Ballad: A Gathering of Faerie

Stiefvater, Maggie. Ballad: A Gathering of Faerie. Woodbury, Minn.: Flux - Llewellyn Publications, 2009. Print. A Gathering of Faerie 2.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/8109101]

This review contains no spoilers for Lament, and the book really doesn't either. And yet, this isn't quite a stand-alone book. There are a few things, especially in the stressful climax of the action, that will be a bit confusing if you don't at least have a vague idea of the first book.

Booktalk:

When people said "musician," they never seemed to mean "bagpiper." If I heard the phrase "folk musician" one more time, I was going to hit someone.

p.5

James and Dee, both fully recovered from their summer shenanigans (at least physically), have been recruited by a prestigious music school, miles away from the faeries they're hoping to leave behind. It should be a wonderfully enjoyable, life-changing experience, right? Except it's not. They're both still reeling from the love-proclamation-that-never-was, and neither of them plays the "right" kind of music for their prestigious school. And the faeries have followed them.

You'd think two people as experienced in the practical consequences of faerie lore as James and Dee would have known they'd be surrounded by faeries at a school named Thornking Ash.

Review:
I love James. In fact, I capital "L" Love him. He's funny and snarky and smart and oh-so-flawed. He's also hopelessly stuck in the friend-zone, and the story he tells from way over there is both hilarious and tragic. That's right. This book is all about James. Even the parts of the story that are told from other points of view are all about James. It's great. He deserves it.

Ballad contains some serious faerie shizz. There's a wack-job wielding an iron crowbar, mysterious singing accompanied by a guy with horns growing out of his head (possibly king of something ;) ), teachers who wear iron jewelry, and the return of Eleanor, Lament's faerie queen, but what this book is really about is how James finally figures out that girls like him. At the opening of this book, his heart is continuing to break over Dee. Still, he finally allows himself to revel in the attention of another woman (and though it gets steamy in a few places, it's totally an intellectual romance). He also finally gets to have some guy friends, even if his closest buds consist of Paul, his oboe playing roommate, and Sullivan, his English teacher/dorm parent. Even at Thornking Ash and without Dee (who contributes with text messages never sent between chapters), James figures out how to be happy.

And this is a Stiefvater book. As you can see, this woman knows how to put words on a page. Her characters are all fully-fleshed people, many of whom I would die to eat Chinese take-out with on a Saturday night. They're funny and smart and a little nerdy. This would be a great book for John Green fans who want to ease into fantasy, or vice-versa.

So far, there's no word of another book in this series, but I still want to throw this out there: Stiefvater, if you're listening, the world could use more James.


Book source: Philly Free Library
Book 1: Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception

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Spinning Out

Stahler, David. Spinning Out. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2011. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/10831527]

Booktalk:
Gilliam High's annual musical is kind of a big deal. The kind that's looked forward to by the whole town. That's why Frenchy thinks Stewart has got to be joking when he suggests they audition. The audition will be marginally fun, wholly embarrassing, and the biggest jewel in their pranking crown. Or so Frenchy thinks. It turns out, flubbing the audition for laughs is not part of Stewart's plan. That's how Frenchy and Stewart snag the leads in "Man of La Mancha," as Sancho and Don Quixote respectively. For Frenchy, it's all a little surreal. When Stewart starts immersing himself in the role just a little too much, things really start to get weird.

Review:
Frenchy's had a hell of a year, and now he just wants to coast through his senior year. But Stewart wants to get involved and, as his best friend, Frenchy backs him up. Their relationship, mirrored in the master-servant/leader-follower relationship of Sancho and the Don, is the driving force of this book. And it's a serious and challenging relationship. Still, Spinning Out is mostly hilarious. It's not laugh-out-loud funny; it's more subtle than that. If this book were literary fiction instead of YA, it would be called "intelligent humor." The banter between Frenchy and Stewart is always snarky, and when you throw Ralph, their pot dealer/Frenchy's mom's boyfriend, into the mix, it's gets a little out of control. In a good way. That's why, when Stewart starts to act a bit...off, Frenchy doesn't think too much of it.

