I suppose I should start with one of those disclaimers about how I received a free electronic copy of this from NetGalley and Algonquin Young Readers. However, I also preordered two hard copies with my own money (OK, someone else’s money in gift card form) even before that request was approved. But why wait a whole three weeks when I could read it earlier than that? That’s how excited I am for Here We Are: 44 Voices Write, Draw, and Speak About Feminism for the Real World. It turns out that this book is everything I wanted, and more.

I really like this trend of telling me how many contributors there are in the title of the work, because it saves me from having to count. Suffice it to say, I’m not going to review each piece individually. I will point out that Kelly Jensen has clearly made the effort to be as inclusive and intersectional as possible in this book. Here We are features pieces from white women, Black women, Indigenous women, trans men and trans women, straight women, gay women, and even that rarest of breeds, yes, the straight white male. The contributors are of various ages, professions, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Indeed, pretty much the only thing that unites all of them is that they are in this book, and they identify as feminist.

Readers won’t see themselves in every contributor and every piece in Here We Are. And that’s kind of the point. The essays and other pieces in this collection seek to give advice, sure. Beyond this, though, they simply provide perspectives. Readers won’t see themselves in every contributor, but they will hopefully identify with some of the contributors. And they will get a chance to hear from voices whose experiences are very different from their own. For example, Constance Augusta Zaber’s “Dragging Myself into Self-Love” would surely resonate with many boys:

Looking back, I can recognize how hard puberty must have been for them, but at the time, I envied those girls. I envied their pierced ears, their lip gloss, their long hair, their shoes that weren’t boring old sneakers. I was envious that they were allowed to make choices with clothes and makeup that were off limits to me. By the eighth grade, I’d been exposed to the idea that gender roles were created by humans and were more arbitrary than natural (thank you, Internet!), but that sort of abstract information is useless in the face of classmates who would mock a boy for having a purple backpack.

(Emphasis mine.) Although I perform gender in a fairly standard, masculine way, I definitely understand where Zaber is coming from and can identify with chafing at some of the restrictions placed upon people who perform gender as male. For boys who are considering that they might be trans or nonbinary or agender or simply prefer more fashion choices, this is an essay that tells them they are not alone. For the girls who are the primary target audience of Here We Are, it’s a glimpse into how feminist thought and action benefits all people, regardless of gender.

Here We Are is unequivocal in its inclusiveness:

Feminists can identify as female, male, transgender, gender queer, or any other way they wish to. They can choose to choose no identity at all or choose one identity today and a different one next week. What physical parts individuals have or do not have has no bearing on their feminism nor on their right to be part of the feminism party. All that matters is that they believe in equality for every individual.

Whether you identify as a trans man, move fluidly among genders, enjoy having sex freely, or prefer not to have sex at all, you belong here and you matter.

(Yeah, a little asexual representation there. Not a whole lot, unfortunately, but a little. I wish Jensen had included an asexual contributor to discuss how a lack of attraction is normal and OK, and maybe even someone who is aromantic or whose romantic orientation differs from their sexual orientation. Also, in case you’re reading this and wondering: yes, there really are feminism parties. They are every second Thursday, and like the dark side, we have cookies, although we don’t have imperialist oppression of entire planetary systems.)

Mikki Kendall also puts it very well in her essay, “Facets of Feminism”, when she says, “A feminism that is exclusionary, that makes objects out of some women and saviors out of others, is implicitly harmful.… An inclusive feminism is a more effective feminism.” And earlier in this chapter, the book reminds us that liking problematic media doesn’t disqualify you as a feminist either, that “it’s from these problematic representations that great feminist dialogue emerges”, and then cites one of my favourite problematic shows, Supernatural. This is a salient point to remember in an age that bombards us with media representation that is often simultaneously problematic and entertaining, and I appreciate that Here We Are takes the time to counter the myth that feminism means hating men, hating yourself, or indeed, hating everything—it does not.

The word feminist is certainly more in the popular mind than it was when I was a teenager in the early noughties. My adolescence straddled the divide between pre- and post-social media, as well as pre- and post-smartphone; in Grade 8 it was all about the LiveJournal and the GeoCities, and by the time I was graduating high school Facebook had thrown open its doors to the general public and the iPhone had just heralded the beginning of the smartphone era. In this environment, feminism was something we didn’t really discuss too much as teenagers. I ran with a pretty smart group of kids (after my first high school closed in Grade 10, I took to eating lunch in the band wing with the “band geeks”, despite my lack of musical talent, because lots of them were from my old school and it seemed preferable to the noisy cafeteria). We were reasonably enlightened, I’d like to say, and we talked about these kinds of issues. But textbooks and theories and that kind of academic rigour were not yet on the horizon, so we didn’t always have the language required to grapple with them.

This book is much more accessible. It covers pretty much everything and anything related to feminism to one degree or another. I appreciate that it has separate chapters on sex and relationships, since these are very different but often conflated concepts. I like that it has a combination of personal essays, reprinted essays, interviews, comics and drawings, and lists. The “scrapbook style” book is not a form I want to read all the time, but I acknowledge its appeal. As an adult and a professional and (gasp) an intellectual, I can read all the academic theory books about feminism that I want. I can’t really put those into the hands of teenagers, however, and expect them to have the same eye-opening experiences that I do. Instead, Here We Are is a book with ideas, stories, and advice they can take an act on immediately.

Even as feminism becomes more popular, it also becomes a commodity. Corporations are happy to co-opt feminist slogans and terminology if it means they can sell feminism. “Buy this thing to make you more feminist!” “Buy this thing to support our feminist initiatives!” Buy, buy, buy. “Buy this to learn the ultimate secret to feminism…” Except there is no secret. There is no one, right way to be feminist. There is no feminist checklist that, if followed, will make you the perfect, unprivileged, unbiased, feminist person.

OK, I lied. There is a secret. Do you want to know what it is?

Most young people are already feminists.

They might not know it, and if they know it, they might not readily admit to it (because that can come with a social cost they are unwilling to pay). But young people, by and large, believe in their own empowerment. They believe in equality for all genders. They don’t understand what the fuss is about if you love someone of the same gender—or if you don’t fall in love at all. The stories we see in the news about proms being shut down because a girl wants to bring another girl, or wear a tuxedo, or wears a dress that is too short—it’s not other teens shutting down these events, creating this fuss. It’s the adults who are unwilling to open their minds and change their views. I can’t remember who said this, but young people are always on the winning side of history.

Here We Are embraces this youth power and energy rather than talking down to it. It sees the feminist, good and bad and hidden and out, in everyone and speaks to them. It’s a little bit Oprah, I guess: “You can be feminist! And you can be feminist! And you can be feminist!”, but I don’t see this as a bad thing. The worst thing we, adult progressives and feminists and allies, can do at this point is to ignore, condescend, or silence young people trying to speak up, learn about, and claim a feminist identity. Here We Are is a book for youth that is proudly, loudly feminist and tells young people that they can shout about (or not, as they choose) being feminist too. I think that’s pretty cool.

Oh my god give me more of these books right damn now.

I don’t normally do this, but can we just stop for a moment and look at this utterly gorgeous cover by Mike Heath? I was going to read Steeplejack from the description alone, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t the cover that caught my eye while I was browsing the New Books shelf. Everything about this cover is amazing. The entire shot is from an off-kilter perspective, neither horizontal nor vertical, forcing us to look at everything from a weird angle. The font is gorgeous, perfect for the book’s milieu and atmosphere without feeling stereotypically steampunk. Plus, the letters are perfectly aligned with the direction of the tower in an awesome perspective effect that creates a compelling sense of motion. Like, it looks like a still from the movie of the book: open on Ang climbing a tower as the credits zoom past her. I am not a visual person; not only do I not tend to judge books by the cover, but I also tend to ignore cover art entirely, despite the amount of work and passion that cover artists put into it (sorry). But I cannot ignore this cover. It’s great. I just want to stare at it forever.

