Book Reviews

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, by MT Anderson

Traitor to the Nation, Volume 1: The Pox Party

Reviewed by Rebecca Grabill

Oh, to find words. This is a masterful novel, intricate, moving. It would be difficult to find a point of critique - indeed, it would be ridiculous to think myself competent to critique it at all. I suppose the only drawback to the novel was the effect it had in causing me to walk about speaking in a terribly bad faux British accent throughout the duration of my reading. But, I’m over that now.

I don’t generally like to read the jacket copy of a book - it often gives away too much plot (as Karen Hancock’s first in the Guardian King Series does, telling a full two thirds of the plotline), or misleads about the point of the story (as I thought Blind Faith did, as the story was not so much about a mother’s depression as it was about … other things). And so, I dove into this novel without so much a glance at the inside covers. But after several arduous chapters, I was, in my confusion, forced to read it, to get even a glimmer of understanding as to what the begeebes was going on. But, it didn’t help - the blurb told me nothing the first several chapters revealed. After another 70 pages, I did the unthinkable, and read the Library of Congress description of the book (on the copyright page, for those who have never cheated like this). And I was helped immensely. From that point forward, the only struggles I had with the book were a. explaining to my children why Mommy was crying and b. putting it down.

The story is about the young slave, Octavian, and his experiences preceding and during the Revolutionary War. In his youth, Octavian lives a life of luxury as part of the household of the Novanglian College of Lucidity, well-dressed, well-fed, well-educated. He is, unknowingly, part of an experiment to determine the rational capacities of the African race. Already, I feel as if I’ve given away too much. I’ll elaborate only to add that the backdrop of the American Revolution - the Cause of Freedom - is bittersweet, and makes all the more poignant Octavian’s plight.

The novel is told through first-person narration, as well as through letters and articles (all of which were collected and compiled by the fictional Octavian later in his life). The first-person narrative predominates, written with an 18th century feel. The narrative walks the narrow line between authenticity and accessibility, and in most cases does not fall into the trap of the dialect being so completely rendered that it is senseless. The book is at the same time brilliantly engrossing, and heartrending. Anderson shows the brutality of slavery and war without gratuitousness, yet neither does it suffer a lack of detail. This book deserves to become a classic, yet I wonder if it will.

It is a heavy read, dense, emotionally draining. I read half of it nearly trembling with rage, and the rest with tears in my eyes - for Octavian, for the beauty of the writing. This book cannot be skimmed. It cannot, truly, be read. It must be absorbed, infused.

But I wonder, is the upcoming generation capable of absorption? I hope so. Woe to us all if it is not, but with the increasing decline of education, I am afraid. One thing is sure, however. As long as books such as this are published, as long as they are read and enjoyed, there is hope. And so it is without hesitation that I recommend this book. I am a better person, having read it.

Tyrell, by Coe Booth

Reviewed by Rebecca Grabill

This book could not have been more different than my last read, Octavian Nothing, yet I recommend it almost as highly. I had a hard time putting it down, and with a voice that was so authentic - the lovingest badass in the Bronx - I was willing to follow the protagonist anywhere.

This is the story of Tyrell, a fifteen-year-old who is being forced into manhood prematurely. With his father in jail and his codependent mother desperate for someone - anyone - to provide for her, Tyrell is left to keep the family together. At the start of the novel this isn’t going so well. They’re in a hotel, a final stop before going to a homeless shelter, and if Tyrell’s mother can’t get it together soon, he and his little brother will end up in foster care. Again. Tyrell needs to make some money fast, so he decides to walk in his father’s footsteps and throw a party (he has some pretty kickin’ DJ equipment). Except Tyrell’s party will be on the level - no drugs, no prostitutes. He doesn’t want to go down like his father did. But how is he going to plan this party when his girlfriend is giving him grief, and when Jasmine, the curvaceous beauty down the hall, can’t bear to spend a night alone?

