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First day on Earth by Cecil Castellucci

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One of the best things about speculative fiction is that it sometimes cuts to the truth of real life better than contemporary literature can. Sometimes it nails things in a way that no realistic book ever has and it rips your heart to shreds.

Speculative fiction is quickly becoming one of my favorite genres because of this.

So before I start into what will be one of the most personal reviews I’ve ever written and shared, be warned that this review features spoilers. But they aren’t going to ruin the plot or the emotional heft of the story. In fact, I think knowing these things ahead of time will make your experience with Cecil Castellucci’s First Day on Earth more powerful. It’s a short book — a mere 150 pages — and some of the chapters are simply one sentence long. Those words, though, are some of the most powerful I’ve ever experienced as a reader. I walked away from this book thinking that for the very first time in my life, I’ve found someone who just got it.

In theory and from the description, First Day on Earth is a book about Mal, who is an alien. All he wants to do is go back to where he’s from. And in his Alateen group, he’s met this guy named Hooper who is crazy. Who also claims to be from another planet. As soon as the two of these guys who feel like the loneliest people on Earth meet, though, things change. Hooper knows he has to go back to his home star. Mal doesn’t want to let him go because he’s finally forged a friendship with someone, and Mal is desperate to go with him.

But . . . this book is not at all about the aliens. I didn’t believe for a second either one of these guys is an alien or from another planet.

These two guys are as human as human gets.

Mal is angry. His home life sucks. Mal’s mom and dad recently divorced after being apart for a few years. Mal’s mom has sunk into alcoholism and deep depression and his dad has just disappeared all together.

This is the first time I can recall ever truly feeling like I connected with a character dealing with a father issue. Mal’s dad is gone. Completely gone. He left nothing in his wake, though Mal knows where he lives. His dad hasn’t bothered calling, hasn’t bothered checking in, doesn’t care. He’s moved on. He’s living a new life with a new wife and kids and has completely divorced himself from Mal. What triggers the story is that after his father’s walked out, he’s back in the sense he wants to make his disappearance permanent. His mother got paperwork to make it so.

Mal has every right in the world to be as angry about it as he is. Every moment Mal got angry, I was angry with him. I’ve been there. It sucks. Everything Mal felt is completely authentic. Reading this thin little book brought out some gross emotions I’d shoved deep down because Mal’s story hit that little nerve I like to keep buried. But it felt good to feel them right along with this character. When Mal gets the chance to see his father in his new life as the theatrical director of Our Town (come on, how brilliant is this?) and is asked to help set up the show — his father, of course, not recognizing his own son because of time and sheer ignorance — and all he does is walk away I. freaking. cheered. It’s an incredibly painful moment for Mal to face the fact in order to move on, in order to reach the place he desperately longs for, he has to do the walking away. He needs the closure.

I don’t usually quote from the book, but this moved me to tears, and I think it speaks straight to the power Castellucci’s sparse prose packs:

This is the moment. I think.

“I could pay you forty dollars if you stay and help unload the truck. We really need the help,” he says. “I’ve got to go pick up my daughter from day care. My wife thinks it’s my job.”

I want to tell him that it is his job. To care for a child. To show up.

“I gotta go,” I say. “I gotta move on.”

“Fair enough,” he says.

So I do it.

I turn around.

I walk away.

I’m wrecked, but I’m also one million times lighter.

It’s better to be the one who’s leaving.

I’ve been there myself. The one walking away. At his age, even. And in that moment I connected so hard with Mal. He deserved to be angry and mad and have that moment of taking back his life. I won’t lie — I shed more than one tear. I remember being 15 and making the choice to be the one to walk away. Every emotion here, especially the ones between the lines, rings true.

When a parent walks out of your life with no explanation, it’s hard to articulate what that really feels like. And the fact is, no one truly can understand what it feels like unless they’ve been there. It’s not about the divorce or about what it feels like when parents split. Having a parent walk out on you is devastating and horrific on a whole different level. Knowing they’ve got a new life — one without you, one with new kids and a new wife — and knowing they’re never going to come back to see you? It wrecks you. In First Day on Earth, Mal’s mom becomes an alcoholic, and Mal is abandoned. When it happens to you when you’re 15, you feel like an alien and like you truly, honestly do not belong here. You’ve been dropped somewhere completely foreign without the support you deserve to have.

It sucks. And it penetrates everything — Mal cannot relate to the people around him because he feels so foreign. He can’t forge the connections he wants because he can’t piece himself together. Moreover, he doesn’t believe anyone has ever felt as low as he has. He thinks everyone around him has it good compared to him. And how could he not, really?

Through the metaphor of the alien, of course, Mal does begin to piece himself together. It’s never once about the alien or the spaceship but becoming whole and one with oneself. And it so does that right in the end.

