Shadow and Bone

Sitting here in test proctoring hell seems like as good a time as any to write about Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone, which I finished a few days ago and keep forgetting to talk about. (I'm serious about that hell business - this is day 2 of 4 that I will spend locked in this windowless, airless, allergen-full computer lab watching other people take tests. Today, the new torture of heat was added, which is a joy. Seriously, this makes the 5-hour classes I will be attending tonight and tomorrow seem like things to look forward to.)

Anyway, I haven't forgotten to talk about it because it's a bad book - far from it. It was a book that I didn't want to put down. Set in a world that seems to be parallel to our own (Alina's Ravka is apparently a bizarro-world counterpart to our Russia) in a way similar to what Philip Pullman did with Lyra's world - a little more old-fashioned and filled with magic, but still fairly recognizable. Where Pullman has armored bears and Dust and daemons, Bardugo has the Grisha, a group gifted from birth with the power to master a branch of the small science. They are led by the Darkling, the most powerful of the Grisha. Alina is introduced to us as pretty much the polar opposite of the Grisha - orphaned, poor, weak, and wholly without confidence. It should be obvious to anyone who has ever read a book before that Alina will discover her heretofore untapped Grisha powers, and at a crucial moment. The book is about her coming to terms with those powers, learning to harness them, and discovering that things in Ravka are not always as they appear.

I enjoyed the world that Bardugo has created here and I look forward to the expansion of that world in the next two books of this trilogy (of course it's a trilogy, because why write a fantastic stand-alone book when you could write three or four or ten books?). I also loved the way that Bardugo explored the differences between the different classes in Ravka. Alina, having grown up poor, recognizes instantly that the wealthy put on this show of being very down to earth and in touch with the simpler life (the Grisha wear peasant-style clothing under their robes, they're encouraged to eat hearty peasant food for breakfast) when they are, of course, thoroughly out of touch with the day-to-day life of the poor.

I did have one big complaint: Bardugo relies too heavily on epiphanies. Alina doesn't make slow progress with her powers - she has an epiphany, and then she's awesome! Later on in the book, there is a similar moment that, without spoiling anything, really zapped the tension from a moment that was previously filled with it. If an author is going to put a character in a situation that seems impossible, I want the extrication process to blow me away, to be something I couldn't have come up with. I can still recommend this book whole-heartedly, but I hope in the next installment, there is a little more creative problem-solving.

Ender's Game

I've been meaning to read this book for a while. Now, having finished, I'm shocked that I hadn't years ago. Why did no one hand this to me when I was in junior high? (Speaking of handing this to kids in junior high...I gave this to a student today. I told him that I was reading it and loving it, that it was really popular - it was definitely something he'd enjoy. He took it back to class and came back immediately to return it, having been told by his teacher that they'd be reading it in class later so he wasn't allowed to read it now. Crazy. Knowing what I do now, it would kill me to put off reading a book that is so freaking fantastic.) Anyway, I'm glad to have read this now, but it's certainly a book I'd have liked to have grown up with. A book that I would have read many times, and a book that would have held new meaning for me each time I picked it up. Tonally, it reminds me of A Wrinkle in Time, a book that I did grow up with, that I did read over and over, and a book that has changed each of the many times I've read it (it only started bringing tears to my eyes a few years ago).*

I really don't have much else to say about Ender's Game. I read it breathlessly. The ending caught me off guard - it's elegiac and melancholy and it made me want to be quiet. Does that make sense? I know that a movie adaptation is in the works. I think the cast looks pretty fabulous, although they've obviously aged the characters a little - Ender is only 6 at the beginning of the book, after all. I wonder if they'll follow a similar timeline, aging the characters about 5 years over the course of the story?

Sorry. I literally finished the book and came to the computer. I want to talk about this book, but at the same time, I just want to maintain the quiet stillness that the end of the book left with.

*A Wrinkle in Time is, by the way, a book I have tried to convince a few students to read with zero success. I think I must be selling it wrong, because it's such a fantastic book. I know it won't attract as many fans as The Hunger Games, but there are a few kids that I think would love it if I could only convince them to give it a shot. What can I say to make them give it a shot?

The Girl of Fire & Thorns

So this is what I decided to go with. I've been meaning to read this since I picked it up for our library last spring, but I didn't get to it before school ended for the summer. It seemed like a good way to return to YA and happening upon this interview with author Rae Carson about the sequel (which comes out in 2 days!) on the same day I started reading The Girl of Fire and Thorns seemed like a good omen.

Anyway, I flew through the 400+ pages in 3 days (if I hadn't had to go to class yesterday, I would have finished it then, guaranteed). The book is set in what seems to be a parallel world with some connection to our own. My guess is that it takes place far in the future, following an apocalypse that brought our world to an end. A small number of people were saved from this apocalypse (by God, who seems similar but not identical to the God worshiped by Christians) and transported to this new world, where two large nations, Joya d'Arena and Invierne, are facing off for control of this world. The eponymous girl is Elisa, younger princess of one of Joya d'Arena's allies and bearer of the Godstone, a gift bestowed on one person every hundred years or so that marks them as one who will perform some great service.

