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A Few Cybils Reads – Part III

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The Glass Casket by McCormick Templeman
Rowan Rose has grown up relatively happy in her small town where not much happens. Then a few of the king’s men, visiting for unknown reasons, are found dead in what appear to be brutal animal attacks; at the same time, another young girl, Fiona Eira, moves to the town with her stepmother and her stepmother’s new husband. Fiona has a connection to Rowan beyond what she is told. When Rowan’s best friend falls in love with Fiona, it sets in motion a violent chain of events that will change Rowan’s life forever.

This one was on my radar long before the Cybils got underway. The cover is eerily beautiful and the story is a re-working of a few different fairy tales, though in a more suggestive than literal way. Even without the nod to Snow White via the title, the story feels very much like a fairy tale, albeit much closer to the darker original versions than the more lighthearted Disney versions. And despite the fairy tale aspect, the story – and the way everything unfolds – is unique. Templeman creates an atmospheric mood with her writing. It’s not horrifying, per se, but it is somewhat chilling, buoyed by the fact that she does not shy away from describing some of the more grotesque things that happen. The story is a little rough around the edges at points, but overall thoroughly engrossing. I look forward to what Templeman does next.

A Creature of Moonlight by Rebecca Hahn
Marni is half-human, half-dragon. Her mother, once a princess of the kingdom, ran away to live in the magical woods and took up with a dragon who could change into the shape of a man. Marni was the result. Her mother then left the dragon, taking Marni with her. When the woods start to encroach upon the kingdom, Marni’s uncle, the prince, hunts down her mother, thinking her the cause – the dragon trying to reclaim her. In order to save Marni’s life, Marni’s grandfather – the king – abdicates to his son, but not before Marni’s mother is killed.

Now a young woman, Marni constantly feels the pull of the woods, though she knows its danger. She lives with her grandfather, and when he dies, she journeys to the castle, hoping the king will take her in, despite his propensity to murder her family members. Still, the woods call to her, and they soon start to move in on the town once again. It’s only a matter of time before Marni answers the call.

Hahn’s writing, much like Templeman’s, is dreamlike. She uses her words to paint a picture for you, and it’s easy to feel sucked into the rich settings of her book. I’ve read reviews that call her writing poetic, and that’s a fair assessment. But what I often find missing from a book of poetic writing is a strong plot, and that’s the situation here. It doesn’t feel like much happens. In fact, just when it appears that something exciting might happen, the thread of that particular plot point kind of fades away. You could call the story “character-driven,” or you could simply say it doesn’t have much substance. I tend to go with the latter. Best for readers who don’t mind lovely language at the expense of plot.

Pandemic by Yvonne Ventresca
This is a standard modern-day disease story that focuses on a very specific regional area – teenage Lil’s hometown in New Jersey. The pandemic of the title is a flu-like disease that spreads rapidly across the globe. Unlike most flus, this one is most fatal to younger adults, who soon start dying, leaving the old and the young (including people Lil’s age) without caretakers.

Ventresca doesn’t really do anything new with the idea, but she does throw in some details that keep interest up throughout the book. Both of Lil’s parents are out of town when the worst of the pandemic hits, meaning she has to handle everything that happens mostly on her own. This includes the care of an infant whose parents have both died. She gets together with other teenagers to organize assistance for those who can’t help themselves. She has to learn how to get food for herself and contend with looters. She also has to deal with a teacher who sexually assaulted her several months before and now has greater access to her due to the breakdown of the town’s governance. It’s certainly not a bad story, and would be fine for those eager for more along the lines of Amber Kizer’s A Matter of Days – both are relatively gentle books where the stakes never seem very high (even when they should). Ventresca’s writing is a bit amateurish, weakening what could have been a devastating story and keeping it from being entirely satisfying.

Gabi, A Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quinetero

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Sometimes, you read the book you didn’t know you needed to read when you read it. Enter Isabel Quintero’s Gabi, A Girl in Pieces.

Mexican American Gabi is a senior this year, and the book picks up in the months leading up to her final year in high school. It jumps in immediately, as this is a diary-style novel, and we’re quickly introduced to Gabi’s best friend Cindy and Sebastian. Cindy just discovered she’s pregnant and Sebastian, who Gabi has known to be gay for a while, just came out to his family. Those two revelations set off the string of events to follow — Cindy’s pregnancy, as Gabi is by her side through the entirety of it and Sebastian’s coming out, as Gabi helps him find a stable place to live after he’s kicked out of his own home.

