Nonfiction Roundup

November 30, 2016 |

While Kelly has been busily plugging away at her Cybils nonfiction reading, I’ve also been delving a bit into the YA nonfiction world via my workplace’s Mock Printz committee. We had three nonfiction titles we were considering, all I highly recommend.

In Florence Nightingale: The Courageous Life of the Legendary Nurse, Catherine Reef takes her readers on a journey through the life of perhaps the most famous nurse in the Western world. Florence Nightingale is best known for her work in the Crimean War where she selflessly and tirelessly cared for the wounded English soldiers, but in truth, that’s only a small part of her long and extensive career. That career involved numerous reforms in how medicine was practiced and applied and the transformation of nursing into a vocation – a socially acceptable one for women of her time. She started the first secular nursing school and published many papers on her findings, which included graphs of statistical data, something not much done at the time.

Reef also gives her readers peeks into Nightingale’s personality. She had a prickly temperament and was a bit of a domineering manager. She considered marrying a man whom she cared deeply for, but ultimately decided her dedication to nursing, something she felt called to by God, was more important. Personal insights like these interspersed among her professional accomplishments give readers a well-rounded and fascinating overview of an important woman. This is a smoothly-written biography appropriate for older middle grade and YA collections.

Patricia McCormick delivers a biography of a very different but equally fascinating person, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in The Plot to Kill Hitler: Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Spy, Unlikely Hero. I had heard of Dietrich Bonhoeffer before, and knew he died due to his involvement in assassination attempts against Hitler, but beyond that, I knew very little. I’m not alone in this: of the many adults I asked about Bonhoeffer, I don’t think any even knew who he was. This book should change that. It’s written for a younger audience than Reef’s, solidly middle grade (maybe on the young side of middle grade, even), with short chapters and an intrusive (though not annoying) authorial voice on the part of McCormick.

McCormick traces Bonhoeffer’s life from a young, sensitive German boy who loved music to his decision to become a pastor to his vow to resist peacefully (Gandhi was his example) and ultimately to his decision to bring down Hitler by any means necessary – even violently. Bonhoeffer and his cohorts’ attempts all failed, and he and most of the others involved – including his brothers – were executed as a result. But McCormick asks her young readers to consider the question: “Does the fact that he didn’t succeed in his aims make him any less of a hero?” While the book itself is short and can feel slight to adult readers, this is weighty stuff for kids, and it’s incredibly moving for readers of any age.

Albert Marrin tackles the same time period from a different perspective in Uprooted: The Japanese American Experience During World War II. Marrin covers the Japanese-American imprisonment in American concentration camps (with an excellent explanation for why these were concentration camps, not internment camps, both legally and practically speaking). He also delves into Japanese-American participation as soldiers in both the Pacific and the European warfronts. He begins with a brief historical overview of the conflicts between Japan and the West and Japan and China, both vital to understanding the Japanese-Americans’ situation during World War II.

Marrin accurately uses the words “white supremacy” and “racism” when describing how Japanese-Americans were treated during this time period. He quotes people like FDR and other lawmakers repeatedly, using their own words to demonstrate how their own racism fueled the country’s racism and led to egregious human rights violations. Importantly, he also discusses how people can change, most notably Earl Warren, who strongly supported the uprooting of Japanese-Americans during World War II as Attorney General of California, but later deeply regretted his actions and went on to help usher in some of the most vital civil rights decisions as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, including Brown v. Board of Education, Gideon v. Wainwright, Miranda v. Arizona, and Loving v. Virginia. Most importantly, Marrin highlights the lives of those Japanese-Americans who fought for or were imprisoned by their country, including Senator Daniel Inouye and Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, author of Farewell to Manzanar.

Marrin’s book is not only an important tool for teaching us about our history; unfortunately now, it is also a call to action. In the last part his book, he draws clear parallels between how Japanese-Americans were treated after Pearl Harbor (until a few weeks ago, universally recognized as appalling) and how Muslim-Americans were and are treated in a post-9/11 America. Uprooted will only grow more important as the months go on. Marrin’s account is well-written, detailed, important, and should be required reading for all Americans.