The book begins with sixteen-year-old Elisa preparing for her wedding to Alejandro, king of Joya d'Arena, who has agreed to marry her in exchange for military support in the coming war with Invierne. Elisa is my favorite thing about this book, and the reason I'll probably read the sequel. I haven't seen a character like her in YA lit before. The obvious characters to compare her with are the stars of other recent post-apocalyptic stories - Tris Prior (Divergent), Lena Haloway (Delirium), and of course, Katniss Everdeen (do I even need to say this? from The Hunger Games). Character-wise, she is probably the most similar to Lena - she is timid, devout, and completely unsure of her own abilities. Appearance-wise, she is entirely unique.  Where Tris, Lena, and Katniss are all short and slight (but in good shape), Elisa is fairly tall and, when we meet her, overweight. She talks about food a lot and it's clear that those around her underestimate her (and she underestimates herself) because she's fat. She's an easy character to relate to, starting with her disappointment when she realizes that her beautiful wedding gown is beautiful because it's a few sizes too small. And because of this, I really rooted for her as she began to find her footing as a leader. The first-person narrative added to this, because it gave voice to her inner monologue - Elisa is constantly having to talk herself into being assertive, often worrying that people will see through the confidence she is projecting to the fear that lies just underneath.

My hope for the sequel is that Elisa remains as likable as she is in the first book and that Carson indulges in a little more world-building. I was happy that the focus in the first book was more on character-building, but I would love to know more about Invierne and the Perditos, as well as previous bearers of the Godstone. Elisa mentions more than once her suspicion that some previous bearers came from Invierne and I have to assume that she's right (and that Carson was setting up a look back at the history of Elisa's world and possibly even an explanation of what really brought Elisa's people to this world).

And so we come to the end...

I told you I would finish it soon.

I'm done with David Copperfield. To be honest, I don't have much more to say about it - the last post in particular really captured my overall feelings about this book. It grew on me, and the characters crawled into my heart without my realizing it, leaving me stunned each time by how much their triumphs and trials affected me. I was again taken aback by the depth of feeling I had for Mrs. Steerforth in her anguish - she was never a very likable character, but the scene when David brings her his sad news just killed me.

David Copperfield was, to me, a very human book. And David himself epitomizes that. He is flawed, but generally good, and trying to be good. I identified with so many of his contradictory (and thus, particularly real) emotions...I'm not explaining this well. Here's an example:

They expected me home before Christmas; but had no idea of my returning so soon. I had purposely misled them, that I might have the pleasure of taking them by surprise. And yet, I was perverse enough to feel a chill and disappointment in receiving no welcome, and rattling, alone and silent, through the misty streets.

I just know (and assume others must as well) know those kinds of contradictory feelings so well, and I've rarely seen them expressed so clearly. That's all.

So it's over. From here, we go...where? Back to YA lit, perhaps. Tomorrow will be a day for browsing (during those rare moments when the library is quiet). Tonight, though, will be a time for enjoying that glow of knowing that I finished a really big book and, more importantly, that I found a book I could really connect to.

 

Why We're Here

THIS is why this blog exists.  I was reading David Copperfield (I am approaching the final 100 pages, so the end is in sight, I promise) and I came across two things that I desperately wanted to share with someone.  So here I shall share them.

To put this in context for anyone familiar with the book but without (I hope) giving too much away, let me say that I am at the point in the book where seemingly everyone has decided to ship out to Australia.  It seems like an odd turn of events, but if they do all go (and I assume they will), that fictional Australia of the past was lucky to receive such a motley but worthy cast of characters.  Anyway, I wanted to first share a passage that unexpectedly brought tears to my eyes:

And Mrs. Gummidge took his hand, and kissed it with a homely pathos and affection, in a homely rapture of devotion and gratitude, that he well deserved.

We brought the locker out, extinguished the candle, fastened the door on the outside, and left the old boat close shut up, a dark speck in the cloudy night.  Next day, when we were returning to London outside the coach, Mrs. Gummidge and her basket were on the seat behind, and Mrs. Gummidge was happy.

I think if you haven't read the book, you'll read that and wonder how it could possibly make anyone cry.  I don't know how well I can explain it, either, except to say that this brought home to me what a masterful job Dickens had done up to this point of building these characters and making them familiar, not to mention creating such a distinct sense of place (and leaving me with a deep affection for it).  As such, these two brief paragraphs hit a perfectly bittersweet note.

The second thing is this: Wilkins Micawber IS Billy Riggins from Friday Night Lights (watch it, if you haven't).  Or vice versa.  (For what it's worth, Mindy Riggins shares quite a lot with Emma Micawber as well.)  It hit me like a freight train in the chapter that followed the above passage.  The always-delightful Betsey Trotwood said it best: "Bless and save the man!  He'd write letters by the ream, if it was a capital offence!"  The verbose, ridiculous speeches, the way he puffs himself up, his utter inability to make good decisions, and his unending devotion to his family are absolutely indistinguishable from Billy, and they are both undeniably lovable because of those shared traits.  If ever DC is adapted into a television show (and I know I said it could be a YA novel, but I'm starting to think the enormous cast of characters and indelible sense of place would lend themselves to Jason Katims' style), Derek Phillips would be an impeccable Wilkins Micawber.