with ghosts, with magic, and psychic convergence. I liked it better when I began thinking of it as contemporary gothic. That could "excuse" or even justify some of the "excesses" in the text. Were Keats and Coleridge and Liszt "excessive," or is that question somehow beside the point? Were they strictly moral in a religious sense? Of course not. Love is the answer....more
Mexican Whiteboy is a YA text written by Matt De la Peña, and I really liked this book a lot (and my friend Jenn suggested over my shoulder that I addMexican Whiteboy is a YA text written by Matt De la Peña, and I really liked this book a lot (and my friend Jenn suggested over my shoulder that I add, for veracity’s sake, that he is, based on his picture, “cute,” which okay, he is, done). De la Peña is the author of picture book Last Stop on Market Street, that was winner of the 2016 Newbery Medal, a 2016 Caldecott Honor Book, and a 2016 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book (Christian Robinson), so he knows his way around words. I heard De la Peña give a talk at the National Council of Teachers of English a couple years ago, and he was totally charming, telling his working class story of his Dad, but I didn’t read this book until now, two years later, which is supposed to be his best book.
I read it on the advice of a couple people when I asked them to recommend sports and romance YA for my fall YA course, which I never ever read. I love sports, but I usually am disappointed with sports novels. But I really thought the baseball writing in this one was the best thing about it. And now have read three books that feature sports, two on basketball, Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and Reynolds’s All-American Boys, where I found the sports writing also worked.
I loved the story of the reticent Danny, baseball pitcher, and who becomes his best bud, Uno, his cool cousin Sofia, and his wannabe girl, Liberty. And both Danny’s and Uno’s fathers. This is basically a father-son book, and I am reading a lot of those, so was glad about that. The book has great realistic dialogue of a lower-class California city close to San Diego, National City, where Danny, who is a half-Mexican/half-White 16 year old, spends the summer with his uncle’s family in order to be “more Mexican” instead of the private school where he is an outsider. But he only speaks English, he isn’t as poor as the people in this town. And the sweet Liberty, who mainly speaks Spanish, who wants to be “more American,” whom Danny crushes on (how do we know, throughout the book? Every time he sees her, he gets a “knot” in his chest, which I do find sweet; the books opens with Sophia and her friends crudely talking about sex, which I also loved, but I was sort of relieved this whole crush basically just led to [spoiler alert!] only [heaven forfend!] kissing!).
I love the way things don’t happen in the storytelling: We don’t know where Danny’s Dad is or why, and almost nothing happens (in typical YA romantic fashion) between the shy Danny and Liberty for The Whole Frigging Book, which, since I obviously kept turning the pages, totally worked for me.
There’s a hawk theme he should have cut; there’s a “it’s not your fault, Danny” scene that he could have cut, but the baseball sequences are terrific, the violence and talk feel real, the father-son stuff seems real (i.e., De la Peña uses Uno’s dad to create political statements about racist capitalist white America that I liked quite a bit and I like Danny's lying letter to his Dad). Oh, all of our fave characters get an upswing in the end, ala much YA, but whatever, I was in tears, so it worked for me. The last fifty pages moved a 3.5 book to a 4.0+ or so, for sure. Really fine YA novel!!! ...more
Update: 10-13-24: One of my favorite graphic novels, now a banned book! And why? Maybe because it is honest about a range of sexual issues particularlUpdate: 10-13-24: One of my favorite graphic novels, now a banned book! And why? Maybe because it is honest about a range of sexual issues particularly focused on women and girls? Can't have those talks, unless properly married to a man?
6/22/21: Reread with summer class on YA Comics and Graphic Novels with Kick-ass Main Characters, and loved it again, and the class--those that have finished it, ahem--say they love it. A coming of age story that focuses on ONE summer and on girls and women and their relationships with (in the focus of this story, at least) with men. Girls 10 and 12 on the cusp of being teens; teens, teenaged pregnancy; adults with kids who are trying to have more kids. A classic.
7/10/19 Reread with a small group of students focused on coming of age stories. So good.
6/23/17 Reread update, after reading it with my YA Comics/Graphic Novels class this summer. The way all great novels can be, better each time you read it, and it is always a privilege to experience reading with others who also like/love it, especially (for me) people who have never read anything like it before. Most of them have never read graphic novels. So many small details, the mundane, become important. Was choked up speaking with the class of the resolution, Alice, the mother, in the water, saving another, saving herself.
