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tachyondecay
Last October I finally read The Princess Saves Herself in This One, the first of these poetry collections by Amanda Lovelace. It had been on my to-read list for a while, but it took my friend Rebecca reading it and lending me her copy to actually get around to it. This time, I saw The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One in Chapters while buying a copy of the first book as a birthday gift! So I bought one for myself, and Rebecca and I buddy-read it. You can see her thoughts here.
If The Princess Saves Herself in This One is a very personal but broad story about the struggles of abuse, trauma, womanhood, family, and relationships, then The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One, while still personal, narrows the scope specifically to the relation of being a woman in this world. It focuses more on sexual and gender politics, with the personal elements enhancing Lovelace’s statements—wow, that’s too bland of a word … let’s say her call to arms when it comes to what it means to be a woman in a society that, while still patriarchal, is perhaps waking up.
I loved buddy-reading this with Rebecca, because our different experiences allowed us to share our very different learnings from this book. For Rebecca, of course, as a woman in Western society a lot of these poems resonated with her on a personal level. For me, a lot of these poems felt more at arm’s length: I recognized, from my feminist reading and the conversations I’ve had with friends, the sentiments in them, but there was less of a visceral reaction. Gradually, my understanding of this book developed around my response to it as
“the only thing we’re guilty of is being women”
I’ve been thinking about Jordan Peterson over this weekend, ever since that subversively intimate profile of him came out in the New York Times—well, not so much about Peterson himself, but about what he represents and the way we are still so invested in building up and celebrating these odious figures simply because they help drive the engines of capitalism. The same day that I picked up this book from Chapters, I saw that Peterson had nearly two shelves dedicated to his new book, all the various copies facing outwards. Why? Because his book will sell. And in our society, what sells matters most.
I bring this up here and now because The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One has actually helped me process my understanding of Peterson and his ilk. Jordan Peterson is a “matchstick boy”, to use Lovelace’s parlance. I don’t know if he genuinely drinks the snake oil he’s selling or if he’s just saying it because it’s getting him more of a platform … whatever the case, he is out to burn women as witches, to burn them simply for the crime of being women. It’s there in all of his utterances, the casual way he throws out terms like “enforced monogamy” or talks about the inherent differences between the “two” genders. In the wake of terrible actions fuelled increasingly obviously by misogyny, Peterson does not blame the men perpetrating these crimes but instead the women who turned them down. (Pro-tip: if someone tries to excuse violent behaviour by blaming the struggle for equality and equity, this is a sign that they are an asshole, and you should probably laugh at them before ignoring them forever.)
By the time part three of this book rolls around, Lovelace has made it clear that she is fucking done with matchstick boys like Peterson. It’s not just a matter of not taking it anymore, or of fighting back: she is going to refuse to play by their rules entirely. Their rules proclaim fairness but are inherently unfair. We should stop giving the matchstick boys a platform, stop pretending their ideas are worth engaging with in so-called “civil” or “rational” debate. We should, instead, focus on creating safer spaces and encouraging women and other people who experience oppression to talk, and act, and create. Rather than delivering us a series of tepid, generically motivational stories about the empowerment of women, girl power, rah-rah and all that, though, Lovelace does something much more clever and compelling. This is the power of a poetry collection, the opportunity it presents to build an emotional arc that allows you to devastate a reader and simultaneously lift them up to new heights.
There is a poem, 41 pages in, that really grabbed me: “they / will try / to steal / your light”. It goes on to remind women that, although men and other elements in our society will seek to use women’s own strengths against them, ultimately, those elements are not able to control that power. It’s a short, simple poem, but it builds on top of the fire-and-light symbolism that Lovelace suffuses throughout this book: do not take your strength from another, from their adoration or admiration or love; take the strength from within yourself, and if you feel your strength taken from you, remember that you can snatch it back. As the collection moves on and the arc bends towards a firestorm crescendo, Lovelace returns to this idea. Women experience oppression in our society, yes—and depending on one’s various other intersections of identity, one might experience more or less oppression than other women—but throughout history, women have always fought back. Feminism is not a fresh or new idea, even if the name itself hasn’t always been around. Women have always fought back, and faced pushback and censure for it, but they have never stopped fighting.
And so Lovelace reminds us that the power of the matchstick boys is one of smoke and mirrors. Their torches and pitchforks can harm and abuse individually, yes, but collectively, this is a society built on a house of cards. And they know it. That’s why they are afraid of and hate women so much, and work so hard to persecute them, to silence them. Lovelace exhorts women not to settle for survival, not to settle for being allowed to sit and smile and have a small part of the domain. This is not the time to be silent, not the time to be polite, not the time to be “nice” or “civil”. The matchstick boys thought they could come and play with fire. The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One—they do.
So that’s the power in this book. If The Princess Saves Herself in This One was a reminder for me, as a man, that women don’t need to be saved, then The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One is a reminder that women’s voices, women’s fury, women’s perspectives, need to be at the forefront of this conversation and this revolution. I am not a matchstick boy. But I must also work not to be a bystander to the witch-burning.
If The Princess Saves Herself in This One is a very personal but broad story about the struggles of abuse, trauma, womanhood, family, and relationships, then The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One, while still personal, narrows the scope specifically to the relation of being a woman in this world. It focuses more on sexual and gender politics, with the personal elements enhancing Lovelace’s statements—wow, that’s too bland of a word … let’s say her call to arms when it comes to what it means to be a woman in a society that, while still patriarchal, is perhaps waking up.
I loved buddy-reading this with Rebecca, because our different experiences allowed us to share our very different learnings from this book. For Rebecca, of course, as a woman in Western society a lot of these poems resonated with her on a personal level. For me, a lot of these poems felt more at arm’s length: I recognized, from my feminist reading and the conversations I’ve had with friends, the sentiments in them, but there was less of a visceral reaction. Gradually, my understanding of this book developed around my response to it as
“the only thing we’re guilty of is being women”
I’ve been thinking about Jordan Peterson over this weekend, ever since that subversively intimate profile of him came out in the New York Times—well, not so much about Peterson himself, but about what he represents and the way we are still so invested in building up and celebrating these odious figures simply because they help drive the engines of capitalism. The same day that I picked up this book from Chapters, I saw that Peterson had nearly two shelves dedicated to his new book, all the various copies facing outwards. Why? Because his book will sell. And in our society, what sells matters most.
I bring this up here and now because The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One has actually helped me process my understanding of Peterson and his ilk. Jordan Peterson is a “matchstick boy”, to use Lovelace’s parlance. I don’t know if he genuinely drinks the snake oil he’s selling or if he’s just saying it because it’s getting him more of a platform … whatever the case, he is out to burn women as witches, to burn them simply for the crime of being women. It’s there in all of his utterances, the casual way he throws out terms like “enforced monogamy” or talks about the inherent differences between the “two” genders. In the wake of terrible actions fuelled increasingly obviously by misogyny, Peterson does not blame the men perpetrating these crimes but instead the women who turned them down. (Pro-tip: if someone tries to excuse violent behaviour by blaming the struggle for equality and equity, this is a sign that they are an asshole, and you should probably laugh at them before ignoring them forever.)
By the time part three of this book rolls around, Lovelace has made it clear that she is fucking done with matchstick boys like Peterson. It’s not just a matter of not taking it anymore, or of fighting back: she is going to refuse to play by their rules entirely. Their rules proclaim fairness but are inherently unfair. We should stop giving the matchstick boys a platform, stop pretending their ideas are worth engaging with in so-called “civil” or “rational” debate. We should, instead, focus on creating safer spaces and encouraging women and other people who experience oppression to talk, and act, and create. Rather than delivering us a series of tepid, generically motivational stories about the empowerment of women, girl power, rah-rah and all that, though, Lovelace does something much more clever and compelling. This is the power of a poetry collection, the opportunity it presents to build an emotional arc that allows you to devastate a reader and simultaneously lift them up to new heights.
There is a poem, 41 pages in, that really grabbed me: “they / will try / to steal / your light”. It goes on to remind women that, although men and other elements in our society will seek to use women’s own strengths against them, ultimately, those elements are not able to control that power. It’s a short, simple poem, but it builds on top of the fire-and-light symbolism that Lovelace suffuses throughout this book: do not take your strength from another, from their adoration or admiration or love; take the strength from within yourself, and if you feel your strength taken from you, remember that you can snatch it back. As the collection moves on and the arc bends towards a firestorm crescendo, Lovelace returns to this idea. Women experience oppression in our society, yes—and depending on one’s various other intersections of identity, one might experience more or less oppression than other women—but throughout history, women have always fought back. Feminism is not a fresh or new idea, even if the name itself hasn’t always been around. Women have always fought back, and faced pushback and censure for it, but they have never stopped fighting.
And so Lovelace reminds us that the power of the matchstick boys is one of smoke and mirrors. Their torches and pitchforks can harm and abuse individually, yes, but collectively, this is a society built on a house of cards. And they know it. That’s why they are afraid of and hate women so much, and work so hard to persecute them, to silence them. Lovelace exhorts women not to settle for survival, not to settle for being allowed to sit and smile and have a small part of the domain. This is not the time to be silent, not the time to be polite, not the time to be “nice” or “civil”. The matchstick boys thought they could come and play with fire. The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One—they do.
So that’s the power in this book. If The Princess Saves Herself in This One was a reminder for me, as a man, that women don’t need to be saved, then The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One is a reminder that women’s voices, women’s fury, women’s perspectives, need to be at the forefront of this conversation and this revolution. I am not a matchstick boy. But I must also work not to be a bystander to the witch-burning.
We’ll skip the boring part about how I don’t usually read poetry and yadda yadda but this one is an exception blah blah, OK? I’ve had this on my to-read list for a while—in addition to the intriguing title, Amanda Lovelace is asexual (or ace-spec), so that increased my interest. Then one of my IRL friends read and highly recommended it, so I borrowed a copy, and here I am. Reading poetry!