Skip It: How To Keep Rolling After A Fall by Karole Cozzo

November 28, 2016 |

I believe in taking any genre of fiction seriously. This extends, too, to romance. I don’t mean that to say that genre fiction can’t be funny or sweet, but rather, genre fiction matters in the same way that literary fiction does and thus, can and should be held to high standards for quality. And in the case of How To Keep Rolling After A Fall by Karole Cozzo, a high standard for representation of disability.

It starts out with a scene that is a bit jarring: Nikki is approaching the end of the summer, and she immediately is in an argument with a boy at the Rehabilitation and Nursing center. She’s been “volunteering” there over the last few months, and as the book begins, that boy realizes who Nikki is. She’s Nicole Baylor, the girl who got kicked out of her old school because of a horrible cyber bullying incident.

He was angry she hadn’t been forthcoming with who she was or why she was volunteering. Fair enough, right? The girl had a reputation preceding her, and that boy , Jeremiah, is and will be the only level-headed character in the entire book.

He gets half a chapter of story.

As soon as the fight breaks out, Nikki takes a walk away from the orthopedic wing, wherein she is immediately face-to-face with the boy in a wheelchair named Max. I use that description not to belittle Pax but rather to give a sense of who Pax is to Nikki and who Pax is throughout the entirety of the story. Pax is the boy in the wheelchair. The sweet, inspirational boy in the wheelchair. The boy who is never more than the sweet boy in a wheelchair who, because of his status as the sweet and inspirational boy in the wheelchair, becomes the person who has to give Nikki her strength back after her terrible cyberbullying fallout and the person who, throughout the story, is offered no privacy or personal freedom as a character.

He exists entirely to prop up Nikki, a character who never sees a single consequence or arc in her character.

But let’s back up a second before getting into the problem of Pax. Or rather, the problem of how Pax is written in the story. First, let’s address the fact that this story begins with the knowledge that Nikki got kicked out of her high school at the end of junior year because of a bullying incident. The incident? A party Nikki threw at her own home, without her parents knowing, involved girls hooking up with boys and one girl being photographed during the incident. Those photos were then uploaded to social media via Nikki’s account, even though Nikki “had nothing to do with it.” Nikki’s four besties, of course, got off scot free because they claimed they had nothing to do with the incident, and, since the images went up under Nikki’s name, she was the one to get the consequences.

And that’s what we’re told of this incident. It is, of course, the Big Plot Point the entire story. It’s an emotional connector for Nikki and her new friend at her new (private) high school, and it’s the emotional connector between her and Pax, who forgives her without any question. Of course, he met her post-incident, so he knows only that aspect of her and he, like every person picking up this book, is expected to just accept Nikki’s side of the story to be the truth. Even though we’re also informed that the girl who had her images uploaded on social media attempted suicide. Of course, there’s no sympathy from Nikki when she lays this out to Pax. It’s just a thing that happened that ruined her life, no big deal.

Bullying, y’all, isn’t something to just accept that easily. Rather, Cozzo only offers this backstory to afford her character a way into her current situation and to offer a false sense of sympathy from the reader. But, when your main character has no growth and has no growth because we know nothing about the major preceding incident besides what she’s told us, there’s no way to sympathize. Further, the fact that Nikki’s parents are depicted merely as strict and upset after the incident and, throughout the book, they continue to cave on their strictness, we see no other side of the story. By showing us nothing, we see no growth.

If anything, we see regression because of the role Pax plays.

Pax is a good guy. A real good guy. Even though he’s in a wheelchair, he’s a good guy and bonus, he’s cute. He’d even be cute if he wasn’t in a wheelchair.

But Pax doesn’t want you to feel sorry for him at all. He wants you to understand he’s great and happy and he’ll play a mean game of wheelchair rugby. Pax is okay with having lost the possibility of getting a full ride to a college on a water polo scholarship because, well, as much as being disabled sucks, he’s okay with it! And he wants to be an inspiration for others to (wait for it, y’all) keep on rolling after a fall.

If Nikki knows anything, it’s a fall! And oh, Pax, he’s the perfect guy to show her how to pick herself up and keep going. A wealthy, privileged white girl has to have something (don’t worry — she will tell you she’s those things!).