But this isn’t the story of what happens to Gabi’s friends.

Gabi’s own home life is imperfect, as is her love life. Her father is an addict, and he’s more unreliable than he is reliable and stable. Gabi’s upset and hurting by it, but because it’s such a normal part of her life, she depicts it as such.

She’s interested in a number of boys, but she has no idea whether they’re interested, and she certainly has no idea how to kiss them, were that opportunity to arise. But as the months roll on, we see Gabi test out relationships with a number of guys throughout, and she offers her keen insight into what she did or did not like about each one . . . and whether her final choice was the right one for her. There is keen, positive depictions of sexuality and Gabi’s understanding of her limits, as well as discussion of consent. Her aunt taught her the phrase “eyes open, legs closed,” which is a theme that runs throughout her diary, but it’s a phrase in which he can’t always agree — especially as more unravels about Cindy’s pregnancy and the pregnancy of another of Gabi’s classmates. Oh, and there’s the surprise pregnancy her mother has, too.

Because we get Gabi unfiltered, we see the pregnancies through her eyes without any glossing over. We know what it was like to be in the delivery room with Cindy and we know what it’s like when someone has to go to an abortion clinic and all of the steps and secrecy involved in that.

One of the biggest challenges Gabi faces in the story is that she’s torn between going away to college and remaining at home with her family. She’s stuck in that space between pursuing her own dreams as an American girl and the traditional role she has in staying home and helping with the family, as children in Mexican families often do. She applies to schools, including some big name universities, and ultimately gets accepted to her dream school. The wrestling she does about her future is complicated and thoughtfully approached, but it’s made even more challenging when she does something at school that gets her in trouble. Huge trouble.

And it’s here where Quintero’s good debut novel becomes an outstanding novel.

Although this is a diary of Gabi’s life, it’s a deep exploration of sexuality and more specifically, it’s also an exploration of “dude culture.” That is, why do we allow “boys to be boys” but we don’t offer protection to girls from boys? Or more accurately, why do we allow “boys to be boys” anyway? What does it say when boys are allowed to do what they want to and it’s permitted, where a girl has to suffer the consequences not just of her own actions but of the things acted upon her? Gabi won’t stand for it, and she keeps turning her mind back to that phrase “eyes open, legs closed.” It becomes almost a tool of power for her when she begins working through the anger and frustration she has, even though that wasn’t the intended purpose for her aunt telling it to her.

Gabi is also a fat girl. But she’s not just a fat girl in a YA novel. She’s a fat girl in a YA novel who loves to eat, who loves to talk about eating, and yet, she’s brutally honest about what being fat means in her life. She’s regularly teased and she’s given a lot of grief at home about it, and she herself admits to wishing she could be thinner. Trying on clothes is a pain, among other things. But what Quintero does not do in this book is make Gabi any less of a full, exceptionally-realized, dream-seeking main character. Her fat does not hold her back. It becomes a thing she talks about in a way that is another part of who she is, even if it’s something she feels like other people judge her much more harshly for than she does. Gabi’s body is not the whole story. Gabi’s body does not make her unable to live her life to the fullest. It does not make her unattractive to boys. It does not isolate her from her friends. It does not make her depressed or sullen or fearful of food. Her body is just that: her body. This is an amazing and affirming message to see in a book, and I think it will resonate deeply with readers.

This is a story that also includes positive female friendship, positive male-female friendship, laugh-out-loud moments of awkward interactions with boys, and really heart-warming scenes. There are some really tough parts to read, as Gabi’s family does suffer a major blow, but those are tempered with moments that make you cheer for Gabi, too. The diary format for Gabi, A Girl in Pieces was the absolute right choice for telling the story because it allowed both immediacy and distance from events (Gabi has to reflect on what happens after the fact, when she’s writing, rather than in the immediacy as it’s happening) and because it is exceedingly rare to see a “year in the life” diary of a character of color. Gabi owns every bit of this story.

Gabi is an empowered teen girl from the start, but it’s not something she entirely realized. It’s through this year she comes to discover that about herself — and those moments of getting it are rich for the reader.