If I have to try summing it up, The Princess Saves Herself in this One is about resilience. It’s prefaced with a long list of trigger warnings and content notes, including abuse, self-harm, and suicide. Lovelace’s poetry often has a staggering beauty to the way she lays out her words, both visually on the page and mentally in the reader’s mind. I can’t speak to the way poetry—both reading it and writing it—might itself be healing, but it certainly is an act of resistance, and therefore of resilience. Rather than running from the tragedy or difficulty, Lovelace confronts it head-on. She names it, like the way Dumbledore never hesitates to name Voldemort rather than hide behind a euphemism.
I can’t personally relate to a lot of the experiences chronicled herein, but I do identify with the notion of being bookmad. I know what it’s like to seek solace and refuge in stories, to befriend characters, transport oneself to these foreign lands, and, yes, wield words as weapons against those who might mean you harm. This book, although a loose collection of poems, is not so much poetry as it is snippets of identity. Lovelace picks apart the narratives we construct, or which are constructed for us: you menstruate and therefore…; you’re a woman and therefore…; I love you and therefore…; we are together and therefore…. She asks us to question what we’ve been taught, to look the lies in our lives in the eye and ask if we cannot do better. There is power in words, and I think poetry is positioned quite well to remind us of this.
I flagged so many of these poems with sticky notes before returning this book to my friend. I wanted to mark out the ones that resonated with me, whether for reasons of experience, identity, or simply because I liked how they were constructed or made me feel. Lovelace offers hope while simultaneously refusing to simplify; she acknowledges the darkest complexities of our lives. For example, she chronicles an abusive, alcoholic mother and then later describes her feelings of loss as that same mother succumbs to cancer. We are such paradoxical creatures, sometimes, and our feelings don’t always make sense.
That’s why The Princess Saves Herself in this One works for me. It doesn’t revel or wallow, but it validates and accepts. It says you’re going to have shit days, and good days, and days in between. But it reminds us that you are ultimately the narrative of your own making. You don’t have to be strong always, but you can be strong sometimes. Find the words that make that work for you. It might not be poetry—certainly isn’t in my case—but it will be something.
If I have to try summing it up, The Princess Saves Herself in this One is about resilience. It’s prefaced with a long list of trigger warnings and content notes, including abuse, self-harm, and suicide. Lovelace’s poetry often has a staggering beauty to the way she lays out her words, both visually on the page and mentally in the reader’s mind. I can’t speak to the way poetry—both reading it and writing it—might itself be healing, but it certainly is an act of resistance, and therefore of resilience. Rather than running from the tragedy or difficulty, Lovelace confronts it head-on. She names it, like the way Dumbledore never hesitates to name Voldemort rather than hide behind a euphemism.
I can’t personally relate to a lot of the experiences chronicled herein, but I do identify with the notion of being bookmad. I know what it’s like to seek solace and refuge in stories, to befriend characters, transport oneself to these foreign lands, and, yes, wield words as weapons against those who might mean you harm. This book, although a loose collection of poems, is not so much poetry as it is snippets of identity. Lovelace picks apart the narratives we construct, or which are constructed for us: you menstruate and therefore…; you’re a woman and therefore…; I love you and therefore…; we are together and therefore…. She asks us to question what we’ve been taught, to look the lies in our lives in the eye and ask if we cannot do better. There is power in words, and I think poetry is positioned quite well to remind us of this.
I flagged so many of these poems with sticky notes before returning this book to my friend. I wanted to mark out the ones that resonated with me, whether for reasons of experience, identity, or simply because I liked how they were constructed or made me feel. Lovelace offers hope while simultaneously refusing to simplify; she acknowledges the darkest complexities of our lives. For example, she chronicles an abusive, alcoholic mother and then later describes her feelings of loss as that same mother succumbs to cancer. We are such paradoxical creatures, sometimes, and our feelings don’t always make sense.
That’s why The Princess Saves Herself in this One works for me. It doesn’t revel or wallow, but it validates and accepts. It says you’re going to have shit days, and good days, and days in between. But it reminds us that you are ultimately the narrative of your own making. You don’t have to be strong always, but you can be strong sometimes. Find the words that make that work for you. It might not be poetry—certainly isn’t in my case—but it will be something.
We really might have hit some kind of Singularity, because this novel was published in 2014, and I am having a hard time caring not because it’s bad but just because certain elements of what’s happening right now seem like they’re out of the worst-conceived conspiracy theories ever. The Doubt Factory is an attempt by Paolo Bacigalupi to distill the dangerous, pay-to-play nature of many industries into a thriller for young adults. He examines the role that media and marketing play in sowing doubt (hence the title) about the dangers of things like pharmaceutical drugs. Although this is a topic I’m sympathetic to, and I actually enjoyed the book while I was reading it, The Doubt Factory is much less memorable or moving than it should be.
Alix Banks is the daughter of Simon Banks, a leading PR strategist for companies too rich to be named. She goes to an elite private school, which begins to be the target of increasingly elaborate stunts/pranks by a vandal named 2.0. When 2.0 makes it clear he is interested in Alix, the Banks family goes into protection mode, with a private security company, FBI involvement, etc. Nevertheless, Alix finds herself attracted to this mysterious 2.0, enough to hear him out and eventually contemplate joining forces with him to take down her father. But is that really what she wants? And if it is, could they really have any hope of succeeding?
What begins as a “wake up sheeple” kind of plot escalates gradually. In this respect, Bacigalupi does a great job: his pacing is on point. Rather than drawing out the suspense, he just keeps handing us more and more revelations, raises the stakes, and moves on to the next step in the plot. As a result, even though this is on the longer side for the types of thrillers I will read, he kept me interested.
It’s hard for me to tell what someone less aware of the issues of corruption and misinformation within these kinds of industries might make of the themes herein. None of this is that new to me. And I don’t know how a teenager reading this, whether they are versed in this stuff or not, will react. I think Bacigalupi makes a valiant effort to highlight why this is important, with appeals to all three modes of persuasion. So in a didactic sense, The Doubt Factory might be effective.
Where the book loses my interest is the relationship between Alix and Moses/2.0. It isn’t even the way in which she starts to come around to him (although, ugh, the whole “woman falls for mysterious rebel with a cause” trope, please). I respect how Bacigalupi shows Alix’s gradual awakening from her sheltered position as Simon’s daughter. Yet she never fully graduates to the proactive role of protagonist that I was looking for. She assists Moses, sure. That’s about it, though. And I find these protagonists are the ones I am least interested in following in books like this. I can understand a main character needing to be brought around as part of their character arc … but I want them to seize the day and actually do something.
This exacerbates the other obvious flaw of The Doubt Factory, and the reason I often paint thrillers with an ungenerous genre brush: the other characters here are shallow, stereotypical, and stock. Lisa, aka “Death Barbie” is this cold-hearted merc. Kook is a gothy/punky hacker type who deliberately wants to keep you off balance but has a heart of gold somewhere in there. Even Alix’s dad is basically just a PR Suit Who Had Kids and Thinks He Knows Best. Everyone in this story acts or reacts exactly like they need to in order to keep this plot going, rather than in organic ways that would make sense if they are people. It’s like Bacigalupi watched one too many Jason Bourne movies, then slammed back some Ocean’s Eleven, and said, “Imma make these, but it’s a book.” It’s just … not good.
The Doubt Factory isn’t bad, either. It has its moments. But I think, in general, it relies too much on the idea that the message it contains will be strong enough to sustain interest in a paper-thin plot propelled by cardboard cutouts for characters. I think this is a shame, because this subject deserves much more compelling characterization, and YA novels in general deserve that. I loved the way that Bacigalupi developed his star-crossed characters in Ship Breaker, but it just doesn’t happen here. This is not a book I’m in any hurry to recommend.
Alix Banks is the daughter of Simon Banks, a leading PR strategist for companies too rich to be named. She goes to an elite private school, which begins to be the target of increasingly elaborate stunts/pranks by a vandal named 2.0. When 2.0 makes it clear he is interested in Alix, the Banks family goes into protection mode, with a private security company, FBI involvement, etc. Nevertheless, Alix finds herself attracted to this mysterious 2.0, enough to hear him out and eventually contemplate joining forces with him to take down her father. But is that really what she wants? And if it is, could they really have any hope of succeeding?
What begins as a “wake up sheeple” kind of plot escalates gradually. In this respect, Bacigalupi does a great job: his pacing is on point. Rather than drawing out the suspense, he just keeps handing us more and more revelations, raises the stakes, and moves on to the next step in the plot. As a result, even though this is on the longer side for the types of thrillers I will read, he kept me interested.
It’s hard for me to tell what someone less aware of the issues of corruption and misinformation within these kinds of industries might make of the themes herein. None of this is that new to me. And I don’t know how a teenager reading this, whether they are versed in this stuff or not, will react. I think Bacigalupi makes a valiant effort to highlight why this is important, with appeals to all three modes of persuasion. So in a didactic sense, The Doubt Factory might be effective.
Where the book loses my interest is the relationship between Alix and Moses/2.0. It isn’t even the way in which she starts to come around to him (although, ugh, the whole “woman falls for mysterious rebel with a cause” trope, please). I respect how Bacigalupi shows Alix’s gradual awakening from her sheltered position as Simon’s daughter. Yet she never fully graduates to the proactive role of protagonist that I was looking for. She assists Moses, sure. That’s about it, though. And I find these protagonists are the ones I am least interested in following in books like this. I can understand a main character needing to be brought around as part of their character arc … but I want them to seize the day and actually do something.