The first-person narrative is amazing from the very first lines, “When I pick Novisha up from school, she actin’ all weird and shit. I mean, she the one that called my cell this morning and told me she needed to talk. Then all the way to her place it’ like she wanna say something but don’t know how to tell me. so we just walk without saying a whole lot, which is alright ’cause I got a lot on my mind anyway.” And it keeps on to the end without a flaw. The characters are just as well-drawn, and the story compelling. And, it’s refreshingly different from others in the genre because there seems to be no soap box. I already harped on that in my review of Blind Faith, and one issue that made the Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing a book for young people was it’s “slavery bad” theme that lacked the subtlety it would have needed to work for adults. Here, I wasn’t getting smacked upside the head with an “Evil White Man” message, or a “Save the Whales” mission, or a “Discover Your Inner Goddess” dictum, I was just reading a great story.

But, this is where I will explain why I recommend this book only almost as much as M.T. Anderson’s. I watch a lot of movies, and I’ve had this experience a number of times. I’m clipping along, enjoying the film. It’s deep or funny, and it has a lot of “moments.” I’m looking forward to the Ah Ha that comes in the final minutes of the film, but then the screen goes black and credits roll. Huh? It’s not a matter of wanting more, exactly. I don’t really want the film to be longer, but I want it to make sense. I want my Ah Ha! I want watch the credits and have my mind flying back through the film putting it all together - what it was all about.

Booth’s book is like that film. It has moments. Lots of them. She has a guy with problems that would knock most people down, and he’s trying to do the right thing, and she’s got great cinematography (i.e., wonderful writing voice), and it is a fantastic read, but I got to the end and went, “huh?” Maybe I was reading too hard. But in short, I thought it suffered from lack of a soap box. I can’t believe I’m actually saying that - What? I wanted a Moral? No, no, no. I didn’t want a “Rough kid turns himself around and goes to Harvard and marries the Smart Girl and has 2.5 really cute kids who will grow up to be doctors just like Dad or lawyers like Mom” sort of story. But I wanted more … of something. Theme. Meaning. Soap Box.

That said, I didn’t come to this realization - of wanting something more in the Theme Department, until a day or two after I’d finished reading. And had I not been planning to write this little piece of nitwitery here, I likely wouldn’t have realized I missed anything at all. So, I therefore heartily recommend the book. I hope Ms. Booth publishes many, many more novels. I will read them all.

Penny from Heaven, by Jennifer Holm

(* Newbery Honor) Reviewed by Rebecca Grabill

This will be a short response because I don’t have a whole lot to say. The book didn’t impress me or depress me. It’s the sweet story of a half-Italian girl walking the balance between her crazy Italian and non-Italian families, with a touch of mystery surrounding her father’s death when she was an infant. Set in post WWII New Jersey (I think), it’s as historical as you’d expect an historical to be. Nice research, a few stabs at authentic dialect, and a contemporary politically-correct twist to give it that Newbery appeal.

I didn’t love it. I didn’t hate it. It’s … nice. A nice book. The first-person narrator, Penny, has a nice voice. As mentioned, it’s historical, with a little post-WWII-crazy-Italian flavor sprinkled throughout, but unlike Tyrell and Octavian Nothing, it doesn’t live and breathe the time and place in which it’s set.

The plot is considered by some to be ‘episodic’, meaning that the story is told in snippets, episodes, as opposed to always-forward-moving plot. I’m not quite sure this is accurate - there is a plot, somewhere in there. I’d say the narrator is easily sidetracked and spends more time telling about relatives and coats and lucky beans than she does telling her story. Many of these sidetracks seemed repetitive to me (how many “my big crazy Italian family” scenes do we need?) and sometimes a tad indulgent, but when I see the book as a sort of family history, a fictionalized retelling of the author’s family lore, I understand the meandering. The laborious attention to the details of dinners and the reasons things were done a given way and the personality tics of various uncles and so on and so forth - are all purposed to immortalize the beloved “Penny” who is pictured at the end of the book. How sweet. How nice!

