#its biggest flaw in my eyes is that it’s a YA novel and I seem to have thoroughly outgrown those

[queerbrujas]

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[reading-while-queer]

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me, Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell

Rating: Great Read Genre: High School, Realism, Graphic Novel Representation: -Lesbian protagonist -Asian American protagonist -POC as secondary characters Note: Characters have sex, non-explicit Trigger warnings: Break ups, toxic relationships, cheating, unplanned pregnancy, abortion

Laura Dead Keeps Breaking Up With Me is a great piece of fiction, and I can’t recommend it enough.  As YA, it is perfectly balanced - it doesn’t talk down to its audience with tacky “teen speak,” or reflect on an LGBTQ experience more accurate to the author’s high school years in the 80s or 90s than to teens today.  Nor is it an “issues” book about coming out or self-acceptance.  Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me is a realistic high school story that has something new to say.

The novel takes place at a high school in liberal Berkeley, California - being out at school is a fact of life for the main character, Freddy, and her friends.  That is not to say that it is a non-issue, as homophobic bullying exists even in the most progressive places - and the novel makes sure to hold onto that thread of reality.  Freddy’s school isn’t a fantasy world, but a real pocket of American culture.  As someone who came up in one of these pockets, I was always seeking a reflection of that experience in the books I read - Laura Dean is that book.

Freddy is dating Laura Dean, who, as the title suggests, keeps breaking up with Freddy.  Yet they keep getting back together.  Laura leaves Freddy for periods of sexual exploration with others, then inevitably shows up again, only for Freddy to accept her back and begin the cycle anew.  From the start, Freddy knows something is wrong.  Yet the elation of Laura Dean wanting her back draws her into Laura Dean’s sphere again and again and again… even when Freddy isn’t having fun.  And even when her relationships with her friends begin to suffer.

Laura Dean is what I look for in realistic high school fiction.  Tamaki puts in the effort.  It is all too easy to say “Here’s my book about a lesbian.  Her character traits include… being a lesbian.” But Tamaki makes sure that Freddy is a real person, even though the plot of the book is so intrinsically tied up in Freddy’s romantic life.  It’s in the little details: Freddy uses tabletop gaming terminology less than fluently because her friends are into it, but she isn’t.  She cultivates weird hobbies (cutting apart stuffed animals and sewing together the mismatched parts with her friend, Doodle).  She even talks to the stuffed animals and gets imaginary responses as a cute quirk to her character, which again, makes her feel much more real than your average protagonist.

Part of what makes Freddy such a good character isn’t the quirks and detail, though - it’s her flaws.  Freddy is so starved for positive attention from her neglectful girlfriend that she drops responsibilities to her friends, either forgetting dates or straight up abandoning a hard conversation because Laura Dean wants to hook up.  It’s not glamorous - but it’s real.  And it makes Freddy’s redemption all the more sweet, knowing how hard it was for her to get there.

Laura Dean’s character is also incredibly real.  There is a part of her that is larger than life, as seen through Freddy’s eyes - she’s drawn on the page very dramatically (which also has an element of reality to it, if you’ve ever been 18).  Having a crush on someone can paint their every movement or “Hello” into something special.  Laura Dean delivers lines like, “That’s right.  And you’re going to say yes.  Because I’m irresistible.”  But while Tamaki and Valero-O’Connell make Laura Dean a Casanova, they also bring her back down to earth.  Laura Dean makes dorky jokes that don’t land, calling Freddy “My lady,” as she gives her a french fry.  And of course, she’s a chronic cheater who breaks up with Freddy whenever Freddy becomes inconvenient.  While Laura Dean is not given a sympathetic eye by Tamaki, she is still much more nuanced than an ordinary villain.

The cast of side characters is also rich, their traits and flaws shining through just as brightly as Freddy’s and Laura Dean’s.  Doodle’s arc especially.  Doodle’s arc might have seemed too much like a “twist” if not for the prolonged attention Tamaki and Valero-O’Connell give to the gaps in Freddy’s knowledge about her friend.  “I have to talk to yous” that are never followed up on, long, lonely glances across the cafeteria - we know something is up with Doodle long before Freddy does.  The fact that Doodle’s “twist” is a “twist” at all is really only a condemnation of how far Freddy has let her friendship deteriorate.  The other side characters have their own worlds in motion, too - the girl who works at the donut shop is saving up for college.  Freddy’s coworker is an older lesbian with a bone to pick with certain lesbian celebrities who never officially came out.

Freddy’s friend Buddy is especially interesting.  He’s gregarious, high energy, effeminate.  He invents new slang, and appears to be ruled by whim - but he, more so than anyone else in the friend group, puts effort into maintaining group cohesiveness - joking around after he’s targeted by homophobic bullying in order to put his friends at ease, but also taking it upon himself to be the one to tell Freddy the hard truth, that she has not been a good friend to Doodle.  What makes Buddy even more compelling is that, while Buddy is the voice of reason and positivity to his friends, Buddy is not necessarily able to see reason when it comes to himself.  His relationship with Eric isn’t developed (not that it has to be!) beyond one or two snippets, but the biggest scene they have together is a fight.  Eric is going to a family event and doesn’t want to bring Buddy because he doesn’t want to focus all the attention on himself and his relationship.  Buddy, meanwhile, is out and proud, and feels hurt (perhaps insecure?) that Eric is lying by omission.

So much of my attention was focused on Buddy, despite his role being fairly small, because I was not sure if I was going to like him.  At the beginning of the book, he’s the playful, fun friend - all his lines are funny.  Since he’s also the only fat and only Black character in the main friend group, it seemed clear that he was going to be the “clown” - yet Tamaki and Valero-O’Connell put in extra effort with his characterization that Eric, for example, doesn’t get.  Buddy sits stony-faced across from the school bully as the bully is read the riot act by a teacher - but through text message, he’s his cheerful self (or facade?), texting “GAY POWER!!!!!”  His fight with Eric reads much the same - a way to contextualize and humanize a character verging on stereotype.  For me, I was ultimately satisfied with Buddy’s characterization - but I would love to hear other takes on the character.

All this to say that Tamaki and Valero-O’Connell put the effort in for the sake of creating a realistic world for Freddy, and their effort makes all the difference.

One last parting thought: a pitfall of realistic fiction is that, sometimes, the author gets lost in the flow of portraying “reality” and forgets that their first job is to write a story.  Laura Dean has no problem with this - Laura Dean has a satisfying character and plot arc which ends in a huge moment of catharsis.  I fully recommend Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me.  It may the most true to life portrayal of high school I’ve ever read, the writing will knock your socks off, and you’ll want to read the whole thing in one sitting.

Having reached the end of this review, I still haven’t done Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me justice - this comic is like nothing I’ve ever read before, and I believe it is the herald of a new era of LGBTQ art and writing.  No joke.

For more from Mariko Tamaki, visit her Twitter here. For more from Rosemary Valero-O’Connell, visit her Twitter here.

[imagineclaireandjamie]

Our Story

Thank ya kindly, @mibasiamille, for helping me figure out where the heck I was going with this one <3 Read chapters 1-10 here.

December 24th, 2010

The first time Jamie and Claire held their daughter, they knew she would be their last. Not because the delivery was difficult, which it was, or because they opposed larger families, which they didn’t, but because they couldn’t imagine needing anything more than this seven-pound bundle of themselves. Who could contend with the spot on the top of her skull, the feeling of its putty-like softness beneath their fingertips? Or the sprout of lash, red-gold wings taking flight from the left side of her left eye? No. There was no room for a second child, or a third—barely enough to contain Brianna herself. (It was true, they soon realized, that it was possible to feel too much. That the physical ache of loving was not a lie fabricated by romance novelists.)

What shocked them more than their immediate certainty were these minute details, these things that were singularly, extraordinarily her. Despite their initial impressions, Brianna was not just a combination of Jamie and Claire’s genes (an uneven distribution; she favored her father), but was a tiny self with her own hungers and thirsts, which she expressed through Neanderthal grunts or spectacularly vibrant shits. It was a foreign language Jamie and Claire were forced to learn quickly, interpreting their successes and failures in the perceived tone of her gurgles, the way she would yank Claire’s curls in glee or in irritation. The correct translations were scribbled down for future reference, for posterity. (For the simple pleasure of recording something they knew to be finite.)