Stewart falls further and further into the role of Don Quixote; it's great for the play, but hard on Frenchy. It's also hard on his budding relationship with stage manager Kaela (who is awesome-sauce). So he steps away, just a little bit. Finally able to claim a little bit of his own limelight in the role of Sancho, Frenchy separates himself just the tiniest bit from Stewart. They're still best friends (and just like Norah, Frenchy is a Great Friend), they're just no longer practically surgically attached.

During all of this changing and growing and relationship stuff, there is still a show to put on! Long rehearsals, music practices, hot chicks with power tools building sets, it's all there. Theater geeks and show choir enthusiasts (and fans of books like My Invented Life) will love this aspect. All readers will be treated to a meaty story in the meantime.


Spinning Out will be available for purchase May 25th!


Supers, Super Spoiler only for people who want to know the "issue," or what's really going on, or the ending: (highlight to read)
Stewart has undiagnosed schizophrenia. During his descent into the disease, he clings to Don Quixote, convinced that the Don is the real him. The fact that Stewart is obsessed with/plagued by the wind turbines on the edge of town helps push him over the edge. Now, I'm not an expert in mental illness, but I thought the schizophrenia was handled very well. Though the school bullies call Stewart crazy, Frenchy never does. The whole thing is handled with respect. It's also really scary, and Stahler doesn't shy away from that fear, Stewart's or Frenchy's. I also thought that the reactions of the adults in Stewart's life were, sadly, probably pretty realistic. Stahler doesn't shy away from the consequences of those reactions either. Still, at no point did this feel like an "issue book." It was not preachy and there was no info dump. All the necessary information was worked seamlessly into the story. This is a great book for readers interested in mental illness in general and schizophrenia in particular.






Book source: ARC provided by the publisher through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.

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The Boy from Ilysies

North, Pearl. The Boy from Ilysies. New York: Tor Teen, 2010. Print. Libyrinth 2.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/10545774]

Both Libyrinth and The Boy from Ilysies could be read as stand-alone books, in my opinion. There is nothing mind-blowing in this second book that will ruin the first for you, but if you're planning on reading Libyrinth (and I suggest that you do), you should probably skip this review.

Booktalk:
Culturally, the Libyrinth is a utopia. Libyrarians and Singers, Ilysians and Ayorites all get along and work together. But they're still starving, and there are still growing pains. Po, the only Ilysian male, is feeling the latter acutely. He misses the green, fertile land of his youth, but more than that he misses living in a society where he knows what is expected of him.

Review:
I guess when I read Libyrinth I missed something key about Ilysies. I knew it was a matriarchal society, but I failed to notice that men are greatly outnumbered and treated as second class citizens. Things like that happen, I guess, when you're worrying about the torture of one protag and the budding romance between the other two. It is this second class status that has Po all mixed up in The Boy from Ilysies. Not only is he having problems thinking of Princess, I mean, Libyrarian Selene as just one of the girls and no more than anyone else, but he's also having trouble seeing himself as no less than. He's used to serving women like Selene, not working alongside them, and he's used to being emotionally taken care of, in return, by a matriarchal figure. All of this equality has left him feeling very alone and unsupported.

Much of the book is spent on this dilemma. It's interesting and important and turns gender stereotypes on their heads, but it wasn't what I was looking for in a sequel to the action-packed, literature-rich, POC and LGBTQ-featuring Libyrinth. I wanted more action than intrigue, more of Clauda's brashness and less of Po's confusion, more of the books' wisdom and less erections as feelings, more of the look-how-I've-grown Selene and less of the back-to-the-beginning Selene, more Nod(s), more Haly, and for the love, more Clauda AND Selene. When Po finally left on a quest, along with former Censor Siblea, Selene*, and a few others, I was so happy. I just wish that moment had come before I was halfway through the book.

