Life Updates and The Locked Tomb

Happy summer, readers! First, let it be known that the girl who is writing this got a 5 on AP Calculus and AP English, showing that women truly can have it all, and also that I am a once-in-a-generation calculus genius, etc., etc. Let it also be known that said girl got her wisdom teeth out four days ago and is writing this having not eaten anything except mac ‘n cheese for the past 96 hours. With these things in mind, here’s what’s happened since the last time I updated the blog:

I went to the Grand Canyon with my dad, which was amazing and awe-inspiring until I realized just how scared of heights I am, which resulted in a lot of pictures like this:

look if they’re going to sell a 500-page book in the gift shop called Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon, I am simply not going to take my chances, thanks

But I did get this picture out of it:

Yes, that is me pointing and laughing at the word “butte,” because I am a mature adult. tamsyn muir i stg i have the exact sense of humor necessary to appreciate a nona arc, PLEASE

I was also so freaked out by the sight of snow on this trip that I made my dad stop the car so that I could walk around in it whenever I saw it:

i am a native texan unfortunately.jpeg

I then finished up the rest of my senior year of high school, which involved doing some very impressive-looking labs in astronomy that I cannot make sense of at ALL now, having just cleaned out my backpack:

#womeninstem

I passed my driver’s test, which I don’t have any pictures of because I had literally sweat through my shirt with nerves by the end of it, but it happened!

And then (after prom, AP tests, and the discovery that my calc teacher keeps fishing lures in the supply cabinet for some reason), I graduated. High school, I will miss you in some ways but I also relate hard to the girl in the parking lot after graduation who was giving two very enthusiastic middle fingers to everyone as she drove away.

And that’s that for my K-12 career, I guess! Now I’m leaving for college in two-ish weeks (we’re not going to talk about that, actually) and I’m making some videos for the National Deaf Center, which has been a very cool experience so far!

Now, if you’re thinking, Sarah, this is all great and you are clearly very smart, as evidenced by your astronomy lab–thank you–but where are the books, as this is a BOOK blog?, I regret to inform you that I have not read a single book this summer. This is generally not a good policy if you run a book blog, but I have unfortunately been walking around feeling like my brain has been replaced by a wet lump of scrambled eggs. For the record, I did read during the school year, so here’s that list:

still trying to figure out what to write about True Biz…I did wrinkle the last few pages by crying snottily and inconsolably over them, so there’s that

But besides the scrambled-egg feeling, the OTHER reason I haven’t read anything this summer is because I’ve been re-reading The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir. I read Gideon the Ninth back in February and Harrow the Ninth right after that, and I think I may have ruined myself for anything else maybe ever. I’ve been re-reading them both so often that I’ve actually broken the binding of Gideon (apologies to Tor publishing). These books have been taking up so much of my brain space that I literally woke up in a cold sweat one night in June and made this Venn diagram (I swear I am not kidding):

Yesterday I was hunched over the blanket that I’m currently knitting, listening to the GtN audiobook and chuckling at the part where Palamedes says, “The clavicle! Someone was having a joke.” This concerned my mother, who was trying to assemble a blender. Anyway! If you’re asking, as my grandma asked me one night as I resolutely ignored my entire family in favor of re-reading Harrow, what these books are about anyway, I’ll tell you what I told her, which is “What aren’t they about, Grandma?” They’re about lesbians. Space. What it means to be devoted to someone. Haunted houses. Haunted spaceships. Mental illness. Obsession. Manipulation. How power corrupts. Apocalypse(s). Bones. Soup? Epic poetry. Imperialism and empire. What if Draco Malfoy was a girl, but worse and also gay?

(This was not especially illuminating to my grandmother.)

I guess my point here is that I have a horrible time trying to sum up this series for anyone who’s curious about it, and I suspect that Tor does too, since the paperback description of GtN is incredibly bare-bones (haha bones). I mean, the only reason I read GtN in the first place is because when I was fifteen one of the Pride Club officers at my school who I was slightly obsessed with posted some Locked Tomb fanart to their Instagram and I was like “hm interesting” and now my brain chemistry has been irrevocably altered by these books. (This is an extremely Gideon way to get into GtN, by the way.) This post has been in my drafts for weeks because I’ve been trying really hard to nail down what exactly about The Locked Tomb has been so impactful for me, and why I’m spending so much time on Tumblr reading people’s analyses of the Nona poem that Tor released to make me, specifically, lose my mind.

Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

Scale

One thing I love about this series is the slowly unspooling sense of scale and dread. It starts off pretty high stakes already (two arch-nemeses, Gideon and Harrow, must work together to figure out the mysteries of a creepy old palace where people keep getting killed and maybe become God’s right-hand women by the end, if they succeed), and then it gets twistier, somehow. You’ll be reading, and then you’ll be like, “Wait, this is our solar system 10,000 years in the future. Wait, Gideon’s name is on this 10,000-year-old piece of paper, so what does that mean?” What we thought was a haunted-house murder mystery is suddenly a lot bigger than we thought it was! I love that feeling in a book, the “slow accretion of things going just a little bit wrong-er than they should…until a moment comes that shatters the entire world with a whip-crack suddenness you never saw coming.” Or, as Harrow the Ninth puts it:

You were standing in a darkened corridor, and you could not turn around: and then a brief explosion of light revealed to you that it wasn’t a corridor at all, and it had never been dark.

God, I love dread!! I love the quiet building uneasiness of things going wrong!!! I love standing in a darkened corridor only for a brief explosion of light to reveal that it wasn’t a corridor at all, and it had never been dark!!!!

Humor

I posit to you: What if the epic homoerotic space tragedy was funny?

Truly, most of what got me past the first 100 or so pages of GtN (which, unfortunately, is a little bit of a struggle to get through, but everything after that is sparkling and perfect) was the “‘Lo! A destructed ass'” joke on page 47, which I found so funny that I just had to keep reading. The humor is just so perfect! I especially loved the relationship between Harrow and Ortus (hard to explain but he’s someone Harrow grew up with, sort of) in HtN, like in this moment:

[Ortus] instantly took the paper from her shivering fingers and scanned it.

“If you come to my room, I will make you the potato dish you liked,” he read aloud, with gravity. And: “How must we understand potato?”

“As your closest vegetable relative,” said Harrowhark, who’d never seen one in real life.

“You are a ready wit,” her cavalier said, with no apparent rancor and every sign of appreciation.