But Jamie and Claire’s awe has taken other forms in the 15 months since Bree was born. They’ve become the sort of people whose voices rise in the presence of the small, as if their love—so much grander than everything else—has filled them like two helium balloons. Toys of all shapes, sizes, and noises colonize the spaces left untouched by their adulthood chaos. A plush rabbit maintains a stony vigil over Jamie’s desk, where, after a year of writing more blurbs than books, he is finally working on his third novel. Fatherhood has come like a strike of lightning, an electricity that has set fire to his mind. Nowadays, he cannot put thought to paper fast enough. (Unlike its predecessors, A Rare Woman will receive middling praise, though a flaying review from Jack Randall, a Times critic, will cripple Jamie for weeks.)

Right now it is December, and Jamie’s family—Jenny, her husband, and their two children—is visiting for the holidays. They have offered to watch Bree for the evening, and so a Presidential Suite has been rented, Cinemax has been briefly considered, and Scotch has been spilt on Claire’s negligee. It is the first time they’ve been away from their daughter, and what had once seemed an occasion for exotic luxury—No baby! Hours of sleep!—has become a pity-party fueled by separation anxiety and booze. They have spoken of nothing, except Bree.

“Girl Guides,” Claire blurts suddenly, voice slurred and a passionate fist raised.

“I think it’s Girl Scouts here, Sassenach.”

“Girl Scouts, then. She should know how to build a fire! Make things with her hands, like—like building a stove from a Folgers tin!”

“Is that what they teach them?” Jamie asks. “To make household appliances from cheap coffee?”

“I think so. I mean, they should. What else is Folgers coffee good for?”

“What d’ye think about track and field? For endurance. Both mental and physical.”

“You can’t be serious,” Claire laughs. “Track and field? Have you considered the tiny shorts? The spandex shirt? Boys overcompensating for the fact they couldn’t make the soccer team?”

Jamie’s brow furrows at the thought: testosterone-pumped intentions; young bucks chasing a different sort of finish line. 

“Well, when ye put it that way…Perhaps she’s better suited for the chess team.”

They go on like this, sketching the blueprint for a life that will rarely follow the lines they’ve drawn. They do not plan for the extra doors or windows, the secret rooms in which a girl can lock herself away. (Bree will hate running. Hate chess even more. And due to a squabble with one of the Cubs, she will not make it past Brownie graduation.) 

Eventual talk of university brings Jamie and Claire nearly to tears—and then to closer to each other, their bodies a temporary security against the future’s unstoppable approach. They fool around for a bit, though their hearts aren’t in it, already too exhausted by visions of Bree in a cap and gown. They order room service and sniffle over a bucket of oysters.

Motherhood has also given Claire a case of maternal hypochondria, an affliction made worse by the nature of her profession. For example: she is suddenly terrified of germs. She has always known they were there, of course—little microbes squirming over every surface—but it’s the sheer amount of them that hasn’t dawned on her until now. Does Jamie realize there are more germs than humans? That they’re outnumbered? That there could be five diseases, right there, on the spoon he is choo-chooing into their daughter’s mouth?

And there are other dangers as well: the sharpness of the kitchen table’s edge, like a shark’s tooth. How a shoe left lying in the middle of the floor is not only an affront to tidiness but could, to Bree’s imbalanced feet, mean something fatal. Claire has bought so many baby gates that their home resembles an animal pen, the three of them treading around their safe, contained quarters, protected against the risk of possible slaughter.

An essay titled “How My Mother Destroyed My Life” keeps Claire tossing and turning for weeks. Could she be the biggest threat of all? She, who is so flawed, so capable of inflicting pain on this precious, impressionable human? (This human who deserves so much more than Claire’s best?)

“Do you think I’m doing this right?” she often asks, whether it’s changing a diaper or preparing a bath. Like the germs, this is familiar territory—as a teenager, she’d had a steady stream of babysitting gigs—but the stakes have risen now that she isn’t changing or bathing a stranger’s child. Now, an error could cost her something. Now, she has everything to lose. (Claire’s fear will only grow as the years go on, and new dangers present themselves: boys, television after 9PM, a left hand holding a phone while a right hand holds a steering wheel. Fear is, after all, the product of our greatest loves.)

Jamie is patient throughout it all, understanding that this is who she is—Claire, the little killing girl—and that the severity of it will pass. And so when Claire zips Bree’s skin into a Gymboree coat, he lets Claire wail, “Who puts zippers on baby’s clothing, for fuck’s sake?” And when he wakes to find her watching the baby monitor, he says, “Nothing bad will happen, so long as I’m here”—though if fatherhood has taught him anything, it’s that he’s as powerless as the rest of them.

To his credit, Jamie shows none of the apprehension Claire feels. If Claire were a more selfish person—the person she often thinks she is, but is not—she might find this grating, or worse, infuriating. Instead, she only marvels at the way he puts Bree down for a nap, or how he anticipates sudden outbursts of dirty-diapered, snotty-nosed anguish. It’s only in Claire’s darkest moments that she allows herself to wonder if she’s the lesser parent, the weaker link dragged by obligation until someone notices she has always been dispensable.

Late on Christmas Eve, they are sitting by the fire, with the extended Fraser clan already in their rooms. Bree is asleep in the teacup of Claire’s clavicle, whistling a snore through the nose Jamie gave her. It’s a noise that reminds him of the world’s fragility, how they’re all standing on a piece of thread, balanced between the Fates’ open scissors.

“What is it?” Claire frets, noticing his expression. The fact that she whispers it, so as not to wake their daughter, makes Jamie’s heart crack. “Oh God, have I forgotten something?”

“Nothing,” he says, leaning back into his chair. “Just thinking is all.”

It is in moments like these that he cannot understand why Claire doubts herself, how she can be so blind to the way their daughter melts into her skin, grateful by the purest instinct. And it is in moments like these that he has never loved Claire so much. The spit-up crusting her shirt, her brown curls harried. Still the girl he met 21 years before, but something fuller, something more clearly defined.

“Thinking what?”

“That you’re beautiful. That I love you.”

“Oh,” she says, and the fact that she blushes, when she’d done such unmentionable things to him during Bree’s afternoon nap, deepens the fracture in his heart.

“Stay there, Sassenach. Dinna move.”

Claire does not know that Jamie second guesses himself as a father. That when he volunteers to soothe Bree’s late-night tantrums, he does it for the sake of his own confession, which he offers to the cradled child. Jamie confesses to himself, and to the world, apologizing for the ugliness that will inevitably find its way to her—despite the plastic gates and the reassuring shapes of her mother’s body. (She sees his shame but does not judge it. Accepts it blindly for the fact of its existence, as she accepts everything she is given.)

He tells Bree all the things he feels she needs to know: that there is good, and there is bad, that it is sometimes hard to distinguish between the two. That presidents have been shot, planes have flown into buildings, and that there are people with only a single grain of rice for dinner. Unimaginable unfairness in this place he has brought her into—and he is sorry; he is so sorry.

“Granted, I dinna mean to frighten ye, a nighean,” he says, tracing the curve of her cheek. “Only to tell you as it is. But it’s no’ all bad.”

And so he tells her other things: about laughter, about the sea. About mountains, a horse named Sorcha, fresh snow. About presents opened on Christmas morning, forbidden fistfuls of Cap’n Crunch. He tells her about light-up sneakers, pizza, peanut butter (improved by chocolate), fuzzy socks, books, thunderstorms, bouncy castles, sparklers, a dog’s tail-wagging hello, buying your first car, having your first beer, having your first kiss, meeting the love of your life.

Meeting her mother. Loving her mother. Her mother.

Her.

And this brings him to the girl who came before, the one who did not breathe, but whom he swears he can feel—sometimes, when looks at Bree, as he is looking at her now (“Like she’s still here, somehow.”) He describes Claire’s holiday sweater: the fit of it in 1989; the stretch of it over her pregnant belly in ‘91. How they had painted the studio with roller brushes, making great swathes of color on the tepid-white walls. Names there, written in shades of—

“Marigold,” he whispers, because he still cannot say “Faith” without stumbling. “Everything—even the wee bedspread—was marigold.” 

He keeps saying it, marigold, because it is all he knows of this other girl: a name shining brightly in the color of the dead. He wonders if it’s foolish to feel this way after two decades; all this grief for someone he never truly met. (Now, it’s the possibilities he mourns; the conversations, like these, that never were.) 

Bree quiets after a time, and so Jamie sets her in the crib. He listens to that snore—the gentleness of it, the innocence—and adjusts the baby monitor for Claire’s 4AM anxiety.

“Tha gaol agam ort,” he says to the daughter before him. 

“Tha gaol agam ort,” he says again, to the daughter above him.

(When Jamie returns to his room, he will sit on the edge of the bed and ask, “D’ye think she understands? Or that she’ll remember?”