But that second half of the book was totally worth it for me. The above group sets out for the former Singer headquarters to look for a tool from the legends of every major cultures' folklore that will hopefully make the land around the libyrinth fertile enough to support the community living there. Of course, when they get there, things do not go as planned, but in the course of the search and the fighting, we find out more about the foundations of the Singers' society. Their (former) reasoning behind the fear and demonization of the written word isn't exactly spelled out, but it makes a lot more sense now. Their still present culture of abuse and neglect of women also butts up against Po's sensibilities in a way that makes him take action rather than wallow in confusion and self-pity. The trip is also filled with danger, suspense, a cute but damaged girl for Po, and a cliff-hanger of an ending. I'm re-sucked in to this trilogy (or series?) an eagerly awaiting the as yet untitled Book 3. 


Book source: Philly Free Library



*without Clauda! Have they really never gotten together? Were they together and have since broken up? Are they together but trying to keep things hush-hush? WHO KNOWS? We get to hear (a tiny bit) about Haly and her boyfriend from the first book. Why no follow-up on Clauda and Selene's relationship, North?



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Under the Green Hill - for Tween Tuesday

Tween Tuesday was started over at Green Bean Teen Queen as away to highlight awesome books for the 9-12 yr olds or Tweens. This week's book is:

Sullivan, Laura. Under the Green Hill. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2010. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/10043234]

Booktalk:

     "It's like in The Lion, the Witch and the Whachamacallit," Silly said, opening the door.
     "Wardrobe," Meg said.
     "Yup, that's it. Look, it's full of furs, too, just like the one in the book. I wonder if there's a passageway to a secret world."
     "We have enough to do here with the fairies without finding another world full of trouble," Meg said testily.

p.123

When a dangerous fever breaks out in the States, the Morgan children: Rowan, Meg, Silly, and James, are sent to England to stay with relatives for the summer. And haughty Finn and allergy-stricken Dickie are going with them. As they head to the Rookery, their great-aunt and -uncle's house, the Morgan children expect to spend a long summer in the company of tiresome elderly people. Finn's more concerned about the lack of electricity and Dickie's worried about all the pollen in those famous English gardens. Needless to say, none of them are excited. But when they get to the Rookery, they find a house of busy people getting ready for a midnight festival and themselves packed off to bed, forbidden to leave the grounds. Nothing is more exiting than that which is forbidden, so the Morgans, Finn, and Dickie sneak out to join the festivities, and what they find will change the course of the summer and possibly their lives.

Review:
As you may have guessed from this blog's title and header, I'm a bit partial to kids in unfamiliar old houses who stumble upon magical worlds. Extra points if that old house is in the English countryside. Extra, extra points if the kids get caught up in an epic war requiring brave heroics. There was never any doubt in my mind that I would love Under the Green Hill.

I want to be so very grown-up and objective and say that what I found so attractive in this book was its own sense of place in and reverence to the tradition of books about kids in unfamiliar old houses, so on and so forth. Or that I loved the allusions to other fairy/faerie stories that I caught but will probably fly over the heads of young readers. Or that I was excited about a middle grade book featuring a position of power passed down through the maternal line, with almost inconsequential (but loved!) husbands marrying into the family to help produce the all important female heir and spare. Or even that I was enchanted by Sullivan's use of language. For example:

Dickie could tell it was extraordinary just from the smell. An odor of knowledge permeated the air, ghosts of arcane secrets wafted about by the breeze the children made when they opened the door. Here were books more rare than any first editions. ... The air seemed stale, as though no one had visited that room in decades. But, oddly, though there was dust on all visible surfaces, the library didn't make Dickie sneeze. Books have their own peculiar kind of dustiness, which didn't catch in his nose the same way cat's hair or thistle pollen might.

p.119

I could say all of that, and it would all be true (especially that last one). But what really made me fall in love with Under the Green Hill was the story, pure and simple. I'm a sucker for a good fantasy adventure, and this one is full of that goodness: a beautiful setting that is recognizable but still full of fantastical elements, betrayal, swamp monsters, life and death stakes, war-training, a wise benefactress who one can only hope will make everything okay, an enemy that isn't so evil that anyone really wants to kill him, a sensible sister who tries to be the voice of reason, and a brother hell-bent on grand acts of heroism. Plus an added bonus (that I'm also a sucker for): a selkie!