While we’re given the chance to build this sympathy for Mal and to feel his pain, we also realize what he’s not realizing: that other people experience pain, too, even if it’s not the same thing he feels. He’s NOT an alien. He makes a huge assumption about fellow classmates Posey and Darwyn having these glossy perfect lives. But Mal comes to find out that they do not. Their baggage…it’s just different than his. And that’s okay. No one pain is bigger than another. It may be different, but in the end, it’s all crappy. That’s precisely when he realizes that trying to escape it all isn’t the answer. He needs to just embrace it and enjoy what he’s got while he can. Remember: he’s 15. That’s how 15 year olds rationalize. That’s exactly how I rationalized it all, too, at that age.

What Castellucci does in so few words is so powerful. It resonates. This book’s merits outweigh the problematic elements for me — that’s to say, this isn’t a perfect book. I wish we could have gotten a little more, especially when it came to character development of secondary characters. I would have loved knowing more about Mal in the after, wanting to know more about how he put what he figured out to use when he “comes back” to earth. I wanted to know more about Darwyn and Posey. But it makes sense why I don’t. Because really, readers are Mal throughout the story and cannot possibly know more than what I figure out in those final, crucial moments.

If my personal story here isn’t enough to express audience, I’ll be more explicit. This book is going to speak volumes to readers who have or are experiencing life with an absent parent. I’ve read a lot of books in the course of my life, and I say with all honesty, I’ve never read one that captured the reality and the trauma so well. The thing is, it’s a very private and very personal pain. People really don’t understand unless they’ve been there. Mal’s there, and he’s the kind of friend people need to find when they’re dealing with such a heavy and hard situation. More importantly, though, it’s a story about how we all have our baggage and how, despite being so different, the crap we carry doesn’t divorce us from the world. It grounds us more tightly.

I debated posting this review here for a few reasons, including the fact I don’t like being super personal in reviewing. I like to take the most objective path I can. But more than one friend told me I have to let people in sometimes and I like to think in working up the guts to post this, maybe it moves someone to hand this book to a teen (or adult!) who needs it. Or maybe, too, it’s a way for me to ground myself tighter to the world.

ARC picked up at ALA.

The Storm in the Barn by Matt Phelan

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I realize I’m a bit late to the party with this one. I always intended to read it, and then oh look, it’s three years after it was published and I still hadn’t picked it up. I rectified that problem this evening, and I’m glad I did.
It’s Kansas during the dust bowl. Jack is eleven years old and lives on what used to be a prosperous farm. Since the rain stopped, though, the farm has stopped as well, and Jack feels useless. He’s also being bullied and his older sister is sick with pneumonia. One day, he spots a strange shape in an abandoned barn near his home. He initially ignores it, but he eventually investigates…and what he finds there has huge ramifications for the whole town and Jack’s own sense of self.
There’s a big emphasis on storytelling here, which I dig. At the local store, Ernie tells Jack stories about the King of the West Wind, the King of the Blizzards, the King of the Northeast Winds, and so on. These folktales are then reflected in Jack’s own adventures facing off against the being in the barn.
Part of the reason I never actually sat down to read the book is because the art did not speak to me initially. I’m not normally a fan of the kind of art found here: sketchy, with loose lines and washed out colors. For this story, though, it works. In Jack’s world, the dust and wind have invaded everything, so it’s fitting that even the people look a bit swept away. Phelan is also great at creating facial expressions with some very simple lines – with just a small curve, he can show frustration or happiness or anything else necessary to the story.
I think it’s important to note that The Storm in the Barn has more wordless frames than you normally find in a graphic novel. I struggle most with wordless panels, and at times I found it a little hard to follow. Due to the sketchiness of the art, a lot of the figures kind of melted together and it was difficult to tell what was really going on. This was particularly true during some of the scenes in the barn where Jack fights the being there.
The book hasn’t seen huge circulation at my library. I’m not really surprised. Most (note most, not all) kids that are drawn to graphic novels at my library like the ones that are cute or funny or exciting or gross (or all of the above). The Storm in the Barn isn’t any of those, but it will hold appeal for kids who like their stories a bit quieter. For fans of historical fiction, it’s dynamite. The historical setting doesn’t overwhelm the story. Instead, it enhances it, letting the plot and characters shine. Historical fiction is a big awards darling with less popular appeal, but there will always be the kids who dig it. (I was one.) Hand them this one.
Bonus: Jack’s older sister read Ozma of Oz while she’s sick in bed. She relates a lot of that story to what she sees going on around her, which is great, but what’s even better is that Phelan has brought some attention to a lesser-known Oz book.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