And Claire, behind him, will know that he is not referring to the moments preserved in his books, but to the finer, more intimate details of their years together. She will recognize this fear, bringing his shoulders to his ears—how new life can cast mortality into a starker, more terrifying light.

“I’m not sure,” she will whisper. “Maybe.”

“I just want someone to remember, aye? After we’re gone. But what if no one does?” 

“She will,” Claire will reply, reaching out. “We’ll make sure of it.” And having found him in the darkness, she will slowly bring him towards her. “It’s late, Jamie. Lay your head?”

And Jamie, surrendering to the pull of Claire’s hand, will allow her to draw him into the bowl of her lap. He will rest there, unaware that he need not worry, that his daughter’s first word—spoken just a few days later—will be a garbled “mary-goold.” A shred of remembrance, granted.

But for now he is simply calmed by the pulse of his wife, which burns beneath him, and within him, throughout the cold December night. A warm-blooded memory he prays will never fade.)

[randomly-rae]

Title: Red Queen Series (Red Queen, Glass Sword, King’s Cage, War Storm)

Author: Victoria Aveyard

Publication Date: 2015-2018

Genre: YA

Summary:This is a world divided by blood - red or silver. The Reds are commoners, ruled by a Silver elite in possession of god-like superpowers. And to Mare Barrow, a seventeen-year-old Red girl from the poverty-stricken Stilts, it seems like nothing will ever change. That is until she finds herself working in the Silver Palace. Here, surrounded by the people she hates the most, Mare discovers that, despite her red blood, she possesses a deadly power of her own. One that threatens to destroy the balance of power. Fearful of Mare's potential, the Silvers hide her in plain view, declaring her a long-lost Silver princess, now engaged to a Silver prince. Despite knowing that one misstep would mean her death, Mare works silently to help the Red Guard, a militant resistance group, and bring down the Silver regime. But this is a world of betrayal and lies, and Mare has entered a dangerous dance - Reds against Silvers, prince against prince, and Mare against her own heart.

Non-spoiling review: 4.8/5 Stars. I would definitely read this series again. It was riveting, thought-provoking, and absolutely amazing. Any fan of dystopian novels, science fiction, or fantasy would enjoy this series. It definitely got better as the books progressed (Red Queen is my least favorite of the series, however I still enjoyed the read), which is to be expected especially from a newer author. This series literally had me on the edge of my seat and pacing the floor to find out what could possibly happen next.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW

Initial Thoughts: I’m lumping the entire series together because after reading the first book I was intrigued and unable to stop myself from continuing the series (lucky for me I just so happened to catch up with it as the final book was released). This was the first series I’ve managed to enjoy in quite some time, and although it was far from perfect I can definitely understand why it’s one of the top YA series out at the moment. Victoria Aveyard somehow managed to build an entire world within a single book. While most of the story takes place in the Kingdom of Norta, we still see glimpses of its neighboring nations and understand the international relationships involved, and the importance of various individuals as their leaders. I’m slightly disappointed by the ending, but I understand why Victoria Aveyard left it where she did. For the most part, Mare’s story was over, and now their country had to rebuild with the help of the free nation Montfort.

Dislikes: My biggest pet peeve was the love triangle between Mare, Cal, and Maven. While Mare seemed to favor Cal from the beginning, there were still moments where it felt as if she were leading Maven on. It definitely felt forced, however it seemed to sort itself out by the end of Glass Sword, although Maven continued with his obsession.

There also seemed to be some loose ends that weren’t tied, particularly with the narrating characters who were not Mare (in later books the story is also told in alternating chapters by the characters Cameron, Evangeline, Iris, Cal, and even Maven). While the different perspectives were juggled excellently, especially for a new author, some of these parts seemed unnecessary. In particular, Iris’s perspective disappointed me. While you can see how she changes from her introduction to the end, her role in the story could have been just as important without showing her inner thoughts.  I would have preferred to see a separate novella featuring Iris’s story, possibly the same with Evangeline (maybe even more of her forbidden romance with Elane…). The series sets up to focus around Mare, and while it seems to give her part in the events a conclusion (albeit an indecisive one) it brings in these other characters that just leave the story and we don’t hear from them again.

Likes: There were several homosexual characters (most of them are identified as such but I’ll take it), which is a key aspect for me, the only negative aspect is that while these characters played major roles in the series they were merely supporting characters. I still felt that this series is a step in the right direction for a broader LGBT+ representation in YA novels. That was probably my favorite aspect, I prefer when LGBT+ characters are just placed in books as hetero characters (I don’t hate coming out stories, but I would like to see more to sexuality than the coming out aspect, like, you know, being just like any other person).

While I listed it above in the dislikes, I did like the switch in perspective as the series progressed. It was fresh to see story through new eyes, and it also gave more layer to the story as having only one narrator can be misleading. Instead we get to see all sides of the conflict, and multiple opinions of all the different characters.

The characters were also very realistic. They were flawed. None of them had ultimate powers, they had weaknesses, they were vulnerable. A lot of the younger characters felt the pressure of pleasing their parents and living up to expectations. We see these teens not only cracking under said pressure, but also learning to think for themselves and make their own decisions as adults.

Favorite character: I would have to say my favorite character is Farley, the young woman who introduces Mare into the Scarlet Guard; and is one of its leaders. She is a total badass and I cannot go on enough about this character. She was fun, she was rebellious, cocky, and also dangerously intelligent, particularly in regard to undercover operations. She quickly excels as a soldier, becoming a general by the end of the series. We see many sides of her throughout the series, a stoic soldier, a heartbroken young woman, a caring mother. I felt like she was the strongest character, and most underappreciated, in the series and was very happy to see her given more of a chance in the spotlight with the novella, Steel Scars.

[chrismaverickdotcom]

A Quirky and Angsty Lady Bird Review

I am a quirky and angsty teenage white girl. OK… I mean… I’m not. I’m a middle aged black man. But sometimes I’m not sure. I like millennial pop music. I like YA fiction. I love me some CW TV shows (and yes, I maybe have a teeny bit of a schoolgirl crush on Stephen Amell, but have you seen him do the salmon ladder? Who doesn’t? I also can’t wait for the 100 to come back. And are you caught up on Riverdale? Because OMG!). I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m totally a dude… but my favorite movie of last year was probably The Edge of Seventeen, the story of a quirky and angsty teenaged white girl dealing with first world problems as she sat on the cusp of adulthood. I gave it 4.25 out of 5 stars. In retrospect, I maybe even owed it another quarter star. I just found it so relatable and perfect. It spoke to me. And you know, maybe I’d think it was an outlier. Maybe that was just a one-time thing. Except that this year my favorite movie (and it’s been a good year for movies, especially low to middle budget ones) is probably Lady Bird, the story of a quirky and angsty teenage white girl dealing with first world problems. Why do I relate to these movies so much?

Seriously… I’m starting to question things about myself.

Maybe it’s just that they’re good. Lady Bird certainly was. In fact, it was nigh perfect.

Perhaps we are entering something of a renaissance for the female bildungsroman film. That’s what these are. When I reviewed The Edge of Seventeen I noted that I couldn’t really write the review without spoilers, but that was ok because the entire plot of the film was largely given away by the trailer. It was the story of a quirky and angsty teenage girl who suddenly discovered that her quirky and angsty best friend was fucking her older brother. She then deals with it with a succession of completely predictable quirky angst. #WhiteGirlProblems, amirite? Up top! Hello? Anyone? Huh… I really was expecting a high five there. Which maybe would have worked better if there was anyone else in the room as I am typing the review. Oh well.

That said, as predictable as it might have been, that movie worked on every level because it really wasn’t about the plot. It was about the character development as you got there. It was enjoyable on almost every level. It was good because it wasn’t about where the story was going, it was about watching the story get there.

Lady Bird goes a different way. I can’t really spoil the plot because… well, it’s kind of hard to say what the plot is. Seriously. Just watch the trailer:

There’s not really a plot… per se. Lady Bird is a quirky and angsty teenage girl who hates her overbearing mother. That’s it. Seriously. That’s the gist of the story. And it’s not really even a story. It’s more of a character trait. And it’s amazing.

It’s paced very much like a novel. As I said, it’s a bildungsroman. It’s not so much about the specific things she does, so much as the experience of growing up. She has to learn to deal with changing relationships, jobs, applying to college, sex, family, politics, religion… all while trying to actually learn what it is to be an adult. It is about the weird point in life where she is trying to navigate who she is as a person.. figure out who that person is. And it all feels very real and organic.