I don’t know! It just makes me laugh! Especially in HtN, which is a big turnaround from GtN in tone, the fact that there’s still lots of silly jokes like this and that they work is a real testament to Muir’s skills. Also the fact that she’s able to take an extended joke like Ortus’ Noniad and make it the basis for one of the best, most rewarding, most adrenaline-inducing battle scenes I’ve ever read–it’s just good!

Description

I’ve already quoted Jason Sheehan once in this post, so I’ll stop after this, but I loved what he wrote about these books, which is that they’re “fatty with a thousand adjectives, luxurious with its emotional frosting, rich with blood and meat and spattered in sanguinary body-horror.” Basically, Tamsyn Muir just has a way with words! One character’s breathing sounds like “custard sloshing around an air conditioner.” Another character’s shoulders “relaxed a fraction from black-hole stress fracture to pressure at the bottom of the ocean.” Gideon yanks at a closed hatch, “as though offering up the universe’s most useless act might endear her to the physics of a locked door.” (I! Love! That! Line!)

I also particularly love the description of Camilla and Palamedes’ relationship. (Cam and Pal are secondary characters in GtN and are set to take a more central role in Nona). They have my favorite introduction of any of the characters in either book because their relationship feels so lived-in from the moment we first hear them discussing the strange make-up of the building. I wish I could quote that passage here because it’s just a masterclass in How To Get Your Readers Invested In A Relationship Without Really Trying, Except You Are Really Trying You Just Make It Look Effortless Because You Are Tamsyn Muir. I could talk forever about how Muir writes devotion and sacrifice and obsession, but I won’t do that because there’s a million more insightful and poignant posts about that on Tumblr written by people with usernames that are inexplicably always something like GravySupremacy2003. So instead I’ll just say: You should read it! Cam and Pal’s introduction is on page 131! Go forth!

Also, I absolutely do not have the bandwidth to say a whole lot about HtN (see “my brain is scrambled eggs,” above), which is about grief and dissociation and all that fun stuff, so instead I’ll point you to this article, which I think sums up a lot of my feelings. But another example of Muir’s just truly excellent description:

But this was more than she could take stock of. Harrow was too amazed by her body’s expanding capacity for despair. It was as though her feeling doubled even as she looked at it, unfolding, like falling down an endless flight of stairs.

That line has just been floating around my head since I read it, like the bouncing DVD logo. yes I am fine, thanks for asking

Twisty-ness

Reader, I will be honest with you here: I don’t know what the heck is happening in the last, I don’t know, 100 or so pages of Harrow. I still don’t really get what’s up with Teacher in Gideon, and all the Reddit threads I’ve read have been zero help. I am struggling to make sense of the Nona excerpts that have been released so far. It is very, very frustrating, and also very, very fun. You have to build up some tolerance for things being very unresolved to not hate this series with your entire being, because confusion and open-endedness and unreliable narrator-ing abound. I still catch, like, twelve different new and important things every time I re-read Harrow. That’s part of what makes The Locked Tomb so rewarding, I think–all the complicated, tricky plot points and relationships layered on top of each other like complicated, tricky lasagna. But it’s delicious lasagna, do you see what I’m saying? This is Michelin star lasagna. I will stop typing now.

Wrap it up!!

Yes okay fine. Have you ever read a book where you’re like, “Man, I wish I had written this, wait no I don’t because you have to have some very serious issues to be able to write something like this, so I’m glad someone else did”? Have you ever read a book where you’re like, “I think this might be changing the trajectory of my life and the chemical makeup of my being and I don’t think I’ll ever be the same again”? Have you ever read a book that reminds you very viscerally of that part in “Prayer” by Jorie Graham where she says “Nobody gets / what they want. Never again are you the same. The longing / is to be pure. What you get is to be changed”? Well if you haven’t, now’s your chance! I truly feel absolutely feral about these books, which I would say has never happened before except for the fact that I was a Warriors fanatic in elementary school and I used to make my dad quiz me about Tigerstar’s family line, so it’s been known to happen.

See you again in probably another six or seven months, if past trends are anything to go by. I would love to be all assertive about it, like, “This is my book blog and I’ll update when I want to, buster!!” except that I do feel slightly bad about only posting twice a year. Also it’s hitting me that I was all of thirteen when I started this blog, and now I’m an adult with a driver’s license and I’m going to college and I think I might be a completely different person now than I was in seventh grade. What you get is to be changed!

–Sarah

An End-of-Year Reading Wrap-Up

It has been a YEAR, people. A YEAR.

Right! What’s the news? I got through days of nine-degree weather and snow with no heat (gotta love the Texas power grid), finished AP Physics I and II, started driving, got vaccinated in the makeup aisle of Walgreen’s, got a girlfriend, got broken up with, finished junior year, cut off like six inches of hair, started senior year, applied to college, had my synagogue set on fire by a neo-Nazi, got my butt kicked by AP Calc, kicked AP Calc’s butt, and knit four pretty good scarves.

And somewhere in there I had time to read!

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t really read like I have a book blog. (To be fair, I don’t really write like I have a book blog, either, if the fact that I haven’t posted since June is any indication.) I just sort of read what I want when I want, and a lot of the time I don’t read at all because Oh My God High School Is Hard Can I Be Done Now?, so some of these books I’m about to talk about are pretty out of date. (Like, from 2003 out of date.)

So here’s the best of what I read in 2021, and here’s to a happier, healthier 2022.

Set Me Free by Ann Clare LeZotte

Throwback to the last time I updated this blog in June, when I reviewed the first in this series, Show Me a Sign. It took me half a year to get to the sequel, but it was worth it!

Set Me Free follows Mary Lambert, now fourteen, three years after the events of Show Me a Sign. When Mary receives a mysterious summons from an old friend, she travels to Boston to teach a young language-deprived deaf girl, nicknamed Ladybird. But she soon finds that Ladybird’s story is more complicated than she thought, and that beneath the grand veneer of the Boston home lurks a long history of ableism and colonialism.

As much as I loved Show Me a Sign, I wasn’t sure that Mary, as an eleven year old, was the best choice for a narrator. The subject matter demanded more hindsight and maturity than Mary could offer, and I was worried that this sequel would face the same problem. But making Mary three years older–a teenager who has had time to reflect on the trauma of her kidnapping and imprisonment in Show Me a Sign–pushes Set Me Free into a more fully fledged, nuanced territory. (I’m not sure if it’s Mary maturing as a character or LeZotte maturing as an author, but either way, I’ll take it!)

I retire early, but my mind is working too quickly to sleep right away. I think of Ladybird above me and wonder if she’s as restless as I. Does she know I reside one floor beneath her? Would she care if I did? I’m here, my girl!

