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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.

In Real Life by Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang + 3 Questions with Cory

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Cory Doctorow is known for exploring big social issues within his fiction for young adults, and his latest, the YA graphic novel In Real Life, is no different.

When Anda’s class has a female gamer come in and speak to them, Anda becomes fascinated with the idea of playing the game about which the guest spoke: Coarsegold Online. It’s a massive multiplayer roleplaying game, and it’s an opportunity for her to be a hero and it’s a place where she gets the opportunity to meet new people and make friends from around the world.

Gold farmers are exceptionally controversial in the game, as they are people who illegally collect valuable objects within the game, then sell them off to players in rich countries who can afford to purchase them. This, of course, gives those who are rich a mega advantage at the game. It’s an industry and an occupation, gold farming, but things get challenging when Anda befriends a gold farmer, who happens to be a poor boy from China. Suddenly, what seemed like a black-and-white/right-or-wrong situation with gold farming becomes a lot more complicated, as her friend’s life depends upon making money doing this job.

Doctorow’s story is complex and complicated, and while I think his introduction does a great job of offering an explanation for why what happens in the story isn’t just about the in-game world, I found myself needing to flip back more than once to better understand what was happening and what the gravity of the situation was. Part of this is being a non-gamer — and perhaps I’d have grasped some of these things better were this a world in which I was familiar — but part of it was that at times, the message overpowered the story and the development of Anda.

The story, being about how people buy and sell levels and powers in-world and how others want to rid the game world of the people who are in the business of helping others cheat for the right price, parallels the non-gaming world in terms of how people climb the ladder and how they can cheat social systems and structures in place for the right price. But beneath that, and what I think was harder to come across because of the graphic novel format, are the really human reasons and aspects behind why someone would want to work a job that’s purpose is to buck the system for others. We’re only ever privy to Anda’s perspective here, and, as noted, it’s one of privilege. That’s not a problem of her telling the story, but it’s a bigger problem of the overall impact of the story. She almost grew too quickly, and because of the privilege she has in her own life, she was able to pursue solutions that carried the story’s message almost too conveniently. There were other things that happened in the story that felt convenient or almost strange and difficult to believe, including small things like a gaming expert coming into a high school classroom and recruiting teens for her game, which includes a monthly fee.

That said, I still liked In Real Life, and a big reason for liking it was how wonderful Jen Wang’s art is throughout. This is a lushly illustrated work, and I give Wang major kudos for how Anda was rendered. This is a fat girl, and she was never once ashamed of being so. Her body is depicted realistically, and I can see so many girls seeing themselves in her. While there was one part of the story that made me cringe when it came to the dialog of body shaming, it was easy enough to let go because of how Anda carried herself. In many ways, that slip fit the bigger issues of this book being imperfect about how it depicted and explored social and political issues in the real, rather than virtual, world. This is a full-color graphic novel with an appealing color palate. I’m going to keep an eye on Wang because I hope to see a lot more from her.

In Real Life should appeal to teen graphic novel enthusiasts, and I especially think teen gamers will find a lot to enjoy here — and I think maybe more importantly, they’ll find a lot worth talking about and debating. This could make for a really solid book discussion title. This is a time-relevant title, but it doesn’t run the risk of becoming the kind of book that will become time-sensitive. What Doctorow did in Little Brother for the last generation of teens, he does here with In Real Life, serving up a meaty topic in a form that doesn’t talk down to its readers but encourages them to think, discuss, and act. This would be a great book to pair with Steve Brezenoff’s Guy In Real Life, which also delves into social issues through gaming — both virtual and real-world.

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In addition to talking about the book today, I was able to ask Cory a few questions about the book and some of the bigger issues broached in the story. Rather than talk about these within the review, I thought taking them straight to the source would be more interesting. I highly recommend checking out the other blogs who are taking part in asking Doctorow questions about In Real Life, and you can get the full list of other participants here. These might make discussing this book with teens even more interesting! 


What capacity do you believe gaming has for educating people about social/political challenges throughout the world? 

I think that games are
an art form, and that art does lots of stuff, including education. But
the primary thing that art does is make you feel irreducible, numinous
aesthetic effects.

Some games, like some art, can teach you just about anything, but that’s not what games are for.
It would be impossible to ignore the hostility that the gaming world has toward women. Yet, gaming has the capacity to be a tool of social mobility and change. How can girls and women navigate this disconnect? 
I wish I knew. My wife
is a retired professional gamer — she played Quake for England — and
through her I know a huge circle of hardcore, badass gamers and gaming
professionals.