The hook with Edge of Seventeen is that even though the main character, Nadine, seems like a lovely and bright girl, she’s really kind of an asshole inside. She’s mean and complex. Here, Lady Bird, played by Saoirse Ronan, is almost the exact opposite. She’s unremarkable. She’s an outcast. She’s a loser. She makes the worst first impressions. She’s not initially likable at all. At the end of the day, all of the issues that she encounters are mundane. They are completely ordinary things that we all go through. But the struggles seem real. The key to the film is learning that she has a wealth of emotional experiences going on inside. She’s a very three-dimensional and tangible. The problems may be insignificant in the grand scheme of the world (and Lady Bird knows this) but Ronan plays each scene like every complication is world ending, because to Lady Bird, they are. These are the biggest problems in her very small world. You certainly won’t aspire to be her… it’s more that you will fear that you are her. And that makes you root for her to be ok. For every flaw she has, she is the very definition of strong female character. Her complexities make her real. There’s a reason Ronan has two Oscar nominations and it feels like she is eyeing her third.

The supporting cast is equally strong. Laurie Metcalf is especially strong here as Lady Bird’s mother, Marion, and if Metcalf doesn’t get a Supporting Actress nomination for this film then something is very wrong with the world. Like Lady Bird, she is very unlikable in many ways. In fact, the trailer basically tells you that it’s her defining characteristic. But the success of the movie hinges on the character. You need to believe that although Lady Bird and Marion don’t really like each other that much, they do love each other. And the climax of the film depends on Metcalf getting that across throughout the earlier stages without having it feel forced. She nails it.

And from that comes humor. I’m oddly hesitant to call this a comedy. At least not in the same way that Edge of Seventeen was. It’s not farcical. Nothing contrived happens. The humor comes from its realism. It is funny simply because at the end of the day life is funny. You want to laugh simply to get through the awkwardness… to cut through the angst. The very familiar quirky angst that Nadine had in the other movie. The source is different. In fact, I’m fairly certain that Nadine and Lady Bird would probably hate each other (and now I kind of want to see that movie). But they have the same insecurities deep down. Not that they would have seen it in each other. And both films sort of show us that we all do. Quirky and angsty teenage white girls like Nadine, Lady Bird, and myself… and YOU. Because you are a quirky and angsty teenaged white girl too. You just don’t realize it. You’re too busy wrapped up in the drama of your own life to notice where you fit in with the rest of the world and to notice that everyone else is going through their own quirks and angsts at the same time.

Writer and director Greta Gerwig surrounds Lady Bird with supporting characters that are just as complex as she is. Rather than simply being window dressing to flesh out and facilitate Lady Bird’s life, they all seem to have their own stories going on. We are not privy to all of the details, but their lives seem to progress while they are off screen. When we do get a glimpse into their lives we see that they have unique problems of their own, some big and some small. Since it is not their story, we often don’t see the resolution. Just like real life. Even the most minor characters are delightful, especially Father Walther played by Bob Stephenson. He probably has about 60 seconds of screen time but he may be the highlight of the film.

However, perhaps the oddest thing about the movie is its time setting. It takes place over Lady Bird’s senior year from fall 2002 to spring 2003. There’s not really a good reason for this. Fifteen years ago doesn’t seem quite long enough to be “nostalgic.” After all, we’re currently in the midst of 1980s nostalgia right now. 2000s nostalgia shouldn’t be for another fifteen years. But perhaps that’s what Gerwig is showing us here. She’s ahead of the curve. One day all movies will be like Lady Bird.

That day can’t come soon enough.

★★★★¾(4.75 out of 5 stars)

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A Quirky and Angsty Lady Bird Review was originally published on ChrisMaverick dotcom

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“Richard Gansey III had forgotten how many times he had been told he was destined for greatness.”

“He was a king. And this was the year he was going to die.” The Raven King is the thrilling final installment in the dark and magical series Raven Cycle series created by Maggie Stiefvater. A brooding and omnious novel that will hook you from the first sentence, sweep you off your feet and land you right in the heart of the Aglionby Raven boys adventure to be a witness to its all consuming ending.

4/5 Stars Recommendation: Worth every single page from the first sentence to ends. Prophecies will be will be unmasked, curses will be unleashed, relationships will set sail and terrifying fears will come to life. All wrapped in a poetical ending to satisfy all fans. Flawed for a series ending however, and thus I can’t get myself to give it 5 stars.

How to get Hime to love a book: 

Step One: Be preferentially YA Step Two: Include strong and complex characters with original character arcs Step Three: Give me gay boys, all the gay boys. Bonus Step: Be Maggie Stiefvater

Because holy shit where do I start.

The story is set one week after the events of Blue Lily Lily Blue, with Maura and Artemus back in Fox Way along with the cryptical Gwenllian —the later two who are not exactly getting along well— while the Gangsey & Co are still in the search for their Welsh King of Myth. A new addition to their group is made in the form of charismatic and brave Henry Cheng, who will reach and touch Gansey in more ways than one.

One final kiss will be shared. Two last glimpses of special someones will be given, and without a goodbye they part. Three relationships that will at last set sail.  And one final door will at last close but it will leave so many more open, so many many more.

The Raven King is what the Raven boys’ friendship is for Blue: Breath taking, all powerful, all consuming and engrossing. Maggie’s ever praised prose is better than ever, it makes you feel everything you have never been able to put into words between all of the character’s arc climax, the creepier and scarier atmosphere throughout the entire book, her ever present quirky humor, and the larger than life vibe this book is. Its entire more-ness, because that is what it is. More. The Raven King is more than YA itself, its more than fantasy and its more than The Raven Boys, The Dream Thieves and Blue Lily Lily Blue ever was. It is the ever so deserved end, carefully wrapped up in a satisfying end that leaves open the possibility of so much more.

I had a couple of problems with characters who almost seemed irrelevant with how little participation they had in the final plot, however, I will give my kudos to Stiefvater for making each one of them original and interesting nonetheless.

Click Read more for book analysis and rants and spoilers or you’ll find them below this point, my sweet children. Stuff your faces and enjoy !

  Now here’s the thing, I’ve read a fuck ton of other reviews who talk about how they loved the foreshadowing on Adam & Ronan. From the Dream Thieves and Adam being Ronan’s second secret, to all the mentions of homosexuality by Kavinsky, when I thought it was pure teenage dickery and not a direct criticism on Ronan’s sexual orientation— Except no I, I didn’t pick up on it. Shame on me, I know.

But in my opinion, perhaps that made it all the better and this is why:

“Adam smiled cheerily. Ronan would start wars and burn cities for that true smile, elastic and amiable.”

Ronan is a sensible, sensible thing. If anything the entire opposite of Blue’s sensible, prudent. No, Ronan feels too much, too hard and too deep. He wasn’t your YA charismatic bad boy, Ronan was broken and angry, but Ronan craved for love and affection and most specially handing it to others. It had all been so subtle up until that quote, where I put my book down and had to smile to myself for a good ten minutes before I could pick it back up.

Ronan would start wars and burn cities for Adam Parish’s smile. The power of those words hit me like a rock, and no, I didn’t suddenly suspect they would get involved romantically even then.

Ronan let out a breath, put the model down on the bed beside him, and kissed Adam.

Once, when Adam had still lived in the trailer park, he had been pushing the lawn mower around the scraggly side yard when he realized that it was raining a mile away. He could smell it, the earthy scent of rain on dirt, but also the electric, restless smell of ozone. And he could see it: a hazy gray sheet of water blocking his view of the mountains. He could track the line of rain travelling across the vast dry field towards him. It was heavy and dark, and he knew he would get drenched if he stayed outside. It was coming from so far away that he had plenty of time to put the mower away and get under cover. Instead, though, he just stood there and watched it approach. Even at the last minute, as he heard the rain pounding the grass flat, he just stood there. He closed his eyes and let the storm soak him.

That was this kiss.

IT WAS AMAZING. I will be honest when I say I was half bored and half doing something else when I read this chapter and I missed Ronan leaning in to kiss Adam. Instead, I sat through Adam’s description of a kiss before going back and realizing it was Ronan who had just kissed hi,

I felt my heart stop in joy. Then tears in my eyes.

THESE BOYS ARE JUST SO BLESSED? I’M NOT OKAY HOLY CHRIST. Like, lets just sit back and take a moment to appreciate Maggie didn’t just do this to please all of her LGBT+ readers once and move on? We had three heartfelt kisses between these boys that moved me three times as any interaction between Blue and Gansey could’ve ever. We had several descriptions and accounts for how much they had kissed, and how it felt and the intensity of of their feelings.

