Category: Book Reivew

Posted in Book Reivew, Uncategorized

Roshani Chokshi: In Which I Go Down the Fantasy Genre Action & Philosophy Rabbit Hole

Posted on by beckylevine

I was griping on Facebook the other day about needing some new fantasy novels to read, and a FB friend recommended Roshani Chokshi’s The Star-Touched Queen and A Crown of Wishes. I hadn’t realized until I looked up Chokshi that she is also the author of Aru Shah and the End of Time, the first book in her middle-grade series and the first book published by Rick Riordan’s new imprint. That’s been on my to-read list for a while, and I’m bumping it up to the top as soon as I finish A Crown of Wishes.

I love fantasy novels. The Hobbit probably started me off. It was the first book I ever cried over–I remember sitting up when I was 12, after everyone else in the house had gone to bed, and whole-body sobbing as…!!SPOILER ALERT!!…Bilbo said goodbye to Thorin. (Do NOT get me started on Thorin in the movie version; what were you thinking, Peter Jackson?) And then, in high school, I discovered Anne McCaffrey’s Harper Hall series, and I was a goner. In the past decade or two…young-adult authors have been adding brilliant worlds and works to the genre. Kristin Cashore. Sarah J. Maas. Laini Taylor. Leigh Bardugo, Kendare Blake, just to name a few. I’ll take a leap and add Joe Abercrombie, even though, so far, I’ve only read Half a King. 

And, now, Roshani Chokshi.

I like beautifully written, fun, fast-moving fantasy stories. Throw in some humor–even better. I love strong world-building, and if you throw in a bit of philosophy to the mix, you’ve got me.

As long as the balance is right. If you lean too far toward the philosophy, with the action as a side-note, I’m gone. Keep things moving, keep me intrigued by the character’s actions and reactions, as well as their life-view…yes!

It’s not that easy. Terry Pratchett does it brilliantly, especially in his Tiffany Aching books. (I sobbed as hard, if not harder, with The Shepherd’s Crown as I did with The Hobbit.) Kristin Cashore rocks it, especially in Bitterblue (which I talked about here.) And Roshani Chokshi has mastered it.

Chokshi has set herself an extra challenge, I think, by setting her stories in a world where magic has layers and layers and where, when you step into the magic world, the shields (or scabs) you have built up around your vulnerabilities are ripped away. Chokshi’s magic gets into your mind and plays games, it grabs onto the big thoughts–the foundation of who you are and how you see things–as well as the smaller, not-fully-developed thoughts that flutter across that foundation to both threaten and promise. There are sections, long passages and chapters, where Chokshi’s characters essentially swim in this disorientation, sometimes struggling to even stay afloat. And you swim with them.

So many books, when they reach for this place, this kind of storytelling, get lost. As a reader, you feel swamped by beautiful words that are all thoughts, all philosophy. Often they are thoughts that are true to the characters the author has created, but–in the end–they are still just thoughts. Chokshi tiptoes up to the edge, she skims over its shore, but she never once falls in.

Chokshi’s characters are, much like Cashore’s Bitterblue, characters of the mind. The core of their being is the way they think–they way they see the world around them and the way they see their place within that world. It’s why they are so at risk–if the magic gets their minds, it gets their selfs. And so they fight it. And, I think, it’s the resistance that makes them so strong and that keeps Chokshi’s books concrete, active, and powerful. They have quests that force them into the magic and, to achieve those quests, they step in. Deeply. They immerse themselves in the magic as long as they need, and then…they jump back. Or draw swords against it. Or laugh at it. They grab for the pieces of magic they need to move forward; they dispose of the pieces that don’t. The magic is the vehicle for Chokshi’s characters; the characters are not simply vehicles for the magic.

Read any or all of the books I’ve talked about in this post. Just make sure you include Chokshi’s stories on the list. And cross your fingers that she has many more coming.

 

Posted in Book Reivew, Heroes, Quiet Books, Uncategorized

Stella Montgomery, Wormwood Mire’s Brave Hero

Posted on by beckylevine

So I just finished reading Judith Rossell’s Wormwood Mire for the second time in a few weeks. Wormwood Mire is the sequel to Rossell’s Withering-by-Sea, and there is apparently a third book–Wakestone Hall–coming soon, maybe at the end of the year. (Yay!) I really enjoyed Withering-by-Sea, but I absolutely loved Wormwood Mire. It is quiet and lovely and sweet and very much the page-turner (in a non-stressful way!). I love quiet books, but I often wonder how the author manages to keep the pages turning and still keep the book quiet. Plus, I’ve been struggling with a more character-driven plot in my current WIP.

So I decided to re-read Stella’s second book and take notes about what plot actions happen, who does them, why they do them, and how those actions move the plot forward. Now, I didn’t remember Stella being super active, but I thought I’d find out differently when I took a closer look.

