Kindred

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

We are the latest in a long line of strangers.

Most of us are acquainted with our parents. Many of us have met at least a subset of our grandparents. But our firsthand knowledge plummets with every generation beyond that. Some of those people in the distance may have left us anecdotes or documents or china collections, but most of them only left us with genes. How many voyagers and conquerors, wearers of shackles and cloth stars, came together to bring about each of us? Could we ever know?

Do we want to know?

That's a question that Dana, the young black woman at the heart of Kindred, doesn't have the option of saying no to. Through involuntary journeys across a century that mirror her ancestors' involuntary journeys across an ocean, she is sent from her 1976 California home to antebellum Maryland. There, she realizes that she has a single task: save Rufus Weylin. Rufus is the son of a wealthy slave owner. He's also "destined" to have a child with one of the slaves, a child that would grow up to become Dana's ancestor. As Dana is jerked back and forth through time, a pattern emerges: she is sent to Rufus's time to save him when his life is in danger, and is returned to 1976 when her own life is threatened. She walks a tightrope, trying to keep Rufus alive long enough for him to father a child, without getting herself killed, or getting stuck in the 19th century.

In the first few pages of the book, Butler's intentions are overt: this is not a book about uncovering the mechanisms of time travel, it's a book about the culture clash between times and places. Accordingly, Dana doesn't experience much bafflement about what's going on, because it's not a bafflement that Butler has any intention of allaying. Instead, Dana immediately latches on to the task that she's been given. That, I thought, was a somewhat unrealistic piece of behavior that served the purpose of getting the main plot going quickly.

But once that plot got going, it wouldn't stop. When reading this book at bedtime, I would tell myself that I'd just keep reading until Dana was in a slightly less dangerous position. Each night I'd find myself awake at a more ungodly hour. Life-threatening situations are key to how the story works. They become increasingly menacing with every repetition, and are arranged in a clever cycle of water and fire that I only noticed days after I had finished the book.

I often found myself trying to find little quotes to post here. Surprisingly, it was hard to do; the writing doesn't stand out because of glowing one-liners, but because of the light that bounces off one character to the next, illuminating as much as it covers in shadow. It's not a lyrical style of writing, but a spare and efficient one that I ultimately came to be grateful for. One doesn't necessarily wish to wax poetic while setting a broken bone.

As I hurried up the steps, I thought of Rufus and his father, of Rufus becoming his father. It would happen some day, in at least one way.

In addition to simply keeping Rufus alive through his numerous accidents and fights, Dana also wants to instill in Rufus a much-needed sense of compassion and justice; this often puts Dana in a position of opposition to Rufus's rigid and brutal father. They both leave their mark on him, although perhaps not the type of mark that either intended; he develops the devious nature endemic to the offspring of strict parents, combined with just enough open-mindedness to keep a twinge of Dana's hopes alive.

Dana's position as a time traveler has many fascinating aspects, but one that I found especially striking was the way people in the past regard her as a supernatural healer - due to possession of aspirin and some basic medical knowledge from the 20th century. Rufus's father has this to say about her: "You're something different. You come out of nowhere and go back into nowhere. But you can feel pain - and you can die. Remember that and do your job. Take care of your master." It immediately reminded me of this quote from The Green Mile: (view spoiler)["Because it's what he does. It's what God made him for," regarding John Coffey's healing abilities. There's a similar undercurrent of white characters viewing "supernatural" black characters simply as things to be used, but Kindred puts the emphasis on the fact that this apparently God-sent healer is a human in their own right. (hide spoiler)]

Finally, the relationship between Dana and her husband Kevin, who is white, undergoes a transformation, especially after Kevin is taken along on one of her trips. Kevin at first seems like a lazy, wishy-washy character, but eventually earned my respect through the loyalty that he demonstrates - although it's apparent that truly understanding Dana's experiences will be something that he'll have to work at over the course of his life.

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the right book at the right time

Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate


It seems like the biggest cliche in the world to say that books are my friends, but that's really what it feels like sometimes. And that unread books are friends that I haven't made yet. I remember seeing this book somewhere and thinking that the cover was adorable, and shelving it as something I might read someday on the rare (I thought) occasion when I'd be in a mood for a middle-grade book. It was as if someone had slid a business card across a table, telling me to call them when I needed them. At the time, I had no idea what it would mean to need such a book. But when life conspired to bring about that need - when the worst thing happened and all I wanted was a big warm someone to sit near me for a little while - the knowledge of what to do was unmistakable.