There’s no character in Pax beyond his role as inspiration porn. He has no depth, and even when there is a moment for him not feeling well and fear falls into the heart of Nikki, he bounces back quickly and shakes it off as no big deal. Because he’s a guy in a wheelchair and he’s damn happy to be alive. Even his mother plays into the role of her son as inspiration porn, and it’s disheartening through and through as a reader to see the cardboard nature of each and every one of the characters in this book, but especially that each of them is there only to serve as a prop for Nikki. Perhaps had Nikki been developed or offered any sort of depth to her character or any sort of history or, like, anything, we’d feel differently as readers. And perhaps that would have allowed for Pax to be more than the cute guy in the wheelchair.

But alas, it only gets worse.

The thing that bothered me the most about this book and its representation of disability is that Pax is offered none of the privacy that other characters who are abled are provided. And while it can be “easily explained away” by the fact Pax is open and honest and loves sharing his story in order to help others, that is in itself the problem. To be specific, there is an entire scene involving Nikki and Pax at the Rehab center at night, wherein they’ve decided to go and have a private swim in the pool. Pax had previously mentioned that he wasn’t ashamed of much because he’s had a catheter and in this utterly painful to read scene, we’re given an entire opportunity to force Pax to talk about using a catheter. This scene becomes further uncomfortable when Pax says — no joke — he hasn’t been in a real relationship since the accident and has no idea whether or not his body is capable of getting it up.

Yes. Pax is upfront about a catheter and about being unsure whether or not he can have an erection.

This scene is an excellent example of what not to do with disability representation in a book, especially when written by a (presumably via internet searching!) able-bodied white author. As readers, this isn’t our business, just as it’s not our business in the world around us, unless we ourselves are the person who is disabled or close enough to earn that sort of trust from a person who is disabled. In this instance, it serves to answer invasive questions that Nikki nor readers are at all privileged to hear.

But worry not; when Nikki and Pax become a little more romantic later on in the book, she informs Pax that he can, indeed, get it up. Because we couldn’t let that go unexplored. Pax is here for one purpose and one purpose only. Never does he get the chance to be part of the story; never do we understand what it is that makes “a guy like him” (a terrible phrase that pops up far too often) attracted to Nikki. This is a book only about Nikki and the way Nikki wants to be seen.

A few cringe-worthy lines worth pulling to further why this is a book that’s a terrible example of disability representation and thus, a terrible example of a good romance for teen (or adult) readers. I flagged instances as I read, and nearly half the book is flagged:

“You will never be able to go anywhere without drawing some level of attention, without people wondering why you’re there with me”

— a line Pax throws at Nikki during a tiff they had. It’s almost as if the whole cyberbullying-and-getting-kicked-out-of-school thing we learned about in the first chapter no longer means anything in this town, but being around “a guy like Pax” would.

“‘There’s still so much good in her,’ he tells them. Then Pax looks back at my parents one final time before leaving my house. ‘And you know, it’s a damn shame that some boy she’s known for a few weeks gets to see it and appreciate it while the people who created her don’t.'”

— a nice little inspirational speech given by Pax the first time he meets Nikki’s parents. A chapter or so later, mom is moved and inspired by that nice boy and has a change of heart. So nice some boy she just met who has a heart of gold could inspire that kind of change. I have a few guesses as to why (what parent couldn’t be guilted by a boy with a wheelchair, right?).

“‘Number two, you didn’t mention crumbling sidewalks and a four-block walk.’ Then I stumble over my own feet and I realize my slip. ‘I’m sorry,’ I blurt out. ‘That was wrong.’

‘What?’

‘You know. Complaining. About having to . . . walk.’

Pax just laughs. ‘Aren’t we past that? In those shoes? You’re more handicapped than I am.'”

“I stare down at his limp legs. When I first met Pax, it kind of seemed like his self-assurance and big personality didn’t match up with the reality of his situation. Now it just seems like the uselessness of his lower body doesn’t match up with the reality of him. From the waist up, he is strong and capable in every sense of the word.”

All of the quotes are pulled from the final edition of the book.

Something I haven’t mentioned in this review but is worth sharing: I was sent this as a title for ALAN Picks. I’ve reviewed for them before, and even though romance isn’t my wheelhouse, I knew reading a romance and being able to write up a review for teachers, librarians, and other youth advocates wouldn’t be too hard (it’s what I do here, after all). ALAN Picks, for those who aren’t familiar, are only positive reviews. They highlight books that are good and worth knowing about.

