& one more
Mar. 29th, 2013 01:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
furyofvissarionI didn't want this to get lost in the Diane Duane post nor in the next post I ought to make sometime (rereading the Kitty Norville books ♥).
A Stir of Bones - Nina Kiriki Hoffman. This is a book I reread periodically, even though it triggers the hell out of me, for the hopeful semi-cathartic ending. By the time this YA novel was published, we'd already seen some of these characters before as adults in other Hoffman books (A Red Heart of Memories & Past the Size of Dreaming). The story revolves around Susan Backstrom, viewed by most of her peers as a rich, stuck-up, prissy, super-feminine girl. Susan & her mom live w/Susan's physically & emotionally abusive father, who particularly keeps Susan isolated from friends or anyone else who might sense anything is wrong. Despite this, Susan falls in with some kids at school who are investigating a supposedly haunted house. Friendship, magic, & some vague catharsis ensue.
I know this book triggers me -- I have to be v. careful when I decide to reread it -- but in addition to the above, I forgot that Susan also attempts suicide. OOPS. Anyway, usually I love the ending, in which there is hope but not anything unrealistic in terms of changing Susan's family situation & getting her safe. This time around, the combination of the power of friendship & the power of supernatural abilities kind of irritated me, but that's more to do w/me (& feeling bitter about my own abusive father! &, you know, it's not like I can ~magic that away~) than the book. In general this is still really comforting.
A Stir of Bones - Nina Kiriki Hoffman. This is a book I reread periodically, even though it triggers the hell out of me, for the hopeful semi-cathartic ending. By the time this YA novel was published, we'd already seen some of these characters before as adults in other Hoffman books (A Red Heart of Memories & Past the Size of Dreaming). The story revolves around Susan Backstrom, viewed by most of her peers as a rich, stuck-up, prissy, super-feminine girl. Susan & her mom live w/Susan's physically & emotionally abusive father, who particularly keeps Susan isolated from friends or anyone else who might sense anything is wrong. Despite this, Susan falls in with some kids at school who are investigating a supposedly haunted house. Friendship, magic, & some vague catharsis ensue.
I know this book triggers me -- I have to be v. careful when I decide to reread it -- but in addition to the above, I forgot that Susan also attempts suicide. OOPS. Anyway, usually I love the ending, in which there is hope but not anything unrealistic in terms of changing Susan's family situation & getting her safe. This time around, the combination of the power of friendship & the power of supernatural abilities kind of irritated me, but that's more to do w/me (& feeling bitter about my own abusive father! &, you know, it's not like I can ~magic that away~) than the book. In general this is still really comforting.