My feelings are an oil spill. I am so pleased Maggie reached this concussion between her characters, Adam and Ronan did deserve the best. They grew and changed together, this relationship is the one that could feel the most deserved in the entirety of YA.

Shoutout to Blue and Ronan’s friendship.  This and Ronan trying to dream Blue eye cream in the middle of his life going to shit. I’m so happy to see how their friendship has evolved.

“Gansey asked, “Do you have time to run an errand with us? Do you have work? Homework?” “No homework. I got suspended,” Blue replied. “Get the fuck out,” Ronan said, but with admiration. “Sargent, you asshole.” Blue reluctantly allowed him to bump fists with her as Gansey eyed her meaningfully in the rearview mirror.”

And one last shoutout all the way back to The Raven Boys.

“Ronan said, “I’m always straight.” Adam replied “Oh, man, that’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told.”

We now know you know, Adam. These little details made my day while reading the series.

Thoughts on Henry Cheng:

He…. Happens. And it’s weird. People love him and I don’t…. Get it.

Henry Cheng is an absolutely useless, diversity pick character who Stiefvater decided to throw in at the end of the series. Oh forgive me, he did give Gansey some life changing thoughts on beating your fears and like that’s chill; but it feels like something any other character could’ve done if they would’ve been given the right exposition or backstory. Like Ronan or Adam, who are both characters who have been through some shit and could believably have more to their backstory than what we already know.

To me a golden rule of writting should be to never introduce new, major character on the last book of a long series because everything should’ve been established in your previous books. The Raven Cycle was very guilty about introducing a new villain in every book [Except for arguably Blue Lily Lily Blue] and then have him fade into the oblivion of not being relevant to the series again. This is mildly forgivable in the previous books since its A) Not the final book and B) You’re trying to throw obstacles into your character’s paths so they can continue on with their adventure.

But why would you add a main character who adds nothing to the story and add around 200 pages of filler about him? Not to mention Gansy and Henry became instant best friends The Toga party was by far one of my favorite scenes simply because of the simplicity of it. It was a break from the creepy and omnious tone to remind us: Yo, they’re still kids js and it was a nice andd very welcome addition. The scene that actually made me appreciate Blue and Gansey as a couple too and I had Cheng to thank for that… Now why couldn’t we leave it at that? Robobee and the dream black market arc was just… Odd. And the way he came in, helped Gansey fight his fear, the robobee acted as a glorified GPS was way too convenient in my opinion. The book could’ve done perfectly without and it was absolutely irrelevant and specially distracting. Specially through the end scenes where he just seemed to be mindlessly following and strutting along while getting… Absolutely nothing.

The worst of it is the fact that Cheng got more spotlight than Noah. A character that was long established in the previous books and that fans were actually curious about his development and what was going on with him. We had a Cheng word vomit in exchange for Noah’s ever continuing loose ambiguity.

Thoughts on assorted secondary characters:

Another one of the problems I had with this book that minorly disappointed me. It  doesn’t entire bug me per se, but bothered me enough I’d like to put down my thoughts on it on the review.

There were a buttload of character introduced that honestly lead nowhere. I’m talking about the Dream black market net of collectors, curators and sellers. Seondeok, Piper, Laumonier? (wth— was his name again) and Lumonier x3 and probably a few more. These had a very minor purpose in the story and disappeared in the end as soon as they came. Piper was a bitch for no good reason but yeah okay, she’s a bitch and we must dislike her. Seondeok is as needed in this story as his son, and no matter how many clever chapters you start with “Depending on when you start, this story is about Seondeok” I won’t feel for her, I won’t care about her and I won’t care about any of the other secondaries. And I won’t even dignify Laumonier(s) with a segment— It’s so random and unneeded it doesn’t deserve the attention.

I was waiting until the end while clinging to the hope that it’d be some great mystery Maggie would wrap up and would make sense and MAYBE would be relevant to be story but that was that for expectations.

The Grey man’s character arc was more than done in my opinion and I wasn’t sure why he was suddenly forced to leave. Maura’s goodbye was more than uneventful and was disappointingly unmoving. I would’ve not minded his character just staying the way he was, a retired hit man with a psychic girlfriend who now got his well deserved rest. Him leaving and the novel ending with him unaccounted for was very unsatisfying as well.

Neeve died and I’m just lmao I don’t care but ok.

Then there’s Opal (Orphan girl) too, another of the secondary characters that I very much rooted for throughout the novels. I had so many theories for this character, hoping she’d have some sort of major yet hidden relevance to the plot and Ronan but in the end she felt both like some odd… Unfulfilling filler with no closure either.

In fact, this entire section could be easily summarized in a lack of closure for most secondary characters. While I can’t stop praising how greatly wrapped up the rest of the book is, most secondary characters make me fill unfulfilled. I don’t want to hear Maggie could be getting off if she was just paving the road and setting these characters up for the Dreamer trilogy, because this tweet happened on the end of 2016:

and the series was way more than over in 2015. I would very much appreciate and may manage to forgive Stiefvater if she were to develop and add onto these characters on the Ronan trilogy, but the sad truth is that I just don’t care for most of them and I don’t really feel like learning more about them either. Again, just purposeless filler.

General Gansey disappointment:

Another one of my golden rules in writing is that if you’re going to kill a character: You should definitely kill them. Reviving a character as an intelligent plot device or as a character goal can be a relatable thing and an earned struggle. When characters die simply to revive immediately… Simply does not work for me. I’m more grossed out by the moment and feel much less than the emotion overflow I would’ve had to live with if Gansey had died.

What’s more is the potential of Maggie heading down a great path for Gansey when Cabeswater tried to explain he could not just bring him back but “Make some essential part of itself human-shaped” and  “It was impossible to bring him back unchanged […] But it might be able to refashion him into something new”. This was so much wasted potential, such an exciting idea.

One of the most popular theories I was an avid followed of was the idea that Gansey was Glendower. Think about it as a quick parenthesis:

Reasons why Gansey could’ve (and should’ve) been Glendower:

— A continuos theme throughout the novel was time’s circle continuum instead of a straight line. “Not yet happened” a synonym of “Already has happened”: The present Noah sacrificing himself for 10 year old Gansey to live, the gang finding the aged up Camaro wheels along with Glendower’s shield, Blue’s face in the painting of the three women, etc.  These are all examples of how the possibility of Gansey being both Gansey and Glendower exist throughout the novel, or at least, an incarnation of him.

— Blue recognizing there was something more about him, Gansey’s agelessness as described by Adam:

“Adam knew that she had sensed the otherness to his friend: that sense that Gansey was both young and old, that he’d only just arrived, or he’d always been.”

— Gwenllian calls Gansey “My lord” “Father” in multiple occasions — The constant raven motif repeating itself from Aglionby’s uniform to Ronan’s dream Chainsaw — The women and several others creatures chanting “The Raven King, make way for the Raven King” to Gansey. Glendower being the real Raven King. — In the end scene, Gansey asking the wind to show him the Raven King and raven’s responding to his call. Glendower was known for being able to raven’s. — What if the constant Glendower calls were not a path they pointed him to, but the voice calling his own name? — We never got a clear reason as to why Noah would murmur he would live because of Glendower to Gansey when he was living because of Noah in fact. Noah trading his life for Gansey’s with the knowledge he was a King with a prophecy to fulfill would’ve been a more satisfying explanation. — Maggie constantly compares Gansey to the Raven King, while comparing Ronan to his poet, Adam to his magician, and Blue Gwenllian, the witch, the mirror. — The three Blue’s in the flag have red hands, and when inquired about it, Malory explains that the Bloody red hands are associated with the Mab Darogan, which is a mythic title for Welsh kings known as ‘Sons of Destiny’. These are the same three women that appear in Cabeswater chanting “Rex Corvus, parate regis corvi.” [The Raven King, make way for the Raven King] to Gansey & Co. Gansey, if not Glendower, perfectly could’ve been the next Mab Darogan, after all, the book was swamped with references of Gansey being kingly. The King who died and Lived. — Glendower could’ve also been sleeping indeed. Asleep inside of Gansey, awaiting to be woken up with his death. 

But Glendower was really dead, lmao and Gansey was instead revived right after. So anticlimactic.

I mean, honestly seeing Gansey come back as something else as said by Cabeswater would’ve been way more pleasant. Like Blue having to struggle with Gansey to recover part of himself or Blue seeing him off to change the world. Reclaim his long lost kingdom.