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I’ve heard a lot of great things about Malcolm Gladwell’s writing. Friends and co-workers tell me that his subjects are interesting and his writing style is easy to follow without talking down to the reader. I wasn’t disappointed with Outliers. In it, Gladwell tackles the subject of success – how people obtain it and what contributes to extraordinary success as opposed to everyday success.
The thesis – that our success depends much more on circumstances out of our control than any effort we put forth – isn’t exactly revolutionary. Most of us know it to be true. However, I don’t think I’m lying when I say that most of us also believe that we if we just try that much harder and develop our talent that much further, it will be enough to become wildly successful, despite bad or just mediocre beginnings. Not so, says Gladwell.
Most of the evidence Gladwell gives us is anecdotal, which is my favorite kind to read. I can’t really speak to how scientifically valid it is, but it sure makes for engrossing listening. For example, did you know that successful hockey players are almost all born in January, February, or March? Kids born during these months are older than the others kids when they start playing in the youth leagues, which means they’re already better at the game (because they’re bigger). Thus, they get more play time, which means their skill increases at a faster rate, and it compounds as time goes by. Within a few years, they’re much, much better than the kids born just a few months later in the year. Basically, these kids’ birthdates are a huge factor in their success as adults – and it’s nothing they can do anything about. If anyone could make hockey interesting to a Texan who only grudgingly admits the sport even exists, it’s Gladwell.
Gladwell also talks at length about Bill Joy, one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems. Joy is brilliant, yes, but he also had a wealth of opportunity presented to him when he attended the University of Michigan in the 1970s. One of Gladwell’s main arguments is it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at any one thing. At Michigan, Joy had access to a computing center where he could program continuously for hours. It was one of the few places in the country where this was possible. Joy didn’t go to Michigan intending to become a computer programmer, but once he got there, the circumstances provided a way for him to get in his 10,000 hours. Pretty darn lucky.
I could go on and on with the examples. With so much emphasis on circumstances rather than effort determining our success, it can get a little discouraging at times, but Gladwell stops short of saying circumstances are all that matters. All of the people he profiles had both luck and talent. It actually made me think of the ways my own circumstances contributed to my current success, and I realized that I’m a pretty lucky woman (but I work hard too).
I really enjoy nonfiction in audio format, and Outliers was no exception. Gladwell narrates the book himself, and his voice is great for the conversational tone of the book. Like his writing, he’s friendly and easy to follow. I’d pick up another audio by him any day.

Legend by Marie Lu

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In Legend, America has been divided into two: the Republic on the west coast and the Colonies on the east. They’re at war with each other and no one remembers that the country used to be whole. A terrible plague grips the Republic. The poor suffer most from it, since they are unable to afford the vaccine. Living in this world are our two fifteen year old protagonists: Day, a male fugitive from the law who’s become notorious for several carefully-planned crimes; and June, a female prodigy who has been trained as a Republic soldier. When June’s brother is murdered, ostensibly by Day, the Republic sends her to hunt him down. And there is our story, told in alternating chapters from Day’s and June’s perspectives.
I appreciated Lu’s honesty with her depictions of June’s participation in the violence, which is a major part of the novel. June has been raised in a culture that sanctions torture and is at perpetual war with the Colonies. She’s been singled out by the leaders of this culture, been molded by them into their perfect soldier, a soldier that will do anything for the Republic. Yes, she has qualms, and yes, she refrains from the worst of what her superiors do, but she is a participant in the violent process. In one scene, she watches a fellow soldier torture a Colonies spy in order to learn how it’s done – after all, she will have to do it herself one day. I’m glad Lu didn’t flinch from showing us this. It’s realistic and creates a compelling character arc for June.
The first thing I noticed about Legend was its typefaces: gold sans serif font for Day and black serif font for June. As a teen, I would probably have loved this. As an adult, I wasn’t as thrilled. The gold is a bit too light for comfortable reading and I always prefer serif fonts on a printed page.
It seems like the color/font switches were used to compensate for a weakness in voice differentiation. When a story is told from more than one first-person perspective, there’s always the possibility that the voices will be too similar to one another. In fact, in writing this review, I had to go back to the book to look up which character was in the gold font and which character in the black.
I would have liked to see more backstory. This is a complaint I have with a lot of dystopias that are intended to be series. Lu sets up a pretty interesting premise with the Republic versus the Colonies, but we never learn why the schism occurred. Really, that’s half the fun of a dystopia – learning what terrible thing (or things!) it was that caused humanity to be in such a sad spot. Often this is revealed in second or third books, but I always feel its lack in the first. It causes the world to feel underdeveloped, and world-building is so important in science fiction. (The Hunger Games actually never revealed this information, and it’s something I’ve had to make my peace with.)
Here I am sounding like a broken record, but I think Legend should have been written in past tense. There’s a lot of action, but it’s not a straight up action novel (there’s a lot of wallowing in prison cells, for instance), and the present tense feels forced.
With all of these criticisms, you may think I didn’t enjoy Legend, but I did, and quite a bit. It’s a good read and one I’d recommend to dystopia fans. Divergent does both action and voice a little better, but both books have the same feel (lots of action, a small but tough female protagonist, several physical tests that must be overcome, big government secrets). To its credit, Legend wraps itself up in a single volume, which I always appreciate. This is not to say there isn’t a sequel (the website for the book is “legendtheseries.com” after all), and I’ll be happy to read it once its published.
Review copy picked up at BEA. Legend is available now.

