This week, over at Book Riot..
I’ve been thinking and writing about female sexuality in YA for a couple of years now. It’s a topic that continues to fascinate and frustrate me. I’ve talked at length about what good examples are out there, and I’ve talked at length about what’s missing.
Today, I’m turning the blog over to a guest who has written one of the best examples of female sexuality I’ve seen in YA in a long time, Fiona Wood. Her recently-published US debut Wildlife presents an honest and unashamed exploration of female sexuality, offering a range of experiences, emotions, and words to describe a variety of sexual situations. She’s here to talk about the choices she made, as well as what she thinks some of the more solid YA novels that tackle female sexuality are.
I won’t name names, but some adult authors just shouldn’t write books for teens. Thankfully, Meg Wolitzer doesn’t appear to be one of them. Her first YA novel is strong and (almost) never writes down to its audience.
Belzhar is one of the books the people at the TLA Penguin booth talked about in glowing terms, and since I’m a sucker and fall for pitches like that (especially the ones that seem personal like this one did), I gave this one a shot – though it’s not normally up my alley. I’m not a huge fan of magical realism and tend to shy away from the label (usually I think it’s a way to call something fantasy without using that word; just call a spade a spade, please). But I liked this one.
Jam Gallahue has been sent to a special boarding school for highly intelligent, damaged teenagers. Her boyfriend, Reeve, died some months ago, and Jam hasn’t been able to come to terms with her grief and move on with her life. At the school, she discovers she’s been signed up for a class called Special Topics in English. This class only takes a few students each year and it’s known to be more than a bit mysterious – for good reason.
When Jam and her classmates go to the first class, they learn they’ll be studying Sylvia Plath’s writing exclusively. Part of their assignment is to write in a journal each night, but the journals are far from ordinary. Each time Jam writes in hers, she finds herself transported for a short while to a place where Reeve is still alive, giving her the opportunity to experience being with him again in a place where time doesn’t seem to exist. Jam quickly learns that her classmates experience something similar, too – they all travel to a place before their respective traumas. They nickname this place “Belzhar” after Plath’s semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar, which they’ve been studying in class.
This is a book about grief, depression, and mental illness in general. It’s about how people – and teenagers specifically – deal with the things life throws at them, and how they heal – or don’t. The book follows Jam’s journey most closely, but through Jam, we also learn about what her classmates have experienced and how these experiences have affected them. The students form bonds with each other, but thankfully it’s never a forced kumbaya moment. Each of the students’ stories are full of pain and grief; they’re all in the class together because they’re battling depression, and sometimes more. Wolitzer’s depiction of the illness is individual to each student and there’s very little moralizing for most of the book.
It’s clear from the beginning that Jam is a slightly unreliable narrator. She’s the last to share her story with her classmates and the story she relates to the reader doesn’t exactly seem right, either. The savvy (and perhaps not so savvy) reader will be able to predict a twist that happens close to the end. It’s not hugely telegraphed, but I did realize most of what was going on. I didn’t feel cheated by it, though. The fact that Jam lies to the reader is tied up with her own mental illness. The story is stronger for the deception because Jam has deceived herself as well.
The metaphor with Plath’s life and writing is obvious, even for teens who haven’t read anything of hers. Wolitzer does take the time to explain a bit about Plath’s life and how it parallels The Bell Jar, but this portion doesn’t feel overly didactic. It’s interesting, actually, particularly for a reader who hasn’t read the source (such as myself). I anticipate it will create a lot of interest in teen readers for Plath and her work.
This is a moving novel that should resonate with sensitive teens – perhaps those who keep journals or write poetry, who know that words are a powerful conduit for self-expression and healing. Wolitzer does falter a bit in the final chapters, writing down just a touch to her audience and misjudging their intelligence, I think, but it doesn’t ruin what is otherwise a nuanced and satisfying story.
Review copy received from the publisher. Belzhar will be available September 30.
I’ve heard a lot of great things about Lish McBride. Her first book, Hold Me Closer Necromancer, won the Morris Award in 2011, and practically every librarian acquaintance I have raves about her writing (in particular her sense of humor). So naturally, when Firebug showed up at my door, I knew I’d have to give it a shot.