9/16/16 Update, fourth reading: This is better and better every time I read it, and reading it with others always increases my love for it, too. I'd just read this for a summer class in July, but I connected it this fall with Ghost World and Black Hole because they all deal with teen girls' explorations/struggles with becoming sexually active. The class, mostly women, were really engaged with this book. They really seemed to get into the subtleties of the text, the fact that the images carry most of the weight of the story, minimal gestures and facial expressions, and not much talking. An emotional center.
I'll leave the July review intact, but just add here something I don't discuss below in my review, that water--a lake where they go for two weeks every summer--figures in mightily in this story. It's the central image and emotional site of the story. As we know, swimming can be a joyous summer experience, and it can also be dangerous. And we have no real idea through most of the book why it is such an anguished site for Alice, the mother. Or why that changes for Alice in one dramatic moment.
9/16 original review: This One Summer is the collaboration of two cousins, Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, who work seamlessly on their story of a summer at a cottage on Lake Huron focused on "woman/girls in peril" as observed by girls "in transition" between tween-age and teen-age, the very cusp of womanhood. More accurately, it is focused on Rose, at 12, who hangs with 10 year old Windy every summer. This summer is different, though, in that 1) Rose's mother is depressed and fighting with her husband; she wants more children, but [spoiler alert, sorry]: she had a miscarriage; 2) Rose has begun to register an interest in boys, particularly a guy named Dunc (Windy calls him Dud) who seems to be the summer crush at this little resort area, and 3) they watch a lot of horror movies, which, as you know, feature (usually) girls being pursued by dark mysterious (principally male?) forces and sometimes slashed. Dunc also seems to have impregnated one of the local girls, Jenny; Jenny is one of the girls in the area referred to casually by the boys as "sluts," though all of the teens seem to party together.
So this is a book about what it means to be growing up female, an early coming-of-age book. The cusp of it all, after the innocence of so many fun, carefree summers. The (darker) adult world looms for Rose, as she and Windy all summer sift through artifacts of the local teen/grownup life--empties, cigarettes--the detritus of the teen party scene, and they overhear rude/profane conversations about sex. Through this inquiry they come to understand what it means to be a teenaged girl and how boys fit into this scenario. Danger ahead, sure, and yet desire looms, regardless.
Talk of sex is everywhere in This One Summer. Windy asks if Rose has a boyfriend, resents her crush on Dunc. Rose resents her mother's pursuit of more babies, though Rose thinks she would like one herself, maybe, at some point, with (daydream twelve-year-old fantasy) Dunc or someone like him. She reads comics and books with romance in them. Desire/crush begins to quietly consume her and Windy resents it. Windy is not ready for any of these considerations herself. She's ten,she wants summer with her friend to last forever! She mostly just wants to swim and dance and dig holes in the sand with Rose.
A lot of people love this for Jillian Tamaki's art especially and I agree. Her art is even more amazing here than on their previous project, Skim, which I also loved. Many people seem to hate this for a lack of narrative, that little happens, but I disagree with that, as so so much happens "this one summer," multiple interpersonal crises, and so much more that is happening is reflected in the visuals, in the inviting/foreboding lavender/purple/indigo coloration, the deftly subtle facial expression, the spot-on dialogue. It's in my opinion very spare and subtle, very slice-of-life as it gives you the sense of what it may be like for girls in the transition between childhood and teens. Most importantly, it takes advantage of the comics medium. A small gesture, a wince, a tear. Subtle representations in word and image. Not much happens, in a sense, not much gets resolved, but really, everything happens.
The most important things happen in this novel in response to these crises in very small ways--a hug or not, a word expressed or not. A smirk, a small smile. It is great patient and spare storytelling deliberately getting at small moments of summer crush, and pregnant girl dilemma and mom and dad dilemma. And friendship pressures.