Gabi, A Girl in Pieces has garnered five starred reviews so far from the trade journals, but I have seen virtually no discussion of this book and I think that may be because this is from a smaller press. But this is a book with huge teen appeal that I hope people pick up, give a chance, and then talk about. Quintero’s writing style and story telling reminded me a lot of Amy Spalding. Fans of Sara Zarr, Susan Vaught, or Siobhan Vivian’s novels will do well with this book, too. Readers looking for serious books that are infused with good moments of humor and honesty, as well as depictions of awkward teen relationships, dynamic families, the challenges of pursuing your own interests while also respecting and being part of a host of cultural traditions, and great female leads will find a lot to enjoy here.

Gabi, A Girl in Pieces is available now. Review copy from the publisher.

A Few Cybils Reads – Part II

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The public nomination period for the Cybils closed last week. I have 32 print books and 4 e-books checked out from the library currently scattered at various parts throughout my house (well, I guess the e-books aren’t really scattered), in addition to the books I already own (easily another dozen or so). You’d think that a kitchen table would be for eating things, but right now it’s pretty much just serving as a surface upon which to sort books – this stack I’ve read, this stack I haven’t, and so on.

Here are a few more brief reviews from the stack I’ve read.

Strange Sweet Song by Adi Rule
This book lives up to its title. It is very strange, almost too strange, for most of its existence, and then it hits you with some sweetness near the end that makes for a very satisfying resolution. Sing da Navelli is the daughter of a famous soprano, a woman who made a name for herself in opera – not only because of her voice, but also because she died in the middle of an aria. When Sing starts at Dunhammond Academy, a boarding school for musicians, she feels the weight of her father’s expectations as well as the public’s. As luck (good or ill) would have it, the school is performing Angelique this year, the opera that Sing’s mother died singing.

Parts of the story are told from Sing’s point of view as she tries to gain the lead role in the opera, make friends, date the cute boy, deal with rude teachers, and so on. Other parts are told from the point of view of the Maestro of the school in his youth, his young apprentice, and a strange being called the Felix who inhabits the woods outside the school. The Felix – which kills almost everyone it meets, but grants wishes to a select few – is itself a part of the opera, used as inspiration by the opera’s composer long ago. Its life is tied inextricably to the history of the school. At times the school story and the mythical story exist uneasily side by side. It takes a patient reader to push through all the parts and learn how they join together, but the payoff is lovely and rewarding, very fairy tale-esque with a sweet romance and interesting magic. The writing is lovely, too, giving the book a dreamlike quality. This would be a good pick for readers fascinated with the opera, the lives of classical musicians, and the magic that music can create.

Amity by Micol Ostow
Ostow has written a seriously creepy horror novel that most readers could probably finish in a single sitting. It tells two parallel stories both set in a house called Amity, but separated in time by ten years. Connor’s story is the past story; Gwen’s is the present. Each story begins with the teens’ families moving into Amity and noticing that something is a bit off with the house. In Connor’s case, he develops an affinity for Amity; the house gives him a sort of power. He feeds off of it and vice versa. In Gwen’s case, the house frightens her; it starts to do strange things to her brother, and she becomes more and more disturbed as she learns more about what happened ten years ago with Connor’s family.

Each teen tells their own story, and both teens at first seem fairly normal, but it quickly becomes apparent that Connor brought his own disease with him to Amity, a disease that Amity recognizes and exploits. Gwen suffers from a disease, too, but of a different kind. Eventually, Connor’s and Gwen’s stories combine. The switches in perspective are frequent, chapters are short, and there’s a lot of white space. These stylistic choices create an urgency to the story, which is perfectly paced (if perhaps just a touch too short). I know next to nothing about the actual Amityville events, so I can’t tell you how much of the book pulls from them and how much springs completely from Ostow’s imagination. What I can tell you is that Ostow excels at creating a haunting mood, one that isn’t driven by gore or things that jump out at you. It’s a slow burn, and by the end, most readers should be deliciously scared. Keep the lights on.

The In-Between by Barbara Stewart
The voice is what makes this book stand out from other is-it-or-isn’t-it-a-ghost stories. Ellie is fourteen, depressed, and on her way to a new town with her parents to make a fresh start. On the way there, her family’s car is involved in a crash which kills one of her parents and her cat. Ellie herself is seriously injured, but she pulls through. In her new home, she meets Madeline, a beautiful, perfect girl who quickly becomes her best friend. But then Madeline is gone, and Ellie finds herself adrift without her, struggling once again to put together the broken pieces of her life – and mostly failing.