I chose not to submit a review because I cannot recommend this book and even with some of the things that made the book feel “real” — things like name dropping brands and pop cultural references — don’t at all make up for the poor representation and lack of character development. Romance should be taken as seriously as other genres, and for a book meant to be light hearted, it fumbles before it gets anywhere. The kisses which should be swoon worthy are marred by the fact they’re only there because Pax is a tool of growth for Nikki. He is little more than inspiration porn for her, as well as for the reader.

To quote Kody Keplinger, who is one of the founders behind the incredible Disability in Kid Lit resource, a major problem with disability inspiration porn is this:

[E]ven if the intentions are good, it implies that the average disabled person is weak or lacks independence. So when people tell me I’m “amazing” for being out in the world, it implies the average blind person is a shut in. In reality, disabled people are people and want to be treated like normal people. This means not being seen as “brave” or “inspirational” for average, every day actions. Unfortunately, the news, modern lit, modern film, etc, seem to think this is the only way to tell the story of a disabled person. The plot is always “Character X has Disability Y, but she STILL MIRACULOUSLY MANAGES TO OVER COME IT.” Disabled people in the media are always treated as extraordinary and not ordinary. And, to put it eloquently, it sucks.

You can dig a bit more into the problems of disability/inspiration porn here.

I, like the author of this book, am white and able bodied. I, like the author of this book, am a writer and know the power of words. But what leaves me feeling unsettled is that this book lacks a sense of having done the work necessary to capture the reality of life for a disabled person. It lacks the sense of having considered that Pax should be more than a tool of Nikki’s growth. And it fails to even offer him a story he can call his own.

So much could have been done to save this book with just a little help from a sensitivity reader, a strong editorial eye, or even a few hours spent reading through the incredible resource that the kid lit community has about disability.

I choose to talk about this book with depth and criticism because this is a problem that emerges again and again in the YA world and beyond. The work isn’t being done, and critics aren’t speaking up — or they are and they aren’t being listened to by those who really need to hear it. How To Keep Rolling After A Fall doesn’t appear yet to have any trade reviews as of this writing, and I hope when those do begin to trickle in, that the reviewers are willing to do the work calling this what it is: a book to be skipped.

And there is no shame in not purchasing this book for a collection or recommending it to a teen romance lover because we are fortunate to have authors like Nicola Yoon, Jenny Han, Siobhan Vivian, Lauren Morrill, Sarah Dessen, and many more who are writing romances that also tackle meaty topics like bullying or eating disorders or struggling family lives and do them some damn justice.

As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales From the Making of the Princess Bride by Cary Elwes with Joe Layden

November 16, 2016 |

Do you need something happy and palate-cleansing to temporarily take your mind off the shithole that our country is descending into? Are you a fan of The Princess Bride? If your answer to both of those questions is yes, and I’m assuming it will be for most of our readers, allow me to recommend As You Wish, an excellent audiobook by Cary Elwes (with some help from Joe Layden) about the making of The Princess Bride, full of fun little stories and a huge heaping of love for everyone involved.

If you’re at all like me, it can be a bit of a bummer to learn that some of the actors or writers or creators involved in a piece of art you love actually hated each other. We want the actors to be as charming and kind as the characters they portray; we want their on-screen friendships to be mimicked behind the scenes. There’s nothing to fear about The Princess Bride in this regard – according to Elwes, Rob Reiner was the kindest of directors, Robin Wright was the most talented and beautiful of co-stars, and Andre the Giant’s stature matched his heart. In fact, everyone got along so well and the movie they made was so magical, many of them remember it as the best movie-making experience of their entire careers.

Elwes takes his listeners on a journey from the time he was cast as Westley to the movie’s release and the cast reunion 25 years later. Other actors and people involved voice their own parts as well, including Rob Reiner, William Goldman (referred to as Bill by Elwes), Robin Wright, Wallace Shawn, Billy Crystal (calling in by phone), Christopher Guest, and Chris Sarandon. Hearing this chorus of voices really does an excellent job of bringing the listener right back into the world of the movie, and I highly recommend you listen to this on audio because of it.