This exacerbates the other obvious flaw of The Doubt Factory, and the reason I often paint thrillers with an ungenerous genre brush: the other characters here are shallow, stereotypical, and stock. Lisa, aka “Death Barbie” is this cold-hearted merc. Kook is a gothy/punky hacker type who deliberately wants to keep you off balance but has a heart of gold somewhere in there. Even Alix’s dad is basically just a PR Suit Who Had Kids and Thinks He Knows Best. Everyone in this story acts or reacts exactly like they need to in order to keep this plot going, rather than in organic ways that would make sense if they are people. It’s like Bacigalupi watched one too many Jason Bourne movies, then slammed back some Ocean’s Eleven, and said, “Imma make these, but it’s a book.” It’s just … not good.
The Doubt Factory isn’t bad, either. It has its moments. But I think, in general, it relies too much on the idea that the message it contains will be strong enough to sustain interest in a paper-thin plot propelled by cardboard cutouts for characters. I think this is a shame, because this subject deserves much more compelling characterization, and YA novels in general deserve that. I loved the way that Bacigalupi developed his star-crossed characters in Ship Breaker, but it just doesn’t happen here. This is not a book I’m in any hurry to recommend.
So I read this book nearly a month ago but am only now getting around to writing a review, because I have literally spent all my free time knitting a SEKRIT PROJECT because I want to give it to my friend Amanda, who has been away and out of contact for a month. Project is almost done, and so now I can resume my regular reading and reviewing, just in time for summer! However, my memories of this book have of course dulled with time, so this review will not be as detailed as my reviews often are.
And I Darken is that interesting form of historical fiction where the author takes a lesser-explored historical figure and takes certain liberties to create a fascinating alternative history, if you will, that is fun if not entirely accurate. In this case, Kiersten White has reimagined Vlad Dracul, aka Vlad “the Impaler” as Lada Dragwlya, a young woman fiercely determined to seize control of her own destiny—at least one day. Sent to the heart of the Ottoman Empire as a hostage to her father’s good behaviour, Lada and her brother, Radu, find themselves the unlikely friends and allies of the sultan’s heir, Mehmed. As they grow older, their father eventually assumes they’re dead, and when Mehmed accedes to the throne, Lada and Radu are in a position to help him against his enemies. Except … he should be their enemy, right? Or is there a love triangle? It’s a mess, in the best possible sense.
What drew me to this book, other than the fantastic cover art of course and the intriguing title, is the promise implicit in both: this is a story about someone losing themselves to their darker impulse. Originally, before I read the cover copy more closely, I had thought this was about some type of fantasy protagonist morphing into an antagonist. Heel turns are so compelling when done well! I don’t think this quite lived up to my expectations in that sense, but there was still a lot here that I liked.
For example, I liked the ambivalence when it comes to the romantic attraction between Lada and Mehmed. I’m done with books pushing a male and female lead together just because. I like that Lada acknowledges the attraction Mehmed has, and I like how Radu also feels attracted to Mehmed and the tension that results. It all feels very complex and messy and real, which I always appreciate, but which I doubly appreciate in a young adult book.
I also enjoyed the characterization of both Lada and Radu. They are very distinct siblings. Lada can certainly be dark and pragmatic in her approach to winning, whereas Radu is craftier and, as she might put it, softer. Throughout the book, White puts them into situations where their loyalty to one another is tested, where their wits are tested … it’s great. And they both have a lot of agency, despite technically being hostages. They both make important, life-altering choices, both for themselves and also for Mehmed. They don’t start the book with much power, but they build up their own power bases over time. Radu steps out of Lada’s shadow, becomes his own person, finds his own way. And Lada eventually starts to develop plans of her own, begins to channel her darker impulses into scarily productive directions.
Put it simply (and somewhat vaguely, sorry), this is an exciting read. It’s a setting I’m not used to, both in terms of time and place, and the characters are great. I enjoyed the arc of the plot, both the pacing and the actual story. I’ll be honest: I’m not sure if I would read a sequel (Goodreads seems to indicate this is the first in a series, don’t know if that’s accurate). And I Darken didn’t stand out as being incredibly entertaining or sublime, and I’m not all that invested in Lada or Radu or Mehmed’s stories. Nevertheless, this is a good, standalone story on its own, one that will have you thinking and caring about its trio of main characters.
And I Darken is that interesting form of historical fiction where the author takes a lesser-explored historical figure and takes certain liberties to create a fascinating alternative history, if you will, that is fun if not entirely accurate. In this case, Kiersten White has reimagined Vlad Dracul, aka Vlad “the Impaler” as Lada Dragwlya, a young woman fiercely determined to seize control of her own destiny—at least one day. Sent to the heart of the Ottoman Empire as a hostage to her father’s good behaviour, Lada and her brother, Radu, find themselves the unlikely friends and allies of the sultan’s heir, Mehmed. As they grow older, their father eventually assumes they’re dead, and when Mehmed accedes to the throne, Lada and Radu are in a position to help him against his enemies. Except … he should be their enemy, right? Or is there a love triangle? It’s a mess, in the best possible sense.
What drew me to this book, other than the fantastic cover art of course and the intriguing title, is the promise implicit in both: this is a story about someone losing themselves to their darker impulse. Originally, before I read the cover copy more closely, I had thought this was about some type of fantasy protagonist morphing into an antagonist. Heel turns are so compelling when done well! I don’t think this quite lived up to my expectations in that sense, but there was still a lot here that I liked.
For example, I liked the ambivalence when it comes to the romantic attraction between Lada and Mehmed. I’m done with books pushing a male and female lead together just because. I like that Lada acknowledges the attraction Mehmed has, and I like how Radu also feels attracted to Mehmed and the tension that results. It all feels very complex and messy and real, which I always appreciate, but which I doubly appreciate in a young adult book.
I also enjoyed the characterization of both Lada and Radu. They are very distinct siblings. Lada can certainly be dark and pragmatic in her approach to winning, whereas Radu is craftier and, as she might put it, softer. Throughout the book, White puts them into situations where their loyalty to one another is tested, where their wits are tested … it’s great. And they both have a lot of agency, despite technically being hostages. They both make important, life-altering choices, both for themselves and also for Mehmed. They don’t start the book with much power, but they build up their own power bases over time. Radu steps out of Lada’s shadow, becomes his own person, finds his own way. And Lada eventually starts to develop plans of her own, begins to channel her darker impulses into scarily productive directions.
Put it simply (and somewhat vaguely, sorry), this is an exciting read. It’s a setting I’m not used to, both in terms of time and place, and the characters are great. I enjoyed the arc of the plot, both the pacing and the actual story. I’ll be honest: I’m not sure if I would read a sequel (Goodreads seems to indicate this is the first in a series, don’t know if that’s accurate). And I Darken didn’t stand out as being incredibly entertaining or sublime, and I’m not all that invested in Lada or Radu or Mehmed’s stories. Nevertheless, this is a good, standalone story on its own, one that will have you thinking and caring about its trio of main characters.
Finally, the Culture novel I’ve been waiting to read since I started the series. Everyone told me not to start with Excession, so I didn’t—and honestly that was pretty good advice. I can see why people wouldn’t enjoy this novel, and even though I think I would have liked it with no previous Culture experience, reading other books has given me a deeper appreciation for what is happening here.
Excession reminds me of children’s books where the main characters are all animals, and humans have very little to do with the plot. Just replace “animals” with “AI Minds (mostly ships)” and you get the idea. There are only a handful of named human characters in this book, and really only three of them are important to the plot—and even then, they really have very little impact on the A-plot. Iain Banks once again probes the idea that humanity has a place in a post-Singularity galaxy, but we probably won’t be in the driver’s seat.
This is essentially a Big Dumb Object story, but what makes it different is that most of the book is spent discussing what to do with it, and setting things up, than actually doing anything to/about the Excession. On one level, this book is mainly dialogues between ships separated by vast distances. While they debate how to treat the Excession, a faction within their group uses this distraction as an opportunity to engineer a compassionate war. The intrigues-within-intrigues are mindblowing in this. I love how just when I thought I had a handle on who was on whose side, Banks would drop a well-timed twist to blow all my theories out of the water.
Banks writes his machines with a personality only a British author can manage. They are funny and quirky, but some are ponderous and self-important, while others are rude, perverse, or downright twisted. It’s so fascinating to see the range of personalities of the Minds—and also to nip at the edges of our possible comprehension of what it would be like to exist in such a capacity. Banks explains how the Minds’ version of fun and diversion is to model different possible universes, and to actually inhabit and explore these mental universes (which explains the attraction of the Excession, I guess). There is also plenty of commentary on the philosophical tension between the Culture’s kind of enforced stagnation and the temptation to Sublime (ascend to a higher plane of existence, whatever the hell that means). In a post-scarcity society where one wants for nothing and crime has become a kind of performance art, the chief problem is boredom.
Although Minds and drones have been major characters in the other Culture novels I’ve read so far, this is really the first time we start to understand their psychology (such as we pitiful meatbrains can). Minds are created to enjoy whatever function they will serve, whether it’s coordinating a Hub, managing a General Systems Vehicle, or serving as a warship. As the story goes on, we start to see how Minds interact and the way they judge each other. Sleeper Service’s obsession with Dareil and Byr’s conflict is an example of what happens when a Mind feels like they have made a huge mistake. In this respect, while neither of these human characters have a huge effect on dealing with the Excession, their peripheral actions greatly influenced one of the ships directly involved in the plot.
There’s something very Shakespearean to all this, and I feel like I’ve seen this before in Banks’ writing. From the complicated conspiracies to the tragedies and deep regrets, the plot unfolds like a vast tragedy (although you could argue that, in the end, it is a comedy despite the gigadeath—I think Banks is mocking the wider space opera genre here, pointing out how when the narrative operates at such a remove, pathos becomes an intractable problem). The Culture misses out on a huge opportunity because one section of it couldn’t avoid the temptation to play political games.