But it’s no Octavian. It’s no Tyrell. It is what it is - interesting, but not enthralling; historical, but not evocative of an era or transporting; heart-tugging, but not heart-wrenching. I have nothing superlative to say here. Do I recommend it? Sure. If you have a few hours and want a sweet book that might require a tissue for some eye-dabbing at the end, why not?

Just Listen, by Sarah Dessen

Reviewed by Rebecca Grabill

What can I say? It’s Sarah Dessen. I’ve read most of her books, and this is another, with all her characteristics. My favorite of hers up to this point has been Dreamland, but Just Listen now rivals that one for first place.

It’s the story of Annabel Greene, the youngest of three model sisters (I mean ‘model’ in the literal sense - they are all models, including Annabel). You’d think she has the perfect life, and on the surface it sure looks like it, but at the end of the previous school year, something traumatic happened. Now Annabel spends her days alone, which is better than being called a slut by her ex-best friend. And what was this traumatic thing? She has to hold it in, to keep it a secret. This plan goes well, until she meets Owen Armstrong, a music-obsessed loner who won’t let anyone keep anything in. That’s a form of lying, and there’s nothing Owen hates more than a lie. Yet Annabel’s whole life feels like a lie. Can she find the courage to face the past, and the future, with honesty?

Just Listen is a heavy book, both in length and in the issues Dessen takes on, such as rape and eating disorders. She also does a lot of things that are against the “rules” - or some rules, or something. I don’t really know anymore what’s a rule and what's something picked up in a class or from a book or an opinionated editor or just from another writer who once said, “This is so,” and so it’s now passed off as gospel. Anyway, Dessen holds a lot back from the reader. The traumatic event that split up Annabel’s friendship isn’t dramatized until the end of the book, and some would consider this manipulative. Is it? Or is it tension-building? It certainly gave the book forward momentum. And Dessen needs that momentum because she relies on a huge amount of backstory. Yet the backstory is is fascinating; it held my interest every moment, and I was willing to read through it in hopes there’d be some clue as to this “thing” - the traumatic event. Or, maybe I’m just easily manipulated.

I also love the details Dessen gives, how the narrative lives and breathes and every scene is vivid with gripping emotion. I found this book to be, emotionally, quite a bit like Dreamland. And like that old favorite, Just Listen is more risky than some other Dessen books. The back story, withholding information, breaking readers’ expectations, writing a long book that takes themes deeper than your usual young adult novel. I found this inspiring for my own work. And I hesitate to write this, but I think I’m seeing some commonality in the ALA books.

They all take risks. Octavian Nothing takes risks in form and voice and pushing the boundaries in just about every way; Tyrell risks with voice and content; Blind Faith’s risk involves the general subject; and here, with Dessen’s novel, the form and depth and length and number of subplots (all impeccably woven, by the way), make it a stretch for what some might consider “typical” young adult literature.

But, I don’t want anyone to think I’m nothing but a Sarah Dessen fangirl. One thing drove me mad throughout the book, and that is ending declarative sentences with a question mark. “This one time? At band camp?” Unless the character speaking is under the age of fourteen, it’s just weird.

And, as I said, I’ve read almost all of Dessen’s books, I think. Or a lot of them. A good number. Uh, hmmm. I’m not even sure, to be honest, but there’s a reason for my uncertainty. All the other books I’ve read (except Dreamland) have melded into one. One long book about a suburban girl with overblown “problems” involving a famous parent and her struggle to be cool or thin or to get along with her pregnant friend or boyfriend (not pregnant boyfriend) or whatever other pseudo-issue is. I can’t remember the titles, plots, characters, anything really. Except in Just Listen and Dreamland. I can remember those, maybe because they take it deeper, to what I consider real issues (come on, what you wear to a wedding? Is that an issue? Was that in any of the books? I don’t remember - one had something to do with a wedding. Didn’t it?).