Something about the “I’m here, my girl!” gets me–the sort of old-timey register of it, the obvious love Mary has for Ladybird, the passion of the exclamation point–it’s just beautiful. And I feel like we see this depth to Mary we didn’t see in Show Me a Sign–just this profound kindness and gentleness, but the kind of gentleness that’s rooted in strength and conviction.

Show Me a Sign ended contemplatively, with Mary pondering the future of her language and culture. Set Me Free, in contrast, ends on a passionate, active note, with Mary, deeply changed by her time with Ladybird, declaring that her “girlish games are put away.” It’s such a departure from the tone of the first book, but a welcome one–and I think it speaks to the maturation of both Mary and LeZotte. I’m keeping my fingers very tightly crossed for a third book.

Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger

I’m so mad it took me nearly two years to pick up Elatsoe! On the bright side, I did get the recently released A Snake Falls to Earth for Christmas, so hopefully I’m not too late on the draw this time around.

Seventeen-year-old Elatsoe can raise the ghosts of animals, thanks to her Lipan Apache family’s generational knowledge. Other than that, her life is pretty normal–she rides her bike, hangs out with her best friend Jay, and plays with her (ghost) dog, Kirby. But when her cousin is murdered, she finds herself investigating the strange going-ons in Willowbee, Texas–a town with a sinister secret at its heart. She’ll need to draw on her powers, her smarts, and her amateur sleuthing skills to save her family and avenge her cousin.

First of all: books set in Texas books set in Texas BOOKS SET IN TEXAS. Love it! I thought Little Badger’s description of everything from the road trip down to the shrubbery was just so evocative. Driving through Texas is like corn field corn field Whataburger cow field fireworks stand wheat field weird novelty museum, and I think she really captured that.

Ellie is an immensely likable protagonist, and I almost wish Elatsoe was just a little longer so that I could spend more time with her. She’s competent in a way teenage girls in YA so rarely are, and I love the way she draws on her family throughout the book. It’s heartwarming to see Ellie’s parents not just in the background supporting her, but having an active role–whether it be passing on important family stories or literally fighting vampires.

This is a minor point, but I really love the way Ellie and Jay snoop around in Elatsoe. They’re not just going around talking to people willy-nilly. They use everything from Rate-a-Doc.com to online maps and archives, which feels true to how teenagers today would do it. I think Little Badger really has her finger on the pulse of The Youth™. Speaking of Jay–he’s great! He’s a really fun character who balances Ellie out well, and I like that they can just be close friends instead of romantic–another thing that’s not all that common in YA.

Elatsoe does have some pacing issues: The chapters leading up to the climax felt slow, but the climax itself wasn’t long enough to have been worth all the build-up. Other than that, though, Elatsoe is pitch-perfect–sincere and full of heart and funny and just really, really good. I’m so excited to dig into A Snake Falls to Earth!

Daredevil: Parts of A Hole (Mack/Quesada)

Terrible title, terrible art, but I wanted to read some Echo comics before Hawkeye came out. (Echo was originally introduced in the Daredevil comics.) I’m including this on the list purely because the art is so hilariously awful. For your viewing displeasure:

The Female Form 🙏🙏

what is happening. who signed off on this. is this hell

totally normal date things. also why is matt’s neck so…muscular

every day we stray further from god’s light

And finally, this has nothing to do with Daredevil, but I just needed to show you this actual picture my government teacher put in his PowerPoint:

who doesn’t love a little girl-on-girl action between the Statue of Liberty and Lady Justice?

The Invention of Miracles: Language, Power, and Alexander Graham Bell’s Quest to End Deafness by Katie Booth

The first time I cried over a non-fiction book! The Invention of Miracles is a biography of Alexander Graham Bell and his complicated legacy vis-à-vis the Deaf community. It’s rooted in Katie Booth’s memories of her Deaf family, whose lives were shaped by the oralism and audism espoused by Bell. Anyway it’s beautiful and compelling and there are moments of just startling clarity and insight, like this one, which I keep going back to:

I was a guest in [the Deaf world], and there is a part of me now that can fall into the trap of peeking into this world as a hearing person and seeing only the beauty. This may seem like a positive thing–the deaf world, from the outside, can appear fascinating, beautiful, magical–but this way of thinking is dangerous, too. Focusing on the beauty can distract from the fact that this world is necessary. If we see it only as beautiful, then in arguments about money, innovation, and power, it is understood as superfluous. Deafness is not seen as a culture, and so efforts toward its erasure, and the erasure of its language and people, are seen as benevolence instead of forms of systematic ethnocide. Though access to this community should be assured as a basic human right, the truth is that the community still has to spend seemingly limitless time, money, and energy fighting for its own sustained existence.

Ironically, the most compelling parts of the book have nothing to do with Bell and everything to do with the deaf people around him–his wife, his mother, his students, and various deaf contemporaries of the day–so I was mostly trying to get through the parts about Bell in order to find those passages. (Part of that may also just be that I don’t have a super high tolerance for non-fiction writing, but.) For example, there’s a long passage about George Veditz’s famous speech, “The Preservation of Sign Language,” culminating with the most well-known (and beautiful!) quote from the speech:

As long as we have deaf people on earth, we will have signs. It is my hope that we will all love and guard our beautiful sign language as the noblest gift God has given to deaf people.

I found that infinitely more compelling than the long chapters spent on the science behind the telephone, but again, a lot of that is probably just my reading preferences.

In conclusion, read The Invention of Miracles! If nothing else, you’ll learn in great detail how a telephone works. (You should also read Booth’s essay The Sign For This.)

That’s all, folks

To be serious for a second–this year was really hard, and it sucked, and I cried, kind of a lot! So as the new year approaches (in literally like a matter of hours–I’m really getting this post in under the wire), just know that I’m wishing you a 2022 that’s gentle, kind, and a little bit less of a dumpster fire than 2021. I’ll leave you with some lines from a poem that means a lot to me and makes me feel hopeful:

I told her / I needed space, which was true, / without it, I’d only be a soul / and no one’s sure that wisp / is real, that’s why we say / of real estate location, location / location, and of speech, / locution, locution, locution, / and of love, yes, yes, yes, / I am on my knees, / will you have me, / world?

From “Confessions of a Nature Lover,” by Bob Hicok

Anyway, happy New Year, y’all. Love you.

Tales Through Time: Pet, Women Talking, and The War I Finally Won

I’M ALIVE, SUCKERS!!