This conspiracy to incite war is a fascinating subplot, because it makes me wonder is such a story is possible with human proponents. I don’t mean the conspiracy part (that seems obviously plausible), but the fact that such a vast action could happen and the Culture could stay intact. This positive consequence only seems possible because of the way Minds work and the fabric of the Culture itself, which is heavily influenced by the Minds’ operations. The Culture is a paradoxical society, both remarkably flexible yet also very rigid in other ways. Despite technical civil war in the form of some Culture warships firing on other Culture ships, there are not many intimations of long-term repercussions for those actions; in contrast, I think a human-run empire would tear itself apart in the aftermath of such events.
Hey, I’m not saying machines will do it better … but I do welcome our robot overlords!
At a more basic level, I unabashedly revel in Banks’ prose and the way he describes the science-fictional setting of this novel. I’m long over my adolescent fascination with posthumanism and nanomagic, but I’d be lying if I said I couldn’t stop reading Excession; I was totally nerdgasming over descriptions of the ships, the Minds, the way humans interact with the world and even their own bodies. Banks just imagines the Culture’s culture so vividly and believably that you really wish you were there, somewhere, to experience it for yourself. This is a universe I would love to come back to, again and again, and I’m glad I’ve got a bunch of other Culture novels to read before I return to this one.
My reviews of the Culture novels:
← Use of Weapons | Inversions →
Excession reminds me of children’s books where the main characters are all animals, and humans have very little to do with the plot. Just replace “animals” with “AI Minds (mostly ships)” and you get the idea. There are only a handful of named human characters in this book, and really only three of them are important to the plot—and even then, they really have very little impact on the A-plot. Iain Banks once again probes the idea that humanity has a place in a post-Singularity galaxy, but we probably won’t be in the driver’s seat.
This is essentially a Big Dumb Object story, but what makes it different is that most of the book is spent discussing what to do with it, and setting things up, than actually doing anything to/about the Excession. On one level, this book is mainly dialogues between ships separated by vast distances. While they debate how to treat the Excession, a faction within their group uses this distraction as an opportunity to engineer a compassionate war. The intrigues-within-intrigues are mindblowing in this. I love how just when I thought I had a handle on who was on whose side, Banks would drop a well-timed twist to blow all my theories out of the water.
Banks writes his machines with a personality only a British author can manage. They are funny and quirky, but some are ponderous and self-important, while others are rude, perverse, or downright twisted. It’s so fascinating to see the range of personalities of the Minds—and also to nip at the edges of our possible comprehension of what it would be like to exist in such a capacity. Banks explains how the Minds’ version of fun and diversion is to model different possible universes, and to actually inhabit and explore these mental universes (which explains the attraction of the Excession, I guess). There is also plenty of commentary on the philosophical tension between the Culture’s kind of enforced stagnation and the temptation to Sublime (ascend to a higher plane of existence, whatever the hell that means). In a post-scarcity society where one wants for nothing and crime has become a kind of performance art, the chief problem is boredom.
Although Minds and drones have been major characters in the other Culture novels I’ve read so far, this is really the first time we start to understand their psychology (such as we pitiful meatbrains can). Minds are created to enjoy whatever function they will serve, whether it’s coordinating a Hub, managing a General Systems Vehicle, or serving as a warship. As the story goes on, we start to see how Minds interact and the way they judge each other. Sleeper Service’s obsession with Dareil and Byr’s conflict is an example of what happens when a Mind feels like they have made a huge mistake. In this respect, while neither of these human characters have a huge effect on dealing with the Excession, their peripheral actions greatly influenced one of the ships directly involved in the plot.
There’s something very Shakespearean to all this, and I feel like I’ve seen this before in Banks’ writing. From the complicated conspiracies to the tragedies and deep regrets, the plot unfolds like a vast tragedy (although you could argue that, in the end, it is a comedy despite the gigadeath—I think Banks is mocking the wider space opera genre here, pointing out how when the narrative operates at such a remove, pathos becomes an intractable problem). The Culture misses out on a huge opportunity because one section of it couldn’t avoid the temptation to play political games.
This conspiracy to incite war is a fascinating subplot, because it makes me wonder is such a story is possible with human proponents. I don’t mean the conspiracy part (that seems obviously plausible), but the fact that such a vast action could happen and the Culture could stay intact. This positive consequence only seems possible because of the way Minds work and the fabric of the Culture itself, which is heavily influenced by the Minds’ operations. The Culture is a paradoxical society, both remarkably flexible yet also very rigid in other ways. Despite technical civil war in the form of some Culture warships firing on other Culture ships, there are not many intimations of long-term repercussions for those actions; in contrast, I think a human-run empire would tear itself apart in the aftermath of such events.
Hey, I’m not saying machines will do it better … but I do welcome our robot overlords!
At a more basic level, I unabashedly revel in Banks’ prose and the way he describes the science-fictional setting of this novel. I’m long over my adolescent fascination with posthumanism and nanomagic, but I’d be lying if I said I couldn’t stop reading Excession; I was totally nerdgasming over descriptions of the ships, the Minds, the way humans interact with the world and even their own bodies. Banks just imagines the Culture’s culture so vividly and believably that you really wish you were there, somewhere, to experience it for yourself. This is a universe I would love to come back to, again and again, and I’m glad I’ve got a bunch of other Culture novels to read before I return to this one.
My reviews of the Culture novels:
← Use of Weapons | Inversions →
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s writings have, in various forms, influenced my life for a few years now. I often show her TED Talk “The Danger of a Single Story” in my English class, particularly as we embark on studying stereotypes. Yet this is the first time I’ve read a novel by her—and it was a treat. Half of a Yellow Sun brought me back to my youthful summer reading of other postcolonial fiction, particularly that set in India. I picked the right time to read this, too: finally, a warm and sunny weekend in May here in Thunder Bay, where I could relax on my deck and allow myself to be drawn into the 1960s world of Nigeria and Biafra that Adichie recreates here.
Set in the 1960s, Half of a Yellow Sun follows a small ensemble cast through the Biafran War of 1967–1970. If, like me, you are a white person of a certain age and therefore hadn’t even heard of the Biafran War, well, that’s OK. But in that case, this book represents a fascinating glimpse at that unknown, underappreciated moment in history: an African state, created by colonizers, fractured by tensions among the various nations within the state, attempting to reforge itself according to its own destiny and not one determined along white supremacist lines. As much as it is fascinating, and as much as Adichie captures the optimism and political fervour of the Biafrans, she also reminds us of the horrors that always attend any theatre of war. The characters in this story endure hardship after hardship, in a variety of forms, and they are forever changed by those years. This is neither a happy nor a sad story, overall, but it is certainly moving and at times very difficult to read.
Trigger warnings in this book for extreme violence, including against children; sexual assault and rape; anti-Black racism.
The power of this book comes from the diversity of characters Adichie gives us. It opens on Ugwu, a 13-year-old Igbo boy from a poor village brought into Nsukka by his aunt to become the houseboy to Odenigbo, a mathematics professor at the university. Immediately, the contrast between this uneducated rural boy and this incredibly intellectual, academic man creates an interesting dynamic. It reminds me a little of The Remains of the Day, where the butler is present for these intense political conversations among his master’s circle, yet he is not actually a part of those conversations. Yet Ugwu does not remain static: as the years go by, he receives an education, and his world begins to open up.
This dynamic grows richer when Olanna moves in. We see how Ugwu often interprets events using the wisdom passed down to him by his elders. When Odenigbo’s mother shows up, Ugwu talks of her using magic to hex or curse Olanna—something Olanna dismisses, even though the result is the same regardless. I love how Adichie portrays the ways in which these characters’ various upbringings dramatically alter their view of the same world in which they live. Olanna’s personal passions are tempered by this circumscribed view of what’s possible in the world—as much as she supports Odenigbo’s passion for a free Biafra, she is too close to the corruption within her father’s/Kainene’s realm of business to share his naive idealism.
And then there’s Richard, the Token White Guy of the novel. He comes to Nigeria looking to write about a certain style of artwork. Eventually he ends up staying for deeper reasons. I love how Adichie shows his evolution. Richard doesn’t start off as this “woke white guy” who totally gets the Igbo perspective. He is every bit as naive as you’d expect a British expat to be. It’s only as he starts to get to know Nigerians, and through his increasingly serious relationship with Kainene, that his viewpoint can change. He becomes an ally first and then even more than that, as he actively participates in the Biafran cause—literally putting his career and even his body on the line. Richard’s palpable frustration, towards the end of the book when he is talking to the other foreign journalists, really stands out for me. He’s suddenly starting to understand what it must be like all the time for Black people interacting with whites—and of course, he is still getting a diluted experience because of his privilege.
I love the little bait-and-switch with regards to the authorship of the book. It’s so appropriate, of course: not only does Adichie reject the idea that a white person (any white person, even a well-intentioned one who has chosen to live within this world) should speak for the Biafrans, but it’s someone who has literally started from a place of very little privilege and grown up and experienced so much. Ugwu’s voice is unquestionably the core of this experience, the quintessential example of someone whose life has been inexorably shaped by colonialist forces since birth, yet whose awareness of those forces has only recently come into focus.
Moving away from the characters as individuals, though, let’s take a moment to think about the politics in this novel. Adichie captures the ugliness of revolution and fighting for a cause. Nigeria’s history and economics are inextricably linked to Britain’s colonial strategies for control. Whether or not one thinks the Biafran struggle for independence was justified or a good idea, it stems from tensions created by or exacerbated by the international community that colonized and exploited the African continent and peoples. So even though, on the surface, this seems like a very isolated, localized struggle—hence why I never heard about it in school or anything like that—it’s actually one of a much longer line of localized struggles set off by wider, international influences. And if, like me, you are trying to understand the ways in which patterns of colonization committed by your ancestors have affected the whole world, then this book is a good read.