Jackson is a 10-year-old boy whose family is going through difficult times. His parents try to look at the glass as half full, but Jackson sees no use in optimism: he's all about the facts, because he wants to be a scientist when he grows up. So it comes as a shock when he starts having visions of Crenshaw: a giant black-and-white cat who was once his imaginary friend. Crenshaw is linked inextricably to Jackson's likes and beliefs, but also exerts a will of his own. He refuses to follow Jackson's orders, and conveys ideas that Jackson struggles to make sense of. Jackson tries to figure out if Crenshaw is "real", and attempts to get rid of him so life can go back to normal. Meanwhile, the family's situation grows worse and we see how honest, responsible people can fall through cracks that widen every time society turns a blind eye.

While reading this book, I was reminded - of all things - of the Sufi poet Rumi's writings in which he refers to the Friend. It was not until reading this book while going through a dark period that the notion of the Friend started to click for me. Because to be honest, I can get hurt by the littlest of things. But when a hurt is so massive that it seems like it could slice right through me, it doesn't. It comes up against a part of me that almost has a mind of its own, decoupled from whatever turmoil is going on outside. It's something tiny and hard that just says nope - this won't go any further. There's no way that this is going to destroy us.

Is that stubborn little thing the seat of the imaginary friends I had as a child? Who knows.

The article I read about imaginary friends said they often appear during times of stress. It said that as kids mature, they tend to outgrow their pretend world.

But Crenshaw told me something else.

He said imaginary friends never leave. He said they were on call. Just waiting, in case they were needed.

What I've written is more about me than about the book, so I'll just stop by saying: thank you, Crenshaw.

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an unexpectedly thought-provoking halloween read

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Girls are caterpillars while they live in the world, to be finally butterflies when the summer comes; but in the meantime they are grubs and larvae, don't you see - each with their peculiar propensities, necessities and structure."

This year, for the first time since I was in elementary school, I wanted to read something "spooky" during the fall. But I didn't feel emotionally up to the task of reading a full-fledged horror novel, so I instead picked up this little 1872 vampire story. It was just the right amount of creepy, with a surprising amount of depth: a melancholy contemplation of how society regards girlhood, with overtones of unease about humanity's position in the world. To a modern reader, the major plot "twist" is unsurprising, but there is a certain enjoyment in imagining what it was like to read this when it was first published - over two decades before Dracula, when the vampire genre was less ubiquitous. The writing remains engrossing and often quietly horrifying, my favorite chilling scene being one that seems to describe sleep paralysis. Even if you've read other vampire books, as most of us have, there are still surprises to be seen in the way this story unfolds.

What I found fascinating about the eponymous vampire is how seamlessly she fits into the world around her, as though she's a puzzle piece that was bound to materialize, or an organism that evolved to occupy a niche in an ecosystem. Repeatedly, we see how men assess and value female characters based on their appearance. Thus, Carmilla's beauty speeds her acceptance into people's homes. We see girls living in sheltered idleness, lonely without good friends their age, and often without mothers - a vacuum where matriarchy would have been. As a result they're overjoyed, perhaps a little blindly, at the opportunity of having a female companion. Given that Carmilla is a carnivore who has to feed off humans, is it any surprise that she learned to take advantage of these situations? We watch as she participates in a masquerade ball, playing the part assigned to her while subverting the whole ritual to achieve her own ends.

One of the most affecting and (initially) cryptic passages is when Carmilla argues for her right to exist as a natural creature. These arguments fall on the uncomprehending ears of other characters: "All things proceed from Nature, don't they? All things in the heaven, in the earth, and under the earth, act and live as Nature ordains? I think so."

On the subject of nature, I happened to be reading this at the same time as Jane Goodall's Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe, which is all about another type of near-human creature. Both books explore the discomfort that people can experience upon seeing that humanity might not be as separate or supreme as they thought. Evolution was an idea that was still relatively new at the time that Carmilla was written, and debates between scientific and religious explanations appear a few times in the story.

What makes this book so sad and mysterious, and so hard to stop thinking about, is that Carmilla never really feels like a villain. Even when we learn the truth about what she's done, it is hard to feel vengeful towards her. Over the course of the story she's appeared to be both affectionate and selfish, young and ancient, fragile and dangerous. It's mesmerizing, and it's hard not to share her would-be victims' desire to have her around for longer.

PS, this book can be acquired for free at Project Gutenberg, and I just learend that an audiobook version featuring David Tennant came out a few days ago. :)


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Grief's an amputation, but hope's incurable haemophilia: you bleed and bleed and bleed.