Gender-based hatred
and harrassment in games is an epiphenomenon of wider social factors,
obviously. It’s not like women get a great deal everywhere *except*
games — and while ending games-based harassment
(by making it socially unacceptable to admit or evince misogyny as it
is in many other circles) would be a huge accomplishment, it would still
leave the underlying problem intact.
Your books, including IN REAL LIFE, focus on teens making a difference. Why teens? What is it about teenagers that you believe will cause social and political change? 
I
think we start out with well-developed senses of justice and fairness
— you see it in daycare classes — but circumstances cause us to
compromise a little
at a time. Each compromise resets your vision of a “normal” level of
fairness, so the next compromise is only perceived as a small variance
on normal, as opposed to a deeper cut into justice.

Teenagers exist at the intersection of
uncompromising justice and the capacity to act on it — old enough to do
stuff, young enough not to be convinced that nothing can be done.

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.

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander

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Josh Bell, aka Filthy McNasty, is a solid basketball player. His brother, Jordan, isn’t too bad himself. The twin boys, both middle schoolers, have been playing for a long time. Their dad wasn’t too bad a ball player himself back in the day either — in fact, he played professionally and earned some good money and good jewelry. But he quit playing, and when Josh tries to broach the question about why his dad stopped and why his dad doesn’t take up coaching, dad dodges the questions.

On the surface, Kwame Alexander’s verse novel The Crossover looks simple. It’s about a boy and his brother who play basketball. But it’s a much deeper, more complex novel about the challenges that exceptionally “average” characters can have. Josh is a relatable character, with two parents who are happily married. He and his brother get along. They’re passionate about the game.

But things become more complex.

Josh and Jordan make a bet with one another relating to the game, and when Josh loses the bet, his brother has earned the privilege of cutting off one of his beloved locks. A misstep, though, leaves Josh with more than one lock cut, and the resulting look is something his mother isn’t too happy with. She tells him that he’ll have to cut them all off. He’s not thrilled about it, but he goes along with it, and when he’s sent to look for a box in which he can put those cut locks, he stumbles upon a box containing not just one of his father’s precious rings from his time as a ball player, but he uncovers why his father quit the game. This revelation about his father opens up a whole new world to Josh and Jordan about their father and his deep-seeded fears.

As the season progresses, Jordan becomes enamored with a new girl at school. She reciprocates, and the two of them become boyfriend and girlfriend (in the way that middle schoolers are boyfriend and girlfriend — there’s no physical action and nothing happens on page here at all if there is). When this relationship begins to bud, suddenly Josh feels left out. His best friend and twin brother has entered into a new phase of life and a new experience that Josh hasn’t. They spend less time together as a team and more time apart. It’s a huge change for Josh, and at times, it comes across as jealousy and at other times, it comes across as grieving how his relationship with his brother once was.

There’s more though. The little secret about their father’s future in basketball was just the tip of what Josh discovers. As he’s spending more time alone, he’s been keeping an eye on his parents and learns that his dad hasn’t been feeling well. In one instance, he fainted after not feeling well. While his mother keeps telling his dad to see a doctor, since his other father died young of heart disease, his father won’t listen.

He’s afraid of doctors.

Between explosive scenes on the court, rendered visually in the text, are the moments of quiet sadness and fear that linger in Josh’s mind about his dad and the condition his dad may or may not be in. Spoiler: it’s not good condition, and when the basketball season comes to its final game, one that’s tense and important, Josh’s dad’s heart doesn’t stay strong enough for him to witness it. The last few pages of this book are tough to read.

The Crossover makes exceptionally smart use of the verse format, without once feeling overdone or leaving the reader with the feeling a lot was lost because of the style. Alexander plays with the format visually in tense action scenes, and Josh’s voice comes through. He loves rap and he plays around with rap himself, so the poetry and the beat of this story are authentic, natural, and memorable. This is the kind of story you’d read out loud because it lends itself to that. The speed and intensity of the game pair with the rhythm of the text.

The little details of this book stand out because of the format, and those little details tell us so much about Josh and the rest of his family. His mom is the assistant principal at his school, and he feels more pressure for himself and on the court because of that. Of course, dad’s former role as a player doesn’t help that. Both mom and dad are supportive in his and his brother’s lives and in their passion for the game. Josh is also an average student, and even when things start getting tough for him, what’s sacrificed is his behavior, not his intellect or his capacity to do well. Those behavioral changes are done in a way that make you want to hug him and tell him it’s going to be all right. He’s a great kid, with a great head on his shoulders, and passions that are worth pursuing.

Being that this book is about 7th graders, this “it’s going to be all right” sentiment is important because it taps into what so many middle schoolers feel at that age. It’s a rough transition period for even the most “average” kid. People are growing and changing in ways that do and don’t make sense. What seems like a natural thing — Josh’s brother getting a girlfriend — is something much more than that. It’s a crisis of Josh’s identity since he’s no longer half of the Josh and Jordan pair. He’s an entirely independent being, and being jolted into that awareness is tough because it’s new.