You try looking this cute post-surgery.

Surgery went really well, and I’ve started the long process of learning how to (sort of) hear out of two ears again. I’ve got a cool-looking scar, a new cochlear implant, and three fantastic books to review, so let’s get to it! First, the futuristic Pet by Akwaeke Emezi.

Look, I don’t often recommend hyped-up YA books, but this one is well worth your time. Pet follows Jam, a girl who lives in the city of Lucille. She and her best friend, Redemption, have been taught that the monsters who used to roam the streets and halls of power have all gone. But Jam starts to suspect that this may not be true when she meets Pet, a creature who says it’s here to hunt a monster. Even worse, Pet says that the monster lives in Redemption’s house–one of the safest places Jam has ever known. As she starts to unravel a sinister mystery, Jam must learn how to hunt a monster when everyone keeps denying they exist.

I’ll start by saying that the audience for this book is probably on the younger side–maybe middle school? But I still loved it as a high schooler, and I think adults would probably like it, too. For one, I was refreshed by the fact that Lucille is an actual utopia. Pet isn’t one of those YA novels where a dystopia masquerades as a utopia and the protagonist has to take it down. Lucille’s government and representatives genuinely want the best for their citizens, and they’ve built a city that serves that purpose.

The world-building was wonderful–Lucille feels lived-in and warm. Parents bicker jokingly, little siblings are annoying, the library is still a safe haven for determined kids solving a mystery. Emezi makes the point that a utopia might look more familiar than we think–and, by extension, that it’s more attainable than we think. It references a lot of things that readers are probably already familiar with, like prison abolition, rehabilitation instead of jail time, and protests as a force for change. (And if younger readers aren’t already familiar with these things, Pet provides a fantastic starting point to learn about them.)

Most importantly, though, Emezi warns us that the work of actually sustaining a utopia is never done. Transparency, empathy, and a willingness to listen to the most vulnerable members of society are values that even a utopia like Lucille must re-commit itself to every day.

Also, Jam is selectively mute and uses sign language! So this deaf girl was definitely geeking out the whole time. Honestly, I could’ve read a whole book just about Lucille’s sign language–is it ASL? BASL? Does it incorporate signs from other sign languages, the same way Jam’s parents frequently use Igbo in their conversations? I was literally searching through the pages to see if I could find any more clues about it. The way Emezi showed how Jam’s parents and friends respect her communication preferences was subtle but moving, too.

I loved the relationship between Jam and Redemption as well–there’s something wonderful about a really well-written friendship that doesn’t turn romantic. The range of sexuality and gender in the book also stood out. Jam is trans, but it’s not a huge plot point. Redemption has three parents. It was also something of a relief not having to worry if a trans or disabled character was going to die, because Pet isn’t the type of book to treat its characters so callously.

In conclusion, read Pet! Not only is it a story that shows readers what an attainable utopia might look like, it’s also funny, heartfelt, and overflowing with love for its characters. (You should also read this really great interview that Emezi did with Teen Vogue!)

Next, let’s backtrack to the present(ish) day and discuss Women Talking by Miriam Toews.

In Women Talking, eight Mennonite women convene in a hayloft to debate whether or not they should leave the colony of Molotschna. For the past few years, they and their children have been repeatedly assaulted by a group of men, who are now in jail in the city. When the men of the colony leave to bail them out, the women and children are left alone–and face an impossible choice.

I don’t quite know how to feel about this book–it’s strong in a lot of ways and weaker in others. I’d say the biggest weakness is probably the narration. The story is told in the minutes of the meeting, which are taken by August Epp, a schoolteacher in the colony. He’s a fine narrator during the meetings–not so much when he’s talking about himself. The book gets off to a stumbling start when, within the first few pages, Toews throws a bunch of information about August’s backstory at us, which, to be frank, isn’t really that interesting, especially when the specter of a much larger predicament looms over the story. Even when the meetings actually start and August is taking notes, the book is continually bogged down with references to his life before re-joining the colony that feel excessive. I know that Toews is trying to endear him to the reader–he is the narrator, after all–but I’m pretty certain that there’s a more graceful way to do it.

A lot of the dialogue rings false, too. When Agata, one of the matriarchs, says, “This is a democracy, after all,” a teenage girl replies, “A what?” Ona and August reference poets and art and it’s revealed that August’s mother ran a secret school for girls. Many moments feel shoehorned.

It is caustically funny, though, one of the book’s major strengths. One of my favorite moments is when the women are discussing the certainties and uncertainties of leaving the colony:

Mejal defends Ona. Why couldn’t that be the case, that the only certainty is the power of love? she wonders.

Because it’s meaningless! Salome shouts. Particularly in this fucking context!

The story kind of reads as a Socratic seminar, with the women addressing philosophical and religious dilemmas with a slightly unbelievable amount of careful attention, given that they only have two days to make a decision. It’s a meditation on storytelling, patriarchal violence, and autonomy, and is trying very hard to be smart in the process. It would be smarter if it weren’t trying so hard.

Finally, let’s travel back in time to World War II with The War I Finally Won by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley.

In lieu of an actual review, please accept these screenshots of my grandma and I texting each other about it:

Well, ignore that last part about the AP. But yeah! To say that my grandma loves Little Women with a passion is the understatement of the century, so comparing The War I Finally Won to it is a pretty big deal!

I remember the conversation I had with my dad while I was crying! It went something like this:

“I didn’t expect it to be quite this emotionally devastating!”

“So it was really sad?”

“No!”

“Okay. Just…emotionally devastating.”

“Yes!”

!!!!!!!

Also, bonus: Here’s my grandma talking about The War That Saved My Life, the first book, in case you need some motivation to read it.

I mean!!

Maybe someday I’ll have the emotional fortitude to write a full review, but today is not that day, friends. I did try to write a review in June, but it was just a bunch of scattered thoughts, including the very bitter, “It’s a reminder that someone else has already written the book you want to write.” I mean, I really was so devastated by it that I couldn’t even look at it for a while.

A recap: The last time we saw London evacuees Ada and Jamie Smith, they were being reunited with their caretaker Susan in the seaside village of Kent after a bomb destroyed the house they’d lived in. The War I Finally Won begins a week after the end of The War That Saved My Life, on the eve of Ada’s surgery to fix her clubfoot. Soon after, Ada’s cruel mother dies in a bombing, Susan becomes the siblings’ guardian, and they move into a cottage on the property of the stony-faced Lady Thorton. And then Lady Thorton moves in with them, and later Ruth, a sixteen-year-old Jewish girl from Germany. As they wait out the war together, the world around Ada keeps shifting and growing in this moving, heart-wrenching, and ultimately healing sequel.