Ava is a firebug, meaning she can start fires with her mind. Cool, right? (When I was a teen I would have thought this was so freaking badass. Now it would terrify me.) It’s actually not that awesome for Ava, since she sometimes has a hard time controlling the power. What’s even less cool is that it brought her to the attention of the Coterie, a mafia-type organization (teens seem to be getting involved with the mob in all sorts of ways in YA lately) that forcibly recruits teens like Ava to work for them – or else.
So Ava is under the thumb of the Coterie, led by an evil vampire named Venus. She doesn’t just do petty criminal acts for them; she’s an assassin, and she tries not to think too hard about the people she kills, who are usually not very nice anyway. But then Venus tells her that she has to kill a friend. For no apparent reason. And that’s where Ava draws the line, despite the fact that it means Venus will be after her, despite the fact that it puts her friends in danger, despite the fact that it’s pretty much a death sentence.
Except if it were, we wouldn’t have much of a story. And Ava does have allies – the two boys who work with her in the Coterie who have their own odd powers (one is a werefox and the other is half-dryad), her pseudo-father figure, and a few others who are intent upon bringing Venus down. So perhaps Ava’s refusal isn’t a lost cause after all. Perhaps she and her friends can actually topple the Coterie, ending its threat against herself and other magical beings forever.
I really wanted to like Firebug more than I did. McBride’s writing is very good, as I hoped it would be. There’s a lot of fun repartee between Ava and the other characters. She has a sharp tongue and employs it against friends and enemies alike. Her two closest friends – Ezra the werefox and Lock the half-dryad – were well-drawn and their friendship with Ava was deep and believable. There’s a smattering of romance, too, plus a betrayal that really does tug on the heartstrings, even if you see it coming (I saw it coming and hoped up until the end that I was wrong). And it’s funny, as promised.
So why did I merely like it instead of love it? I wanted more from the plot. Despite how well-developed the characters and their relationships were, the storyline was still very basic. I felt like I had read this story a dozen times before (group of teens with powers take on The Man who has exploited them for years), and no amount of wisecracks would make it fresh for me. There’s a big reveal at the end that was telegraphed too strongly, removing a lot of the tension. The storyline just wasn’t terribly creative.
But hey, I’ve read a heck of a lot of teen fantasy, more of it than most teens (simply because I haven’t been a teen in almost 10 years). I love to champion the stuff that breaks new ground, but there’s definitely space for books that tread the same ground and do it well. This should appeal to teens who like contemporary/urban fantasy and don’t yet feel like they’ve exhausted all the genre has to offer. And there’s something comforting in a familiar story peopled with characters who feel like friends.
Review copy received from the publisher. Firebug is available today!
These two books don’t have a common thread to them, except that they both explore themes of friendship, of being the new kid at school, and they’re both books that hit shelves this month. I highly recommend both, as they’re strong, solid additions to the contemporary realistic YA shelves.
Fiona Wood’s novel isn’t her debut, but it’s her first US publication — it’s the second book in a very loose duology, and the first book, Six Impossible Things, will hit shelves next spring here. Rachel M. Wilson’s Don’t Touch is her debut novel.
In Wildlife by Fiona Wood, Sib begins the wilderness term with her classmates, she’s best friends still with Holly, and on the brink of a relationship with Ben, who she kissed at a party. Sib’s gotten a lot of attention lately, thanks to her face being plastered on a billboard. It was a modeling gig she did for a little cash, on the suggestion of her aunt. This stint with “fame” changed how her classmates — and Holly — interact with her, even if it doesn’t change Sib in the least.
Lou is the new girl, tossed into this wilderness term without any immersion with these peers prior. She’s grieving, deeply grieving, and she’s private about what she’s going through. She’s not ready to open up, and even when pushed to the brink, she won’t.
Until she does with Michael.
It’s through her relationship and opening up with Michael that Lou begins to forge a relationship with Sib and helps Sib realize that people like Holly are energy saps. . . not best friend material. That people like Holly are the reason that Sib may become hurtful herself.
Wildlife is an excellent book about friendships and peer relationships, as well as about sexuality. Wood uses the words to describe what goes on in sexual experiences, through the voices of Sib and Lou, and it never comes off clinical nor does it come off as being too technical for how a teen girl might think. Even though Sib may not be happy with the choices she makes, she empowers herself with the ability to make those choices. In particular, I was impressed with a scene wherein one of the characters says explicitly that sex did not hurt because she’d educated herself with how her body works and feels. This moment was refreshing to read because it’s such a rarity in YA — usually, we have girls who are scared, worried, and fearful of what their bodies can and do do. This is the kind of scene that many teen girls need to read because it offers a refreshing and realistic alternative to the all-too-common narratives of fear and shame associated with sex, especially debut sexual encounters.