So, Just Listen is not part of the Book-Mash, and therefore I can highly recommend it.

The Foreshadowing, by Marcus Sedgwick

Reviewed by Rebecca Grabill

I found this book disturbing, and I’m still not sure why. The premise is fascinating, if a bit of a stretch. Seventeen-year-old Alexandra masquerades as a nurse along the front lines during WWI. Why? She had a premonition that her brother would be killed. She’s had such premonitions before, always of death, and they have always come to pass. Yet for some reason, she feels this death she might be able to prevent.

The book is creepy. There’s an awful lot of death, a lot of violence, sometimes graphic. All things that don’t bother me, usually.

It’s an atmospheric book. Dark. So dark in fact that I expected a bad ending, and that the feeling of impending doom remained even after the final page. But, I like atmospheric books, usually.

Strange things are going on with the narrative, and don’t I like books that take risks and push the genre out of the teen problem novel box? I do, usually.

This is what I think troubled me the most - these issues with the narrative. First, the tense. I’m not sure when or why the book was recorded (in the fictional sense). It seemed to be a diary - some scenes are told in present tense, as if Alexandra is jotting them down as they happen, others in past as if she’s writing it before tucking her journal under her pillow for the night. But some are told from a distance, as if much time has passed, as if Alexandra is reflecting from a whole different time in her life. But, there are no dates or entry titles, so beyond the tense, I have no reason to think of it as a diary. Or maybe an early draft was a diary and it was undiarized during the editing process? Fun to speculate, I suppose. Octavian Nothing pulled it off because of the book’s subtitle. This book had no such subtitle, so even if Sedgwich were going for the same affect, it didn’t work for me.

Moreover, Sedgwick is a master of the dun dum dun scene ending (you know, the ever dramatic “breath-holding” scene ending). The entire book is made up of extremely short scenes, anywhere from half a page to three or four pages, and many of them end with the same “punchy” ending of a short sentence, line break, single word/phrase. It quickly passed from intense and gripping to redundant and contrived.

More, moreover, the voice. I never did believe that this story was being told by a seventeen-year-old girl in Europe during WWI. Not for an instant. But who? This is perhaps the most unsettling aspect of all - I never got a real sense of who the protagonist was - who she really was, on the inside. Is it a “guy thing” - the difficulty of a male author writing a female protagonist? Or was she merely a vehicle for the plot? I don’t want to think about that.

But somehow the combination of style and voice distracted me. My favorite thing about reading is when the words on the page disappear. I see only the story, like a film playing over the pages. Usually this happens easily, regardless of head colds and kids under foot and to-do lists. With a book by Karen Hancock, for example, the words are gone within a sentence, sometimes two. But in The Foreshadowing, this never happened. Always, there were words.

There’s no mistaking why this is on the ALA list. It pushes the limits, it takes risks, it looks at a time in history from a new angle. And it is an amazingly fast and intense read, so intense that I would call it a dark thriller even though it is technically, I suppose, historical. And so, for those same reasons, I do recommend it, despite the aftertaste. Now to go brush my teeth.

BOOK REVIEWS

We've been offline for a few months...but more reviews are coming soon! Please see the list of reviews on the right side of this page.

If you'd like to submit a book review please email: editor@yafiction.org

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by JK Rowling

Reviewed by Shari Green

**contains spoilers**

She did it. Rowling completed the daunting task of wrapping up the plotlines of  a seven-book series with skill and style. Is The Deathly Hallows perfect? No. The middle wanders too long through scenes of helplessness and despair, giving me the sense that perhaps Rowling is guilty of padding to stretch through the typical school-year timeline. Aside from that, however, Rowling’s pacing is flawless. The plot, too, is well done: enticing and intriguing, neither too sappy nor too shocking (yes, Dobby’s death shocked and saddened me, but not in the way the loss of one of the three main characters would have).