Here’s a very brief summarization of some of my thoughts, because I’m not even kidding when I say that if I think about this book for too long I start crying:

• I’ll start with this: There’s this line in an Atlantic article about The Fault In Our Stars that has stuck with me since I read it. It’s, “This is a book that breaks your heart—not by wearing it down, but by making it bigger and bigger until it bursts.” Granted, I don’t feel that way about The Fault In Our Stars. But I do feel that way about The War I Finally Won.
• The character development feels very, very earned. Ada’s trauma doesn’t just go away now that time has passed, but it’s obvious that she’s improved and trusts Susan more. (The relationship between Ada and Susan continues to bring me to tears, btw.) It helps that this book spans a lot longer than The War That Saved My Life. It begins when Ada is eleven and ends when she’s fourteen. (Do NOT even talk to me about how Ada would be in her nineties today or I will burst into tears.) And yet, the book never drags, either, for all the years that pass.
• I’d recommend reading Bradley’s post about writing a character with PTSD while simultaneously having PTSD herself. You should also read “A Touch on Lesbianism,” a funny and incisive blog post about Susan.
• The War I Finally Won is funnier than the first book, which I wasn’t expecting, but the humor feels very natural. Jamie is an excellent foil for Ada, just as before. When Jamie makes his cat a mourning armband, who quickly chews it up, Ada says, “Cats don’t mourn.” “They feel very sad,” Jamie retorts. “They just don’t like armbands.”
• Horses continue to be the best (what else is new?).
• It’s what I call a comfort food book, taking place almost entirely within the confines of the cottage and the surrounding property. It reminded me a lot of the first few pages of A Wrinkle In Time, when Meg, Mrs. Murray, and Charles Wallace are all in the kitchen during the storm. (It should come as no surprise to y’all that that scene was always my favorite.)
• There’s a lot of other stuff I want to say about it, but you should really just read it.

The War I Finally Won is almost unbearably intimate, so full of tenderness and communal care for each other that I was undone when I read the last page. And while the shadow of war and death looms over the story, it’s also filled with bursts of gentleness and love so overwhelming that I had to stop and take a breath just now thinking about it.

“The only way out of this is straight through,” Susan says to Ada while she’s recovering from surgery. “Courage.”

“Is that the same as being grateful?” Ada asks.

“Sometimes,” Susan replies.

Whatever. WHATEVER!! I’m not crying! Anyway, excuse me while I go get some tissues for a completely unrelated reason.

(Some Of) My Favorite Books

Happy Friday, readers!

Online school is still going strong in its second week. It can be a little tedious, but despite there being a global pandemic going on, my stress levels are down for the first time since this school year started.

I mean, this is what a typical week in my agenda looked like before they had to cancel school:

Why. Is. High. School. Like. This???

It was stressful! (That’s code for “crying two times a week at a minimum,” in case you’re wondering.) Oh, and I don’t have to wake up at 5:45 every morning to catch the bus anymore, so that’s definitely a bonus in my book.

But outside of school, I hope everyone’s doing okay–it’s a weird, daunting, scary time, which is why I decided to share some of my favorite books today. There’s nothing I find more comforting than reading. (Okay, maybe, like, the idea of there not being a global pandemic going on is slightly more reassuring than reading. But that’s about it.) I’d love to hear what your favorite books are, too, or which ones you go to in times of trouble. Here are mine:

The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

I know I mentioned this one a few weeks ago in my Coronavirus Reading List, but it genuinely is such a deeply affecting and comforting book. Ten-year-old Ada has lived all her life in London with her younger brother Jamie. Her mother, ashamed of Ada’s clubfoot, treats her cruelly, and Ada is forbidden to leave their flat. But when all children are ordered to be evacuated from London to escape the bombing, the siblings go to live with Susan, who I can only describe as an older, prickly, more flawed Sarah from Sarah, Plain and Tall. Jamie adjusts fairly easily, but Ada struggles to come to terms with the ramifications of her mother’s abuse as she navigates her new life in the English countryside.

I love Ada, but Susan is the rare adult in a kids’ book that has stuck with me in how well-developed her character is. The relationship between her and Ada never fails to make me cry in how complicated, nuanced, and deeply-felt it is, no matter how many times I read it; difficult themes are handled with such a depth of grace and empathy that I recommend this book to everyone I can. (Side note: The ever-excellent website Disability in Kidlit takes a more critical view of the portrayal of Ada’s clubfoot.)

“You must have been scared. Scared and angry.”

“Of course not,” I said, though I had been, at least until I’d seen the sea. “Of course I wasn’t scared.”

“Angry,” Susan said, putting her arm around me.

“No,” I said through clenched teeth. But I was. Oh, I was.

Spinning by Tillie Walden

This graphic memoir takes place in early-2000s Austin, Texas, and is a coming-of-age story through the lens of Tillie Walden’s years as a competitive ice skater. It manages to be quiet and loud at the same time; it’s slow and melancholy, but it’s also an account of sexual violence, growing up gay, and the pain of being closeted so vividly rendered that it sears like a brand. It’s painful to read at points, but it’s also a portrait of hope and persistence that I go back to often during difficult times.

(I know I talk about Tillie Walden on here all the time, but I won’t stop until I’ve convinced each and every one of you to read Spinning.)

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

A fictional account of a real murder, Alias Grace imagines the life of Grace Marks, who may or may not be complicit in the killing of the wealthy Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery. Sentenced to life in prison, a charity group asks Dr. Simon Jordan to interview her to understand whether she is truly guilty or not. It quickly turns into a sprawling tale of just how ill-defined the line between truth and fiction is, as well as a blistering story of class and gender divides.

For all its dark moments, hope is the propulsive force of this book–hope for a better life, hope for freedom, hope for recognition and understanding. Gender politics in 1800s Canada may not sound particularly compelling, but I promise that it is. I read this book in eighth grade, and I kid you not, I have thought about it literally every day since. I’ll just be eating a cheese stick by the refrigerator and all of the sudden I’ll be like, Man, remember Alias Grace? That was wild, dude. It’s long, but it’s easy to lose yourself in the story, even if you’re re-reading it. Also, I cry over the last sentence Every. Single. Time.