If you’re going to kill a character to revive him a few pages later, what is the point of wasting said pages in the first place? It’s something I’ve always had trouble understanding while authors do it a lot nonetheless —Similar to my latest rant of A Court of Wings and Ruin, when we were subjected to the same death pointlessness—. What’s worse is the unexplained plot hole it leaves by Cabeswater explaining to us how it wasn’t possible for it to revive him, and then proceeds to do exactly that.

I will however, recognize how pleased I was with the explanation of why Blue’s curse worked the way it did. Like in most YA or fairy tales, I was expecting it to go on without explanation and I wouldn’t have had much other problem with that. Two mirror facing each other was such a poetical explanation I can’t help but to pin it right on Maggie’s style.

I have mixed feelings about Glendower being dead, honest. The first time I read the book, I was absolutely thrilled by it, as it was arguably the biggest plot twist of them all. But at this point in my reading (and at this point in my review, causing me to reflect over a lot of things) Final Thoughts I’m too incoherent to add into the review:

That demon unmaking things was creepy af, g fucking g. Just the word unmade seems horribly unsettling. The way he was described was point in case amazing.

Noah’s possesion was also such a heartstopping scene as he gauged Blue’s eye. [Anyone else see it coming though? Ever since The Gray man warned she could loose an eye if they Greenmantle were to die]

No one even mentions Noah in the epilogue, which hurts deep. I was left very confused about what it was of him and found myself rather disappointed the characters didn’t seem to… Care enough? To think about him?

The body count was really high for a book by Maggie Stiefvater. It was all gruesome and great. My heart is very, very pleased.

CHAINSAW SITTING ON ADAM’S SHOULDER?? Why yes.

Adam driving Ronan’s car touched my heartstrings, and him not denying when his father mocked him for driving “his boyfriend’s car”. God fucking bless me.

The ending scene with Ronan was absolutely powerful: “Then he closed his eyes and he began to dream.” 

I love this book, through all its flaws. I just love it.

[Review] The Raven King – Maggie Stiefvater “Richard Gansey III had forgotten how many times he had been told he was destined for greatness.”

[comprosedreviews-blog]

Wednesday With Monica: Shatter Me Review

Holy buttered muffins I finished the book. I did it. It took me four years to pick it up and several days to get through it, but I did it. Shatter Me fans don’t hate me after reading this: this was not my favorite read. My intention isn’t to insult readers of this series, or even the writer. I just feel the need to discuss. You don’t have to agree with me, this is just my way of opening the discussion.

For those of you who are also late to this reading party, Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi follows a young protagonist named Juliette, a girl whose touch kills. There is a little dash of dystopian and about a gallon of romance, told with beautiful language that brought this from a 1 star to a 2. 

Star Rating: **

I’ll start off by saying that I loved Tahereh Mafi’s voice. The language was beautiful and sang the song of an unaccepted girl with a tragically, wonderfully, insane voice that many writers can probably relate to. In my opinion, the language and quirks that Mafi used (strike outs, numbers, and metaphors) were what set this book apart and probably a big reason for its success. But I also don’t think it was enough to save this story.

While the voice itself was wonderful, it felt like an excuse for the overpowering romance. The blissful insanity or whimsicalness didn’t quite carry into the character outside of her love of the outdoors. To put it plainly, there was a disconnect between the prose and the story. 

I’m a big character reader. Characters draw me in, they keep me in, and they invest me in their plots and problems. Mafi’s characters didn’t-- couldn’t-- do that. Why? Because I didn’t find much character hidden in her characters. 

Take Juliette, for example. She’s the protagonist and as such is expected to be the most rounded/developed character in the novel. There are exceptions to the rule, such as in The Great Gatsby, but there needs to be a reason for the exception. Juliette had no character and no reason to lack a character. She certainly had no character flaws and because of this was unable to develop throughout the book. She was, plainly speaking, a beautiful and good person. Nothing more. 

And this is TRAGIC unfortunate because the writer had so many chances to include flaws and so many reasons to do so. 1, Her audience is young and impressionable and the protagonist they’re reading about is perfect, and beautiful, and never has any doubts... ever. Does that seem right to you? If you don’t immediately see the problem with this, then allow me to explain: young girls are going to read this and see their own flaws and wish to be someone else... someone who couldn’t possibly exist because there is honestly no such thing as perfection. They’re going to hold themselves to unreasonable expectations, and they’re going to be upset when they fall short. This, in my opinion, is the biggest issue with YA as it stands now. 2, It adds intrigue to the character and provides ground for real conflict and real stakes.

Juliette’s life was never on the line because the people around her wanted her for her power and for her love. They would never dream of hurting her. The love interest’s life was, but (and this is going to sound awful) I as a reader never really bought into those stakes. He loves her unconditionally, yes, but that love was sooooo instant romancey to me that I just couldn’t buy it. 

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Let’s talk more about that romance while I have your attention. Adam was a boy in Juliette’s past that she noticed because he was being abused by his parents. Sounds intriguing right? Sounds like a story from which could grow some development... or at least some rounded characters that are more than just their sculpted bodies physical attributes. That’s what I thought, but it was ruined. Instead of delving into how that could have impacted Adam, changed Adam, developed Adam, how that treatment could have scarred him and made him grow into something flawed, human, real... the writer just used it to get Juliette interested in him. That’s it. No consequences. No trust issues. Nothing. Just a way to get attention from the protagonist. 

On Adam’s side of things, he noticed Juliette because she was so nice to her aggressors. Because she did the kindest things and never expected anything in return or fought back for herself. He liked her because she was passive and kind to the bullies. Hmm... seems a little... different, right? And after she was dragged off for murder (he didn’t know anything aside from the fact that Juliette was somehow involved in the death of a toddler) he non-stop searched for her. Because his love for someone he never spoke a word to and knew very little about aside from the fact that a TODDLER died at her hands, was enough to make him desperate to find her. 

Yeah. You read that right. He loved her enough DESPITE NOT KNOWING HER AND THINKING SHE WAS A KILLER to dedicate the next several years to hunting her down. 

When they do find each other again they fall deeply in love, and folks the rest of the novel is all about them being together. Her power, which had alienated her from the rest of society and was the reason I picked up the book in the first place, was put on the back-burner-- ultimately being used as an excuse to make the antagonist OBSESSED with her. 

To Mafi’s credit, she tried to make Juliet’s power create themes of humanity and acceptance, and while in the beginning this seemed to be very much where the book was heading, towards the end this very powerful message was overshadowed by the flat romance and didn’t go nearly as far as I would have liked. And, forgive me but, I feel as though the only reason Juliet was able to accept herself wasn’t because she didn't think that her ability was a monstrosity anymore or because she had come to terms with the fact that she was good natured and would never dream of hurting another person, but rather because a boy loved her in spite of something she found awful about herself. Through the lens of the male love interest, the girl decides that maybe she isn’t so bad. I think this is incredibly dangerous for young readers to see, and frankly ruined the book for me.

Aside from that, there was only 1 female main character in the book. No other women were in there--unless you count the ‘twins’ that had no personality outside of them being twins-- which served to make the protagonist feel like nothing more than a piece of eye candy that all of the men in the book were attracted to. And I mean all of the men. Between passes at her beauty and acts of sexual harassment, Juliet is portrayed as beautiful and desirable to the point of lacking any flaws (sound familiar?). This also was a harmful trope in the book as beauty comes in all shapes, sizes, colors, etc. and this one version of beauty seems to be everyone’s flavor of attractive in the story.  

I’m not saying all of the story was bad. Mafi has a way with words that is amazing, and this is a beloved series to some. I just personally found the plot to fall flat. With the right plot and the right character development, this author has A LOT of story writing potential. Enough to make me want to give her another chance. Not enough, perhaps, to read the rest of this series.

Those are my thoughts! Let me know what you thought, or if you’ve read the series. If you think I’m missing something, leave a comment!

~Monica

[infinitehouseofbooks]

BLOG TOUR - Twisted: The Girl Who Uncovered Rumplestilkin's Name

DISCLAIMER: This content has been provided to INFINITE HOUSE OF BOOKS by Bewitching Book Tours. No compensation was received. This information required by the Federal Trade Commission.

Genre: YA Fantasy

  Twisted: The Girl Who Uncovered Rumpelstiltskin’s Name

Bonnie M Hennessy

  Genre: YA Fantasy

  Date of Publication: November 19, 2016

  ISBN13: 978-1539753421

ISBN-10: 1539753425

ASIN: B01N3MC1K4

  Number of pages: 306

Word Count: 75,000

  Cover Artist: Andreea Vraciu

  Book Description:

  An old tale tells the story of how a little man named Rumpelstiltskin spun straw into gold and tricked a desperate girl into trading away her baby. But that’s not exactly how it happened.