Adichie employs an interesting narrative structure here. The first and third parts of the book take place in “the early sixties” while the second and fourth take place in “the late sixties”. By flashing back to the earlier period in the middle of the story, Adichie effectively juxtaposes what has happened to our characters in the “present” with how they used to live. We abruptly revert to the safety and security of a reasonably well-off household in Nsukka, which is a far cry from the refugee camps and bunkers our characters find themselves in after the declaration of independence. In this way, Adichie shows us how even the most comfortable and secure parts of eastern Nigerian society were shaken. At the same time, we learn that those in the western part of the country barely felt or saw anything different—for them, the war might as well have been happening even farther away, if it weren’t for the news and rhetoric on the radio.
Olanna, Odenigbo, Baby, and Ugwu go from having so much and living so comfortably to literally eking out the most minimal existence. It is stark and frankly somewhat disturbing, but it is such an effective depiction of how war rips apart a country. We get to see it from every level, from the professors now high-up in the Biafran directorates doing their best to keep the bureaucracy together long enough to fight this doomed war, to the civilians and soldiers struggling with day-to-day necessities. It’s not a question of morality now, of right or wrong, good or evil—it’s about survival.
Half of a Yellow Sun is brutal and beautiful simultaneously. The writing is every bit as compelling and carefully crafted as I have come to expect from Adichie’s speaking. The characters are complex, and their setting a rich one—both in terms of its descriptions but also the political and historical situation. This is exactly the kind of summer read I want: something thought-provoking, moving, something that makes me a little bit uncomfortable, even as it wraps me in the warmth created by such a well-balanced story.
Set in the 1960s, Half of a Yellow Sun follows a small ensemble cast through the Biafran War of 1967–1970. If, like me, you are a white person of a certain age and therefore hadn’t even heard of the Biafran War, well, that’s OK. But in that case, this book represents a fascinating glimpse at that unknown, underappreciated moment in history: an African state, created by colonizers, fractured by tensions among the various nations within the state, attempting to reforge itself according to its own destiny and not one determined along white supremacist lines. As much as it is fascinating, and as much as Adichie captures the optimism and political fervour of the Biafrans, she also reminds us of the horrors that always attend any theatre of war. The characters in this story endure hardship after hardship, in a variety of forms, and they are forever changed by those years. This is neither a happy nor a sad story, overall, but it is certainly moving and at times very difficult to read.
Trigger warnings in this book for extreme violence, including against children; sexual assault and rape; anti-Black racism.
The power of this book comes from the diversity of characters Adichie gives us. It opens on Ugwu, a 13-year-old Igbo boy from a poor village brought into Nsukka by his aunt to become the houseboy to Odenigbo, a mathematics professor at the university. Immediately, the contrast between this uneducated rural boy and this incredibly intellectual, academic man creates an interesting dynamic. It reminds me a little of The Remains of the Day, where the butler is present for these intense political conversations among his master’s circle, yet he is not actually a part of those conversations. Yet Ugwu does not remain static: as the years go by, he receives an education, and his world begins to open up.
This dynamic grows richer when Olanna moves in. We see how Ugwu often interprets events using the wisdom passed down to him by his elders. When Odenigbo’s mother shows up, Ugwu talks of her using magic to hex or curse Olanna—something Olanna dismisses, even though the result is the same regardless. I love how Adichie portrays the ways in which these characters’ various upbringings dramatically alter their view of the same world in which they live. Olanna’s personal passions are tempered by this circumscribed view of what’s possible in the world—as much as she supports Odenigbo’s passion for a free Biafra, she is too close to the corruption within her father’s/Kainene’s realm of business to share his naive idealism.
And then there’s Richard, the Token White Guy of the novel. He comes to Nigeria looking to write about a certain style of artwork. Eventually he ends up staying for deeper reasons. I love how Adichie shows his evolution. Richard doesn’t start off as this “woke white guy” who totally gets the Igbo perspective. He is every bit as naive as you’d expect a British expat to be. It’s only as he starts to get to know Nigerians, and through his increasingly serious relationship with Kainene, that his viewpoint can change. He becomes an ally first and then even more than that, as he actively participates in the Biafran cause—literally putting his career and even his body on the line. Richard’s palpable frustration, towards the end of the book when he is talking to the other foreign journalists, really stands out for me. He’s suddenly starting to understand what it must be like all the time for Black people interacting with whites—and of course, he is still getting a diluted experience because of his privilege.
I love the little bait-and-switch with regards to the authorship of the book. It’s so appropriate, of course: not only does Adichie reject the idea that a white person (any white person, even a well-intentioned one who has chosen to live within this world) should speak for the Biafrans, but it’s someone who has literally started from a place of very little privilege and grown up and experienced so much. Ugwu’s voice is unquestionably the core of this experience, the quintessential example of someone whose life has been inexorably shaped by colonialist forces since birth, yet whose awareness of those forces has only recently come into focus.
Moving away from the characters as individuals, though, let’s take a moment to think about the politics in this novel. Adichie captures the ugliness of revolution and fighting for a cause. Nigeria’s history and economics are inextricably linked to Britain’s colonial strategies for control. Whether or not one thinks the Biafran struggle for independence was justified or a good idea, it stems from tensions created by or exacerbated by the international community that colonized and exploited the African continent and peoples. So even though, on the surface, this seems like a very isolated, localized struggle—hence why I never heard about it in school or anything like that—it’s actually one of a much longer line of localized struggles set off by wider, international influences. And if, like me, you are trying to understand the ways in which patterns of colonization committed by your ancestors have affected the whole world, then this book is a good read.
Adichie employs an interesting narrative structure here. The first and third parts of the book take place in “the early sixties” while the second and fourth take place in “the late sixties”. By flashing back to the earlier period in the middle of the story, Adichie effectively juxtaposes what has happened to our characters in the “present” with how they used to live. We abruptly revert to the safety and security of a reasonably well-off household in Nsukka, which is a far cry from the refugee camps and bunkers our characters find themselves in after the declaration of independence. In this way, Adichie shows us how even the most comfortable and secure parts of eastern Nigerian society were shaken. At the same time, we learn that those in the western part of the country barely felt or saw anything different—for them, the war might as well have been happening even farther away, if it weren’t for the news and rhetoric on the radio.
Olanna, Odenigbo, Baby, and Ugwu go from having so much and living so comfortably to literally eking out the most minimal existence. It is stark and frankly somewhat disturbing, but it is such an effective depiction of how war rips apart a country. We get to see it from every level, from the professors now high-up in the Biafran directorates doing their best to keep the bureaucracy together long enough to fight this doomed war, to the civilians and soldiers struggling with day-to-day necessities. It’s not a question of morality now, of right or wrong, good or evil—it’s about survival.
Half of a Yellow Sun is brutal and beautiful simultaneously. The writing is every bit as compelling and carefully crafted as I have come to expect from Adichie’s speaking. The characters are complex, and their setting a rich one—both in terms of its descriptions but also the political and historical situation. This is exactly the kind of summer read I want: something thought-provoking, moving, something that makes me a little bit uncomfortable, even as it wraps me in the warmth created by such a well-balanced story.
This first paragraph is just me screaming really loudly and enthusiastically because yessssss another Holly Bourne novel and this one is for adults!! I am an unapologetic fan of everything Bourne writes. Her young adult Spinster Club trilogy is incredible. Now she has a book out about adulting and relationships, and it is just as brilliant.
How Do You Like Me Now? is the story of Tori Bailey, who wrote a bestselling memoir of her twenties but now, in her thirties, is beginning to yearn for the freedom she once thought she had. Beset by baby pics and engagement announcements on social media, feeling pressure to always present her best self to her fans and others online, Tori struggles in her private life with the usual: her long-term relationship is losing its steam; her friends are drifting away as they start having kids (and she is, too obviously, not); her body is changing, showing signs of age; her publishers are clamouring for the next bestseller, and they want it to be all about a type of thirties she isn’t actually experiencing.
A few trigger warnings I picked up on: discussions of weight/eating disorders, sexual assault/non-consensual sex acts, emotional abuse (particularly gaslighting).
As always, Bourne’s writing is eminently quotable, and How Do You Like Me Now? had me taking snapshots of pages with my phone to refer to later—or in this case, to text to my friend Rebecca (whom I’m convinced will one day have a fan following as big as Tori’s but who has, thankfully, already learned so many of the life lessons Tori is still coming to grips with in this book) in anticipation of her borrowing and reading this next. Here’s a very early passage that caught my eye:
Now, I don’t use makeup and I honestly don’t obsess that much over my selfies (nor do I take that many selfies)—yet I can still identify with what Tori’s going through here. We’ve created this damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t paradox of social media culture where you’re expected to look beautiful, but naturally so, not filtered or touched-up or made-up (and the pressure, of course, goes double for women and femmes). And it is very easy for people, especially those of us who don’t participate as much or at all in this behaviour, to poo-poo it, to criticize it as shallow or vain, to look down our noses at the people who take these matters much more seriously. But why? When you get right down to it, there is nothing wrong with wanting to post a photo of yourself online. You should be able to do that as much as you like. Yet we’ve turned it into an ordeal, and that is what’s sad, not the photos and posts themselves.
This pattern continues, I found, throughout the book. Obviously mine and Tori’s experiences are very different. Gender and country aside, I also never went travelling on a gap year to “find myself” (though I guess I did move to England, that exotic of exotic locations, for two years). Unlike Tori, I’ve never been in any kind of romantic or sexual relationship, much less a long-term one. And while children might be something I’ve thought about having, my personal relationship with that issue is different since I can’t bear them and, as a man, people treat me very differently—no one is pointing out that my biological clock is ticking, and no one expects me to “want” a baby through some kind of maternal impulses.
So with each new issue Tori faces, I found myself not quite in her shoes, yet still capable of sympathy or empathy, depending on the specific issue. I found a lot of what she experiences identifiable on a generational level, as a fellow millennial. I found myself nodding along, very much exposed to a lot of the same bullshit, even if I don’t endure it or respond to it in quite the same ways as Tori does. This is part and parcel of Bourne’s excellent storytelling: you don’t have to be like Tori Bailey to sympathize with her, to learn from her story, or to take this story to heart. You just have to be open-minded enough to imagine what it’s like, going through what she does. Bourne’s writing does the rest.