Fortunately, A.J. Hartley has written a book worthy of such a cover. Like so many of the titles I’ve raved about this past summer, Steeplejack took me a while to warm to—but when I did, boy did I ever. Ultimately, it is the humanity and vulnerability of the protagonist, Anglet Sutonga, that got me. She is capable but far from competent at everything she tries in this novel, and the people arranged against her vary from evil and racist merely to opportunistic and bitter. And through Ang, Hartley broaches issue of class and race in a way that could have been preachy but somehow isn’t.

At its heart, Steeplejack is an investigation into the death (murder?) of an unremarkable young boy, Berrit. Ang didn’t know Berrit—he was supposed to become her apprentice, but he turns up dead instead. Indeed, it becomes a running “joke” (unfunny one) that everyone is so surprised Ang keeps poking into Berrit’s death, because “she didn’t know him”. This leads to Ang’s Crowning Moment of Awesome:

Why does everyone keep saying that?… Why does whether I knew him or not matter? He was a child, a boy you murdered. I have to avenge him because I didn’t know him. Because he will never have what other boys his age look forward to. He was snuffed out, all his possibilities ended by your knife, and I am not supposed to care because I didn’t know him?

This is a powerful moment, Ang confronting Berrit’s killer and finally getting to explain why she feels so driven to bring the killer to justice. This is the culmination of days of Ang continually being subjected to more and more stress from every direction. Something has gotta give—and indeed, many things do—but she always remains true to her core desire for justice.

It takes a long time to get to that moment, and I forgive anyone who doesn’t see what I see in Steeplejack. Ang is an incredibly poor detective. She doesn’t follow leads properly, is terrible at playing a part and blending in to other parts of societies, and she always bites off more than she can chew. As a result, her investigation is frequently snarled and tangled up in side-quests. This is a little frustrating, as a reader, even though I appreciate that Hartley does not give us a Mary Sue character around whom the entire world turns. The fact that Ang, while being a kickass climber and courageous person, generally bungles her detecting and has trouble taking care of a newborn child, shows the richness and roundness of her character.

Indeed, Steeplejack ultimately won me over for two reasons. First, Ang is such an interesting character. Second, Hartley’s depiction of race politics is more subtle than I expected.

I’ve already discussed Ang’s desire for justice and how terrible a detective she is. I appreciate that we get to see so many different sides of her character. On the one hand, she perseveres incredibly at solving Berrit’s murder. On the other hand, she eventually admits she made a mistake trying to raise Rahvey’s child (and I agree with her on this). The result is very interesting, for Hartley does something rare here, particularly in YA: we get to see a protagonist who both never gives up and quits at something. Kelly Jensen recently wrote about the importance of giving up, and I agree with her. Seeing Ang come to the realization that she is not ready to act as a mother, that she cannot both pursue Berrit’s murder investigation and halfheartedly care for a needy infant, is one of the most powerful parts of this book.

Race is the second powerful motif here. The book’s cover copy mentions the way three races cohabit in Bar-Selehm. And Ang gets into the consequences of being Lani fairly early on in the book. This being a YA novel, I was a little concerned that the book would beat us over the head with its ideas. I was concerned that the portrayals of the Mahweni would be a little too stereotypical. Fortunately, Hartley does a good job depicting the diversity within races as well as between them. We meet plenty of Lani, and they none of them see eye to eye. Similarly, the sharp divide between the rural Mahweni and urban creates a source of conflict as well. Despite this being a fairly short book, Hartley does an admirable job adding depth to all three races and their involvement in the city.

The same can be said about how Hartley portrays women. There is a diverse cast of female characters here. In addition to Ang, we have: Rahvey and Vestris, Ang’s sisters, each different from Ang and the other in a great many ways; Daria, sister to an important politician; Florihn, a Lani midwife with whom Ang finds herself at odds; and Sarah/Sureyna, a newspaper hawker whom Ang helps actually become a reporter. Each of these women has her own little story, her own goals and motives. They don’t always agree or want the same things. They talk to each other about stuff other than men (yes, this book passes the Bechdel test with flying colours). I particularly love Daria; Hartley introduces her seemingly as a background character, a well-bred lady there to sniff at Ang and look down at her. But then he gives her so much more life, such a great personality, and her relationship with Ang changes for the better as the two come to know each other.

My one disappointment when it comes to such relationships would be with the one between Ang and Vestris. This is only because Hartley makes so much of it while Vestris is off the page. I somewhat understand what he’s doing here, because the point is that Ang has romanticized her memories of Vestris as the glamorous, ne'er-do-wrong older sister, and reality is so very different. Nevertheless, because we don’t actually know Vestris very well until she finally shows up, the revelation regarding her true goals lacks the sucker-punch impact it was likely intended to have.

I’ll end by commenting that Steeplejack, in my opinion, is many things, but it is not steampunk (and I have a fairly broad definition of steampunk). This book does not feature impressive clockwork or steam-driven apparatus. As one blurb puts it, it’s kind of an alternative Victorian South Africa, which is an accurate description of the technology level. Aside from the weird mineral luxorite, there isn’t much in the way of magic or anything different from our world aside from different animals and geography. This is not a criticism or praise, mind you, just information for those who come to this hoping for steampunk (or are steering clear because they want to avoid steampunk!).

Steeplejack fits the drama of its exhilarating cover art: it is exciting and intense, and I really enjoyed it. I cannot wait to read whatever is coming next in this series.

My reviews of the Steeplejack series:
Firebrand →

Well, here we are. Dreams of Gods and Monsters, the third book in this delightful trilogy from Laini Taylor, was coincidentally published a few weeks before I discovered the first book, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, courtesy my landlady. Two months later and I’ve read all three books. There’s always something fun about binging on a series in short succession. It definitely creates momentum and allows one to keep the characters and their relationships fresh in one’s mind. I’ve enjoyed these books from the start, but it’s safe to say that this is not just the conclusion of the trilogy; it’s the crowning achievement.

Successive books in a trilogy, or any series, need to follow the same tenets as a successful business enterprise: expand or die. The stakes have to get higher. The characters have to get more complex. The world cannot stay the same. Taylor has excelled at this with the sequels to Daughter of Smoke and Bone, in particular because she creates a fine balance between predictability and ingenuity in her plots. The romance between Karou and Akiva is largely predictable. Revelations about Karou’s chimera past aside, it’s your standard starcrossed lovers type deal. But there’s nothing predictable about the world-shaking twists that Taylor deals into her stories, from the revelation of Eretz itself in the first book to the introduction of Eliza and the revelation of Meliz in the third. Taylor always ups the stakes, and never in safe or predictable ways, and that’s one reason this trilogy is so good.

When last we left our intrepid protagonists, everything teetered on the brink of chaos and disaster. Jael had flown his Dominion through the portal to Earth, poised to reveal himself to humanity and get weapons to take back to Eretz. Karou and Ziri had executed a complicated bait-and-switch the left the latter impersonating Thiago. Akiva, having been framed for the assassination of the Emperor, managed to persuade the Misbegotten to become rebels against the rest of seraphim-kind. Together, Akiva and Karou dare to dream of an alliance between the chimera and the Misbegotten. But it seems like an alliance doomed to fail before it can begin.