We learn that Elwes, on Andre the Giant’s urging, took Andre’s ATV out for an ill-advised spin and broke his toe, which is why you can see him limping a bit as he and Buttercup race into the Fire Swamp. There’s an amusing story about one of the stuntmen who portrayed a rodent of unusual size, and Wallace Shawn talks about his enduring fear that he could never measure up to Danny DeVito, whom the producers initially wanted for Vizzini (Reiner is quick to reassure us that Shawn was always the top pick and did a perfect job). Billy Crystal and Carol Kane’s improv skills are lauded, and Elwes talks about how difficult it was not to laugh while he was supposed to be mostly dead at Miracle Max’s. There’s nothing hugely revelatory in any of these little stories, and that’s kind of the point, I think. Everyone got along and they all remain friends. The film was a joy to make, and they produced something they’re proud of and that endures. Elwes portrays the film’s making as we all hoped it was: just like the film itself.

The Diabolic by S. J. Kincaid

November 2, 2016 |

I first read this book in June, and I’ve been eagerly anticipating its release date (yesterday, November 1!) so I could publish this review. It was my favorite book of the year so far in June; it’s held its position since then. With The Diabolic, Kincaid has improved upon her Insignia series (which was quite good) and given us a true science fiction treat: a space adventure with a killer hook, complex world-building, political machinations that will interest teenagers, an unusual love story, characters you love and characters you love to hate, and a twisty plot that will leave you breathless. It’s got a bit of a Dune feel, a bit of a Game of Thrones feel, but it’s mainly its own thing, and it’s definitely written for teens.

Nemesis is a Diabolic, a genetically engineered being created to protect Sidonia, a senator’s daughter. Nemesis is strong, ruthless, violent, and loyal to Sidonia only. Like all other Diabolics, she was forced to bond early on with the person she protects, and she is not considered to be fully human – or human at all, really. Years later, when Sidonia is a teenager, the Emperor orders all Diabolics destroyed; they are too dangerous. But Sidonia loves Nemesis, considers her a sister, a part of her family, so she is secretly spared. This comes in handy when Sidonia’s father, the senator, angers the Emperor and the Emperor calls for Sidonia to be a hostage at his court as a safeguard against future bad behavior. Because no one knows what Sidonia actually looks like, they decide to send Nemesis instead. After all, protecting Sidonia is what she was made for, and she does it willingly.

The story takes place against a backdrop of war between science and religion. Previous generations created the highly advanced ships and other advancements that their society now takes for granted, but the knowledge of their creation – and how to repair it all – has been lost over time. The ships are failing, and when they do, they’re killing people, and ripping holes in space. The Emperor’s family long ago imposed a religion that mandates no study of technology or science at all in response to this crisis, which is exactly the opposite tack Sidonia’s senator father and his allies think should be taken. Nemesis is caught in the middle of this, as the Emperor intended – or rather, he intended Sidonia to be. Watching Nemesis interact with the Emperor and his family members (who all have different motivations) is one of the joys of reading this book. Every line can have multiple interpretations, and Nemesis must puzzle out exactly what each character’s words and actions mean.

I’m a sucker for a well-plotted book, and Kincaid does a fantastic job with The Diabolic. Aside from the main plotline I described above, there are multiple ancillary characters who have intentions – good or ill – for Nemesis-as-Sidonia. Kincaid juggles multiple moving pieces with these characters, their behind the scenes doings, and how they connect (or don’t) to Nemesis’ situation as hostage. There’s also some nifty action scenes and several shocking twists (that make sense in context, so important!). The way everything plays out is so much fun to read. Meanwhile, Nemesis has to continue to convince everyone she’s the gentle senator’s daughter when she’s anything but (this book does get a bit violent at times, and Nemesis does kill to protect Sidonia), and acting in such a way causes her to wonder if she is in fact human. After all, Sidonia always believed she was. And there’s a really interesting romance, too, with a character you’ll guess right away, but it doesn’t develop as you think it will, and the two are actually drawn to each other due to commonalities in personality and goals, not just because they’re the two primary young people in the story.

I can’t really talk about the ending much, but I want to at least mention how much I love it. It’s a conclusive ending, but it also leaves an opening for Nemesis to change her mind, to further analyze the situation and the people around her and make changes based upon that analysis. The book ends here, and it’s a good ending, but Nemesis’ story goes on.