So Finn, Dickie, and even youngest brother James are a bit underdeveloped. That's okay; they each serve their purpose in the story, hindering or helping the rest of the Morgans along. There's also a little ambiguity in the beginning about when this story is set. It feels like it should be set in the past, between World Wars perhaps, what with the incurable fever ravaging America's children and names like Finn, Rowan and Dickie, but Finn despairs about the DVDs and video games he brought with him to England but can't use since the Rookery has no electricity. It's also possible that I projected a former time on a book whose time period should be last week. Regardless, time period ceased to matter once all the children reached the Rookery and the real story started.

In case you missed it the first two times I said it, I loved this book and I think you all should read it! More professionally, I think other fantasy adventure readers are sure to enjoy it, and it will be an immediate hit with readers looking for something to read once they've run out of Narnia books.


Under the Green Hill is available now, and its sequel Guardian of the Green Hill will be available this fall!


Book source: Review copy provided by the publisher.


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Open Wounds

Lunievicz, Joseph. Open Wounds. Lodi, NJ: Westside Books, 2011. Print.
[Book cover credit: lunievicz.com/open-wounds/]

Booktalk:

"The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling
For you but not for me"
...
I met my cousin on the street. Sister Bernadette closed the front door behind me, her parting words echoing in my ears. "Mr. Leftingsham is your guardian by law of the state and by law of the Lord, Cedric. You are ours no longer. May the Lord be with you."

p.88-9*

Cid has always been the kid nobody wants. His mother died when he was born, leaving him with a father who could never forgive him for his fatal birth and a grandmother who could never forgive him for his Jewish mother. When he inevitably gets left at an orphanage, he thinks he'll be there forever. A man like Lefty, a cousin he never knew existed, is the last person he'd expect to claim him.

Review:
Cid's already lived a rough life by the time Lefty takes him from the orphanage. He's spent most of his childhood as his father and grandmother's punching bag, watched most of his neighbors be evicted from their homes, watched his grandmother kill herself to avoid the same, been taken in to a loving home and then left behind. And that's all before he really even hits teenage-hood (and before we hit the 100 page mark). But that's not to say that it's all bad. Cid has two great best friends, Siggy and Tomik, and he goes to the movies, "church," with his grandmother every Saturday. And out of that comes Cid's dream of becoming a fencer.

The bright and the horrible are wonderfully balanced in these opening pages. You never quite forget one while you're reading about the other. And they set things up perfectly for Lefty's grand entrance. The Great War left him horribly disfigured, crippled, and cranky, but life with him gives Cid opportunities he never would have had otherwise. Together they form a little family (aawww - but not that obvious. Lefty and Cid are both way too tough for all that), but more importantly, Lefty sets Cid up with daily fencing lessons with the crazy, drunk  Russian on the roof. Once Nikolai gets involved, Open Wounds quickly becomes a sports book. There's training and fighting and sore muscles and exhausted bodies. But there's also stage-fighting with a Shakespeare company, a cute girl, a reunion with Siggy and Tomik, and the reappearance of their childhood bullies. Again, the beautiful balance. There wasn't so much plot that the fencing stopped being important, but at the same time, I never felt lost in a book centered around the practice of a sport I've only seen in movies.

Now, I don't read a lot of fencing books (though I'm considerably more interested in them now), but I do read a lot of ballet books. I always try to comment on the accuracy of the dancing or the attitudes towards it. I can't do that here, but Richie can (sorry, his site doesn't do direct links). If he says Open Wounds is good, you can bet that it is and that the swordplay therein is up to par (and he does). This will be a hit with readers who are looking for sports books, but historical fiction and hard-knock-life fans will love it as well.


Open Wounds comes out May 25!


Book source: ARC provided by the publisher.


*Quotes and page numbers are from an uncorrected proof and may not match the published copy.

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Instruments of Darkness

Robertson, Imogen. Instruments of Darkness: A Novel. New York: Pamela Dorman Books - Viking, 2011. Print.