The concluding volume to any series really needs to be a culmination of the journey the reader has followed the characters on from book one. Dreams of Gods and Monsters achieves this by being a book about all the characters. Daughter of Smoke and Bone was Karou’s story. Akiva, Zuzana, and Mik were present, but they were the supporting cast. Days of Blood and Starlight was more evenly split between Akiva and Karou, with Zuzana and Mik taking on a larger role, and the introduction of Liraz as a more important character. But this book is definitely no longer any one character’s story. The narrative sprawls larger than any single character can contain it. All of the above characters, as well as Ziri, Razgut, and the newbie, Eliza, get opportunities to shine and carry the plot forward in interesting ways.

Speaking of plot, I was a little concerned by the length of the book. It’s nearly twice as long as Daughter of Smoke and Bone. Yet this too is with purpose, a consequence of the wider scope of story that Taylor tells. This is no longer merely the story of Karou discovering her origins and having to decide how to live in two worlds (or whether she can live in two worlds). It’s a fight for survival, rebels against Jael’s Dominion. It’s a fight for the future of chimera and seraphim alike. And if that’s not enough, Taylor drops a bigger bombshell as she introduces an even more pernicious enemy, dangling in front of our eyes the tantalizing hope that follow-up series might one day appear.

This bombshell concerns the origins of the seraphim, as well as more details about the breakaway Stelians and Akiva’s own destiny. It’s very clever of Taylor, because she manages to tie up quite a bit of this story while also organically introducing new ideas and revealing more about Eretz’s past. Only Eliza’s inclusion as a main character might rankle, and I think it’s more surprising than disconcerting, since we expect to start the book with Akiva or Karou only to be introduced to a seemingly random human. A new main character is not necessarily something I expect in the last book of a trilogy, but I’m not opposed to it either, and Taylor manages to make it work.

A large reason why Eliza works, as does the zany tweeness of Mikzana (yeah, I portmanteaued that relationship), is the delightful narrative voice that Taylor has mastered here. The narrator is third person omniscient, but it has a colloquial informality to its tone and diction. It feels like this story is being told around a campfire or at a bedside, How I Met Your Mother-style, to wee little chimera or seraphim who are eager to know what happens next. There aren’t exactly asides to the reader, but there are small editorial flourishes, little comments like, "And it should have been fine. Until it wasn’t." I’m 24, and I kind of live in that interstitial generation between Gen Y and the Millennials, and this kind of narration appeals to me. This book feels like fantasy written for the 21st century, an invocation of the tropes of high fantasy mixed with the tones and moods of more contemporary, urban fantasy.

It doesn’t matter how you judge the strength of a book, whether it’s on story, or plot, or characters, or the width of the margins (just shy of 2.5 cm, or just under one inch for those of you still backward enough to not be down with the metric), or the font (not sure of the name, but it’s sexy and readable). Dreams of Gods and Monsters just works. It works really, really well. It’s really, really good. And if that’s not enough, it happens to be the third and best book in an excellent trilogy, one that should appeal both to the YA group and a more general (older) audience. If you like fantasy and you haven’t gotten into this trilogy yet, you really should. There’s no excuse now that all three books are on offer, and Taylor has such a great story to tell with fascinating, real characters. Don’t miss out.

My reviews of the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy:
← Days of Blood and Starlight

Talk about come-from-behind challengers. I was so certain I had my Carnegie nominees sorted, and then I read the The Weight of Water. I almost didn’t read it. It’s getting close to the end of the school year, and in a week’s time I’ll be on a plane back to Canada for the summer. I wasn’t sure I wanted to invest the time in reading this book, particularly because it is written in verse. Poetry and I are … fairweather friends.

Not reading this book would have been a huge mistake, one I’m glad I didn’t make. Sarah Crossan has created an utterly engrossing story about a Polish girl whose mother has uprooted her and brought her to England in pursuit of her father, who has left their family. Kasienka is devoted to her mother but confused by her father's desertion and her new situation in England. She is upset about being placed in a Year 7 class, despite being nearly thirteen years old, just because of her English skills. And moving schools makes it hard enough to find friends and wage the wars of popularity; moving to a new country and learning a new language makes it even harder.

I come from Thunder Bay, a city that is somewhat multicultural but not exactly a bastion of diversity like one would find in Toronto or, indeed, many major towns in England. My experience dealing with the intersections of different cultural backgrounds, and particularly the psychological effect on a child of moving around the world, is limited. Having taught at a school with a significant proportion of students for whom English is a second language, I have a better idea of the challenges that students—and teachers—face on a daily basis. Crossan captures all of these in the voice and verse of a twelve-year-old girl.

The verse works well because it forces you to pay attention to every word. With prose, it is so easy to skim and still get the gist of the plot. This book has a plot, but the story is definitely about the trajectory of Kasienka as a character. She begins as a scared girl and matures, with each challenge teaching her something valuable about who she is becoming. She faces down the Popular Girl, develops shy affection for a boy in Year 9, and even struggles with keeping a secret from her mother that could tear them asunder. Because everything is narrated in her poetry, we only ever get a sense of Kasienka—the other characters are more like shadows of themselves than real people—but that’s enough.

The best "plot point", if you will, concerns Kasienka becoming aware of her father's new life before her mother does. She has to choose whether to keep this a secret from her mother or reveal it, risking both parents’ disapproval. As Kasienka”s relationship with her mother deteriorates, her relationship with her father improves, to the point where his new partner invites her to come live with them. She would have everything she doesn't have in the one-room living space she shares with her mother: a bedroom, a bed of her own, a computer. She could be more like a “normal” English girl her age. But it would mean leaving her mother, and even the thought of that makes Kasienka feel so guilty. You can see her thinking about it though, feel the pain as she considers her options.

The book takes its title from Kasienka’s newly found love of swimming. Several people encourage her involvement, and she persists until she gets to go to a national competition in London. Again, the poetry works well here, communicating through vivid imagery the relief that Kasienka feels as she swims. Her mundane worries slide off her body; she revels in the feel of the water on her skin, the intensity of the competition of which she is a part. For her, the weight of water is something special, something almost holy. Crossan portrays the refuge that children (and adults, often enough) seek in a hobby or singular activity, something they can focus on—something they can control.

I'm having a hard time, now, deciding which nominee I’d like to win the award. I loved Code Name Verity: it was tops, because I was entertained even as I nearly cried. The Weight of Water, which I almost spurned, is a strong challenger. It is something that would work for children around twelve or thirteen, provided they can swallow their prejudice against poetry like I did. And I think it has a very rich message, both for people who are not from England as well as people who have grown up here and lived here their entire lives. It's a potent book, and one I’m very glad I deigned to read.

My grandmother died in January. We were expecting it for a while. She had been in and out of the hospital for months, her diabetes causing circulation problems with her legs to the point where he body could no longer keep up. I had realized prior to that what a loss my grandmother would be, but it was still hard for me to understand how it would feel—this was the first death in my family that I had experienced. Sometimes, the isolated nature of our cognition inevitably leads to a mild form of solipsism. It is hard to conceptualize of other people, previous generations, having adventures and experiences and memories of their own. My grandmother saw and did so much that I just can’t know about any more. It’s so weird, thinking that all these unique experiences that she had are now lost.

I don’t believe in ghosts. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t cool to entertain the notion of the existence of ghosts. What if my grandma were still around, haunting us, watching us grow and change and have our own children? That’s what Mary’s great-grandmother does in A Greyhound of a Girl. When she dies from flu at the beginning of the century, she stays on the family farm as a ghost, hidden from sight but privy to the life of her child, Emer. Tansey watches as Emer grows up and has her own daughter, Scarlett, who in turn gives birth to Mary. Four generations on, Scarlett and Mary live in Dublin, the family farm long ago sold to a neighbour as the family diminished and broke apart. Mary’s grandmother, Emer, lies in hospital at the end of her life, and one day while walking home from school, Mary meets a peculiarly-dressed woman who calls herself Tansey. It takes a while for Mary to realize that Tansey is the ghost of her great-grandmother. After this, she introduces Tansey to her mother (like you do), and they reunite grandmother with great-grandmother before embarking on a touching road trip.