Towards the end of the book, there is another fantastic exchange between Tori and another childless attendee of the baby shower she throws for her best friend. The other person says to Tori:
This line really sums up why I’m not a fan of most baby showers. It isn’t the fact, so much, that I think the games people tend to play and the conversations they have are inane. It isn’t even how many of the games and conversations reinforce harmful gender norms, roles, and stereotypes. No, it’s ultimately the fact that baby showers often underline the inequity that still exists in our society in terms of expectations on mothers and fathers when it comes to having and raising children. It isn’t enough that we expect women to want to have babies, and then to have babies—we also expect them, baby or babyless, to participate gladly in these social events, to reinforce and discuss how amazing childrearing is, but we have no such expectations for men. If a dude sticks around and maybe does laundry or feeds the kid once in a while, suddenly he’s this huge hero, and there are newspaper articles written about him and how “feminism is unnecessary” because suddenly we’ve got equality. Uh-huh.
How Do You Like Me Now? is witty, incisive, insightful, and always willing to tackle complexities instead of glossing over them. Tori is definitely a strong, thoughtful, driven person. Yet she is also beset with insecurities, just like any of us. Her identity is a raft of conflicting ideas: feminist, yet happy in this long-term heterosexual relationship; independent author, yet her success is wrapped up in a book that is ultimately about how she found her man. These are contradictions that will sound familiar to a lot of women, I’m sure. Because even as Bourne demonstrates how far we’ve come, in terms of gender roles, she reminds us that we have not come nearly far enough, that there is still so much work left to do.
Tom is a wanker.
Oh, you want a little bit more? Tom is a manipulative coward who prefers avoiding conflict over communicating his needs and who thinks it’s OK to press a woman’s head downwards when she’s giving him a blowjob. (NO.) And this is super interesting, because when I first started the book I wondered how Bourne would portray him. Was he going to be a nice guy who had just kind of stopped trying in their relationship, kind of checked out, because the two of them had grown apart? Hella nope; he is a wanker. Or more to the point, one might classify him as a man-child or a woke misogynist, someone who thinks he’s self-aware but actually never bothers to check his privilege, someone who cares only about his needs in the relationship, and when there is any sign of conflict, will either deflect or accuse his partner of being “too emotional” about it.
You don’t need any experience in a relationship to know this behaviour is unacceptable: I have zero experience and I know it’s bad. I shudder even to see it happening to Tori. And I’m not going to go into spoilers, but suffice it to say that How Do You Like Me Now? comes with Bourne’s trademark crisis climax, and Tori is amazing. She changes. She chooses. It’s tough and there are no guarantees … but at 28 years old, I think I’ve already realized that is just the way life is.
I have enjoyed all of Holly Bourne’s YA novels so far, because they are the perfect mix of clever, challenging, didactic fiction that nevertheless has humorous characters and situations that make the books a lot of fun. Bourne is one of the best purveyors of feminism that neither patronizes nor goes over the head of people who are just starting out with these ideas. In her adult debut here, she takes those same skills and turns them into a thoughtful, moving, emotionally-intense novel about the transition into one’s thirties—which, like the transition from adolescence into adulthood, is tumultuous and sometimes traumatic. I laughed, I cried, and I loved it.
How Do You Like Me Now? is the story of Tori Bailey, who wrote a bestselling memoir of her twenties but now, in her thirties, is beginning to yearn for the freedom she once thought she had. Beset by baby pics and engagement announcements on social media, feeling pressure to always present her best self to her fans and others online, Tori struggles in her private life with the usual: her long-term relationship is losing its steam; her friends are drifting away as they start having kids (and she is, too obviously, not); her body is changing, showing signs of age; her publishers are clamouring for the next bestseller, and they want it to be all about a type of thirties she isn’t actually experiencing.
A few trigger warnings I picked up on: discussions of weight/eating disorders, sexual assault/non-consensual sex acts, emotional abuse (particularly gaslighting).
As always, Bourne’s writing is eminently quotable, and How Do You Like Me Now? had me taking snapshots of pages with my phone to refer to later—or in this case, to text to my friend Rebecca (whom I’m convinced will one day have a fan following as big as Tori’s but who has, thankfully, already learned so many of the life lessons Tori is still coming to grips with in this book) in anticipation of her borrowing and reading this next. Here’s a very early passage that caught my eye:
Afterwards, I try to take a post-workout selfie in my giant bathroom mirror. But I’m too red and too sweaty and I forget how mad I look without my eyebrows drawn in—like an egg balanced on a pair of shoulders. I reach for my make-up bag and pencil them in. Then I add a tiny bit of mascara, some under-eye concealer and lip tint. I take another photo. Much better. Though it still takes me twenty shots to get the exact combination of laissez-faire, empowered, and naturally-pretty-but-not-like-I-know-it. I brighten the photo up on my phone while my sweat dries and hardens into my clothes. Then I pick a good filter that makes me look even better, but not like I’ve obviously used a filter.
I post it.
Now, I don’t use makeup and I honestly don’t obsess that much over my selfies (nor do I take that many selfies)—yet I can still identify with what Tori’s going through here. We’ve created this damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t paradox of social media culture where you’re expected to look beautiful, but naturally so, not filtered or touched-up or made-up (and the pressure, of course, goes double for women and femmes). And it is very easy for people, especially those of us who don’t participate as much or at all in this behaviour, to poo-poo it, to criticize it as shallow or vain, to look down our noses at the people who take these matters much more seriously. But why? When you get right down to it, there is nothing wrong with wanting to post a photo of yourself online. You should be able to do that as much as you like. Yet we’ve turned it into an ordeal, and that is what’s sad, not the photos and posts themselves.
This pattern continues, I found, throughout the book. Obviously mine and Tori’s experiences are very different. Gender and country aside, I also never went travelling on a gap year to “find myself” (though I guess I did move to England, that exotic of exotic locations, for two years). Unlike Tori, I’ve never been in any kind of romantic or sexual relationship, much less a long-term one. And while children might be something I’ve thought about having, my personal relationship with that issue is different since I can’t bear them and, as a man, people treat me very differently—no one is pointing out that my biological clock is ticking, and no one expects me to “want” a baby through some kind of maternal impulses.
So with each new issue Tori faces, I found myself not quite in her shoes, yet still capable of sympathy or empathy, depending on the specific issue. I found a lot of what she experiences identifiable on a generational level, as a fellow millennial. I found myself nodding along, very much exposed to a lot of the same bullshit, even if I don’t endure it or respond to it in quite the same ways as Tori does. This is part and parcel of Bourne’s excellent storytelling: you don’t have to be like Tori Bailey to sympathize with her, to learn from her story, or to take this story to heart. You just have to be open-minded enough to imagine what it’s like, going through what she does. Bourne’s writing does the rest.
Towards the end of the book, there is another fantastic exchange between Tori and another childless attendee of the baby shower she throws for her best friend. The other person says to Tori:
I just can’t help overhearing conversations like this and thinking, “men don’t have these conversations”, and feeling like there’s something weird going on.
This line really sums up why I’m not a fan of most baby showers. It isn’t the fact, so much, that I think the games people tend to play and the conversations they have are inane. It isn’t even how many of the games and conversations reinforce harmful gender norms, roles, and stereotypes. No, it’s ultimately the fact that baby showers often underline the inequity that still exists in our society in terms of expectations on mothers and fathers when it comes to having and raising children. It isn’t enough that we expect women to want to have babies, and then to have babies—we also expect them, baby or babyless, to participate gladly in these social events, to reinforce and discuss how amazing childrearing is, but we have no such expectations for men. If a dude sticks around and maybe does laundry or feeds the kid once in a while, suddenly he’s this huge hero, and there are newspaper articles written about him and how “feminism is unnecessary” because suddenly we’ve got equality. Uh-huh.
How Do You Like Me Now? is witty, incisive, insightful, and always willing to tackle complexities instead of glossing over them. Tori is definitely a strong, thoughtful, driven person. Yet she is also beset with insecurities, just like any of us. Her identity is a raft of conflicting ideas: feminist, yet happy in this long-term heterosexual relationship; independent author, yet her success is wrapped up in a book that is ultimately about how she found her man. These are contradictions that will sound familiar to a lot of women, I’m sure. Because even as Bourne demonstrates how far we’ve come, in terms of gender roles, she reminds us that we have not come nearly far enough, that there is still so much work left to do.
Tom is a wanker.
Oh, you want a little bit more? Tom is a manipulative coward who prefers avoiding conflict over communicating his needs and who thinks it’s OK to press a woman’s head downwards when she’s giving him a blowjob. (NO.) And this is super interesting, because when I first started the book I wondered how Bourne would portray him. Was he going to be a nice guy who had just kind of stopped trying in their relationship, kind of checked out, because the two of them had grown apart? Hella nope; he is a wanker. Or more to the point, one might classify him as a man-child or a woke misogynist, someone who thinks he’s self-aware but actually never bothers to check his privilege, someone who cares only about his needs in the relationship, and when there is any sign of conflict, will either deflect or accuse his partner of being “too emotional” about it.
You don’t need any experience in a relationship to know this behaviour is unacceptable: I have zero experience and I know it’s bad. I shudder even to see it happening to Tori. And I’m not going to go into spoilers, but suffice it to say that How Do You Like Me Now? comes with Bourne’s trademark crisis climax, and Tori is amazing. She changes. She chooses. It’s tough and there are no guarantees … but at 28 years old, I think I’ve already realized that is just the way life is.
I have enjoyed all of Holly Bourne’s YA novels so far, because they are the perfect mix of clever, challenging, didactic fiction that nevertheless has humorous characters and situations that make the books a lot of fun. Bourne is one of the best purveyors of feminism that neither patronizes nor goes over the head of people who are just starting out with these ideas. In her adult debut here, she takes those same skills and turns them into a thoughtful, moving, emotionally-intense novel about the transition into one’s thirties—which, like the transition from adolescence into adulthood, is tumultuous and sometimes traumatic. I laughed, I cried, and I loved it.