[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/8398153]

Booktalk:

This book opens with a body and a murder. In that order.

When Harriet Westerman finds a body on her property in the country, she rudely wakes up Crowther at some ungodly hour of the morning to help her investigate. News has spread that Crowther conducts research on human remains; he's convinced that the way a person lives and dies leaves marks on their body. In addition to the gash across its throat, this body has a ring bearing the crest of Harriet's neighbor in its vest pocket.

Meanwhile in London, Susan hears her father lamenting the loss of a ring that Jonathon, Susan's younger brother, liked to play with. The ring falls from her mind when she and Jonathon are witnesses to their father's murder in his music shop. Before dying, their father tells Susan to find a very important box hidden in the shop and asks Mr. Graves, a young family friend with hardly the means to support himself, to care for the children.

Review:
Instruments of Darkness is full missing heirs, hidden wills, unhinged trophy wives, absent husbands, headstrong women, shamed men, and more bodies to go with more murders. It's a fun and engrossing historical mystery that really has no dull moments. Even scenes away from the "action" had something to entertain: comedy in one story, grief and uncertainty in the other, drama and intrigue in both.

Ms. Robertson makes good use of the Georgian period in which she places her cast, using the Gordon riots heavily in one storyline and making the real John Hunter a connecting point between the two. For the most part, characters speak in that generic historical fiction kind of way that is unique to no period but "the past." This is good since real Georgian English would be a bit hard to follow, but I was a bit disappointed that there were a few phrases that stood out a modern. They weren't enough to pull me out of the story for long, but they stood out enough that I remember them. Additionally, though I loved Harriet, some of her boldness and forwardness seemed a bit too progressive for the time in which she lived. I don't know that I would have noticed, but put beside Susan, Miss Chase, and Harriet's own sister, Harriet is definitely a bit fiery.

Though this is an adult book, there is nothing in Instruments of Darkness to make it inappropriate for teen readers, though it is a bit light on the romance and heavy on the murder/mystery compared to comparable YA titles. Still, it is sure to be enjoyed by historical fiction and mystery readers and adored by those who revel in the combination of the two.


Book source: ARC provided by the publisher through the goodreads first reads program.

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Guardian of the Dead

Healey, Karen. Guardian of the Dead. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2010. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/8574661]

Awards:
ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults (2011)
William C. Morris YA Debut Finalist (2011)

Booktalk:
Ellie can't seem to get control of her life lately. She's let her best friend Kevin "convince" her to drink on school nights and even to let him sleep in her room. She's made a fool of herself in front of the guy of her dreams, Mark (did she somehow mistake her secret fantasy that he actually wanted to interact with her for real life?). She's even starting to get along with Iris, Kevin's other best friend. And, as if that wasn't bad enough, she has a nagging feeling that the Eyelasher killings that have been terrorizing the North Island have something to do with her. This feeling goes way beyond the connection that everyone who's lived on the North Island feels to the murders, and that feeling might have something to do with Mark. Unless that's just her fantasy life invading reality again.

Review:
There is a lot to love about Guardian of the Dead. Here's the shortlist:

• a smart, kind of nerdy heroine
• the freedom/restrictions of boarding school
• use and explanation of Maori myth (by a white author who has the balls to point out in the text the colonial nature, possible inaccuracies, and just plain wrongness of Maori myth written down by white people)
• high school use of a university library, because serious shizz calls for serious research
• patupaiarehe (fairy-type creatures), one of whom is Titiana in Iris's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream -- because I'm not the only one who likes art to imitate life
• casual treatment of varying sexualities*
• a hottie who is half-Maori, half-...well, something else

and I could go on. But do you want to know what I loved the absolute most about this book? The ending. I won't go into detail (or talk about the "action" ending) because I don't want to ruin it for you (cause oh-my-gosh is it cool), but I can still tell you why I love this ending.