This should be a surefire hit with almost any teen science fiction fan. It’s a big story with tons of appeal factors: space travel, futuristic technology, an interesting new world, plot twists galore, a touch of romance, ruminations on the nature of humanity, and a kickass protagonist. Highly recommended.

Grab Bag

October 19, 2016 |

My reading has been a bit eclectic lately, so this post is a grab bag of brief reviews of a few recent reads: an adult romance novel, a YA fantasy, and an adult nonfiction book.

Cold-Hearted Rake by Lisa Kleypas

Any romance reader worth her salt knows Lisa Kleypas. For the past several years she’s been writing contemporary romances (which I’ve just started getting into), but she started in historicals, and Cold-Hearted Rake marks her very welcome return to them. Like her many other fans, I was highly anticipating this one; unfortunately, I felt a little disappointed by it. Kleypas works with a few common historical romance tropes: the heroine is a young widow whose husband died in an accident, leaving the estate to his cousin; the hero is this cousin who wants nothing to do with the estate, its tenants, or the widow and her three sisters-in-law who occupy it; they fall in love after overcoming their initial mutual dislike. Kleypas is normally very good at using these tropes to create characters whose relationships with each other are complex and believable, but I feel like she fell a bit short here. I never believed that the two leads should have ever truly liked each other, much less loved each other, and the secondary storyline (which is a lead-in for this book’s sequel, Marrying Winterborne) featuring one of the sisters was pretty repellent to me – the hero seems awful and a bad kisser to boot. So not only was I not in love with this book, I don’t really have a desire to pick up the second one. Too bad. Still, it’s a Kleypas book, and even her mediocre ones are often worth checking out. Your mileage may vary.

Riverkeep by Martin Stewart

I think this title will be very hit or miss with readers. It was mostly a miss for me, though the concept is intriguing. Wulliam is 16 years old and about to inherit the job of Riverkeep from his father, which entails making sure the Danek River is free of ice and other debris, keeping the lamps lit so travelers can see at night, and fishing the occasional dead body out. It can be very challenging, lonely, and macabre, so Wull is not thrilled about it. Then one day his father falls out of the boat and is possessed by a creature from the river that can only be removed with something found in the body of a mormorach, a Moby Dick-like beast at the other end of the river. So Wull sets off to kill it, picking up a few acquaintances with their own motives along the way. Stewart’s world-building is strong in parts (the job of the Riverkeep in particular is interesting), but it often relies on lazy ideas: names of people and words for invented animals are very similar to our own names and words, just with a letter or two changed. And the characters and their adventures are really strange, like later Wizard of Oz novels to the eleventh degree, with a generous dose of gross. It felt a little like weirdness for the sake of weirdness, not for the story and its characters. It’s slowly paced and includes a lot of made-up dialect, which can be off-putting for some readers and a draw for others. What I wrote on Goodreads is a good summation for this book: “Extreme weirdness punctuated every so often by sex jokes.” More than a little incongruous and just not for me.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

I am over two decades late to this, but it’s riveting pseudo-nonfiction and I can see why it was such a sensation. The main thrust of the story is the murder of a young man (rumored to be a prostitute) in Savannah, Georgia, and the (closeted gay) man accused of it, who was tried four different times before finally being acquitted. But Berendt also focuses much of his story on everyone else who lived in Savannah in the mid-90s, including most famously the Lady Chablis, a drag queen who became famous after the book was published and played herself in the movie version (she recently passed away just last month). There’s a scene where she crashes a debutante party and carefully and deliberately makes everyone there uncomfortable, including Berendt; with her actions, she completely indicts the area’s racism, homophobia/transphobia, and classism. All aspects of this book – the murder, the trials, the social and racial politics of Savannah, the odd people you’d love to meet (Chablis) and the odd people you’d run from (the man who was rumored to be planning to poison the water supply) – are fascinating. I call this pseudo-nonfiction because in Berendt’s author’s note, he acknowledges that he moved around the order of some events, placing himself in Savannah before the murder, when in fact he didn’t decide to visit the town until it had already happened and was making news. He also admits that he inserted himself into some scenes that were actually just described to him by others, making it seem like he was a part of certain conversations that he wasn’t. So the complete veracity of the dialogue and specific actions are suspect, but the book itself is fascinating, both for true crime lovers and general nonfiction readers.