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speculativebecky 's review for:
Elatsoe
by Darcie Little Badger
Y’ALL. My goodness, this book is SO good. I’ve been waiting for Darcie Little Badger to publish a full length novel since seeing her speak at an SFF convention years ago, and her debut YA Fantasy, Elatsoe, still completely surpassed my expectations. I can’t wait for everyone to be reading this beautiful, special novel.
Elatsoe is set in a world like our own, but all of the monsters and magic from myth and legend are real. Think ghosts, vampires, animated scarecrows, coyote people, and the fae and you’ll start to get there. Intrepid Ellie is a young Lipan Apache woman who guards a family secret that allows her to wake the spirits of deceased animals, passed down through generations of women beginning with her heroic Six Great Grandmother. When her beloved cousin is murdered by a powerful man in a mysterious nearby town and the police deem the death an accident, Ellie sets off to take justice into her own hands, with the help of her ghost dog best friend (Kirby), her best human friend (Jay), and her parents.
Although the narrative arc is more murder mystery than fantasy, Little Badger astonishes with her deft and exciting worldbuilding. I could not get enough of the details she packed into the world, and I would love more books to explore greater facets of this fascinating and so well executed concept. The characters also soar as high as the worldbuilding, Ellie is a brave and smart kid, and I loved her friendship with Jay, and how she worked with and relied on her family in her pursuit of justice rather than going rogue.
ALSO Ellie is #ownvoices asexual, a pretty casual but well done element of the novel. In an interview Little Badger explains, “It’s rare to see asexual characters in general. And when they do appear, they tend to fall into certain categories. Like, they’re robotic or they’re trying to come to terms with their asexuality, and that’s the entire focus of the book. I wanted to write a fantasy adventure with an asexual main character ‘cause I myself am asexual, and I’m getting married to another asexual Native, and we’re both big nerds who play tabletop roleplaying games on the weekend. So, we’re out there!”
Elatsoe is set in a world like our own, but all of the monsters and magic from myth and legend are real. Think ghosts, vampires, animated scarecrows, coyote people, and the fae and you’ll start to get there. Intrepid Ellie is a young Lipan Apache woman who guards a family secret that allows her to wake the spirits of deceased animals, passed down through generations of women beginning with her heroic Six Great Grandmother. When her beloved cousin is murdered by a powerful man in a mysterious nearby town and the police deem the death an accident, Ellie sets off to take justice into her own hands, with the help of her ghost dog best friend (Kirby), her best human friend (Jay), and her parents.
Although the narrative arc is more murder mystery than fantasy, Little Badger astonishes with her deft and exciting worldbuilding. I could not get enough of the details she packed into the world, and I would love more books to explore greater facets of this fascinating and so well executed concept. The characters also soar as high as the worldbuilding, Ellie is a brave and smart kid, and I loved her friendship with Jay, and how she worked with and relied on her family in her pursuit of justice rather than going rogue.
ALSO Ellie is #ownvoices asexual, a pretty casual but well done element of the novel. In an interview Little Badger explains, “It’s rare to see asexual characters in general. And when they do appear, they tend to fall into certain categories. Like, they’re robotic or they’re trying to come to terms with their asexuality, and that’s the entire focus of the book. I wanted to write a fantasy adventure with an asexual main character ‘cause I myself am asexual, and I’m getting married to another asexual Native, and we’re both big nerds who play tabletop roleplaying games on the weekend. So, we’re out there!”