  The real story began with a drunken father who kept throwing money away on alcohol and women, while his daughter, Aoife, ran the family farm on her own. When he gambled away everything they owned to the Duke, it was up to her to spin straw into gold to win it all back.

  With her wits and the help of a magical guardian, she outsmarted the Duke and saved the day.

  Well almost…

  Her guardian suddenly turned on Aoife and sent her on a quest to find his name, the clues to which were hidden deep in the woods, a moldy dungeon, and a dead woman’s chamber.

  This is not the tale of a damsel in distress, but a tenacious, young woman who solved a mystery so great that not even the enchanted man who spun straw into gold could figure it out.

  Not until Aoife came along.

  Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/3SDfW7PY3wY

  Amazon

Interview With the Author

What initially got you interested in writing?

I grew up enjoying writing and from about middle school on, I knew I was good at it. I wasn’t a great student, so this was my one way of shining with very little effort. As an adult, I became a high school teacher and teaching was my focus for many years. However, in the background in between grading papers, I was always writing novels. Most of them were bad, and it is a good thing I have kept them in boxes and never showed them to many people. I think I had to write all those ‘practice’ novels to get to Twisted and all the books that are waiting for me to write. I don’t know if there was any specific moment that made me declare myself a writer. It’s just something I’ve always done. Runners run. Chefs cook. Lumberjacks chop wood. And I write books.

How did you decide to make the move into being a published author?

As I said before, I had written plenty of bad novels and received many rejections from agents. With Twisted, I just knew that I had written something good, something that I finally wanted to share with people. I kept rereading passages and instead of cringing that they didn’t sound the way I wanted them to, I smiled, wishing I could show the book to my friends. Many people are afraid of getting older, but I feel like as I look forward to 40, there’s this incredible sense of confidence and intuition that has grown in me over the years of trials, joys, accomplishments and, yes, failures that told me that this was my moment to see my greatest wish of becoming a published author come true. It also helps that I have an amazingly supportive husband beside me who thinks I walk on water! He was the one who gave me the final nudge I needed to make the move.

What do you want readers to take away from reading your works?

I want them to realize that we are all walking contradictions and that we are all only who we are at any given moment. Today I’m an author, wife, and mother who yelled at her son a little too harshly. Tomorrow I will take my kids to the indoor trampoline metropolis of the world with five friends and I will be the greatest mom ever. But I am neither the worst nor the best mother. I’m just a woman doing the best I can at any given moment. I think if we could look past people’s short comings, the way Aoife looks past her father’s alcoholism, Maeve’s career as the Madam of a brothel, and even her mother’s abusive cruelty, then maybe we could gain a better understanding of each other. I look at the political landscape, the cultural divides, the religious extremities and realize that we don’t see each other as imperfect humans, but as caricatures of stereotypes that have been sold to us by the media and the societies we live in. I think what made me fall in love with Aoife was her ability to accept the flaws of others and still shake their hands. That’s a lesson I’m still working on cultivating in myself!

What do you find most rewarding about writing?

I love feeling like I’ve let go of myself and let inspiration in. I don’t think I ever experienced that until Twisted. The first time it happened was when I was writing the scene where Aoife goes back to Rumpelstiltskin’s house for the first time. I had it all planned out in my head as to what would happen in the chapter and even the whole outer frame of the story. Then suddenly, the story turned. The characters did not and would not do what I had planned for them. After a reluctant moment, I took a breath and stopped thinking about what I had planned and let the scene between them unfold, allowing them to write their own dialogue, describe their emotions, and choreograph their movements. When I finished, I knew something special had just happened. I remember telling my husband, “Now I know I’m a writer because I didn’t write that chapter by myself.”

What do you find most challenging about writing?

Time and leg cramps. There never seems to be enough time to write. And when there is plenty, my eyes and brain eventually give out before I’m ready to quit. And who what writer doesn’t lament leg cramps and a sore butt! I know it’s not the intellectual answer readers may expect and it’s not as cliché as discussing the very frightening reality of writer’s block, but leg cramps and a sore butt are definitely some of my biggest challenges. Maybe I should start writing from a treadmill.

What advice would you give to people want to enter the field?

Now that I’m published, people are coming to me as if I know the path to the holy grail. It scares me that people think I know something about the business side of writing! However, the number one piece of advice I have after just these first few months is to remember that there is a difference between being a writer and selling books. Being a writer is fun and, hopefully, comes naturally. Enjoy it! For the creative people who want to publish, selling them is hard work! Remember, no matter how special that manuscript feels, it is just the first one. Assuming you are planning to keep writing, you need to look at each book you publish as a learning experience that will help you be even more successful with the next one, and the next one, and the next. 

What ways can readers connect with you?

I have fought social media for a long time, but now that I’m in the business of selling books, there are oh-so many ways to connect with me. I am available through all the many channels, which I have listed below. I have this idea that I would also love to skype into people’s book club meetings. Drop me an email through my website or Facebook if your book club decides to read Twisted, and I will try to find a way to make the meeting!

My Website: https://www.bonniemhennessy.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/twistedthebook

Twitter: @bonniemhennessy

Instagram: @bonniemhennessy

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/bonniemhennessy/

  Chapter 1 Excerpt

  The morning mist had almost lifted in the village of Stanishire, the farmers and fishermen were readying the market, women were shouting chores to sleepy children, and Aoife was on her way to collect her father from the town brothel, where the painted ladies entertained men’s nocturnal needs.

When she reached the main street, she dismounted and tied her horse to a hitching post. She walked around the corner of the brothel where no one could see her, adjusted her skirt, and ran her fingers through her hair. Practice had taught her how to jiggle the finicky latch so its reluctant grip released and granted her entrance. The back hallway was dark and quiet. Maggie, the young girl who helped cook and clean, was opening windows to release the sweat and perfume-laced air. Broken glass littered the floor, and cards from unfinished games lay scattered on tables.

“Maggie,” Aoife whispered.

Maggie turned into the dust motes in a sliver of daylight. Over the years, Aoife had learned to call her gently and not to sneak up on her lest she startle the young girl as she had done the first time they met here when Aoife was eleven and Maggie just nine.

“Eeeeef-uh!” Maggie’s eyes lit up as she called Aoife’s name. She had always over-enunciated each syllable in what sounded like a sigh of relief.

She took hold of Aoife’s hand, pulling her around the corner and into the kitchen, one of the only places in the residence that passed for a respectable room.

“Wait here,” Maggie said, kissing Aoife on the cheek. “I’ll be right back.”

Aoife looked around at the pots hanging on the wall that Maggie kept so shiny. A rolling pin on the counter was coated with flour and the smell of bread baking in the oven filled the dimly lit room. In the corner was Maggie’s chair with a basket of women’s stockings waiting to be darned. Aoife turned her back to the parlor door and everything that happened there, pretending her visits with Maggie by the fire were no different than a visit with any other village girl. The sight of Maggie humming as she patched up stockings always made Aoife think of her younger sister, Tara, lying under her heavy blankets, sewing away at some pattern their mother had her working on. Aoife felt that Tara and Maggie would have enjoyed chatting over their sewing, if only Tara were not stuck in bed with a perpetual cough and Maggie the progeny of a brothel.

“Aoife. You look quite bright and alive considering the early hour.”

Aoife jumped as Maeve strolled over and pulled a leaf from Aoife’s hair.

“I see you’ve been busy with your studies,” Maeve added.

Aoife touched her hair, searching for more debris. Maeve’s dressing gown exposed her cleavage and her long, dark curls draped over her bare shoulders without apology. Aoife had seen her dressed, powdered, and painted since she was a girl, and she admired the way her gaze, so piercing, seemed to command respect from everyone. But what had captivated Aoife the most was something more powerful and more impressive than Maeve’s beauty. Although crow’s feet now punctuated her eyes, and her waistline had thickened, the most powerful men deferred to her, bowing their heads in her direction when she traveled through the streets.

“I couldn’t resist the path through the woods,” Aoife replied, knowing she could hide nothing from her.

Maeve stared at her. The affection in her appraisal was always slightly distant, stopping just short of motherly.

“Seamus is taking care of things,” Maeve said with her usual calm.

Aoife nodded and looked again at the shiny pots, trying to focus on anything but Seamus’ highly embarrassing ritual of waking her father, the fairly infamous Finnegan, from wherever he had ended his evening and saddling him on his horse. Maggie pulled a loaf of steaming bread from the oven and set out plates, knives, and a bowl of fresh butter. Each of them took their place around the table as Maggie generously portioned out the bread. Maeve let her shawl fall over the back of her chair and straightened up her shoulders, exposing even more of herself. Aoife flushed and bit quietly into her bread, savoring the flavor and the moment.