Alexander’s book falls into a weird area, though. This book is perfectly appropriate for middle grade readers, and it’s also going to have appeal for both young YA readers and more reluctant YA readers. The challenge on that end, though, is that teens who read YA will likely be less willing to read about 7th graders than middle grade readers would be. I suspect The Crossover may fall between the cracks because of this, and I sure hope it doesn’t. Alexander’s book is about this “crossover” period, and it’s going to speak deeply to teens (especially boys and especially black boys who don’t see enough of themselves in realistic fiction) who are in that “crossover” period themselves. This is a book you sell to readers based on their maturity and interest, rather than on the grade or reading level they’re at. The Crossover will make a great bridge to books like Matthew Quick’s Boy21, too, both because of the content and the well-drawn, dynamic, and memorable characters.

You know exactly the kid who needs this book, who will fall in love with this book, and most important, who will see himself in this book. There is a gut punch at the end, but it’s not a story without hope to it.

Pass this book along to those readers.

The Crossover is available now. Review copy picked up from the library. 

Audio Review: Prisoner of Night and Fog by Anne Blankman

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I always think it’s more than a little daring for an author to attempt writing historical fiction featuring real people whose lives are heavily documented. Yet that’s exactly what Anne Blankman does in her novel, Prisoner of Night and Fog, which is also a debut – and all the more impressive for it. Her efforts are resoundingly successful and make for a gripping, devastating audiobook, narrated excellently by Heather Wilds.

The risks in writing this kind of historical novel are many. Because the characters’ lives are so well-known, there could be little room for embellishment or imagination on the part of the author. Yet it’s the embellishment – the filling in of the blanks – that makes historical fiction so enticing to many readers. What can an author do when there aren’t many blanks to fill in? By sticking strictly to the historical record, she tells a story the reader could find by browsing the nonfiction section of the library – and that’s not what historical fiction readers are looking for. But by creating something new, she risks making the story unbelievable for the reader, who would know for a fact that events did not unfold as described.

Blankman’s strategy is to create a wholly fictional character in her protagonist, Gretchen Muller, and surround her with real people from history, most prominently Adolf Hitler. Hitler is not merely a person seen from afar, as happens in many historical novels set in this time and place; he is a vital, terrifying secondary character, one who interacts regularly with Gretchen and helps propel the story forward. To Gretchen, Hitler is her “Uncle Dolf,” a man revered by her whole family. Several years ago, Gretchen’s father died as a martyr to the National Socialists when he jumped in front of a bullet meant for Hitler. Since then, “Uncle Dolf” has looked out for Gretchen and her family, giving them a position of social prominence and a measure of safety in uncertain 1931 Munich.

One day, Gretchen is approached by a young man named Daniel Cohen who tells her that her father’s murder is not what it seems. Initially, Gretchen resists the idea, both because she believes in her father’s sacrifice and because Daniel is a Jew. She is, after all, a good little National Socialist in training.

But her hesitancy doesn’t last long. Gretchen is a sympathetic character, so naturally her aversion to Jewish people erodes until it’s gone completely, and she and Daniel begin a sweet romance that provides a nice subplot to the main story. This puts her in conflict with her “Uncle Dolf” as well as her many friends among the Nazis, but most particularly her older brother, Reinhard, a sadist and sociopath. Reinhart is perhaps even more terrifying than Hitler is, partly because his crimes are more readily apparent (at this point) and partly because he is closer to her. Reinhard’s actions spur Gretchen to learn more about pyschology while investigating her father’s death, and this subplot dovetails nicely with Gretchen’s revelations about her Uncle Dolf.

Other real people make appearances in the story. Eva Braun is Gretchen’s best friend, and Hitler’s real-life niece Geli Raubal is another acquaintance of hers. Hitler’s allies also make frequent appearances and interact with Gretchen, including Ernst Rohm and Rudolf Hess.

This is a dark, moody, and mostly humorless story. It’s frequently terrifying, both overtly when Reinhard commits acts of violence against Jews and against his sister, and less visibly, during Gretchen’s conversations with Hitler, where much is intimated but never spoken plainly. Much of the terror comes from the fact that we as readers know what Gretchen does not: that soon Hitler will conquer much of Europe and act as the catalyst for the massacre of millions of people. Wilds narrates the book’s dialogue with a German accent, which lends authenticity to the story and makes for a truly immersive listening experience.

I was so looking forward to the author’s note at the end of the book, which I hoped would explain exactly where fact met fiction (so essential in historical fiction featuring real people). Alas, the audiobook version did not include it, though I know the print version does. Sure, I can look the people up on Wikipedia, but that’s no match for the research done by the author, which is more in-depth, interesting, and specific to the story being told than an encyclopedia article could ever be. Audiobook producers: We want the author’s note. There’s no harm in including it; if other readers are bored by it, they’ll simply stop the recording and move on with their lives. But I’m certain that would be rare. Readers who seek out historical fiction – teens included – want that extra information, believe me.

Audiobook borrowed from my local library.