Nope.

Stella does things. She explores the strange house she’s found herself living in. She asks questions about the mystery surrounding her mother and her (perhaps) twin sister, neither of whom she can actually remember. She climbs a tall tree, and she ventures near the lake she has been warned to stay away from. She discovers a secret room and enters it. All in a world of gossipy whispers that speak of monsters and witches’ familiars.

But, other than finding the secret room, she does pretty much none of these adventurous things by herself. And she doesn’t instigate them either. Almost all the impetus for exploring and putting herself in dangerous situations comes from her energetic, inquisitive, and absolutely wonderful cousin Strideforth. Strideforth is a scientist and an engineer, and he doesn’t believe in spooky things. The house is filled with heating pipes, some of which are hot to the touch and some of which are cold, and Strideforth’s actions are driven by his curiosity–his absolute need to know–about where the heat is going. The house is freezing cold, except in the kitchen, and that is a problem Strideforth is determined to solve. So he explores and he questions and he draws Stella and his sister, Hortense, along with him.

So why is Stella a hero?

  • Stella is brave. We learn this about her in the first book, and we see it again in this sequel. Stella is a timid girl. She has reason to be–she has led an at-once very sheltered and very neglected/abusted life with her three horrible aunts. (No, you’re not wrong, you do sense a hint of Roald Dahlness!) And, yet, whenever a moment comes–and many of them do–where she has the choice of going forward or going backward, Stella goes forward. She has to take some deep breaths, she has to get encouragement from the sister she is imagining, and she has to push away the frightening story from the nasty going-away book of morals that her aunts gave her when she left. But she goes forward. Every time.
  • Stella is curious. Like Strideforth, she wants to know and  understand, but she is much more open than he is to the unexplained and magical. Things that she agrees, as Strideforth says, not possible, and yet…she sees them happen and accepts them as facts. Stella also reads whenever she can–even the horrible gift from her aunts, but more importantly the travel diary of her ancestor that she discovers in the secret room.
  • Stella’s actions move the story forward. Exploring with Strideforth and Hortense, Stella comes across pieces of her past that bring back memories–frightening and scary memories. She doesn’t push the memories away; instead, she actively stops (ha! Is that the secret to a quiet page-turner?) whatever she is doing and lets the memory come.  Each memory brings with it another piece of the mystery, and Stella is the one who puts those pieces together, along with the information she gleans from the travel diary.  Stella is the one to solve the puzzles of the book–that of the whispered about monster as well as the truth about her mother and sister.

Stella is Mary Lennox without the temper, without the force of action and power that temper gives Mary. She is Matilda without the magic. She is quiet, polite, well-behaved, and withdrawing. Opportunities for decisions and actions present themselves to her, and she has to push herself to take them. But she does take them, with us rooting for her every time.

And I’m pretty sure that is what makes her a hero.

 

 

 

Posted in Book Reivew

Time Passage in Sarah Ockler’s FIXING DELILAH

Posted on by beckylevine

Fixing Delilah is a wonderful book. The bottom line, for me, is that Sarah Ockler’s prose is smooth, tight, and flowing; her characters are strong and sympathetic; and the story moves along with just enough questions and answers to make me happy. I liked her first book, Twenty Boy Summer, a lot, and Fixing Delilah was just as good–but hit more personal chords for me, so I can recommend it with even more pleasure.

I’m not going to do a full review, because mostly I want to talk about one element of the book that Ockler handles beautifully, from a writing craft point of view, something I’ve been thinking about how to do as I plot my second draft. That element is the transitions, or rather the lack of transitions, from scene to scene. From moment-of-time to moment-of-time.

(If you’re interested in a more complete review, one that gives a good story summary without spoilers, check out this one at A Chair, A Fireplace & a Tea Cozy.)

Okay, on to transitions.

In the old days, one scene followed another in time and space or, if it didn’t, we pretty much got filled in about what happened during the gaps. The best writers did it trimly and succinctly, rather than giving long, rambly passages of telling, but still–there seemed to be a need for writers to explain what had come between.

Today, not so much. I love that authors drop readers into the moment, often in the middle of some action or conflict. I don’t miss the lead-up or the summary. It’s the kind of writing I want to do myself. But it’s tricky. I haven’t quite figured out yet how much time, as a chunk, my WIP will cover, but I do know that I don’t want to cover all the moments or hours, not even all the days. I want to find a way to write the important scenes and the scenes that make connections, without leaving the reader confused about when they are.

Which is why, after having thoroughly enjoyed the library copy of Fixing Delilah, I’m off to buy my own copy. Because Ockler has managed to do this flawlessly, and I want to read the book through a time or two again–to study, analyze, dissect why and how it works.

The story takes place over an entire summer. Almost three months. 10-12 weeks. 70+ days.