There was an honesty and warmth in this kitchen that she never felt in the presence of her own mother. Conversation and warm bread was what made coming to get her father for all these years worth the lashings she used to receive from her mother when she returned home.

“I hear that your latest suitor was seen heading out of town yesterday,” Maeve said. “I gather his hasty departure means that there will be no nuptials?”

Aoife shook her head and cast a quick smile at Maggie.

“I can’t imagine why you didn’t want to marry that one,” Maeve said. “Lots of gold, a manor house to the east with more land than you and your horse could ever discover, and handsome, too. What more could a girl want than a man with piles of gold and a good set of teeth?”

“A man who is blind and deaf and preferably feeble – with deep pockets, of course. Then I can live my life in peace and never have to worry about his teeth – or mine for that matter.”

Maggie giggled, and Maeve raised an appreciative eyebrow, offering her signature half-smile, half-smirk. Aoife grinned and took another bite of the steaming bread.

“And what do your parents say?” Maeve asked. Her features had softened, but her thoughts remained inscrutable. “I can’t imagine they find your refusals as entertaining as we do.”

Aoife fell silent. This was an unexpected detour in the script. They avoided direct references to Aoife’s family. It made breaking bread between them possible, since the money Maeve took from Aoife’s father by night was one of the greatest strains on her family’s resources, reputation, and love. The medicine that Tara often went without after her father’s reckless trips was reason enough for Aoife to despise Maeve, but she had learned to avoid dwelling on these realities. She needed Maeve enough to tolerate her father’s indiscretions, since rescuing him had now become a means of escaping her life. Discussing her family jeopardized everything.

“Well, no, they are not exactly pleased,” Aoife replied, her brashness fading.

Maeve wiped the corner of her mouth and cleared her throat. Something in the air had changed.

“You know, at some point, perhaps sooner than you might expect, they will stop coming. First, the young ones with stacks of gold and good teeth. They have the most fragile egos and will seek out friendlier pastures. Then eventually, even the wrinkly ones, with and without gold, will find calling on you not worth the effort,” Maeve paused. “The tales of your beauty will be replaced by tales of new faces with more welcoming smiles. The choices left to you will be slim.”

The bread balled up in Aoife’s throat. She could have had breakfast in her own home if she wanted this type of talk. She suddenly felt incensed that Madame Maeve dared to criticize her.

“My mother mires me in these traps daily,” Aoife dusted the crumbs from her hands. “She appreciates neither the risk to my reputation I take coming here nor the fact that I am the one who has run the farm for years now.”

“This is true. Your family would be in the poor house and your sister probably with God if not for your courage and your brains,” Maeve said. “But I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about you and your future. You must understand that there are consequences for you, whether you say yes or no to the suitors who come your way.”

She raised an eyebrow, which seemed loaded with a warning left to Aoife to decipher. It had a familiar ring to it, like the warnings her mother made so often about the consequences of Aoife’s trips to Maeve’s house.

“No respectable man will ever want to marry a girl who consorts with vile women, not when he thinks he can pay a few coins for her instead,” her mother would say.

Her mother lived in such a dream world she did not recognize that Aoife was trying to protect the family’s reputation and as much of their finances as was possible. Her mother worried more about Aoife’s reputation than the food on the table and Tara’s medicine. And because of that, a chasm had grown between them too deep to ever cross.

“My choices are just as narrow as every other girl’s. I know that,” Aoife said standing up abruptly. Her shawl dropped to the floor, its power to protect her no match for the storm brewing in the kitchen. “But I’d never compromise myself – or give men control over my body for money like you do. Of that you can be sure.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that,” Maeve replied, completely unruffled. “But it’s interesting that you did. And, Aoife, no matter what choice you make – your husband’s house, my house, or the nunnery – you are exchanging control over your body for money. Of that you can be sure.”

“I have given half my life already to protecting my family. Everyday, whether I’m seeing that fields are reseeded and sheep are sheared or carting my father home from here, I am picking up the pieces of my family’s fortune that my father has broken apart,” Aoife said with less command of her voice than she would have liked. “And now, after I’ve done everything I can to save this family, they – and you – expect me to sell myself off to the next buyer, supposedly to protect them? I can’t do it.”

Aoife knew there was no way for a woman to survive in the world without the protection of a man, yet the security they offered was never guaranteed. Her father’s choices still chipped away at the pieces of what was once her mother, Bronagh. Still bedecked in the jewels of their courtship, she found her only solace and comfort in embroidering ornate and regal designs and patterns by the night fire, awaiting his return from Maeve’s as if her delicate hands could somehow stitch back together the girl he had unraveled and the lives he had torn apart at the seams. Bronagh would not even consider selling her tapestries or needlework to help support her family, for that would have been beneath a woman of her status. Aoife, however, was not built to sit and sew while their fortune and Tara’s health deteriorated at the hands of her father. She needed to be on her feet fixing the problem, not decorating the home they were sure to lose if no one intervened.

Bronagh had traded away her soul for a broken promise of safety and love, and she expected Aoife to do the same. But now Maeve, too? Her advice was nothing less than a betrayal.

“For women not made to curtsey obediently through life, there is no easy choice.” A subtle urgency belied Maeve’s calm. “However, refusing every suitor is not a means of controlling your life, but rather giving over control to whatever or whomever is left over.”

“So I should marry the next man who comes along or end up in a whore house like you?” Aoife said, wincing at her angry words.

She was angry that Maeve had taken her mother’s side, but she did not relish wounding the one person who had always been a source of strength and understanding. Despite her words, Maeve’s features revealed not even the slightest hint of hurt.

“What I am saying is that you ought to turn away any option which would leave you without hope of peace and contentment,” Maeve replied. “But do not fool yourself into waiting for a perfect choice to present itself, because it never will.”

Aoife felt her stomach lurch. She needed to get away from this house, this woman, and the truth. Turning around, she marched outside where her father was standing. She walked to her horse and looked to see if he needed assistance. The legacy of too much mead weighed on his haggard figure as Seamus helped him to his horse.

“I’m so sorry to have inconvenienced you this morning, my sweet Aoife,” her father’s worn voice eschewed sadly.

“I know, father,” she replied. “You’re always sorry.”

He swayed precariously in either direction and then took Aoife’s hand suddenly.

“You’re too good to me, Aoife,” he whispered. “You should be reaching for the–”

“Stars,” she finished. “I know, Father.”

He closed his eyes and pressed her hand between his.

“My hand’s grown since we spent our nights stargazing.”

He nodded and Aoife felt a pang of nostalgia sweep over her. She missed the way he used to pick her up from her mother’s side by the fire and take her out of doors to look at the moon and stars. The memory of the polished scent of him from her childhood came back over the stench of mead that clung to him now. He had been a good father once upon a time. She looked up, searching for any fragment of the man who tossed her high in the air as a little girl. The sparkle of a tear danced at the corner of his eye. There he was. She kissed his forehead tenderly and he sighed with the soft smile reserved only for Aoife. His favorite.

            About the Author:

  Bonnie grew up a shy, quiet girl who the teachers always seated next to the noisy boys because they knew she was too afraid to talk to anyone. She always had a lot she wanted to say but was too afraid to share it for fear she might die of embarrassment if people actually noticed her. Somewhere along the line, perhaps after she surprised her eighth grade class by standing up to a teacher who was belittling a fellow student, she realized that she had a voice and she didn’t burst into flames when her classmates stared at her in surprise.

  Not long after that, she began spinning tales, some of which got her into trouble with her mom. Whether persuading her father to take her to the candy store as a little girl or convincing her parents to let her move from Los Angeles to Manhattan to pursue a career at eighteen as a ballet dancer with only $200 in her pocket, Bonnie has proven that she knows how to tell a compelling story.

  Now she spends her time reading and making up stories for her two children at night. By day she is an English teacher who never puts the quiet girls next to the noisy boys and works hard to persuade her students that stories, whether they are the ones she teaches in class or the ones she tells to keep them from daydreaming, are better escapes than computers, phones, and social media.

  Author website: http://www.bonniemhennessy.com/

  Twitter: @bonnieMHennessy

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/twistedthebook/

  Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32962973-twisted

          Tour giveaway

  3 copies of Twisted

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  BLOG TOUR – Twisted: The Girl Who Uncovered Rumplestilkin’s Name was originally published on the Wordpress version of SHANNON MUIR'S INFINITE HOUSE OF BOOKS.