With A Greyhound Girl, Roddy Doyle explores the connections, implicit and explicit, between generations of women in an Irish family. It’s ultimately something explored from a child’s perspective, despite chapters told from the limited third-person view of Tansey, Scarlett, and Emer. This is Mary’s story, the story of how the youngest in the generation somehow brings together the older three for one, last moment of shared experience.

The ghost aspect definitely adds something here. Indeed, it’s essential, because it allows Tansey to be absent while simultaneously witnessing Emer’s life. This would be a very different story if Tansey had been present, had known Emer, and a different story still if Tansey had been absent but somehow alive. By reintroducing Tansey as a ghost, ripped from Emer in an untimely manner by disease, Doyle sidesteps the need to address recriminations. Emer, at the end of her life and ready to find peace, deals with Tansey’s unexpected presence with the equanimity that only those who have accepted their forthcoming death possess.

But so does Scarlett. And Mary. I mean, I can understand a child, particularly a twelve-year-old who has decided she knows everything about the world and nothing can surprise her, reacting with a weary haughtiness. And maybe Scarlett is just a particularly hip mother? The fact remains that all three react to Tansey’s existence in essentially the same way. Mary tells her mom that Tansey is a ghost, and mom doesn’t bat an eye. They all smile and exchange polite words and then go off to visit Emer in the hospital, Tansey in tow.

There is a notable lack of drama or conflict in this book.

There, I said it.

Even the fact that Emer is dying, and that she gets to meet her mother after all these years, feels less sensational than turning on a television. All of these characters are just so cool and collected, so glib and flip with their dialogue, that they don’t seem alive. They don’t seem real. There is precious little fighting between mother-and-daughter—Mary prefers, instead, to spend her time tracking whether or not Scarlett’s sentences end with !!!. I groaned the first time I read that exchange and quickly skimmed any further such paragraphs as they appeared. In his attempts to give his characters depth and definition, Doyle just reduces them to trite exchanges better suited for a Saturday Night Live sketch.

Generational stories are hard to do. To work effectively, they need a real sense of loss and sacrifice. They need secrets, moments of haunting, twisted darkness that have been repressed down the decades. They need confrontation and revelation. There is very little of that present in this book. Beyond Emer’s loss of Tansey as an infant and subsequent reunion now, just prior to her death, there is little hardship or suffering. The reunion doesn’t lead to much in the way of conflict. No one yells or screams. There is some sadness and melancholy, as one might expect from people who are watching a relative slowly decline. But sadness alone does not a compelling story make.

For a novel that culminates in a road trip, there is hardly any sense of adventure. Worse still, there is no sense of danger. This experience changes Mary and Scarlett; they become different people for having known Tansey and seen this side of Emer. Nevertheless, when I read a novel, I need to be more than a voyeur to an extended family reunion. I need something that is going to grip me by threatening real, three-dimensional characters. A Greyhound Girl doesn’t do any of that.

What saves this from a one-star rating, in my mind, is some of Doyle’s writing. The dialogue is corny and the characterization flatter than an opened bottle of Coke. Yet he still manages to capture some of the truths about family life. Mary’s brothers, for instance, who seem so alien and remote having hit puberty. Or, as I mentioned previously, the doom that tinges every aspect of their day as they contemplate Emer’s decline in hospital. These little things hint at a skill that Doyle deploys more effectively, according to other reviewers, in his other books, none of which I’ve read.

A Greyhound Girl feels like a book that is either too big or too small—in terms of scope, not length. To truly sprawl in a generational sense, it needs more girth. Or, Doyle could have gone the other way, focused on the relationship between mothers and daughters. Instead, he treads some middle ground between the pinnacles of the two extremes. As a result, rather than being a successful synthesis of the two approaches, the book is an unambitious presentation of an unexamined story.

My Carnegie reading list continues with Wonder. With this book, R.J. Palacio swept me off my feet and took me on an incredible, moving journey. She combines believable, authentic voices of children and adolescents and a sensitive, sensible approach to her subject matter to create a book that is evocative without being too cheesy or trite. Wonder is about a young boy trying to integrate into a society not so accepting of physical difference—but, it’s also about a society trying to accept a young boy who is different.

The story begins with the main character, August, as the narrator. He introduces himself and his unique, congenital facial physiognomy that some might characterize as disfigured or deformed. August has spent most of his life in and out of the hospital for one surgery or another, and until this year he has been homeschooled. That’s all about to change. August is entering grade five (or “middle school” as the Americans call it), and his parents decide it’s time to enrol him into a small private school, Beecher Prep. Everyone braces themselves for the worst.

It’s interesting how we judge other people by physical qualities. We often assume that conformance to our narrow definitions of physical fitness also convey mental fitness, and that failure to conform to the former means the latter is also questionable. August might not look like a normal ten-year-old, but he is just as smart, if not smarter, than most ten-year-olds. Palacio is careful to assert this point—but not over-emphasize it—and it becomes an important character trait. Later in the book, a bigoted parent openly questions August’s fitness to attend Beecher Prep. She claims that because Beecher is not an “inclusion school” and doesn’t need to mix “normal” students with those who have “special needs”, August shouldn’t have been admitted. Palacio skilfully conveys, through this parent’s email to Beecher’s principal, a haughty tone dripping with false concern, making it obvious that this parent is using this abelist language as a mask for her own discomfort with August’s appearance.

I like this touch, because it gives younger readers a very good example of the duplicity that adults—and particularly parents—often practise “for the children”. It’s similar to the sadly all-too-frequent request to ban certain books “for the children”. Parents request things, citing the protection of children as a reason, when in reality they are attempting to warp the world to fit their own narrow, bigoted definitions of what makes for a civil society. It bothers me, as a teacher and a person, that such close-minded people exist and are raising part of the next generation.

But I digress. August enters Beecher Prep’s fifth grade and goes through the usual ups and downs, making friends of various fidelity and foes as well. His first big trial comes at Halloween, ordinarily August’s favourite time of the year. When he wears a different costume to school on the spur of the moment, no one recognizes him, and he unwittingly eavesdrops on several other children discussing him. He overhears one of his “friends” say something so vile that he flees and doesn’t want to return to school. Palacio has us hooked … and then she moves on to Part Two, narrated by Via, leaving us in the lurch as to whether August returns or not.

Via is starting at an elite high school. In middle school, despite August not attending, she was still known as the “kid with a deformed brother”. Hence, while Via’s love for August and desire to protect him knows no bounds, she is determined not to be “labelled” in such a way. As a younger child, Via had a lot of time to pay attention to August; as an adolescent, she is starting to become more concerned with her own needs. Her best friends have completely changed over the summer, and she drifts away from them and tries to rediscover or reinvent herself. Nevertheless, Via still manages to be a sounding board for August—she is the first one he confides in after the Halloween incident.

Next, August’s friend Summer picks up the narration, explaining why she sat at August’s lonely lunch table that first day. Summer is an important figure in August’s life because she is a genuine friend—she certainly feels sorry for him, but she is able to look past that pity and treat him like another, ordinary kid. They have genuine, fulfilling conversations that kids might have—and they get into some arguments and fights. August confides in Summer about Halloween, explaining why he isn’t friends with Jack anymore. He makes Summer swear—no crossed fingers or toes!—not to tell anyone, but she gives Jack a hint.