Things go crazy, Ellie falls in lurv which may become love in the future, and Ellie and love-interest have to save the world. It's life-changing, obviously, but Ellie doesn't let it derail her life completely. She doesn't possibly blow off her art school application or get married right out of high school or ditch her best friend in the face of tru lurv and harsh circumstances or even, and this is the big one, drop out of school in order to save the world which apparently cuts off the possibility of being a brilliant academic and instead becomes a mostly silent side-character.**

Instead, Ellie keeps going, gets excited about going to college and majoring in Classics, and tells love-interest that she'll visit him when she's on break. She simply takes all that she's learned from these life-changing events with her, because that's what smart girls do.

So, if you want to read an urban fantasy (a little light on the urban grit) or paranormal romance (a little light on the romance) that's headed by a smart girl, this is your book. It's also your book if you want to read the Maori Percy Jackson equivalent, a good boarding school romp, a murder mystery, a different kind of fairy book...


Book source: Philly Free Library


*How often do you see YA books with a teen character who is asexual? Not often. I'm not going to lie and say it's not a big deal at any point, but it is not THE big deal. And it is not a problem ever, except to the people crushing on the character. :)

**Was this anyone else's take-away message from Hermione's whole 1 or 2 lines in that horrible epilogue?!? I know Ginnie's important and everything, especially cause she's the mother of Harry's children, but why does she get all the speaking parts? Since when does Hermione let everyone around her do all the talking?

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The Lost Saint

Depain, Bree. The Lost Saint. New York: Egmont USA, 2011. Print. A Dark Divine Novel 2.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/9903924]

Not only will this not make much sense if you haven't read The Dark Divine, but it will spoil the crap out of the last chapter for you. You've been warned!

Booktalk:

     "Oh. My. Gosh." April shouted so loud I slammed on the breaks, thinking we were about to hit a dog or something. But April bounced in her seat with the craziest smile on her face, like she'd just thought of the best idea since nail polish. "...I have to ask: if you're gonna be a superhero, can I be your sidekick?"

p.111

Now that Grace is the one with superhuman abilities, Daniel is trying (mostly in vain) to get her to keep her powers and emotions in check so that the wolf doesn't take control. But calm and controlled is not what Grace wants. She wants to be out fighting the evils of the world, rescuing damsels in distress, thwarting demons and saving Jude. And if she has to embrace the power the wolf gives her in order to do that, she will. The fact that the hot new guy in town is willing to train her in ways that Daniel is not has nothing to do with it. Right?

Review:
I'm going to start out by saying that, while I loved the first book, I was not DYING to read The Lost Saint. I was interested, looking forward to it, and knew I would love it, but the first book did not leave me with that unquenchable need (as a result of a too-late-in-the-story twist or cliff-hanger) to pick up the next book in the series. I knew that nothing horrible would happen to Grace, Daniel, or even Jude before I met them again.

Well, I'm clawing my eyes out now waiting for the still untitled third book in the series. I tore through the last chapter and was half a paragraph into the acknowledgements before it hit me: I have to wait until December to find out what happens next. Oh, the agony!

Where The Dark Divine had mystery and the unknown (and one of my favorite romances in the paranormal genre) to move it forward, this has an overall feeling of doom and dread to push the story along (and a rift in my favorite romance). Despain does not fall into the paranormal trap of making either Grace (the girl) or Daniel (the love interest of the paranormal) helpless or unable to read the hints right in front of them, but there were still plenty of moments where I just knew that Grace was Going the Wrong Way, and just like while watching a horror movie, I could do nothing but yell at her through the pages and watch her go. Her little tiffs with Daniel that turned into petty I'm-not-speaking-to-you problems that turned into secrets kept were believable and painful. They also made her vulnerable, and that vulnerability made her trust people she shouldn't have. And that, of course, gets everyone in trouble.