This is my third time reading it, and this time I was actually quite moved by it. Maybe it's having a daughter. Maybe it's reading all the literary/visual parallelism, the beauty of that. This book is such a tween book, in a way, and evidence for that is that it was a Caldecott Honor Book (for children!) and such a teen book, too, and evidence for that is that it is also a Printz Honor Book (for teens!), and yay, a graphic novel, a beautiful collaboration between cousins. This is a book maybe designed especially to speak to girls and women, and I love it. And I have to say the men in my class this summer also seemed to especially appreciate it. Yay for all that....more
Charles Burns’s Black Hole is a strange and somewhat disturbing graphic novel depicting some teens engaging in drinking, smokingAdolescence as Disease
Charles Burns’s Black Hole is a strange and somewhat disturbing graphic novel depicting some teens engaging in drinking, smoking pot, and sexual acts. Ho hum, eh? It is also one of the best graphic novels and novels of any kind of the new century. If a “black hole” is the effect of gravity pulling so hard on a site in space that light cannot get out, the black hole of this particular summer of sex and drugs looks at times like it is a vortex you could not recover from. I was creeped out about it in an initial reading 6 or 7 years ago, but in close readings with summer and fall 2016 classes I began to see some warmth and compassion running through it. The artwork is amazing, and the disruptive and discontinuous representation of chronology, of time, is innovative and consistent with the disruption of adolescence Burns represents.
The story is set in one summer post-high-school-graduation from a Seattle high school in the late seventies, when Burns himself would have been graduating from a Seattle high school. Four characters take center stage, Chris, Rob, Keith and Eliza, though a once bullied boy named Dave also plays a central role. In the story young people begin to develop physical abnormalities as a result of developing sexual desire for someone, or actually having sex with someone. Some critics thought Burns might have been making a commentary on the AIDS crisis (as in: Just say no to sex, kids, or it will screw you up forever!), but Burns himself said it was more generally about adolescence than just sexual awakening. This transition to adulthood as Burns depicts it is infused with lots of drug use/hallucinations, and nightmares; while friendship is important in the story, it is mainly a tale of desire, fears, confusion and what happens if you are in any sense different as you pass from childhood to adulthood. The social distortion is matched by visual images of distorted bodies, though images of the natural world—the sky, trees, ocean--and physical beauty (including bodies) are also present and at some points--not all--restorative.
When I first read this story I thought it was just about a bunch of late seventies teens, boys and girls, growing up together, but in this reading I think Chris and Eliza--two young women--are the main characters. They are the primary ones experiencing the "black holes" of the title, though others are also lost in this vortex, as well. It's a book in part about girls and all the complicated issues they face as they experience sexuality. And yes, including some very real dangers. And there is the threat of violence and actual violence permeating the story. It almost seems impossible terrain for these young women to navigate, and they experience a range of both beautiful and terrible things, sexually, but we get some sense finally that it may be possible to--as most of us do, as difficult as it can be--survive this trip to adulthood. But as I see it the principal focus is on young women and how vulnerable they are during this time of life. For Chris and Eliza, this trip looks at times like a dark tunnel with no obvious light at the end.
Black Hole is a coming age novel of some complexity, which I categorize as horror, and which involves murder and insanity as one might expect from a book I call horror. It does feature the supernatural and surreal--these strange physical protuberances--and there is psychedelia that obscures our sense of things at times, but it is basically rooted in a familiar world we know, and of adolescence. It ends somewhat hopefully for some of the main characters as horror often can do. Evil exists, but it is human-made evil, preventable, avoidable. Black Hole is as difficult and challenging as any great post-modern novel, with visual representations that evoke the complexity of growing up instead of just words. As a story it’s not “fun” but is also not so disturbing that you can’t learn from it about what it means to make the often difficult transition to adulthood. Think of David Lynch and you are almost there, but this is its own art, a comics creation of real depth and power....more
Alexie’s autobiographical YA novel features Junior, who escapes into comics (drawn in the manner of a kid, wonderfully, by Ellen Forney) from his ofteAlexie’s autobiographical YA novel features Junior, who escapes into comics (drawn in the manner of a kid, wonderfully, by Ellen Forney) from his often tragic life on the rez, particularly The Spokane Indian Reservation. It’s in a kind of diary format, and the “part-time Indian” part of the title refers to the move he makes to leave the rez school in Wellpinit to travel to an all-white school in Reardan, twenty-two miles away but it might as well be a continent away. That move, initated by a teacher who tells him to get out to save himself, separates Junior from both worlds.