From there, Jack becomes the narrator. Palacio gives him an opportunity to explain his actions, so that we can see him as more a more sympathetic character. He genuinely has no inkling that August overheard his comments on Halloween, and it takes him a while to figure it out. This coincides with another kid making some incendiary comments about August, and he reacts emotionally, punching the kid in the face. The resulting disciplinary action touches off a chain of events that reverberates throughout the rest of the novel: Jack and August make up, over text message of course; the punched kid, Julian, starts a “boy war”, pitting his cohort against Jack; and Julian’s mother begins complaining to the principal about August’s presence.

The book does eventually return to August as the narrator, stopping along the way at a few others, including Via’s boyfriend Justin. I enjoyed the device of switching narrators far more than I suspected I would. Although much of the first part of each new narrator’s section is devoted to analysis and exposition, each new part does advance the plot a little. I like how Palacio exposes us to the diverse reactions and opinions about August and his condition. It creates a more holistic experience and reminds us that there is no such thing as a clear-cut way to think about issues like this. Jack’s weakness in the face of peer pressure is a great example, as is Amos, Miles, and Henry’s opposite heel face turn near the end of the book.

Palacio also keeps a lot of the book’s conflict tightly contained. That is, most of what August experiences is within the realm of what any boy might experience at school as a result of unpopularity. It’s simply that the reason for August’s status is something that he can’t possibly change. This allows readers, regardless of their ability or disability, to empathize with August’s plight—many of us have bullied or been bullied. Wonder is a reminder, particularly for those of us who happen to be able-bodied, that people with disabilities have to endure the same problems able-bodied people do as children, and then some.

I wish there had been more overt conflict among August/his parents, the principal, and the group of parents represented by Julian’s mother. Indeed, if any character could be singled out for Mary Sue levels of syrupy sweetness, it might be the principal. He is just so understanding, so nice … and I couldn’t stop thinking that, as a private school, Beecher Prep also needs to be concerned about its bottom line. Perhaps Palacio didn’t care to include the vagaries of school-board politics, beyond the hints she does give. I can understand that, considering the level of the book’s audience.

Then again, this is also in keeping with Palacio’s tendency to downplay August’s defenders. Their existence and actions are important and notable: Jack’s punching of Julian is a turning point for him and his relationship with August; Amos, Miles, and Henry’s defence of August against the bullies from another school marks the end of Julian’s boy war and the point where the rest of Beecher Prep’s fifth grade accepts August as “one of them”. Time and again, however, Palacio reminds us that no matter how important allies are, August still has his own voice and his own agency. He can solve a lot of problems on his own—or, if he needs help, ask for it.

The constant question echoing through my mind as I read, of course, was whether Palacio ever takes her portrayal of August—or any characters, really—over the top. Does Wonder ever approach the syrupy sweet tone of an after-school special? I honestly lost any cynicism I started with as I kept reading. Yes, there’s a happy and somewhat groan-worthy ending … but I think the book earns that with all the other legwork it does. Palacio creates three-dimensional characters who grow and change, and she is able to show that development at a realistic but engaging pace.

All in all, Wonder is a novel that carefully steps around stereotype traps and works hard to create a strong story with believable characters. It impressed me far more than I thought it would. I’ve only read two Carnegie nominees so far, but one of the remaining four will have to be absolutely stunning if it hopes to beat Wonder in my eyes.

Certain books only work in the first person. I wouldn’t think Maggot Moon would work any other way: you need to experience the world through Standish Treadwell’s eyes—of two different colours. Sally Gardner creates an alternative history dystopia in which an authoritarian Motherland has absolute control, thanks to a combination of propaganda, self-policing, and secret police. It is going through the process of meticulously faking a moon landing, but a single dyslexic child with just enough gumption might be able to screw it up and expose the hoax.

Standish’s voice helps establish the creepiness of the Motherland’s regime. I imagine (because, fortunately, that’s all I can do—imagine) that the way he describes how the enforcers of the Motherland act is similar to how a child of resisters might have experienced Soviet Russia. Standish and his grandfather live in “Zone 7”, an area comprising an uncomfortable mixture of the collaborating, nouveau rich and those like Standish’s grandfather who have narrowly escpaed re-education. Like most children who have been hard done by, Standish views all adults who are not his grandfather with a certain amount of distrust: he has learned early to be wary of authority, so the actions of the hard Mr. Hellman and the kinder Miss. Phillips are viewed with the same lens of suspicion.

The perspective also means that Gardner doesn’t have to explain much. I struggled, at first, to decide whether I was comfortable with the dearth of exposition. There’s something to be said, when one is working in an unfamiliar world, for providing skilful primers. Ultimately, Maggot Moon doesn’t spend much time spelling out what its world is like or how it came to be, and I’m OK with that. Gardner still manages to tell her story, which is of paramount importance, and she doesn’t get too sidetracked.

In this respect, Maggot Moon reminds me a little of The Giver. The two are similar because they have protagonists who are different from the average child, who reject the dystopia around them and learn that there may be more to the world—Standish thanks to his grandpa and television, and Jonas thanks to the Giver. I wasn’t a fan of The Giver, particularly as a work of dystopian fiction for children. The opposite is true for Maggot Moon.

The totalitarian motif that Gardner taps in this story is going to be different depending on whether the reader is my age (or older) or a child. Most children, even older children who have learned about World War II and the Cold War, won’t necessarily understand the historical context in which Gardner’s world lives. This is why her lack of exposition, which effectively decouples the Motherland from any Earthly origins and sets it adrift on the sea of possibility, works well. Children will recognize that this is a world that tries so hard to be fair it is as unfair as it can be; it is a world of fear and darkness hidden by a shabby coat of brighter paint.

This is actually a rather depressing book. In retrospect, that should have been obvious. Consider the title: Maggot Moon. What an unattractive concept! Yet it makes perfect sense, given the nature of the book. And then there are the illustrations: the first pages of each chapter have an illustration going across the two facing pages, and it progresses (almost but not quite like a flipbook animation might) with each subsequent chapter. The first such illustration is simply of a fly flying across the page from left to right. Then, at the bottom of the page, a rat emerges from a hole. Then the illustrations become darker: the rat finds a bottle of poison, sniffs it, tips it over, and then tastes it out of curiosity. It dies, and as the rat’s corpse begins to decay, the fly lays its eggs, which hatch into maggots…. I actually reached a point where I started to find the entire process rather revolting. I’m not sure what children would think (or if they would notice it in the same way).

This is actually a book of hope. In retrospect, that is obvious. Though subtle in other ways, Gardner doesn’t conceal that Standish is a little bit of a Mary Sue as he prepares to play a pivotal role in trying to bring down the Motherland. He plans to show up on camera, to reveal that this moonlanding business is a hoax. Never mind the fact that there is no reason they would possibly be broadcasting the “moonwalk” live, that they couldn’t just edit out the footage of him spoiling the conspiracy. The point isn’t that we see Standish succeed: we see him try, try and struggle and maybe he succeeds. (The ending implies, at least to me, that he dies and joins Hector in heaven. But that isn’t really a downer anyway, is it?)

Maggot Moon is impressive because it manages that balancing act between complexity and subtlety required in books about weighty matters aimed at children. It’s not quite in the same league as Wonder … but it isn’t aiming to be. Whereas Wonder is character-driven, Maggot Moon is more about symbols and metaphors. This makes it simultaneously a more difficult and an easier book: more difficult, obviously, because it requires that extra layer of abstraction; and easier, because the characters are less complex, as they are there primarily to represent certain things.