More, I loved the friendship aspects of Wildlife. Wood offers girls who see friendship in very different ways, and it’s through these diverging perspectives that there’s an opportunity for one girl to see how her “friend” was far from that toward her. The perspective of female friendship as toxic and female friendship as supportive, caring, and loving butting against one another offer up something we don’t see enough of in YA. Because it’s told through two points of view, we get to see these relationships from the inside and from the outside.
This is a story about coming into yourself and acting and reacting for yourself, rather than putting on a face or a performance for those around you. This is easily one of the best YA titles published this year in contemporary YA, and it’ll appeal to fans of Sarah Dessen, Siobhan Vivian, and perhaps even more so to fans of Melina Marchetta and Sara Zarr. It’s literary, with depth, heart, and tremendous respect for the complexities of being a teen girl dealing with teen girl challenges.
Rachel M. Wilson’s debut Don’t Touch may be one of the best explorations of OCD I’ve read in YA.
Caddie has always wanted to attend Birmingham’s high school for artists, but she’s never pursued it for a number of family-related reasons. But when her mom gives her the go-ahead and she is accepted, things around her begin to fall apart. Her dad and mom separate, and Caddie begins to think that her actions — in trying out and getting into the school, in touching or not touching other people — would change the situation. When those thoughts begin racing, her mind begins to make deals with herself as a means of coping with the stress and change in her situation. And her mind begins to deceive her, convincing her that were she to touch anyone skin-to-skin, things would just get worse.
On the first day at the academy, Caddie reunited with an old best friend, who convinces her to try out for the school play. They’re doing Hamlet, and Caddie’s always wanted to play Ophelia. Both girls try out for the part, and it’s Caddie who scores it. The problem, of course, is that when she’s paired opposite Peter, playing Hamlet, those scenes where the characters may have to touch send her into a state of panic. She can’t touch him and she can’t let herself touch him.
It becomes more complex when Peter and Caddie begin to fall for one another romantically.
Don’t Touch renders a side of OCD that’s realistic to the illness, rather than what we’re shown too frequently in the media. This isn’t about overt rituals, though those periodically emerge. This is about what happens internally and the anxiety that irrational thoughts can cause an individual and how that individual has to rationalize those irrational thoughts in a way that allows them to function. Caddie knows her “don’t touch” mentality is wrong and that nothing bad will happen if she touches another person. The problem is, her brain doesn’t know this and won’t shut up unless she listens. Caddie is resistant to telling either Peter or her best friend Mandy about it. She’s terrified that by sharing what’s going on and naming the illness, she’ll lose those connections; anxiety fuels further anxiety which fuels even further anxiety. So rather than tell them, she withdraws when the anxiety becomes overwhelming. That withdrawal concerns both of them, as they think it’s a reaction to them or things they’ve said or done — and in Peter’s case, touching her in a way that shows his sincere affections for her. It’s a back-and-forth tug that leaves all parties uncomfortable in a way that’s painful and honest.
There comes a turnaround point in the story, and that may have been where I found Wilson’s writing a character with OCD to be the most solid. Caddie does not recover immediately, and in fact, she’s not fully recovered in the end. But she learns methods of coping with her illness, and through those tools, she’s better able to talk about what’s going on with those who love and care about her. She has to face her fears and anxieties and know that doing so may not rid her of the anxiety, but it’s a big part of better compartmentalizing it. Through this, she’s able to really solidify those relationships that are good to her and good for her. That includes the sweet, budding relationship with Peter.
Don’t Touch is the kind of YA novel you can hand to YA readers anywhere along the teen spectrum. This is a longer book, but it never reads long or feels overdone. This would work for those 12-13 year olds ready to wade in, and readers who love stories about theater and art kids will find much to enjoy here, as Wilson brings Shakespeare and acting alive. Readers who love Laurie Halse Anderson’s Impossible Knife of Memory will want to pick up this book.
Both Wildlife and Don’t Touch are available now. Wildlife was sent from a friend, and Don’t Touch was sent for review from the publisher.