With 34 chapters. One of which contains a single line of dialogue, and other sets in which multiple chapters take place on the same day.  Sometimes, Ockler skips hours between a scene, sometimes days, at least once–I’m sure–she skips weeks. And it’s all smooth.

The book feels just like school vacation–when you can barely say what you did for six days in a row, the an afternoon in the treehouse or hiking to a mountaintop stands out in clear, memorable relief. You get a sense of time passing–summer time, made of warmth and laziness with passages of sadness and anger and love and excitement. It’s time set away from the rest of the world, which is what–I think–makes Delilah’s story possible. This book had to take place over time, because the characters need that time–and some of that peace–to change and heal. And Ockler gave them–and us–that gift.

Lovely.

Posted in Book Reivew, YA Historical Fiction Challenge

YA Historical Fiction Challenge: BLACK STORM COMIN’

Posted on by beckylevine

For my first read in the 2011 Historical Fiction challenge, I started off by breaking one of my own specs. In the post where I announced that I’d take part, I said, “I’m going to try and focus my search on books with protagonists who are at least 16 years old, at the older end of the YA spectrum.”

Oh, well.

The thing is that, in Black Storm Comin’, Diane Lee Wilson has totally achieved what I am looking/hoping for in the older books. She’s removed the safety net.

Too often, I think, historical fiction for kids and teens places its heroes in dangerous situations, very realistic to the times the authors are writing about, and then…somehow…make those situations feel not dangerous. I think there are various ways this happens–the hero has a powerful adult around for support; the hero doesn’t actually live IN the world where the danger exists and can pretty much escape as needed;  the point of view never gets close or deep enough to show real threat or real fear; the hero’s story gets overwhelmed, and cushioned, with too many details of the historic setting. Whatever the cause, I frequently find myself frustrated with a story that somehow takes me away from the actual pain and hardship I should be feeling.

Not so in Black Storm Comin’.

Colton Wescott may be only twelve, but he is moving through a world in which twelve can and does mean carrying a man’s life on his shoulders, a man’s responsibilities, and definitely without that safety net. The story starts as Colton and his family are traveling with a wagon train on the way to California–at the tail end of that wagon train, because Colton’s mother is black and his father is white, and nobody really wants them there. His mother is “in bed” in the wagon, with her newborn baby, and his father is jittery and nervous, so much that he accidentally shoots Colton with a blast from his shotgun and takes off–fleeing both the consequences and his family. Colton and his next-oldest sibling, ten-year-old Althea, immediately and literally become the adults in the family, barely getting the wagon and their very-ill mother to an outpost with a doctor. And getting them there with just about no money.

That’s when Colton sees the advertisement for Pony Express riders. The idea of becoming a rider pulls at him, both for the money and for the chance to ride–to fly, really–over the land he’s been plodding across for weeks now. His decision is complex, layered with the worry that what he’s really trying to do is desert his family, just as his father did, and with the added complication that he’s light-skinned enough to pass for white–which will let him apply for the job–but the rest of his family is not. He worries that keeping the secret is betraying them, and something in himself. Still, he is an adult, and there are too often, in an adult life, no real choices. He applies for and takes the job.

And what a job. If life as not-quite teenager in 1860 is hard, you should try life as a rider for the express. Colton is assigned the route–you can’t really call it a road, or a trail, or anything other than a direction the horses know by heart–over the Sierras into California. Just as winter sets in. Wilson is a fantastic author; she takes Colton along that route twice. The first time is to set us up for knowing how miserable it is, to show it to us in detail, with the horse barely making it up the mountain and small, skinny Colton barely staying on that horse’s back. The second time is the time of real urgency, with a specific life-or-death letter that Colton must get through. Each pass has its own tension–from the near-impossible physical test and from the urgency of Colton’s task, and each–again–gives no way out for Colton, no extra or unrealistic shelter or aid. Each time, it is Colton and the horse, and that’s it.

As it would have been.

Yes, there are people who help Colton. There are adults who help him get a job that he is, historically, too young to hold, and people who care for him when he is badly injured. The thing is, though, the help is at a par with what any adult would have gotten and comes with nothing extra for him because he is so young. And any aid Colton receives is countered by the help he doesn’t get, from his loving but fatalistic mother, from the old prospector who would all too quickly give away Colton’s secret–just for the fun of it, from the father who definitely does not swoop back into the story at the darkest moment and save the day. All the people in the story are well-drawn, but one of the best secondary characters is Althea, who is thrust into the same role as Colton and given no chance to ride like the wind, to get away from the dreary reality of keeping her mother alive and her younger sister at least safe and fed.

Childhood is not always a safe place, even today, and the best realistic stories, modern or historical, are the ones that do more than talk about that on the surface, that show the weight kids and teens carry, that show the battle they have just to survive.

Diane Lee Wilson has told such a story. Beautifully.