Gone mad is what they say, and sometimes Run mad, as if mad is a different direction, like west; as if mad is a different house you could step into, or a separate country entirely. But when you go mad you don’t go any other place, you stay where you are. And somebody else comes in.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

I was cleaning my desk out recently and found some very poorly-drawn fan art of Meg that I drew when I was in fifth grade, which should give you some indication of how much I love this book. Seriously, there was a whole year where I didn’t doodle anything on my papers, I just wrote A Wrinkle in Time quotes in the margins. Siblings Meg and Charles Wallace, along with their new friend Calvin O’Keefe and three mysterious not-entirely-earthly old ladies, embark on a journey through time and space to save the Murrys’ father (and also the world and maybe the universe in the process).

In addition to being superbly well-written but an easy and accessible read at the same time, A Wrinkle in Time is just hopeful. It believes, ardently, in the goodness of people. Also, as my mom pointed out to me as we were discussing how much we love this book, it’s surprisingly focused on intergenerational bonds between women–Meg Murry, Katherine Murry, Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which, Aunt Beast, so on. It strikes me more and more how profound these connections are every time I read it.

Plus, Hope Larson’s graphic novel adaption is wonderful, too, which is not something I’m usually inclined to say about graphic novel adaptations of classic books.

“Nothing is hopeless. We must hope for everything.”

Turtles All The Way Down by John Green

I’m usually not a huge John Green fan, but Turtles All The Way Down isn’t his usual work. It follows Aza Holmes, who’s struggling with severe anxiety and OCD. When her best friend Daisy drags her into a hunt to find a billionaire on the run from the authorities, things start to unravel as she tries to balance her grief for her father, her debilitating thought spirals, and the pressures of being on the cusp of adulthood.

Okay, that makes it sound really sad and the whole “hunt to find a billionaire” thing makes it sound like an *~uwu quirky~* John Green book, and in some ways it is–like, it falls into a lot of the tropes I don’t like about about his books (namely, the Kids Talking Like Philosophers thing–can they please just speak normally to each other for once??). But the mystery is relegated to a background subplot as a nuanced, complex, and deeply heart-felt discussion of mental illness takes center stage. Green, who himself has been open about his struggles with OCD, manages to make a wholly subjective and internal and painful experience at least a little understandable to readers. Aza’s argument with Daisy in particular has stuck with me–it’s both a scathing indictment of Aza’s privilege and what it means to be a “good” poor kid, but also an angry and unflinching examination of Daisy, who doesn’t understand how profoundly exhausting Aza’s OCD is.

Overall, though, what makes Turtles All The Way Down worth going back to in this moment is its deeply-felt empathy for its characters, in particular Aza, Daisy, and love interest Davis. Also, if you think you’re not gonna be crying at the (not exactly happy, but deeply moving) ending of this one, you’re dead wrong.

You remember your first love because they show you, prove to you, that you can love and be loved, that nothing in this world is deserved except for love, that love is both how you become a person, and why.

That’s all I have for now, y’all. My thoughts are with you, and I hope you’re all managing okay and getting through this.

It’s back to taking notes on industrialization in the Ottoman Empire for me, but hopefully I’ll be able to update again soon!

Until then,

Sarah ❤️

Coronavirus Reading List

So! Did I miss anything in the last couple of weeks? Any major global events happening? No? Good.

Just kidding. If you’re stuck inside like I am (school is cancelled for at least a couple of weeks for me) and bored as heck, I got you covered. Here’s a reading list: five genres with two books per genre (one for younger readers and one for older readers). Fear no more, because these books will help you hunker down while there’s a pandemic going on! (Wild times, no?)

Historical Fiction

If you would really like to not be living in the present right now, I feel you. Here are some books for that purpose exactly! I was extra careful not to put any plague books on this list, BTW.

The War That Saved My Life

One of my all-time favorite books, The War That Saved My Life follows Ada and her younger brother Jamie as they are evacuated out of London in the midst of World War II.  Sent to live with a curmudgeonly middle-aged woman named Susan, Ada, who was treated poorly by her mother because of her clubfoot, has a difficult time adjusting. It’s a slow, quiet book that tackles difficult themes with grace and care. It’s perfect for middle school kids, but older readers will love it just as much for its empathetic treatment of its complicated adult characters.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post

Is this historical fiction? I think it counts–set in the early ’90s Montana countryside, The Miseducation of Cameron Post follows the struggles of teenaged Cameron Post, who’s just starting to come to terms with her sexuality. It’s vivid, heartbreaking, and healing all at the same time–and yes, you should read it before you see the movie.

Other good historical fiction books:

• Chains or The Fifth of March for some American Revolution action
• Alias Grace for murder and gender politics in 1800s Canada
• Code Name Verity if you wanna see two kick-butt young ladies fighting Nazis for these trying times

Magical Realism

One of my favorite genres! Pretty much any Neil Gaiman story could go here, but because I’m nursing a vendetta against him (it’s a long story), let’s choose some non-Neil Gaiman books.

Wildwood

All three books in this series–Wildwood, Under Wildwood, and Wildwood Imperium–are fantastic and definitely worth reading. But Wildwood just introduces a setting so…well, wild, that the sheer joy at discovering the world Colin Meloy created is never quite replicated again. When Prue’s baby brother is kidnapped by crows, she journeys into the Impassable Wilderness at the edge of Portland, Oregon. Her classmate Curtis soon follows, and the two seventh-graders find themselves drawn into the mystery and politics of the various principalities and kingdoms, all while a dark force rises….Perfect for elementary and middle school readers, but, again, great for anyone else, too.

The Rest of Us Just Live Here

Mysterious blue lights. Soul-eating ghosts. Love triangles. Those are the problems facing the hero kids in Mikey’s town, with whom Mikey wants nothing to do. In a delightful subversion of “chosen one” fiction, The Rest of Us Just Live Here follows Mikey as he tries to keep afloat in the midst of family drama, crushes, and high school, because sometimes there are bigger problems than the end of the world.

Other good magical realism books:

• Summer and Bird for something in the vein of Wildwood
• The Apothecary, for readers who have asked, “What would the Cold War have been like if two teens had stumbled across a secret brotherhood of magical apothecaries?”
• Savvy for road trips, found families, and unusual superpowers

Ensemble rough-and-tumble teenagers do dangerous stuff

Is this a genre? Let’s call it a genre.

The Expeditioners and the Treasure of Drowned Man’s Canyon

For any kids who went through a serious steampunk phase like I did in fifth grade, The Expeditioners is for you. Kit, M.K., and Zander, the children of a famous explorer, team up with their new friend Sukey to figure out where a mysterious map is leading to. On the run from government agents in a post-computer world, this fast-paced, adrenaline-fueled book–with some seriously unique and lovable characters–will grip you tight and won’t let go until the very end.

Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom

This series has everything–magic, traumatized teenagers, snark, crow-themed imagery, the works! Part heist novel, part urban fantasy, the Six of Crows duology follows Kaz, Inej, Nina, Matthias, Jesper, and Wylan–characters with wildly different backstories who have all found themselves, with no shortage of bad luck, in Ketterdam. When they’re contacted by a shady rich guy for a seemingly impossible break-in, they take the job–but they may not make it out alive. No mourners, no funerals!

Other good ensemble books:

• I guess, like, any Rick Riordan book (The Kane Chronicles and The Trials of Apollo series are underrated as heck)
• Spellbook of the Lost and Found, if you’re into Ireland, intersecting timelines, and magic mixed with commentary on gender
• The Expeditioners and the Secret of King Triton’s Lair–not as good as the first book, but worth a read if you liked the world-building in Drowned Man’s Canyon.

Graphic Novels

This is just gonna be Tillie Walden books, Sarah, you’re probably thinking. Uh, ow! There’s, like, two whole non-Tillie-Walden books on here, so!

Rapunzel’s Revenge

This book was the only thing anyone wanted to read in third grade, and they had to order extra copies because people kept pestering the librarian about it. Set in the Wild West (kind of), this retelling follows Rapunzel and Jack (yes, Jack-and-the-Beanstalk Jack) as she journeys through the land to find her real mother and get her revenge on Gothel. There’s awesome art, humor, and an edge-of-your-seat storyline that I still remember all these years later as a sophomore in high school.

On a Sunbeam

Look, can you blame me? She’s just really good at what she does, okay?? I don’t want to spoil anything at all, so I will instead here quote, at length, the glowing review from The New Yorker: “Comics critics and would-be comics sophisticates—especially the kind who spurn superheroes—may think we have to choose between realistic characters who experience permanent loss and change, on the one hand, and escape, sublimity, and sheer wonder, on the other. Those sophisticates are wrong. ‘On a Sunbeam’ is not the first American science-fiction comic to say so…but it may be the most consistently beautiful, the most self-assured, the one with the best love story, and the one most vaultingly effective in its transitions between small-scale and large, between the deadly caverns under an exoplanet’s mountain and the look on a hopeful girl’s face.”

Other good graphic novels:

• Spinning for ice skating, coming of age, and beautiful, spare art
• Nimona for shape-shifting, villain sidekicks, and characters you wish were real so that you could give them a hug, bless their hearts
• Bone, perfect for younger readers, which quickly goes from a simple comic to a long-form, sprawling epic over nine volumes

Mythological Realism

Again, is this a genre? Maybe it’s a sub-genre of magical realism. Think classical gods and monsters in the real world.

Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos

This book–the first of an elementary-middle grade series–has action, suspense, and an utterly delightful narrator at its core. Theodosia Throckmorton practically lives at the Museum of Legends and Antiquities in London, where her parents work. Unbeknownst to her family, though, Theo has the ability to see the black magic that lingers on the artifacts at the museum and has made it her job to de-curse them and keep visitors safe. But when her mother brings back the Heart of Egypt from a dig, she discovers that it carries the most dangerous curse she’s encountered yet–and that even with canny street urchin Will and the mysterious Brotherhood of Chosen Keepers by her side, she may not be able to get herself (and British Empire) out of this one. 10/10, definitely made me want to live in a museum at the turn of the century.

The Sword of Summer

Okay, this is still pretty middle-grade, but it’s a little more grown-up than the Percy Jackson series. Magnus Chase, after dying in, like, the first chapter, is sent to the Norse afterworld of Valhalla. But he quickly discovers that it’s up to him–and his friends Samirah, Mallory, Hearthstone, and a few others–to stop the impending end of the world.  You know, typical Rick Riordan fare. But the elevated humor, unique characters, and original plot (as well as some wink-wink references to previous series) drew me in even as a high-schooler.

Other good mythological realism books:

• The Silence of the Girls, for readers who thought The Iliad was, uh, kinda disturbing gender-wise and wonder why they didn’t talk about that in class
• Pegasus, for anyone who’s ever wondered what the Percy Jackson books would be like if they had the plot of E.T.
• American Gods, for people who like violence, road trips, and Neil Gaiman

I think that’s probably more than enough to keep you occupied. Wishing everyone a safe next few weeks (months?). Keep reading, and stay inside, y’all!

–Sarah

Book Review: The Nowhere Girls by Amy Reed

The Nowhere Girls has been on my TBR list for…eight months, I think? For some reason, I just never picked it up until a couple days ago. Then I read all 404 pages in one sitting. So this review won’t exactly be current, per se, but I think there’s a lot of stuff in here that’s still topically relevant! Let’s dive right in.

Here’s a brief overview of the plot: Grace Salter has just moved to the small town of Prescott, Oregon, after her pastor mom had a political awakening that drove them out of their Southern Baptist community. Rosina Suarez would love nothing more than to start her own band rather than waitress at her uncle’s restaurant, but her conservative Mexican family has other ideas. Erin DeLillo, whose two passions are marine biology and  Star Trek: The Next Generation, can’t shake the feeling that her family is falling apart and there’s nothing she can do to stop it.

When Grace learns that she moved into Lucy Moynihan’s house, who had to leave town after accusing several popular students at Prescott High of gang rape, she, Rosina, and Erin lead a movement to protest the culture at their school and in their town at large. As the group grows steadily larger, the Nowhere Girls may just end up changing the lives of their friends, family, and community.

My thoughts: Part of the reason I was reluctant to pick up The Nowhere Girls was because it sounded so similar to Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu (a bunch of girls form a secretive group to fight rape culture in their small-town high school). Moxie, while it leaves you with a bit of a buzz afterward, had a lot of problems. First, it’s wildly unrealistic and is total wish-fulfillment. It was so short that there just wasn’t enough time to let the events play out realistically. I definitely felt like TNG handled the whole “change doesn’t actually happen that quickly!” aspect of it better. Secondly, Moxie really fails with the whole intersectionality thing. There are characters of color, and some do point out to the main character that they’re facing different struggles than the white girls at their school, but the book’s voice is ultimately a very white, very straight, very middle-class one.