Ellie’s story is difficult to read sometimes – she’s in such pain, and her voice is so achingly fourteen. It would take a hard heart not to be transported back to one’s own adolescence while reading this. Though I didn’t experience the same exact problems as Ellie, Stewart’s writing made me acutely aware of just how everything felt at that time in my life. Fourteen year olds experience things differently than adults. Sometimes it hurts to remember that. This is a first person story, told through Ellie’s journals (though it doesn’t feel overwhelmingly like an epistolary novel) and we are close, so very close, to Ellie as narrator. It’s possible she’s unreliable. What’s more likely, at least to me, is that Ellie just doesn’t know what’s going on. She can’t trust her own experiences, so we as readers can’t either. This is a short, intense read that should resonate with a lot of teens, many of whom will see themselves in Ellie.

A Few Cybils Reads

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Cybils nominations close tomorrow (have you nominated your favorite YA SFF yet?), and all Round 1 panelists, including myself, are deep into their reading. Here are a few recent reads.

Dark Metropolis by Jaclyn Dolamore
I started off my Cybils reading with this atmospheric novel inspired by Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent film Metropolis. I don’t know much about the film – aside from the fact that it exists – so I went into the book pretty blind. Happily, I really enjoyed it. It’s told from the third person perspective of three different teens: Thea, a girl who works at a cocktail bar whose father died in the war and whose mother suffers from “bound sickness” due to her husband’s death; Nan, a co-worker of Thea’s who wakes up one day in an underground prison where she’s forced to do menial work for no pay; and Freddy, who has the ability to bring people back from the dead.

The three teens’ stories intertwine, coalescing to tell a story about a massive conspiracy featuring forced labor, dark magic, and the beginnings of a revolution. The plot is quite complex, and the shifting perspectives help to illuminate it piece by piece, making for an engaging read. The place and time of the story is never specified, but it feels a little 1920s, post- World War I-ish. (Dolamore has stated on Goodreads that she intended it to be 1927 Germany, which fits.) This is a moody, creative story that would be a good fit for fantasy readers looking for something a little different.

The Devil’s Intern by Donna Hosie
Mitchell was hit by a bus and now he’s dead. As luck would have it, he’s ended up in Hell, and he’s landed the prestigious position of intern to the Devil with a capital D (not to be confused with the lower-case devils as all other denizens of Hell are called). He spends his time hanging out with his three best friends – all teenagers who died in different eras of history, including a Viking warrior – and trying his best to please his immediate boss, Septimus, and avoid the Big Boss, the Devil. Things really get going when Mitchell learns that Septimus has a device that will take the user out of Hell and fling him – plus any tagalongs – to any point in history. Naturally, Mitchell decides to use the device to prevent his death. He initially tries to do it alone, but his friends insist on coming along.

This is a time travel story and it makes great use of the device. The reader visits each of Mitchell’s friends’ lives, at the point of their deaths, and it’s here that Hosie shows what a great plotter she is. It reminded me a little bit of the time travel in Prisoner of Azkaban. The tone is different, but the philosophy behind the time travel is the same. We even get a scene that calls to mind Harry saving himself from the dementors – though the end result is very different.

This is a really enjoyable, funny, and often moving read – just don’t think about the premise too hard.

Prince of Shadows by Rachel Caine
In her latest, Rachel Caine leaves modern vampires behind and instead tackles Shakespeare’s Verona. This is a re-telling of Romeo and Juliet from Benvolio’s point of view, though Caine does make some major adjustments to the original story. Benvolio is the titular Prince of Shadows, called such because he wears a disguise and robs the wealthy residents of Verona at night, stealing from them for the thrill of it – and occasionally for revenge.

Benvolio’s two best friends are Romeo and Mercutio. Romeo is just as insipid as Shakespeare wrote him to be, but his feelings for Juliet are the result of a curse rather than youthful foolishness. The biggest change to Shakespeare’s story is Mercutio, who is gay in Caine’s re-telling, a fact which propels much of the story’s conflict. It’s a wise change that adds a lot of emotional depth to the story. Benvolio himself pines after Rosaline (as Romeo does at the beginning), but that relationship is pretty underdeveloped. Rosaline doesn’t actually get a lot of page time. The book is at its most successful when it explores the thorny friendship between Benvolio, Romeo, and Mercutio. A bit of magic near the end makes this a fantasy story, though it’s fairly light. Caine incorporates some of Shakespeare’s dialogue in an unobtrusive way that feels natural. The story is a bit overlong but a worthwhile read for fans of classics retold.