Three Mini-Reviews

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The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern

While reading The Night Circus, I felt like I was the only one to not quite understand the immense hype that has surrounded this novel since way before its publication. Revolving around a mystical circus that appears without warning and features stunning beautiful attractions, strange illusions, and compelling players, The Night Circus also features the battle between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been groomed for this showdown since youth and gradually fall in love with one another.

However, one thing I realized while reading is that for me to fall in love with a book, I need a gripping, well-developed plot and three-dimensional, deep characters. The Night Circus had neither. While the writing in this was utterly beautiful and the descriptions deep and luscious, it felt like Morgenstern relied too much upon descriptions, to the neglect of plot and characters. And while there was a central ‘competition’ that this book revolved around, it really didn’t feel that gripping to me and I never quite felt the intensity of the stakes, partially because of the shallow characters. The characters, especially Celia and Marco themselves, never felt well-developed. While I did get plenty of descriptions of the characters’ appearances and clothing, the characters themselves were all just cardboard cutouts, with not a lot of emotional depth. Other readers (in fact, most people) seem to adore this book, however, so those in the mood for lush descriptions and an atmosphere you can fall into should not hesitate to pick it up.

Book purchased.

The Daughters Join the Party, by Joanna Philbin.
I have thoroughly enjoyed this series thus far, which follows three daughters of celebrities as they go about their lives in New York City and seek to establish their own identities apart from their famous parents. There was Lizzie, who became a model in the shadow of her own supermodel mother; Carina, who sought to escape from her media conglomerate father’s influence; and Hudson, who tried to achieve a solo singing career in a style much different than her pop diva mother Holla (shades of Madonna). Each of the previous three novels wasn’t anything heavy or substantial, but they were cute, and portrayed issues that, beyond the trappings of wealth and privilege, girls could relate to.

This book, the fourth in the series, just seemed tacked on to me and really didn’t seem to fit with the other three, as it introduced another character entirely, one who hadn’t even been in the series beforehand. I understand that in high school, students make new friends, but why add another character to this group of best friends if the new girl, Emma Conway, the daughter of an aspiring presidential candidate, doesn’t really even interact with the original three at all? The plot’s conclusion also just seemed too rushed and easily wrapped up to me, especially the subplot regarding Emma’s brother. Fans of the series will still enjoy this book, however, especially with the appearances from the original Daughters and Philbin’s light, breezy tone. I can see fans of The Mother-Daughter Bookclub and the Gallagher Girls books enjoying this tone particularly.

Copy generously provided by publisher.

Just Your Average Princess, by Kristina Springer
Jamie Edwards loves working at her family’s pumpkin patch. Especially during the fall season, it’s the place to be in her small town of Average, Illinois, where there’s not much to do but cruise the strip at night. She feels needed there, loves the people in her community, and also, and most importantly, it’s where her longtime crush Danny works. But when her cousin Milan, the famous daughter of two Hollywood celebrities, comes to visit, Jamie is shocked that they’re not as close as she had anticipated they’d be. Milan turns down her nose at everything in town–the people, the patch, even Jamie herself. And even worse than Danny being seemingly attracted to Milan is Milan’s announcement that she is planning to run for Pumpkin Princess, the town pageant that Jamie has been dreaming of winning since she was a little girl!

I really enjoy Kristina Springer’s writing style: The Espressologist, her debut novel, was one of my favorite little-known books that I read last year, and Just Your Average Princess has the same endearing, adorable atmosphere pervading it. There aren’t any serious issues in this book, so it is fairly light, but to the characters, their problems still feel important. However, to me, this novel took that adorable atmosphere a bit too far, as Jamie came off as a bit of a goody-goody. I understand that there are some people who truly enjoy their towns and genuinely enjoy helping out at home, but the level of outrage that Jamie felt when Milan didn’t meet her “standards,” especially when it came to issues of food, was a bit over the top. Jamie didn’t feel realistic and wholesome, she just came off as judgmental. Additionally, the novel’s conclusion and reconciliation seemed way too sudden for me–there really weren’t any clues about what spearheaded it, so the characters’ changes of emotion really had no weight behind them. On the whole though, I did enjoy this light, quick read, and it will definitely find its place on the shelves.

Copy borrowed from my library.