Unfortunately, The Nowhere Girls falls prey to the same problem. While I commend Reed for the character of Rosina, a queer Mexican-American girl whose character arc is just as full as Grace and Erin’s, the voices of non-straight, non-white, and non-middle-class rape survivors are stifled. Researcher Nicole Froio makes the point that ever since Speak came out in 1999, the protagonists of books that deal with rape have almost all been white and straight even though Native American, African-American, and LGBTQ+ girls are statistically at a higher risk for sexual assault. “The YA genre needs books that highlight the impact of rape culture on queer girls, depict Black and Brown girls as victims, and explore how these different communities navigate and react to sexual assault,” Froio writes. “If we don’t talk about the different ways women and girls are targeted by rape culture, dismantling it will be impossible because we won’t be able to recognize how race, size, sexuality, disability and other facets of oppression factor into their assault, trauma, and healing.”

We’re…getting there, I guess?

Moving on to the character of Erin–whew, there’s a lot to say here. Erin has Asperger’s, and so far I haven’t managed to find a review of TNG by anyone with the same condition, but I hope you’ll allow me a few thoughts on her portrayal anyway.

First, I think it’s really important that there’s a female character with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Characters with autism have been disproportionately male in the mainstream media (see: Shaun Murphy from the TV show The Good Doctor, or Christopher in the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time). ASD is diagnosed about 4.5 times more frequently in men than in women, but it’s often posited that this is because autism doesn’t present itself in girls the same way it does in boys. I think it’s a step forward that we get a female autistic character who has real agency. Erin, like many of the characters in this book, also struggles with the aftermath of rape; and how often do we get an autistic female character who grapples with trauma, has complex feelings on her family situation and friendships, and initiates a healthy relationship with a boy in her class she has a crush on? Never, that’s how often!

I was really excited about Erin’s character, because (at least from the point of view of a neurotypical gal who just does a lot of research on disability representation), she was blasting stereotypes left and right. But the ending to her character arc made me feel a little…icky, I guess? Erin has an aversion to touch as a result of her Asperger’s, and throughout the book this results in tense moments with her mom and friends. Her big climactic moment comes when she embraces a rape victim as she tells her story, and while it’s a poignant chapter, it rubbed me the wrong way.

A couple posts ago, I talked about some harmful tropes that authors use when writing disabled characters. While Erin’s situation isn’t strictly “inspiration porn” as I described it in that post, it does have that quality of, “Look at this character overcoming their disability!! Isn’t that so inspiring?” 

This idea that Erin has to “overcome” her Asperger’s in order to have a full character arc is an insulting one–but also surprisingly common in books and movies. Just look at the popular YA novel Colin Fischer, whose main defining moment (almost exactly like in TNG) comes as Colin holds the hand of another character. Corinne Duyvis, an autistic YA author, writes on the subject: “Make your character grow, yes. But consider whether they really need to ‘overcome their autism’ to do so. If authors do want to center their plot on their autism, let’s read about a character…learning to understand their own behavior. Teach them self-acceptance, self-advocacy…That would be nice to see for a change.” To sum it all up, she says, “Don’t ‘soften’ autistic traits as easy shorthand for meaningful growth.”

All that aside (phew!), let’s talk about some positives!

It’s difficult to juggle multiple POVs and still make each of the characters seem alive and realistic (I’m looking at you, The Case for Jamie). For the most part, Reed does a really fantastic job with this. Though Rosina and Erin seem a little more 3-D than Grace, they’re all undoubtedly individual, and their voices are distinctive and a pleasure to read.

The narrators’ relationships with their moms are another strong point of the book. Though they’re strained, they make points about the complicated nature of mother-daughter relationships and intergenerational trauma. Rosina’s especially tumultuous relationship with her mom makes for some of the most emotional, heart-breaking scenes of the book. Erin’s frustration with her parents’ difficulty to understand and respect her feelings on her disability rings true for any kid who has one. Grace’s struggle to re-connect with her mom after drifting apart is emotional and affecting.

Just the way Reed describes the sheer discomfort of being a girl–that hyper-awareness, that always-looking-over-your-shoulder, always second-guessing, always-preparing-for-something-bad-to-happen-to-you feeling–is enough to qualify this book for, like, a million awards. Reed makes so many important points about gender and power throughout the book, yet she introduces them in ways that feel entirely natural and approachable. One of the most humorous yet heart-wrenching scenes in the book (and there are a lot) happens during a Nowhere Girls meeting as they discuss how their experiences with sex compares to those of their male peers. It’s simultaneously extremely depressing and extremely revealing about how we socialize girls to think about sex and pleasure.

Back to the negatives for a sec, though. We get a lot of well-developed and complicated female characters, and that’s as it should be, because this is a book exploring rape culture and its effects on girls from many walks of life. But the antagonists in the book are so archetypal that it really detracts from all the wonderful things about the story. We’ve got the football coach/English teacher, whose first substantial block of dialogue consists of the phrase, “I’m not going to waste our time with work that is popular because of passing fads and political correctness,” which is just way too on-the-nose to feel like authentic dialogue (though teachers making you read exclusively dead white dudes is a pretty universal experience). There’s the corrupt principal, who’s in cahoots with the corrupt police department, who gang up to make threats against the Nowhere Girls in an effort to get them to shut down. (Not that a principal trying to shut down a social movement at their school is entirely unrealistic, per se, but she’s so Umbridge from Harry Potter that it’s not even funny.) Then we have the boys who gang-raped Lucy.

Now, this book isn’t one where we really need to–or even where the best course of action would be to–humanize the villains. The book centers around survivors, and rightfully so. Some could make the point that the rapists’ totally flat, static characters are a missed opportunity to explore the effects of toxic masculinity on boys, but I think a book that already explores so many ideas about rape culture’s effect on girls would be too overstuffed if Reed included an exploration of how boys respond to growing up in this culture as well. That being said, a bit of backstory, a bit of humanity being shown, would have elevated the book to a much higher degree. (I sound like Gordon Ramsay critiquing a beef pâté or something, sorry!) That’s not to say that they should be sympathetic characters, but it felt like something more was needed than what Reed gave us.

I’ve always loved the “stick-it-to-the-powerful-forces-in-the-school-system” genre of books. (Frindle? No Talking? About Average? Man, Andrew Clements really does not like the public school system.) I especially love it when the ending of these stories doesn’t feel idealistic and false. The Nowhere Girls excels at making the reader feel like the characters earned that ending. It’s not exactly a victory, but it leaves you hopeful that there’s justice on the horizon–both for Lucy Moynihan and for girls everywhere.

Final score: Four stars

Cat picture translation: Despite its shortcomings, The Nowhere Girls offers a nuanced story about trauma, gender, and power. Very highly recommended!