furyofvissarion (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
furyofvissarion) wrote2010-01-24 11:25 am
furyofvissarion) wrote2010-01-24 11:25 am
Entry tags:
belatedly, the last books of 2009
A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend - Emily Horner. Teenager Cass Meyer's best friend Julia had a secret mission: put on a musical about ninjas. Then Julia dies in a car accident, but her drama friends--none of which Cass ever felt that comfortable around--are determined to do the musical in her memory. To add insult to injury, Heather, a girl who tormented Cass for years in school, is the lead role. Trying to avoid getting involved in the production, Cass heads off on her bicycle with Julia's ashes, heading to California (from Illinois) because she & Julia once planned a road trip there. Eventually what happens, of course, is that Cass returns & gets drawn into the musical anyway. And, oh, gets a crush on Heather (none of this is a spoiler, btw--it's all on the back cover).
Horner does really well in illustrating the intricacies of high school social dynamics: the way you're never really sure how you stand with the people you call friends (& how people might be called friends but not actually be friends), & how this uncertainty can result in a lot of hurtful behavior--but also how suddenly, people will go out on a limb for each other when you least expect it. And the little things that can add up to fitting in or not fitting in. And also the way teenagers sometimes find the highest drama in whatever they're doing & thinking. I also thought the gradual reconciliation of Cass & Heather to be well-done & realistic; I kind of wanted Cass to give Heather a harder time than she does, but could see why things played out as they did. The issue of queerness could've been handled in a v. hackneyed way, but I don't think it was; I liked the sort of uncategorizable nature of how Cass may or may not have felt about Julia, & Cass & Heather fumbling their way through how to have a relationship in a world where an awful lot of people still don't think that's okay.
Also, I greatly appreciated the one-liner where a woman from an Asian theater company is troubled by a bunch of suburban mostly-white kids making a musical about ninjas.
This book is coming out in June, btw.
Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen - Marilyn Chin. An irreverent, smart & pointed look at being Chinese in the US, this novel follows sisters Moonie & Mei Ling Wong through their childhood & beyond. Chin weaves in a lot of myth & the story leaps between locales & different versions of truth & what is possible. Hilarious & disturbing in turns.
Once Dead, Twice Shy - Kim Harrison. Disappointing YA debut from Harrison, whose Hollows paranormal books I generally enjoy. Madison Avery died on prom night, cut down by a dark reaper. She stole his magical amulet & became sort-of alive again, & drawn into a struggle about fate versus free will between dark reapers (who kill humans that threaten to change the path of the world) & light reapers (who protect choice). Part of why I didn't enjoy this book so much was that it read like a second book--I actually checked the publication info in the book multiple times to be sure that this was the first book in the series, which it appears to be. However, something about how Harrison handled filling the reader in on past events felt less like a recap of events that happened off-stage & more like a reference to an entire missing book. Plus, Madison is annoying & I don't find the reapers interesting so far.
The Vast Fields of Ordinary - Nick Burd. Dade Hamilton is finishing his senior year in high school in small-town Iowa. He's gay & has had a down-low relationship with popular boy Pablo, who won't so much as look at him when they're in public & he's with his girlfriend. Dade's parents are also teetering on the brink of divorce. Dade's summer starts off crappy, but when he meets openly lesbian Lucy & bad-boy (& gay) Alex, things start to look up. There's a lot to like here--Burd's description of upper-middle-class suburbia & how suffocating it can be is terrifying. And the relationship between Dade & Alex isn't as cliched as I was expecting--there are moments of real awwwww-ness for me. Also I liked Lucy a lot. And Dade's struggle to find a place for himself as a gay teen was well-handled. However, the sub-plot about a missing girl, & how her disappearance grips the attention of their town, really didn't work for me. People supposedly spot the girl everywhere--Dade himself thinks he sees her near his house--& the way this is all written makes me wonder if the story is going to dive into magical realism. But it doesn't, so everything just feels v. odd & slightly off-kilter. The subplot seems hammered in to give Dade one more thing to feel weird about.
Horner does really well in illustrating the intricacies of high school social dynamics: the way you're never really sure how you stand with the people you call friends (& how people might be called friends but not actually be friends), & how this uncertainty can result in a lot of hurtful behavior--but also how suddenly, people will go out on a limb for each other when you least expect it. And the little things that can add up to fitting in or not fitting in. And also the way teenagers sometimes find the highest drama in whatever they're doing & thinking. I also thought the gradual reconciliation of Cass & Heather to be well-done & realistic; I kind of wanted Cass to give Heather a harder time than she does, but could see why things played out as they did. The issue of queerness could've been handled in a v. hackneyed way, but I don't think it was; I liked the sort of uncategorizable nature of how Cass may or may not have felt about Julia, & Cass & Heather fumbling their way through how to have a relationship in a world where an awful lot of people still don't think that's okay.
Also, I greatly appreciated the one-liner where a woman from an Asian theater company is troubled by a bunch of suburban mostly-white kids making a musical about ninjas.
This book is coming out in June, btw.
Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen - Marilyn Chin. An irreverent, smart & pointed look at being Chinese in the US, this novel follows sisters Moonie & Mei Ling Wong through their childhood & beyond. Chin weaves in a lot of myth & the story leaps between locales & different versions of truth & what is possible. Hilarious & disturbing in turns.
Once Dead, Twice Shy - Kim Harrison. Disappointing YA debut from Harrison, whose Hollows paranormal books I generally enjoy. Madison Avery died on prom night, cut down by a dark reaper. She stole his magical amulet & became sort-of alive again, & drawn into a struggle about fate versus free will between dark reapers (who kill humans that threaten to change the path of the world) & light reapers (who protect choice). Part of why I didn't enjoy this book so much was that it read like a second book--I actually checked the publication info in the book multiple times to be sure that this was the first book in the series, which it appears to be. However, something about how Harrison handled filling the reader in on past events felt less like a recap of events that happened off-stage & more like a reference to an entire missing book. Plus, Madison is annoying & I don't find the reapers interesting so far.
The Vast Fields of Ordinary - Nick Burd. Dade Hamilton is finishing his senior year in high school in small-town Iowa. He's gay & has had a down-low relationship with popular boy Pablo, who won't so much as look at him when they're in public & he's with his girlfriend. Dade's parents are also teetering on the brink of divorce. Dade's summer starts off crappy, but when he meets openly lesbian Lucy & bad-boy (& gay) Alex, things start to look up. There's a lot to like here--Burd's description of upper-middle-class suburbia & how suffocating it can be is terrifying. And the relationship between Dade & Alex isn't as cliched as I was expecting--there are moments of real awwwww-ness for me. Also I liked Lucy a lot. And Dade's struggle to find a place for himself as a gay teen was well-handled. However, the sub-plot about a missing girl, & how her disappearance grips the attention of their town, really didn't work for me. People supposedly spot the girl everywhere--Dade himself thinks he sees her near his house--& the way this is all written makes me wonder if the story is going to dive into magical realism. But it doesn't, so everything just feels v. odd & slightly off-kilter. The subplot seems hammered in to give Dade one more thing to feel weird about.