All in all, it’s a good book. It hasn’t quite displaced Wonder as my favourite of the four nominees I’ve read so far, but I can see why people champion it, and champions it deserves.

Always excited to read a book with any kind of ace-spec rep. Let’s Talk About Love is in many ways your classic coming-of-age YA/NA tale of a protagonist discovering more about herself, her sexuality and romantic identity, and her relationships with her friends. Claire Kann doesn’t make it easy for Alice (or for the reader, for that part). This is a bumpy, uneven book, with parts that shine and parts that make me go hmm.

Alice doesn’t want to go to law school, but she isn’t sure what else to do with her life, and her parents really, really want her to follow the family tradition. She’s Black (which her parents are obviously aware of) and queer (which her parents are not) and fresh off a relationship that ended because her girlfriend wasn’t comfortable with Alice’s asexuality or lack of interest in sexual intimacy. Over a summer working at the local library, Alice falls for Takumi, who ticks all the boxes for her when it comes to aesthetic attraction. As she wrestles with her feelings for Takumi, she also has to deal with changes in her relationships with her best friends, Feenie and Ryan, who are engaged to each other and whom Alice fears are drifting away from her as a result. Combine all these complicated relationships and you get the recipe for a perfect storm of a summer.

Trigger warnings in this book for intensely acemisic conversations (like, from page one).

Although Alice and I are both asexual, that’s where the similarities end. I’m not Black, biromantic, or female, nor do I experience aesthetic attraction the same way Alice does. My relationship with my asexuality is very different from Alice’s, and while this doesn’t make either of ours less valid (there is no one “proper” way to be asexual any more than there is one proper way to be gay, bi, trans, etc.), it does make me less comfortable commenting on the representation. So although I will comment on how Kann portrays Alice’s asexuality here, keep all these facts in mind.

First, wow, does this book hit the ground running. The first chapter comprises Margot breaking up with Alice “because you won’t have sex with me.” From there we swiftly learn that Alice is asexual, and the conversation features so many of the regular phrases a lot of asexual people hear from people who don’t understand this identity. Kann pulls no punches but handles this well, in my opinion. In almost no time flat, she establishes how Alice and Margot have had a fairly long-term relationship predicated on mutual affection and some forms of physical attraction, yet this uneven set of desires around sexual intimacy has ultimately created too much friction for the relationship to remain strong and stable. Alice is understandably devastated. At the same time, however, we don’t really get any closure from this. (More on that in a bit.)

I love that this book uses asexual and similar terms on the page frequently. I love that Kann references Tumblr, Twitter, and all the other online spaces where queer people often flock to discover more about themselves. Let’s Talk About Love will hopefully be relatable in that sense for queer people (of various queer identities) because of how Alice has been exploring her asexuality online while she tries to figure out how to be more comfortably ace offline—if, indeed, that’s ever something she decides she wants. I also love that Kann uses the split attraction model. She differentiates between asexuality and aromanticism (Alice is biromantic, not aromantic). Similarly, Kann alludes to the asexual spectrum (including gray-asexuality).

Alice’s utter disinterest in sex is an important plot point. She makes it clear in the first chapter that she pretty much only had sex with Margot because it was something that Margot enjoyed. She doesn’t seem to have much libido either. Kann links this to Alice’s asexuality. It would have been nice if there were more explicit mention of the spectrum of attitudes asexual people hold towards sex—more discussion of the distinction between attraction and behaviour. (For example, some asexual people enjoy and even seek out sex.) I’m not sure I have the confidence Kann might have that her readers will infer this difference, and to me, the conflation of asexuality with “doesn’t want sex” is one of the most troubling misconceptions about that identity. That being said, I know this criticism isn’t entirely fair and is more a problem with representation in media overall—if we had more asexual rep in general, Let’s Talk About Love would have more room in which to be narrowly focused and less pressure to somehow represent all asexuality. This is a problem that any marginalized, under-represented group faces when portrayed in fiction, so I can’t really fault Kann too much on this point.

But let’s talk about closure.

Margot never comes back into this story. That’s fine, of course. Lots of people (or so I am told) never see or speak to their exes again, or for the months or so after this breakup that the story takes place. Nevertheless, I don’t like how Alice processes the break-up. All she ever talks about with reference to her former relationship is the ways in which their sexual incompatibility affected things. We don’t really hear about who Alice was when she was with Margot, what bands they listened to together, what they ate, etc. We never get a glimpse of their relationship, only the fact that it ended. There’s a certain lack of depth here that leaves me unsatisfied.

I’m ambivalent about how Alice pursues/doesn’t pursue the relationship with Takumi. A significant portion of my time reading this novel just left me thinking, “Stop trying to label everything and just enjoy being with him.” Part of me wants that to be the point of the story, wants this to be about Alice obsessing over whether she can still be ace if she’s attracted to Takumi in various ways. I totally understand why she’s so uncertain and hesitant about what’s happening. The story eventually settles for a somewhat conventional development of boyfriend/girlfriend labels, alas—I think I just wanted the story to go farther, be even more daring. I want us to shed this fixation with labelling every relationship as platonic or romantic, as friend or significant other. There are so many shades in between.

In that sense, Let’s Talk About Love lets me down a little bit, because it seems to be peddling the notion that ace people “can find love too.” It seems to be offering reassurance that even if you’re asexual, you can still fall for a Cutie Code: Black who will sweep you off your feet, cook you that good food, and never once do anything that makes you uncomfortable. (Takumi is so fucking bland it actually kind of hurts to think about. I’d accuse him of being a manic pixie dream boy except, let’s be honest, he doesn’t actually incite Alice to any adventures.) I know that there are alloromantic asexual individuals out there who really crave a romantic partner but are struggling, so for them, this might be a valuable and much-wanted message. Therefore, I don’t want to knock the book for that. But I, personally, can’t really get behind that message. I had similar reservations about Tash Hearts Tolstoy.

Fortunately there’s more to Alice’s character than being ace, and I like a lot of the other struggles she experiences. Her story of trying to break out of the box her parents have inscribed around her is probably going to feel familiar to many. That being said, as with Margot, I feel like this is one subplot that lacks much closure—we get a kind of half-hearted confrontation followed by a little resolution near the end. But it’s a very long summer of Alice slowly learning she should maybe try to stick up for herself.

I also really enjoyed the tension between Alice and her best friend. This is my favourite subplot, because it is so raw and real and something not explored enough in fiction: friendships are work. Too often in fiction, the protagonist’s “best friend” is this flat, stock character who is just always there for the protagonist, a reliable sidekick without much story of their own. Indeed, Feenie kind of starts that way. She’s this feisty fighter who nevertheless craves the domestic life, and that seems to be it, full stop—until she and Alice fall out. And it’s here that Kann does interesting things, highlighting how Alice’s relative lack of experience with friendships, let alone any other type of relationships, leaves her fumbling in the dark for some clue as to how she could fix this. She learns that no friendship, not even (or perhaps especially not) your best friendships, is maintenance-free. This subplot is such a potent reminder of the need to check your own insecurities sometimes and use your theory of mind skills to actually put yourself in your friend’s shoes and wonder how they feel about your friendship.

Let’s Talk About Love ultimately lacks the kind of writing and storytelling that really gets me excited about a book, especially a YA romance. Is it weird that I vastly preferred To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before despite it being, in some ways, a much more conventional portrayal of youthful romance? Whatever the case may be, I really appreciate that there are more and more books with asexual characters. And I know I won’t relate to them all, that sometimes a book (even an ace book!) won’t be for me but instead for readers who are Black, female, bi, or some combination of those identities or other ones. You might see yourself in this book where I didn’t, and that’s great. Moreover, I’m also pretty picky when it comes to my plots and my character development, and for me, those are the primary areas where I wish this book had shone just a bit more brightly.