Audio Review: Cleopatra’s Moon by Vicky Alvear Shecter

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Though the title may lead some readers to think it, Cleopatra’s Moon is not, in fact, about Cleopatra VII, the most well-known Cleopatra of history who was famously portrayed by Elizabeth Taylor. Instead, it’s about her daughter, Cleopatra Selene, whose name is not nearly as well-known. In fact, in her author interview at the end of the book, Shecter mentions that many people didn’t even realize Cleopatra had a daughter – the romanticized stories aren’t particularly interested in Cleopatra’s children.

“Selene” means “moon” in ancient Greek, hence the title. Cleopatra Selene had a twin brother named Alexandros Helios; the second part of his name comes from the ancient Greek word for sun. People with names like these cry out for a story.

Unlike most YA novels, this one starts off with Cleopatra Selene at a pretty young age and keeps her there for a big portion of the book. It opens with her parents crowning her queen of a few Egypt-controlled territories and I believe she’s around 4 or 5 at that point. The story then progresses a few years, through her parents’ deaths and her time in Rome in the household of Octavia, Octavianus’ (Caesar’s) sister. When she first goes to Rome, she’s a pre-teen, and much of her growth as a character happens during this time. It’s only during the last third that she is old enough to be called what we think of as a “young adult” (a teenager). Despite her various ages, this is a young adult novel throughout – its themes are more complex than a middle grade novel, and the narrative voice is more mature and reflective.

This is a treat for fans of ancient Egyptian history. Do you know a reader who would have loved Mara, Daughter of the Nile if this were 1985? This book is the 21st century’s Mara. It’s got romance, political intrigue, murder, thievery, and a fantastic setting – two of them, actually, since the first portion is set in Egypt and the second portion in Rome. The fact that Cleopatra’s Moon is about an actual person, who lived and breathed and interacted with these people who seem right out of legend, only adds to the book’s allure. By the end of the book, Cleopatra Selene seems like a legend herself.

In her author interview at the end of the audiobook, Shecter talks about historical fiction as an exercise in “filling in the gaps.” This is especially true for ancient historical fiction, where most readers can only find out very basic information from a casual perusal of Wikipedia or their public library. There are a lot of gaps for an author to work with and a lot of creative license she can take. Shecter sticks close to what historians know of Cleopatra Selene, including her siblings’ lives, her move to Rome as a captive of Octavianus, and her eventual marriage. But even if you read up on the history before diving into the book, meaning you know just where Cleopatra Selene ends up as an adult, there’s plenty of narrative tension – there’s a lot to explore in the gaps.

Shecter’s writing is strong. Cleopatra Selene has so much to handle at so young an age (her parents’ suicides, attempted assassinations in Rome, and her own desires to reclaim Egypt), but never do we believe she won’t be a match for it, even if it may take her a while to figure things out. Above all, Shecter writes her characters and their story with respect. This is especially evident in her treatment of Cleopatra Selene’s religious beliefs. This is Cleopatra Selene’s story and her faith is as true to the author as it is to her. The characters and their cultures never feel exoticized.

The audiobook is narrated by Kirsten Potter, who isn’t one of my favorite narrators for a first person YA novel. Her voice sounds very mature, not like a teen’s. She also narrates the Hattie Big Sky audiobook, and that’s one reason I didn’t much care for it. (This is a case of personal preference; I know many listeners who enjoy Potter’s narration.) It’s a credit to Shecter’s storytelling skills that I was completely entranced regardless. Chapter breaks include haunting music which I quite liked and definitely help create the appropriate mood.      

This is another frustrating audiobook which does not include the historical note. It does include an interview with Shecter, which is fine, but doesn’t answer the nagging questions any historical fiction reader will want to know: What really happened and what did the author create? For that, you’ll have to find the ebook or the print book. It’s especially important for books like these, which are set in a time most people don’t know much about. If you do listen to the audio, and I recommend it, do yourself a favor and hunt down the ebook or print book so you can read the historical note as well.

Audiobook borrowed from my local library.