Slade House by David Mitchell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Slade House is David Mitchell daring you to get bored.

Structured as a set of stories about people visiting Slade House - a mansion whose existence seems to defy the laws of physics - the same rhythm echoes through each of the tales. The first chapter is about an autistic boy, Nathan Bishop, who visits the house with his divorced pianist mother in 1979. While she's inside displaying her talents to world-famous musicians, Nathan is outside in the garden getting his long-awaited first taste of friendship. However, what is his new companion really after?

Fast forward a few years and recast those themes into a different person's life: longing meets fulfillment in a whirl of emotion too intense for anything amiss to be noticed until it's (almost) too late. Fast forward again. Repeat. With every repetition, the similarities are striking, but so are the differences in the ways that the characters perceive Slade House. You come to expect certain things to happen again, but there's surprise in noticing just which details do and don't reappear, and in finding that the stories are more connected than you might at first expect. As a result, even though you might be pretty sure you know how things are going to turn out, you can't help but get pulled to the idea that this is the chapter where the cumulative force of the past is going to catalyze a turnaround. It creates suspense and momentum where there could otherwise be choppiness and predictability.

It also makes it possible to care about the characters. When you know what's going to happen to someone, it's easy to become detached. When you think you know but aren't sure, you're drawn towards hope like a moth towards fire (a recurring image in the novel, for good reason). And it's a wonderfully diverse group of characters that we have here, and I loved how we learn about their lives through understated little details instead of lengthy spelled-out histories.

I'm giving it four stars instead of five for a couple of reasons: 1) most of it reads like a standalone that doesn't rely on knowledge of The Bone Clocks, but it ultimately doesn't quite achieve that; 2) there's a cliche scene of a villain telling a victim all about their nefarious plan for no remotely logical reason; and 3) there's a strange obsession with one character's weight, to the point that it's the first thing that appears in any character's mind when they think of her. Really?

Aside from those issues, I found this book to be creepy and saddening and thrilling - another example of how skillfully David Mitchell can bridge multiple voices and sub-stories into a cohesive whole. Any time I had to put it down, I did so reluctantly and couldn't wait to pick it back up.

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Sometimes interpretation is a trap. Sometimes we need to simply observe.

Falling in Love with Hominids by Nalo Hopkinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Nalo Hopkinson covers so much ground in this short story collection that perhaps it's easier to list what she doesn't accomplish in these tales:

1) Reinforce stereotypes of how the protagonist of a fantasy story should look/act/dress.
2) Sugar-coat the fact that painful and unjust things can happen.
3) Make anyone feel powerless over point #2.

In the preface of the book, Hopkinson talks about how these stories grew out of a change in perspective that she'd experienced, from a teen pessimistic about the seemingly incurable injustices that she'd witnessed, to a woman doing her part to help solve these problems. The efforts of herself and others helped her to feel more positive about humanity's prospects, in spite of all the pain that she remained aware of. The business of doing good can be a complicated, difficult thing. Nobody is expected to carry it out perfectly, but nor is anyone exempt from having to try - and this is an idea that the characters here grapple with, each in a unique way.

Hopkinson is a master of dropping clues that at first seem innocuous, but which unmistakably reach a critical mass, at which point the reader just knows that something's up - and it's only a question of how dangerous that something is going to become. And you never know the answer ahead of time, because Hopkinson's imagination is boundless and unencumbered by distinctions between sub-genres. Ghosts? Nature spirits? Time-traveling museum curators? Or post-apocalyptic horrors? Whatever your preference, this book has a story for you. If you enjoy the likes of Neil Gaiman's work - fantasy percolating through reality in mysterious ways, often dark but never fully devoid of light - this book might be up your alley.

To list just a few favorites:

Message in a Bottle. The never-ending question of what each generation will cherish about the past - or alternatively, the question of how far a child will go in trying to manipulate an adult.

The Smile on the Face. A teenage girl, struggling to accept herself, goes to a party where not everyone wishes her well. The consequences are stunning. And can I say how refreshing it is to read about two women of different shapes who learn to appreciate each other as well as themselves? Additionally, I love Hopkinson's ability to create non-human characters.

Emily Breakfast. It gets off to a sweet start, but given the grisly nature of several of the other stories here, I raced through it in a panic, knowing that something horrible might rear its head at any moment.