Second review: March 8, 2019

I picked up Trickster Drift when it came out, but I knew I wanted to re-read Son of a Trickster to refresh my memory before I started the sequel. I’m really glad I did. It has given more an extended visit to Jared’s world, and what an interesting world this is.

I really love this book, and re-reading it has only increased my appreciation for its depth and the skill of Robinson’s writing. My earlier review goes into more detail, and my experience this time around provoked a lot of the same reactions. In particular, Robinson’s deft pop culture and SF references are so great.

One thing that changed this time around? In my first review, I was critical of how Robinson mixes magic and quantum mechanics. It’s a trope that’s so common I feel it’s cliché, and I was looking at it through that lens. This time around, though, I’ve changed my mind. I actually really like how the fireflies, in particular, attempt to explain what’s happening to Jared in the best way they can manage with our words. Robinson is really making the point that magic isn’t necessarily undiscovered or uncomprehended science; it’s actually a wholly different way of examining our world as it relates to other universes. It’s something that we ordinary humans just aren’t equipped to understand, like a missing sense or organ, but some people, like Jared, are immersed in it.

Highly recommend this book, and the sequel.

First review: February 6, 2017

Son of a Trickster came across my Twitter feed one day and I knew I had to read it. I’m trying to read more books by Indigenous authors, and this one looked really good. Sure enough, it’s a smart and savvy novel that delivers great characters and dialogue, never compromising on its message while still remaining entertaining. Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for providing me with an ARC.

Jared, like Eden Robinson herself, is Haisla and Heiltsuk and lives in Kitimat, British Columbia. When we first meet him, as a young boy, his parents are moving west—following work—and his maternal grandmother is being mean to him, claiming his father isn’t really his father but that he is instead Wee’git’s son, a trickster’s son. In contrast, Jared’s paternal grandmother showers him with affection and remains a source of support throughout much of the intervening years. Jumping ahead to when Jared is 16, the novel shows us a very different world: Jared lives with his mom, who wants him to have nothing to do with his father, though he is secretly giving money to his father and stepsister. He’s basically just trying to keep his head down, get through school, make enough money to help out his family, etc. But people, and other beings, keep getting in the way.

Son of a Trickster does not pull its punches when it comes to the bleakness of its situation. In many ways it reminds me of Lullabies for Little Criminals. In both cases, the protagonist lives in poverty with negligent parents. Jared has somewhat more agency than Baby did, a function of his age, gender, and particular circumstances: he is still in school, and at 16 he has started figuring out how to earn his own cash. But make no mistake: this is not a “feel good” novel of “redemption.” There is a lot of swearing and a lot of darkness. Jared seems inexorably to jump from frying pan to fire, and the cloying sheen of the “it gets better” after-school special is nowhere to be seen.

I love Jared as a character. He’s just so … 16, but that mature kind of 16 that crops up when you can’t rely on your parents. And he is just so good. He could easily embrace crime, start dealing drugs like Richie and his mom want him to, start carrying a gun and becoming a heavy … but he deliberately pushes that out of his life. He goes over to his next-door neighbour to shovel her drive and help her with chores. He works assiduously to earn enough money to help out his dad. Yes, he smokes pot and makes pot cookies for his largest source of income (he also has a paper route). But Robinson captures that paradox of being 16: you’re too old to be called a child but too young to be treated fully like an adult.

Jared is still in school, trying to survive Grade 10 in this book, and that’s kind of amazing given all the shit he has to deal with. Sometimes he has to take buses across town to give money to his stepsister to pay off his dad’s back rent … and still he tries to study and do his homework. Sure, he isn’t always successful—but when some kids would drop out, Jared perseveres. And note that I’m not trying to hold up Jared as some kind of anomaly among 16-year-olds—quite the opposite, in fact. I think many authors underestimate adolescents, but that isn’t the case here.

Nor is Jared pure. He has his share of flaws, makes his share of mistakes. He drinks, even blacks out, and then others have to fill him in on the poor choices he made (hello, viral videos). But there are also times he doesn’t black out, or times he doesn’t make the poorer choice, and Robinson shows us those too. The former are just as important as the latter, because it’s their contrast that makes him a worthwhile protagonist—and, in the end, it’s the choices that Jared makes to confront those past choices that makes him change and grow.

The setting helps to amplify Jared’s struggle for the reader. I’m quite harsh on Jared’s mom here, because I think she’s irresponsible in her parenting, but I am sympathetic to the challenges she faces as a single parent with no stable income. I’ve seen the effects of poverty on families, especially among First Nations youth in an urban environment. The conditions that Robinson depicts in Son of a Trickster are real. Nevertheless, I’ve been fortunate enough in my life never to experience poverty myself. I’ve never known the sensation of not knowing what I’m eating that same day, or lived under the sword of the utility company cutting my power. Jared’s precariousness is a constant presence in this novel, and Robinson represents it in a way that underscores its significance for readers who might otherwise be ignorant of its effects.

This is also an extremely tech and culturally savvy novel. It’s subtle, but by the end of the book I had really come to appreciate how Robinson weaves these elements throughout the book. Jared corresponds with several people via text or Facebook message; the later is his principal mode of communication with Nana Sophia. Robinson’s voice in these moments is very accurate; she captures the atmosphere created by these media. Also, I just love the nerdy references to shows like Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica, most of which originate from a rez kid, George, who insists Jared start calling him by the “callsign” of Crashpad. Indigenous people, particularly Indigenous youth, are underrepresented as it is in literature—but when they do put in an appearance, there is a tendency to ground them almost exclusively in Indigenous iconography (and often generic or mistaken iconography at that). These stereotypes are so pervasive that our Prime Minister recently commented at a town hall that the youth he spoke with want “canoe storage” over rec centres with WiFi. (Insert audible eyerolling here.) Robinson combats this stereotype quite neatly here, for Crashpad might live on the reserve, but he and his friends are just as phone-obsessed, Internet binging, sci-fi watching as teenagers of any stripe.

When Haisla/Heiltsuk traditions and history are referenced, it’s because it relates to the plot or characters in some way. Jared learns a little bit about how his maternal grandmother’s experiences at residential school affected her. Several of the women in his life, from his mother to Nana Sophia to some others I won’t spoil, are “witches” with access to powers and spells; other characters share with Jared a heritage that is more-than-human. There’s a bit of an American Gods vibe happening here, although I recognize the latter is a pastiche of various religions and mythologies whereas this one is much more about Jared’s personal journey through the cultures that lay claim to him.

As I don’t have the cultural background necessary to critique how Robinson portrays these elements, I’m not going to go into much detail there. However, I wasn’t sold on the way she uses the firefly beings that Jared sees to try to syncretize the magic with quantum mechanics. Any time someone tries to use quantum mechanics as an excuse for magic, a little alarm bell labelled “what the bleep to we know” goes off in my brain. It’s not that I’m against attempts to explain magic in pseudoscientific ways—that can be fun, because this is, after all, fiction. Nevertheless, these kinds of attempts at equivalency tend to muddle what is already a muddy subject, because quantum mechanics is counter-intuitive and poorly explained, let alone understood. I think I get why Robinson did this, but I could have done without that entire element. Thankfully, it isn’t a huge part of the plot and is easy enough to ignore.

In addition to the tech/culture savviness, I love the subversive moments, like this one where Robinson has characters confront the gender binary. For all that I loved most of the dialogue, I actually only highlighted one passage in this book:

“No, you don’t understand. I’m not regretting it. I’m saying I don’t believe in monogamy, but I don’t fall in the sack with just anyone. And I certainly don’t believe in gender the way you do, and you’ve made it clear that you find my ways ‘pervy.’”