The prolific symbolism and deep-rooted themes work well, with allusions – either intentional or not – to C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, and the Bible. The one misstep is the horribly blatant proclamation of Harry as saviour and guide. Personally, I prefer subtlety.

I’ve heard criticism of Rowling’s characters being too black-and-white, but The Deathly Hallows, perhaps more than any of the other six books, shows more complex characters, which is quite satisfying. I’m delighted that Neville grew into a leader and that he gets to be a hero; I like that Dudley actually has a character arc; I’m not thrilled with the insights into Snape’s character, but overall his storyline has a fitting resolution; and Harry’s continued wrestling with his own “dark side” is very well done.

Each character’s voice is steady – a testament to Rowling’s skill – with one glaring exception: when Mrs. Weasley screams at Bellatrix, “Not my daughter, you bitch!”, I was jolted from the story, not by the curse per se, but by the leap out of voice. Some readers will disagree, notably Stephen King, who says the use of the b-word in this situation is “perfect”. (Who am I to disagree with both Rowling and King?)

My biggest complaint is the “nineteen years later” epilogue. I found it to be a tremendous letdown, so much so that I immediately re-read the second-to-last chapter to end the book where it should’ve ended. A writer friend of mine disagrees: she loves the epilogue. While I suppose Rowling wanted to provide closure and prevent questions such as “is Voldemort really dead?”, my cynical self feels the final chapter is the author’s way of opening (widely) the possibility of next-generation Hogwarts stories.

Despite my criticisms, I love the book. It’s good. Great, even. Well worth suffering through the months of over-done hype. I enjoyed it, my kids enjoyed it, and we’ll all read it again some day. Which reminds me: a pox on the nay-sayers who think Pottermania is doing nothing toward creating lifelong readers out of today’s HP fans. Kids are reading; adults are reading; it’s a good thing!

Shadow Thieves, by Anne Ursu

Reviewed by Andie Marting

Anne Ursu’s new book has a great hook – "What if Greek myths were real?" The story doesn’t quite deliver on its tantalizing premise, but it’s an enjoyable read.

The book follows an American teenager, Charlotte, and her English cousin, Zachary (known as Zee), as they discover and foil an evil plot hatched in the Underworld. Hades has dismissed an ambitious bureaucrat named Philonecron, who plans to raise his own army of shadow warriors. The fastidious Philonecron dresses his evil henchmen in tuxedos and sends them above ground to steal children’s shadows to man the army. The shadowless children fall ill, and it’s up to Charlotte and Zee to figure out why. In an extended action sequence in the Underworld, the two teenagers overcome obstacles and save the day.

Ursu is at her best when modern America collides with Greek myth. Philonecron is no mastermind, just a frustrated, petty bureaucrat. Sure, he has the usual aim of world domination. But what he really wants is a little respect. Hades is a distracted manager who’s fallen out of touch with his growing organization. Smaller touches are deft: the Mall of America serves as the entry point for messengers of Death.

Undue cleverness seems to be Ursu’s weak spot. The opening of the book is so mannered that I nearly put it down. As a writer, I sympathize. We rework those first few pages so often that they can become disconnected from the rest of the narrative. I also understand the need for a distinctive voice. But the first pages should also pull the reader in rather than put her off.

Luckily the rest of the book is straightforward and readable. The plot takes off when it takes Zee’s perspective. Zee is more sympathetic than Charlotte, perhaps by design. Charlotte is prickly, a loner who envies Zee his easygoing manner and lies to manipulate adults. Ursu seems to want readers to identify with the insecure Charlotte, but the blander Zee, a good guy who just wants to do the right thing, emerges as the more sympathetic of the two. 

The Shadow Thieves resembles the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan in its lighthearted use of Greek mythology. But the Riordan series is more exciting and plot-driven, while Ursu’s book aims for richer characters and light social satire.

The Shadow Thieves is the first book in a series. The second, just out in hardback, is titled The Siren Song.