A Young Candy Daughter. Hopkinson sums it up best: I'm not the only person who's ever asked the question, "What if God was one of us?" But maybe "us" looks a little different from my side of the sandbox.

As with most collections, there are some stories that struck me as rough spots that aren't at the same level as the ones above. But even in these cases, I still admire the ideas behind them.

I loved the little introductions that Hopkinson gives before each piece, which hint at the origins of the story. She seems like the kind of person whose imagination can latch on to any image or word or sound, growing it from a seemingly mundane seed into a spectacularly blossoming vision of what a different reality could be like.

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Vintage magic in a modern vessel

Muirwood: The Lost Abbey (Kindle Serial) by Jeff Wheeler
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's difficult to rate or review a story based only on the first chapter, but since that's what the ARC contained...

For me, the best thing about Muirwood: The Lost Abbey is the comfortably nostalgic feel of it. It has a lot of the fixtures that you might expect from a high fantasy novel: the exiled royalty, the special object, the quest for a source of magical power. If I was reading a lot in the genre these days, I might be exasperated by the familiarity of it. But since I haven't, I actually thought it was pleasant to revisit those old themes but in comic form, which makes it more unusual.

When it comes to the art and text, what stood out to me was the quantity of text - there's a lot of it, describing how Maia, the main character, perceives and thinks about the world. I didn't quite get the symbiosis of words and imagery that I get from most graphic novels. Instead, this felt more like an illustrated storybook where the text is the focus and the art provides a backdrop - it amplifies the nostalgic atmosphere, and not in a bad way. I felt that the art could be a little more expressive, but that's just a personal preference.

There's not a huge amount that I can say about the plot and the characters. I liked Maia's slightly detached way of looking at the world, and the magic system is hinted at just enough to be intriguing. Some of the other characters aren't particularly developed and the premise for the quest seemed a bit rushed and thin. I'm not sure yet if I'll commit to reading the next installments in the series, but I wouldn't rule it out - I'm curious about what else inhabits the Muirwood world.

(As an aside, I learned that this book is part of a fictional universe accessible through Kindle Worlds - which seems like an interesting system for growing a book series by rewarding reader participation. In other words, you can get paid to write fanfiction.)

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy.

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Dream with me.

Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I wish this book had come with a warning about how much it was going to hurt my sleep: the late hours spent awake to the age-old mantra of "just to the end of this chapter", followed by dreams sculpted out of the novel's eerie, melancholy world.

The story takes place in 1920s New York City, where Evie O'Neill has shot to fame as America's "Sweetheart Seer" thanks to her charisma and her abilities to see the past through objects. But even though Evie seems like the star of the show, she's not. She's just one of many "Diviners": people born with supernatural abilities, from healing to destruction to control of dreams. The characters who possess these powers are diverse, and it's refreshing to see a fantasy novel that doesn't focus solely on heterosexual, able-bodied, white characters.

I came to care a lot about each person in this story because each of them has unique vulnerabilities and challenges, and I loved watching the friendships develop among them. The romances were remarkably touching. It's one of the rare cases where I didn't mind reading many different points of view, because everyone has an interesting story and a distinctive voice. Additionally, there's a huge set of minor characters that we get to know briefly but deeply. A recurring theme is what "The American Dream" means to different people - like any dream, it can be beautiful and inspiring, but also ephemeral and sometimes a nightmare in disguise.

And what does Libba Bray do with this fascinating ensemble of humans? She marches them steadily into the gates of hell, of course. New Yorkers start falling asleep and having marvelous dreams - dreams that are too good to wake up from, ever. Their minds soar while their bodies fall apart. I love this idea because it plays off a very natural tendency, at least for me: escapism. When things get too difficult, I just want to go to sleep, and having nice dreams is a plus. Here, we follow that desire to its deep, dark conclusion.

As this "sleeping sickness" spreads, vicious wraiths materialize through the city, the Diviners struggle to solve mysteries about the people closest to them, and quiet men in a brown sedan watch and wait. There's an uneasy but lush atmosphere that feels real and pulls you in, with a world of decaying horrors flickering in and out of visibility under a glittering, blossoming surface. It's all the more frightening because you want to get a better look at what's just out of sight, but you're terrified of what you might find.

Every city is a ghost.

New buildings rise upon the bones of the old so that each shiny steel beam, each tower of brick carries within it the memories of what has gone before, an architectural haunting.