“What”?

“I’m normally attracted to people willing to push heteronormative boundaries.”

Jacob felt his eye twitching. “So you’re gay?”

“There you go,” Sarah said. “Thinking in Western binaries again.”

“So you’re not gay.”

“It’s like talking to a wall,” Sarah said through gritted teeth. “Do you even listen to anything I say?”

“But what does that mean? For us?”

“It means you confuse the hell out of me. I’m frustrated.”

“Well, that’s a big ditto.”

“You’re so retro. How can I be with someone who still defines himself as strictly male?”

“So you like chicks? Or guys … or both? Is that, like, the trans one or the bi?”

Sarah stopped swinging her legs and coolly considered him. She hopped down. “You’re so not getting laid tonight.”

I’m so-so on Sarah as a character, but I like the romance/not-a-romance between her and Jared. Again, it feels a lot less contrived or stereotypical than how these kinds of relationships are so often portrayed in books featuring young adults.

As far as classifying this book, I suppose it might be called a “young adult novel”, though this is an example of how that label never really feels appropriate. This is a book adults should be reading, and a book that adolescents could read and enjoy too. Yes, there is sex and swearing and drugs and drinking in it. If you think your adolescent isn’t aware of these things among their peers and even participating in such things themselves, I have a pipeline I can sell to you.

I like the ending. I said before that this is not a novel of redemption, and I stand by that. This is a bleak book—but it’s bleakness with a hopeful ending. Like many such novels, it hits us hard and fast with so much that can go wrong in an adolescent’s life—and then it reminds us that there is always still hope. And I like that, for all that this book is about Jared’s potential link to a Trickster figure, the conclusion is ultimately about Jared becoming more of who he already is rather than trying to shape-shift his identity to match something he is not.

Son of a Trickster, then, is fantastic. I like its representation of an Indigenous teen (for what my opinion as a settler is worth), not that this is surprising considering its #ownvoices origin. Beyond this cultural dimension, though, I just love the book itself. The plot, setting, and characters all come together to deliver a breathtaking and beautiful book, and this is me holding my hand out saying, “Um, sequel please!”

Eden Robinson has done it again. Trickster Drift picks up about a year after Son of a Trickster, and it’s everything I wanted in a sequel and then some. In particular, the book shifts more concretely into urban fantasy territory. Whereas Son of a Trickster was a slow burn towards pulling the veil back on the magical elements of the story, Trickster Drift is fairly upfront about it all. I love it. This kind of urban fantasy (as opposed to the more hardboiled, investigative/mystery urban fantasy that seems to predominate) is exactly what I need right now.

Spoilers for the first book but not this one. Trigger warnings in this book for discussions of alcoholism, suicide, and self-harm, as well as forced drinking of alcohol.

Jared has been sober for nearly a year when he moves to Vancouver. Having graduated high school early thanks to correspondence courses, Jared is almost eighteen and ready to attend technical school. He ends up living with his estranged aunt, Mave, and quickly finds himself in the midst of an extended family, all of whom have their own issues to deal with. Meanwhile, Jared is forced to explore his magical heritage even as his mother’s ex-boyfriend David re-enters Jared’s life as a stalker. The central question: will Jared embrace his magic, even if that means becoming something other than human, or can he turn away from it enough to forge his own path through life?

Eden Robinson taps into a trope I’ve occasionally seen in other fantasy novels: the more powerful a magical being you are, the less free will you have. “Powerless” humans are paradoxically the most free, for our limited perception of space-time collapses our options down to a manageable amount. Whereas supernatural and magical beings like ghosts and tricksters view the multiverse so differently, and much more mutably, and this surfeit of options actually ends up constraining their natures even more. In portraying beings of various types and levels of power, from witches like Sarah and Maggie to the “demimortals” like Wee’git and Jwa’sins, Robinson illustrates how the ability to use magic shapes the ways in which beings navigate their worldlines.

If deciding how/when to use or interact with magic were Jared’s only problem, then perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad. But Jared has more things on his mind. He’s in a new city, among an entirely new social group. And it’s really this story—the main story, actually—where Trickster Drift excels. Jared finds himself thrown into the midst of an extended family—some people related by blood, others by adoption, marriage, or simply the ties of time. Always ever a “nice guy,” buoyed by the calm and centred feeling that sobriety often lends him, Jared throws himself into being useful. He puts up shelves, cooks, babysits, etc., as a matter of course. He is deeply concerned with being a responsible young adult. It’s laudable and touching, even as we have to watch Jared contend with the awkwardness of interacting with her aunt’s friends, with fellow college students, with the resident ghost, and of course, with his stalker.

Jared’s sobriety was a turning point, part of the denouement in Son of a Trickster. Now it’s a major plot point in Trickster Drift. Although I don’t drink, I’ve also never drunk, never been drunk, so I don’t have much experience with what Jared has been through. So while I can’t really attest to how Robinson handles Jared’s struggles with sobriety and alcoholism, I’ll say that I really enjoyed the layers she presents to these challenges. From the day-drinkers in Jared’s hostel that he initially stays in when he arrives in Vancouver to the foil of his cousin Kota, also an alcoholic, Robinson reminds us that sobriety is a complicated process in our society, perhaps particularly for someone as young as Jared. His struggles are complex and nuanced rather than the type of generic or stereotypical problems we often see alcoholics face in fiction.

This is keenly highlighted when Jared faces off with David in a confrontation that ultimately forces him to use more magic than he had ever expected. Without going into too many spoilers, let me just say that this confrontation was incredibly tense and chilling. I enjoyed the entirety of how Robinson plays out the David subplot. As with the sobriety plot, it must be so tempting to lean towards bigger, more bombastic confrontations. Instead, Robinson reminds us that when it comes to stalking, it is about power. David wants Jared to feel powerless before he inflicts any more permanent damage. Jared fights hard not to feel powerless, even as he balances the risks of getting others involved.

A great deal of Trickster Drift revolves around issues of trust and consent. Who should Jared trust with his secrets and his problems? Whom can Jared count on to help him—with David, with magic, with school? How much can he trust the magical relatives and beings who keep interjecting themselves into his life? Perhaps the most helpful advice he receives comes from his (former) Nana Sophia, who warns Jared not to trust supernatural beings if he doesn’t know their motives. This proves terribly prescient as Trickster Drift barrels towards its climax, with Jared suddenly desperate for allies and unsure where he can turn. His choices are … not the best, albeit entirely understandable given the situation.

The result is one of the most intense and satisfying climaxes to a bildungsroman-style fantasy story that I’ve read in a while. Jared pays the price for his mistakes and good faith by enduring excruciating torture. The novel ends with a very satisfying resolution while still promising so much more to come in the third book of this trilogy, and I am Here For It.

A few other random thoughts to close. First, as with the first book, Robinson’s pop culture and SF references are on point: mentions of Continuum (agh, how I miss thee!) and Supernatural filming in Vancouver, lots of mentions of Doctor Who and other classic SF properties. Second, CanLit so often re-colonizes Indigenous stories and authors by only championing books that are directly about “Indigenous issues,” as if these are something that can be separated from Canada as a whole. Jared himself is not particularly political; as with the first book, the political issues of the day are largely passing him by even as other characters throw themselves into activism—but it would be a gross mistake to think that Trickster Drift is apolitical. Let’s champion books like this as well.

Finally, Eliza is the best character in this book and now between this and the Frozen II trailer I saw on Monday I feel a strange urge to watch Frozen again….