It has been too long since a visit to Iain M. Banks’ Culture universe. Inversions has really just made me want to go back and re-read the other novels now. And I may very well just do that this summer, because why not?
For those who aren’t familiar with the premise to this one: the Culture is not mentioned by name at all in Inversions. On its surface, this is a split narrative on a pre-industrial planet. Alternating chapters follow Vosill, foreign doctor to the King Quience of Haspidus, and DeWar, bodyguard to the regicide Protector UrLeyn of Tassasen, half a continent away. The two narratives never intersect directly, but they are definitely related. And the Culture is definitely a presence, but it is one that the reader has to tease out and infer—if you haven’t read any of the other Culture novels, then you can still enjoy this story, you’ll just be missing a patina that adds a little bit more flair to that enjoyment. I’m going to address it from the point of view of a Culture fan with a lot of my analysis.
Honestly, I much preferred the Doctor’s narrative over DeWar’s, for a few reasons. First, I like that it’s narrated in first person by her assistant, Oelph, who is spying on her for an unnamed “Master”. It’s fun to see Banks filter Vosill’s extremely foreign nature through the eyes of someone native to this world. Moreover, Oelph provides us with colour commentary and opinions of his own, which is something absent from DeWar’s third person omniscient narrative. Finally, I just found Vosill’s situation—her untenable position as King Quience’s all-knowing physician, openly hated by courtiers, her careful attempts to sidestep court politics that ultimately fail because she’s too clever—much more interesting than DeWar’s. Don’t get me wrong: I liked DeWar’s story too, particularly the stories-within-the-story that provide more hints as to their involvement with the Culture and their presence on this world. And I think Inversions as a novel and a whole is made much stronger with both narratives; if this novel were solely Vosill’s portion, I don’t know if I would have enjoyed it as much.
Certainly it’s a lot of fun to tease out the hints about the Culture’s involvement. Yet Inversions also works on its own merits as a story too. Before long I found myself drawn into the split narrative of these two countries: Tassasen recovering from the break-up of an empire and threatening to fall into civil war; Haspidus enjoying prosperity and a monarch attempting to restructure parts of his society to improve the lives of his subjects. There are two, good overlapping stories that in some ways feel very fantasy-esque yet without a lot of the trappings and tropes of fantasy that don’t exactly get in the way (because we like fantasy tropes, yes we do) but might sometimes distract from the substance of what’s happening.
Because when you get down to it, Banks isn’t telling us stories of political intrigue, backstabbing, etc. He’s telling us some very personal stories about human tragedies: families broken up during war, women who have survived terrible trauma, nobles who are blinded by their own greed and avarice. There are layers to this narrative, beneath even the hints towards the Culture, that make it a very rewarding read indeed.
If you’re trying to get into the Culture novels, I wouldn’t necessarily say this is a place to start. You’ll learn nothing of the Culture universe itself, and you’ll miss the oblique references that you would otherwise enjoy if you read this later. On the other hand, Inversions can definitey stand on its own, if you go into it with the right, open mindset of a story that is more allegory than adventure.
My reviews of the Culture novels:
← Excession
For those who aren’t familiar with the premise to this one: the Culture is not mentioned by name at all in Inversions. On its surface, this is a split narrative on a pre-industrial planet. Alternating chapters follow Vosill, foreign doctor to the King Quience of Haspidus, and DeWar, bodyguard to the regicide Protector UrLeyn of Tassasen, half a continent away. The two narratives never intersect directly, but they are definitely related. And the Culture is definitely a presence, but it is one that the reader has to tease out and infer—if you haven’t read any of the other Culture novels, then you can still enjoy this story, you’ll just be missing a patina that adds a little bit more flair to that enjoyment. I’m going to address it from the point of view of a Culture fan with a lot of my analysis.
Honestly, I much preferred the Doctor’s narrative over DeWar’s, for a few reasons. First, I like that it’s narrated in first person by her assistant, Oelph, who is spying on her for an unnamed “Master”. It’s fun to see Banks filter Vosill’s extremely foreign nature through the eyes of someone native to this world. Moreover, Oelph provides us with colour commentary and opinions of his own, which is something absent from DeWar’s third person omniscient narrative. Finally, I just found Vosill’s situation—her untenable position as King Quience’s all-knowing physician, openly hated by courtiers, her careful attempts to sidestep court politics that ultimately fail because she’s too clever—much more interesting than DeWar’s. Don’t get me wrong: I liked DeWar’s story too, particularly the stories-within-the-story that provide more hints as to their involvement with the Culture and their presence on this world. And I think Inversions as a novel and a whole is made much stronger with both narratives; if this novel were solely Vosill’s portion, I don’t know if I would have enjoyed it as much.
Certainly it’s a lot of fun to tease out the hints about the Culture’s involvement. Yet Inversions also works on its own merits as a story too. Before long I found myself drawn into the split narrative of these two countries: Tassasen recovering from the break-up of an empire and threatening to fall into civil war; Haspidus enjoying prosperity and a monarch attempting to restructure parts of his society to improve the lives of his subjects. There are two, good overlapping stories that in some ways feel very fantasy-esque yet without a lot of the trappings and tropes of fantasy that don’t exactly get in the way (because we like fantasy tropes, yes we do) but might sometimes distract from the substance of what’s happening.
Because when you get down to it, Banks isn’t telling us stories of political intrigue, backstabbing, etc. He’s telling us some very personal stories about human tragedies: families broken up during war, women who have survived terrible trauma, nobles who are blinded by their own greed and avarice. There are layers to this narrative, beneath even the hints towards the Culture, that make it a very rewarding read indeed.
If you’re trying to get into the Culture novels, I wouldn’t necessarily say this is a place to start. You’ll learn nothing of the Culture universe itself, and you’ll miss the oblique references that you would otherwise enjoy if you read this later. On the other hand, Inversions can definitey stand on its own, if you go into it with the right, open mindset of a story that is more allegory than adventure.
My reviews of the Culture novels:
← Excession
It was only three weeks into knitting my SEKRIT PROJECT that has left me high and dry for reading time that I remembered audiobooks are a thing … good job, Ben.
Santa Olivia is some dystopian SF from Jacqueline Carey, whom I better know from Kushiel’s Dart and its umpteen spin-offs, as well as the Agent of Hel urban fantasy series (damn, I still crave more of those). In this novel, Carey turns her hand towards more of a science-fictional bent, as the explanations and mechanics behind the transhuman elements are explained away with science. At the end of the day, though, this is basically a story about proving oneself, seeking atonement and revenge, and pursuing freedom at all costs.
The book opens with a quick crash course depiction of the early days of Outpost 12, the former town of Santa Olivia in Texas, before the US builds a wall between it and Mexico (wait, this sounds prophetic) and cuts off Santa Olivia from the rest of the country, declaring any civilian who stays behind an American citizen no longer. The denizens of Outpost 12 muddle through their lives in what is essentially a laissez-faire, Western-type town vibe, with occasional supplies from the military detachment that patrols that section of the wall. We learn how our protagonist, Loup Garron, is conceived, her heritage and the source of her preternatural abilities. And then we fast forward through Loup’s childhood, the relationship with her brother, Tommy, that comes to define her, and the inciting events for the bulk of the book.
The boxing was … not something I expected, at all. Boxing isn’t something that interest me much, either, so I was surprised how much I tolerated it. I like Carey’s descriptions of the movement and the artistry (though I wasn’t a huge fan of the narrator of this audiobook, Susan Ericksen). The choice of boxing makes sense for the story as well as for the themes Carey tries to explore around fighting, not giving up, and taking your punches but not going down.
Probably the best parts of this book for me were the relationships between Loup and Tommy and between Loup and the Santitos, particularly Pilar. I loved that in addition to an F/F relationship in which both characters are just trying to figure it out, people in the Outpost don’t bat an eye at Loup and Pilar’s involvement. No one directs homomisic slurs their way; no one calls it unnatural—sure, there are some jeers and leers, and some people like TY are upset, but those are for reasons related to personalities, not Loup or Pilar’s sexualities. What a nice example of how you can write a brutal dystopian town yet cut out a lot of the toxic bullshit around sexual orientation. Similarly, Loup and Tommy have such a warm, loving, loyal sibling bond. It’s awesome.
Less interesting? A lot of the stock characters, the way that profanity gets thrown around (I don’t have a problem with profanity, and maybe it was just the narrator, but for some reason so much of it felt extraneous to me), the predictable terribleness of the US military. I feel like Carey is telling a good yarn here, but in her rush to tell us this story about Loup training and taking up basically the mantle of her absentee father to become the hero that this village needs, she’s relying heavily on a lot of stock tropes. That’s not a bad thing, but it makes Santa Olivia less impressive than some of her other works.
The pacing of the book also takes a hit towards the middle or so, after Loup resolves to fight the Ron Johnson who is just like her. We get a very extended training montage, as years go by, and this part felt like it dragged for me. As much as I appreciate the turn in Loup’s relationship with Miguel Garza, this whole section could have been condensed and I think the book would be better for it.
Finally, the one thing really holding me back from loving this book is simply that I don’t feel like Loup was ever really in any danger. Even towards the end, I kind of knew what would happen. Yes, she takes on risks, and yes, she sacrifices. Yet this is a story on rails, a story inexorably proceeding towards a certain ending, one where Loup is successful if not entirely independently. The conflict in the middle, where Loup faces a choice between being with Pilar or pursuing her boxing revenge plot, is so good, so real. But when that fizzles away, we aren’t left with much.
Not sure if I want to tackle the sequel, to be honest. This was a fine diversion in audio form just when I needed one, but there are many better Carey books to be read, I’m sure.