The upside to all of this is the return of April. And, well, she's just awesome. From her superhero aspirations to her wink-wink-nudge-nudge secret keeping to her inability to not see the upside of everything Grace is going through, she made this book for me. This is what I absolutely love about Despain's writing and why I will keep reading anything she puts out. There is so much about these books and others like them that is serious and stressful (in a good way), but she so far she has managed to put in something to balance it, and it is not a serious and dramatic love story where no one smiles but instead gazes. In the first book, it was the happy flashbacks to Grace and Daniel's childhood together and the fluttery first love between them. In this book, it is April's excitability and the rekindling of Grace's friendship with her. These additions help to pace the story and help to create well-rounded characters (did I mention that April is designing Grace a superhero outfit as part of her art school application?). The world does not fall away in the face of the Despain's werewolves; they exist in it.

And I can't wait to see what they do next!!!


Book source: Philly Free Library


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Happy National Library Week!

Is your library doing anything exciting to celebrate?

My public library definitely is, and we're even hosting a few events here at work (which hopefully won't be thwarted by pre-Easter, end of the year assignments).

Even if your library isn't having or is unable to have any special NLW programming this week, there are other ways to celebrate such as by writing a twaiku or by sharing the YA love with complete strangers (I know that many of you do this a lot of the time anyway, but click through for the readergirlz annual Teen Book Drop info and bookplate).

However you choose to celebrate, this is a great week to do something bookish!

Links to Amazon.com may be affiliate links for the Amazon Associates program. If you buy something through this link, I may receive a referral fee.

Scribbling Women - for Nonfiction Monday

This week's Nonfiction Monday round-up will be at L.L.Owens!

Jocelyn, Marthe. "Scribbling Women": True Tales from Astonishing Lives. Toronto: Tundra Books, 2011. Print.

[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/10940696]

Booktalk:
In this slim volume, Jocelyn looks at the writing of 11 women throughout history and around the world. Some of them were famous in their own times and have names that are still recognizable today. Some of them meant for their writing to be read by thousands, some meant for it to be read by only a few. They differ in nationality, economic status, opportunity and experience. What they do have in common is the need and the will to write down the incredible stories of their lives.

Review:
Starting with Sei Shonagon in Heian Japan and working her way chronologically to Doris Pilkington Garimara in modern day Australia,* Jocelyn manages to look at the writing of a wide variety of women. She admits in her introduction that she was limited to work written in or translated into English, which explains the predominance of North American and British women in these pages. Still, this is not a book filled with the polite letters of Victorian ladies.

Of the eleven women in these pages, five are women of color and five (not the same five) spend a better part of their lives as decidedly lower class. Their stories really do cover a broad spectrum of the female experience; no two are alike. Whether you are looking for action or introspection, gumption or the strong will to make do, there is woman represented here for you. Following closely on the heals of the rather offensive to our modern sensibilities writing of a barely pre-Victorian wife of a wealthy captain (Mary Hayden Russell), we are treated to the writing of a slave who remained hidden in her mother's attic for years (Harriet Ann Jacobs). Daisy Ashford, the eight year old author of the still in print The Young Visiters, is followed by Ada Blackjack, the sole survivor of an expedition to the Arctic. A surgeon during the Vietnam War (Dang Thuy Tram), an undercover reporter (Nellie Bly) and one of the first female felons to be shipped to Australia (Margaret Catchpole) are also represented here.

My only problem with this book was that I wanted to know more about each of the women. In some cases, there is just not that much more that is known. In others, I'm going to have to go looking for information about these women or others like them on my own. There is a bibliography in the back of the book, but it's arranged in alphabetical order (like bibliographies should be) rather than organized by subject or chapter, and it's pretty long. I would have much preferred short biblios at the end of each chapter even if it would have broken up the narrative a bit. Also, though this book has the subject heading of "biography," the information contained in Scribbling Women is based almost entirely on the writing of the women themselves. I love this, but it will make this book a hard sell for report writers as some common details are often not included (birth and death dates, however, are present). Still, this is an interesting book about an interesting mix of women that nonfiction readers and budding young writers will enjoy.


Scribbling Women came out last week!


Book source: Review copy provided by the publisher through LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program.


*Upon whose book (about the life of her mother) the movie Rabbit Proof Fence is based. This movie is heart-breaking and horrible at the same time that it is inspiring. I highly recommend it!

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