The story unfolds on the border between mystery and supernatural, and does a nice job of creating a fantasy world that's original and surprising, with enough logic for the mystery to make sense. It's reminiscent of Bray's previous fantasy series, the Gemma Doyle Trilogy, which I loved as a teenager (and there's an awesome little easter egg in this book for anyone who is). The reason I'm giving this book 4 stars instead of 5 is that it ends with just a few too many loose ends to be truly satisfying. I definitely enjoyed the suspense of the build-up and realize that some questions need to remain open for the next book(s) in the series. However, at 600+ pages long, it's strange to find that you're nearing the end of the book and feeling disappointed at the realization that there's not enough room for the payoff that you thought was coming.

On the other hand, it's good to know that there's more of this story to come. I haven't really looked forward to new installments of a fantasy series since the days of Harry Potter, so it's nice to have that feeling of anticipation again.

(Huge thanks to Little, Brown for the advance copy.)

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Exploring an underrated theme in YA

Fairy Keeper by Amy Bearce
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

One of the great things about fantasy stories is that they allow people to confront real-world problems in a setting that is safely distanced from reality, but still meaningful. Fairy Keeper does it well. It touches on issues of addiction, child abuse, and - perhaps most intriguingly - people's position in the natural world and the (over)use of natural resources.

The story centers on Sierra, a young teen who struggles with her role as a born caretaker of fairies - which, in this world, resemble humanoid bees. Sierra's job, which she hates, is to harvest fairy nectar for her alchemist father, who transforms it into an addictive elixir. When Sierra's fairy queen vanishes and the rest of the fairies die, Sierra's already difficult home situation grows even more dangerous. She is propelled onto a quest to retrieve her fairy queen - the only thing that could save the life of her younger sister.

Sierra and her companions have an interesting combination of personalities, and the relationships between each of them evolve over the course of the story. There are a lot of magical creatures to be seen, and my favorite part of the book was watching Sierra's relationship with the fairies become deeper and more complex than she expected. The style of writing is, well, ok. I found there to be rather too many stretches of the characters walking and walking without much happening, other than Sierra ruminating on things that already happened.

Still, if you're looking for a middle-grade-ish fantasy novel, this one is worth checking out for its handling of unusual themes.

Thanks to Curiosity Quills for the free review copy.

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“She preferred imaginary heroes to real ones." - L.M. Alcott

The Heroine's Journey by G. Miki Hayden
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Some books jump out at me because they promise ideas and adventures that I haven't encountered before. Other books pull at me for the opposite reason: nostalgia. The Heroine's Journey is one of those.

I can imagine my 10-year-old self being intrigued by the way this story magically bridges Arthurian legend and modern reality. And my teenage self, like the main character of this book, spent some memorable time researching and writing about what it means to be a heroine. This book can offer something both to YA fantasy readers and to people who are interested in how portrayal of "heroines" has developed over time. But how good a job it does on either count is debatable - and I think it's a bit of a missed opportunity.

The story begins when Gwen asks her high school English teacher whether the Hero's Journey has a feminine counterpart. Dissatisfied with the response she gets, Gwen sets out to answer the question herself as part of her midterm project. Before long, the things she reads about begin to feel real as she finds her mind linked to someone else's: Guin, a young woman in 13th century England. Guin and Gwen learn to communicate and help each other as Gwen struggles with her reputation as the "crazy girl" at school, and Guin attempts to escape a forced marriage.

I appreciated some things about the book. The convergence of the two girls' minds created an appropriate feeling of disorientation. Both of them learn through experience. They come to see their worlds more realistically as well as more kindly, which enables them to fight for their place, but also to put other people before themselves when necessary.

My trouble with the book mainly stems from the quality of writing - it often felt forced, pedestrian, and repetitive. I also wasn't too impressed with the characterization, especially when it came to Gwen. She seemed oddly blank, without a distinctive personality or perspective. In fact, many of the teen characters seemed like cardboard cutouts who are interested in generic teenager topics - homework, mall, prom - but rarely showed that spark of uniqueness that would make them feel believable. Additionally, just because someone is a teenager doesn't mean that their thoughts and dialog need to be littered with cliched teen-isms like "totally awesome" and "kewl" (really?). Finally, despite the loud message of the girls being powerful and independent, they both came to be a little too fixated on their love interests.

Perhaps the way to enjoy this book is not to think of it so much as a fantasy adventure, but something more like a junior version of The Alchemist (a book that didn't really work for me, but that is hugely popular) - a story that may be entertaining to readers who aren't too picky about style and characterization, and inspiring to those who want to feel that they are on a personal quest.

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