Junior’s best rez friend is Rowdy, who protects him from being beaten up sometimes. In Reardan he also has makes a friend, Gordy, an also smart kid, and gets support from Roger, his basketball teammate, but he also has a (white) girlfriend named Penelope. Junior was born with Hydrocephalus, too much fluid on the brain, which has long time effects including seizures, vision problems, dental issues, and more. He gets beaten up a lot, there’s a lot of fighting on the rez, but Rowdy needs to make sure he doesn’t get hit on the head.
Along the way there are tragedies involving his best friend dog, Oscar, his sister who wants to write romance novels, his Dad’s best friend, Eugene that are somewhat balanced by Junior/Alexie’s laughter in the face of all things bad. You might laugh and cry on the very same page; sometimes it could happen in the same sentence! There’s a streak of rage in Alexie that runs deep. You find it in his novel Indian Killer, but it crops up everywhere, usually about the decimation of Indian culture and land appropriation, but he also has rage about the devastation of alcoholism, which continues to destroy lives everywhere, but disproportionately in Indian populations. The damage it does to Junior’s life is extensive, and he’s mad about it. And at the same time, Junior finds something to laugh about, sometimes hysterically, about these losses.
The epigraph for the book comes from Yeats: “There is another world, but it is in this one.” This idea works in various ways in this book. Many people don’t know the depression and poverty of Indian reservations, even today. That often sad world of the rez exists in the larger world of the U. S., largely invisible. But the world of the spirit also exists within the world of the rez, a world of hope, of escape from disabilities, brutality.
There’s a lot of laugh out loud humor in this book, often laughing at uncomfortable subjects, laughter amid tears. There’s hope in that laughter, but it’s comolicated, because you don’t want to make the mistake of thinking things are all right because of the jokes. But for Junior hope also comes packaged as books, Indian culture, basketball, friendship, family, even as he identifies the long sad history of the destruction of Indian culture in this country, and the rampant depression, the inadequate health care, the hunger, Junior’s various disabilities. There’s blame here for white America, but Alexie/Junior also blames Indians sometimes for their share of responsibility in taking itself down. Shared responsibility, collective rage.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian may not be for everyone. There may be a little too much sexual language for some readers, there’s a regular thread about masturbation in it. The language can at times be more graphic than in most YA books. The book sometimes substitutes jokes for deeper characterization, in places. He goes for the joke too much maybe, but the jokes are so good and painfully true! I loved reading this sad and funny book again with my class. It affirms the importance of self-expression through words, through comics, stories. ...more
One of the best YA books ever, wonderful and surprising on so many levels. Very moving. As a parent of a kid with aRe-read for my Fall 2017 YAL class.
One of the best YA books ever, wonderful and surprising on so many levels. Very moving. As a parent of a kid with autism and another kid who is spectrum-y, it hits home for me in ways it might not for others. As with many mysteries, it features some misdirection; it appears to be about a kid with Asperger's Syndrome investigating a mystery about a dead dog in the manner of his hero (and also Aspergerish) Sherlock Holmes, but becomes an even richer and ever widening investigation of human tragedy and mystery and the complex nature of love and grief. I find it very moving, having read it several times.
My feeling this time? That almost half of the book is about the London trip when Christopher goes to see his estranged mother, and maybe that's a little too long; it makes the story into a kind of movie thriller of sorts, when the heart of the book for me is about mysteries, a dog murdered and just what that means for Christopher and his family, relationships, love, the grief and despair of dealing with a kid with special needs, that heartbreak, all stuff I have been through. I was divorced in the process of trying to deal with the anguish and despair and grief of discovering my son had autism, at the same time trying to do everything we could to try to reverse the process. So I could empathize with the parents.
One thing that is different in recent readings is that I have watched and rewatched the BBC Sherlock and the American Elementary and I have this as background for a very Sherlock-focused book (it's Christopher's favorite set of stories). I also have been reading Agatha Christie Poirot mysteries, so I have that related background. And, one course I have been teaching focuses on the relationships between psychiatry, the psychic/supernatural, horror/fantasy, spirituality, the literar vs the rational and logical, and some of that figures very much in this book. I had forgotten Christopher talks of faith and ghosts in this book with respect to logic and Reason. There's a consideration of metaphor and story for the purpose of making meaning, since this first person story is told by Christopher for a school project, a story of ever widening mysteries of life. I admit to tears in several places, earned tears from Haddon....more
Loading...