Santa Olivia is some dystopian SF from Jacqueline Carey, whom I better know from Kushiel’s Dart and its umpteen spin-offs, as well as the Agent of Hel urban fantasy series (damn, I still crave more of those). In this novel, Carey turns her hand towards more of a science-fictional bent, as the explanations and mechanics behind the transhuman elements are explained away with science. At the end of the day, though, this is basically a story about proving oneself, seeking atonement and revenge, and pursuing freedom at all costs.
The book opens with a quick crash course depiction of the early days of Outpost 12, the former town of Santa Olivia in Texas, before the US builds a wall between it and Mexico (wait, this sounds prophetic) and cuts off Santa Olivia from the rest of the country, declaring any civilian who stays behind an American citizen no longer. The denizens of Outpost 12 muddle through their lives in what is essentially a laissez-faire, Western-type town vibe, with occasional supplies from the military detachment that patrols that section of the wall. We learn how our protagonist, Loup Garron, is conceived, her heritage and the source of her preternatural abilities. And then we fast forward through Loup’s childhood, the relationship with her brother, Tommy, that comes to define her, and the inciting events for the bulk of the book.
The boxing was … not something I expected, at all. Boxing isn’t something that interest me much, either, so I was surprised how much I tolerated it. I like Carey’s descriptions of the movement and the artistry (though I wasn’t a huge fan of the narrator of this audiobook, Susan Ericksen). The choice of boxing makes sense for the story as well as for the themes Carey tries to explore around fighting, not giving up, and taking your punches but not going down.
Probably the best parts of this book for me were the relationships between Loup and Tommy and between Loup and the Santitos, particularly Pilar. I loved that in addition to an F/F relationship in which both characters are just trying to figure it out, people in the Outpost don’t bat an eye at Loup and Pilar’s involvement. No one directs homomisic slurs their way; no one calls it unnatural—sure, there are some jeers and leers, and some people like TY are upset, but those are for reasons related to personalities, not Loup or Pilar’s sexualities. What a nice example of how you can write a brutal dystopian town yet cut out a lot of the toxic bullshit around sexual orientation. Similarly, Loup and Tommy have such a warm, loving, loyal sibling bond. It’s awesome.
Less interesting? A lot of the stock characters, the way that profanity gets thrown around (I don’t have a problem with profanity, and maybe it was just the narrator, but for some reason so much of it felt extraneous to me), the predictable terribleness of the US military. I feel like Carey is telling a good yarn here, but in her rush to tell us this story about Loup training and taking up basically the mantle of her absentee father to become the hero that this village needs, she’s relying heavily on a lot of stock tropes. That’s not a bad thing, but it makes Santa Olivia less impressive than some of her other works.
The pacing of the book also takes a hit towards the middle or so, after Loup resolves to fight the Ron Johnson who is just like her. We get a very extended training montage, as years go by, and this part felt like it dragged for me. As much as I appreciate the turn in Loup’s relationship with Miguel Garza, this whole section could have been condensed and I think the book would be better for it.
Finally, the one thing really holding me back from loving this book is simply that I don’t feel like Loup was ever really in any danger. Even towards the end, I kind of knew what would happen. Yes, she takes on risks, and yes, she sacrifices. Yet this is a story on rails, a story inexorably proceeding towards a certain ending, one where Loup is successful if not entirely independently. The conflict in the middle, where Loup faces a choice between being with Pilar or pursuing her boxing revenge plot, is so good, so real. But when that fizzles away, we aren’t left with much.
Not sure if I want to tackle the sequel, to be honest. This was a fine diversion in audio form just when I needed one, but there are many better Carey books to be read, I’m sure.
Decidedly mixed feelings about this one! The Return asks some important questions about Rachel and her attitude towards fighting this war against the Yeerks. It also features the much-anticipated … uh, return … of David, one-time Animorph. Yet, like many Animorphs books, I find that the actual story/plot doesn’t bear up under the weight of the themes the series is trying to explore.
This is a deep cut, even for this series, but I’m really pleased that we get to see David again. His fate back in #22: The Solution was (is?) one of the series’ darkest moments (though the end of The Return might qualify as even darker, depending on what you think happened). The whole “David trilogy” is such a standout part of this series in so many ways that this reprise is very welcome so close to the end of the series. Similarly, the way that Applegate and her ghostwriter use this to explore Rachel’s dented moral compass comes at an excellent time.
Let’s get some of my complaints out of the way: the whole setup, as far as David trapping Rachel with hired goons but also somehow working for Crayak, is bonkers and just doesn’t work for me. For one thing … if Crayak really wanted to test Rachel, he could have found a better way to do it (even with David involved). Moreover, the book takes way too much time to get into the good stuff. We get to see multiple chapters of dream sequence false starts before David even shows up. Rachel’s wizard’s duel against Visser One is unimpressive, because it’s pretty obvious the stakes aren’t really that high (Rachel is not going to die, and the war with the Yeerks is not going to end like this). As a result, so much of the plot of this book feels like bizarre filler.
The only saving grace of The Return is just how brutally it deals with Rachel’s character. This book reminds me a little of #33: The Illusion, just in the way that it strips away so much of the adolescent pretense around Rachel as The Illusion did for Tobias. Rachel is no longer the girl she was back at the beginning of this series. She is a fighter now, a warrior, and she does have this kind of bloodlust. She enjoys the power that she has. None of the other Animorphs, not even the warrior-trained Ax, really shows as much of an enjoyment of combat as Rachel does. This is something that surprises even her.
And I do love the ending. I love that we don’t get the certainty of knowing whether or not Rachel decides to kill David. I guess this is one of those litmus “glass half empty or full” tests—if Rachel spares David, it shows that her character has learned to be more compassionate since The Solution; if she kills him, it shows that she has learned to be more ruthless. Then again, people’s definitions of compassion might vary. David definitely seems to think Rachel would be showing more compassion by killing him rather than forcing him to live his life as a rat.
For what it’s worth, I think she does kill David. I’d like to think she lets him go, that she can’t bring herself to do it. But let’s be real. This is a person who has fought against Taxxons and Hork-Bajir. Rachel mortally wounds Controllers all the time. While there is a gulf between killing in the heat of battle or killing in so-called “cold blood”, I don’t think that gulf is too wide for Rachel to cross. Just because she says no to becoming Crayak’s pet killing machine doesn’t mean she is suddenly a pacifist like Cassie. Besides, if she spared David, she would feel obligated to go back to the others and say, “Btw, you guys, David is back.” By killing him, she can omit this entire episode if she wants. She takes the pressure off Jake et al to make that decision—and that is exactly the kind of move that Rachel would make at this point.
David is dead, and so is Rachel’s childhood.
Next time, the Animorphs’ guise of Andalite bandits starts to wear thin. What will happen when the Yeerks realize that their number one enemy has just been a band of meddling kids and their big blue alien?
My reviews of Animorphs:
← The Ellimist Chronicles | #49: The Diversion →
This is a deep cut, even for this series, but I’m really pleased that we get to see David again. His fate back in #22: The Solution was (is?) one of the series’ darkest moments (though the end of The Return might qualify as even darker, depending on what you think happened). The whole “David trilogy” is such a standout part of this series in so many ways that this reprise is very welcome so close to the end of the series. Similarly, the way that Applegate and her ghostwriter use this to explore Rachel’s dented moral compass comes at an excellent time.
Let’s get some of my complaints out of the way: the whole setup, as far as David trapping Rachel with hired goons but also somehow working for Crayak, is bonkers and just doesn’t work for me. For one thing … if Crayak really wanted to test Rachel, he could have found a better way to do it (even with David involved). Moreover, the book takes way too much time to get into the good stuff. We get to see multiple chapters of dream sequence false starts before David even shows up. Rachel’s wizard’s duel against Visser One is unimpressive, because it’s pretty obvious the stakes aren’t really that high (Rachel is not going to die, and the war with the Yeerks is not going to end like this). As a result, so much of the plot of this book feels like bizarre filler.
The only saving grace of The Return is just how brutally it deals with Rachel’s character. This book reminds me a little of #33: The Illusion, just in the way that it strips away so much of the adolescent pretense around Rachel as The Illusion did for Tobias. Rachel is no longer the girl she was back at the beginning of this series. She is a fighter now, a warrior, and she does have this kind of bloodlust. She enjoys the power that she has. None of the other Animorphs, not even the warrior-trained Ax, really shows as much of an enjoyment of combat as Rachel does. This is something that surprises even her.
And I do love the ending. I love that we don’t get the certainty of knowing whether or not Rachel decides to kill David. I guess this is one of those litmus “glass half empty or full” tests—if Rachel spares David, it shows that her character has learned to be more compassionate since The Solution; if she kills him, it shows that she has learned to be more ruthless. Then again, people’s definitions of compassion might vary. David definitely seems to think Rachel would be showing more compassion by killing him rather than forcing him to live his life as a rat.
For what it’s worth, I think she does kill David. I’d like to think she lets him go, that she can’t bring herself to do it. But let’s be real. This is a person who has fought against Taxxons and Hork-Bajir. Rachel mortally wounds Controllers all the time. While there is a gulf between killing in the heat of battle or killing in so-called “cold blood”, I don’t think that gulf is too wide for Rachel to cross. Just because she says no to becoming Crayak’s pet killing machine doesn’t mean she is suddenly a pacifist like Cassie. Besides, if she spared David, she would feel obligated to go back to the others and say, “Btw, you guys, David is back.” By killing him, she can omit this entire episode if she wants. She takes the pressure off Jake et al to make that decision—and that is exactly the kind of move that Rachel would make at this point.
David is dead, and so is Rachel’s childhood.
Next time, the Animorphs’ guise of Andalite bandits starts to wear thin. What will happen when the Yeerks realize that their number one enemy has just been a band of meddling kids and their big blue alien?
My reviews of Animorphs:
← The Ellimist Chronicles | #49: The Diversion →