Sorrow’s Knot by Erin Bow

In The Fault in Our Stars, the protagonist describes falling in love as “the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once”. That’s how I fell in love with this book.

In some ways, I was looking forward to Sorrow’s Knot for the pure magic of Erin Bow’s prose. She has an eerie ability to paint such vivid, startling pictures with just a certain choice of words that I sometimes wonder if she isn’t a wizard. Like it's forerunner, Plain Kate, this book cast a spell over me. Sorrow's Knot is a stunning yet harrowing story about a girl named Otter, a binder of knots that keep back the dead. Her world is a rare one and Erin Bow weaves it well. With rangers and binders and storytellers, with names like Willow and Mad Spider, Otter’s world of the pinch evokes images of an indigenous community untouched by colonialism and it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen in YA. The friendship between Otter (the protagonist) and Kestrel and Cricket is refreshingly real and all three are so very brave in very different ways. I adored Kestrel’s quietness. My heart thrilled with Cricket’s storytelling. And I ached at Otter’s struggle to find her place in the world.

The most compelling thing about this book, though, is the role of binding and unbinding. In Otter’s community the dead are banished by knots and strings and the binders of these knots are magical, powerful people. But, as Otter's mother tells her, "something is wrong with the knots." And thus, in a story that is largely about loss, the theme of binding things too tightly and the problems that arise with not letting things go becomes its beating heart.

Sorrow’s Knot is a book that looks darkness straight in the face with depth and courage and grace. It sits in the hard, sad places as much as it sits in the light, and that is my favourite kind of story.

-Kristen

Review: Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories

The steampunk genre is everywhere these days, to the point that it's kind of becoming the Starbucks of the sci-fi/fantasy genre. Those of you who are new to the genre (and thus not over-caffeinated) and are looking for a worthy guide for this broad adventure, should look no further than this superb collection of short stories. Writer and editor Kelly Link has curated a strange and wonderful assortment of steampunk-themed tales here: in "Clockwork Fagin", author Cory Doctorow unleashes a savvy bunch of orphans who turn their deceased master into an automaton so they can rule themselves; "The Summer People" by Kelly Link is a sinister fairytale about a girl who escapes the enchantment of fairy folk that have had her family under their spell for generations; and "The Oracle Engine" by M. T. Anderson is a cool Classical spin on the genre that takes its readers to ancient Rome. Love.

This is the best collection of young adult fiction I've read in a long time. And, it's steampunk.

-Erica

(you) set me on fire by Mariko Tamaki

Mariko Tamaki’s earlier graphic novel, Skim, (about an adolescent girl struggling with her sexuality) was beautifully written and handled with honesty and sensitivity. Her new novel, (you) set me on fire, has a lot of the same insight.

Allison Lee is seventeen and starting college in the fall. She’s had a rough senior year in high school: she’s set herself on fire twice (accidentally) and been in love once, and the wounds are still fresh. College, she imagines, is the perfect setting to start again. And things seem to be going along as planned until Allison meets a rebellious girl named Shar and her world goes dramarama.

You’ve probably heard people say that life after high school is really just a rehash of the same old dramas. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that high school social structure is a super-concentrated slice of life. However you look at it, it’s fair to say that the teenage years are a goldmine of dramatic possibility for novelists, and Mariko Tamaki takes advantage of this in the best way possible. (you) set me on fire is reminiscent of the John Green at his best. 

-Erica  

Review of *Possessed* by Kate Cann

I want to mention the cover. I like it, it drew me in, but now that I've read the book my response is "hunh?"

My initial assumption of Possessed by Kate Cann = it looks like it might be a scary book. From the title I would guess that there is a ghost involved, maybe also an exorcism or scary ghost possession. I'm getting a strong "Paranormal Activity" (the film) vibe.

And it's really not this kind of book. Possessed didn't "scare" me. Not at all. But that's okay because it was a good book as it is. However, I would definitely classify it as a mystery. It was ghost-story lite. I could have used some more chills.

BUT, it also surprised me with nuances that I really enjoyed while reading. Themes and a general tone that I was not expecting. Rayne lives in a cramped apartment in London with her needy mother and younger brother Jelly. Her mother sleeps all day, she's her brother's primary caretaker and her boyfriend, Damian is coiled energy--kind of dangerous but also psychically draining. Rayne feels a low-level anxiety all the time, especially peevish with the constant noise of the city and the demands of the people in her life:
But what did she want? Whenever she thought about that, all she could come up with was: space. Silence.

So she applies for a number of jobs online, intending to apply to the one farthest away. Just to get away for awhile, she tells herself. It's how she discovers Morton's Keep, a grand old mansion miles away in the quaint town, Marcle Lees:

Marcle Lees--it sounded like a backwater village. The sort with one church, one school, one village hall. It sounded...empty. The kind of place to let your head out of its clamp, where you could breathe deeply with no one and nothing to make you choke up...

Morton's Keep is a great setting for the book. I do love a good haunted house. Rayne decides to stay in the "Sty" just outside the mansion, which gives her the willies and freaks her out so badly that she thinks of leaving. Actually I loved that Rayne was easily spooked; every noise at night was a murderer or a ghost and if dawn hadn't come, she would have run away from there in the night. It's nice to see a bit of scaredy-cat in a main character.

Rayne has this connection with nature, with being away from the city, that comes up in her first week in the country and which really adds something to the story. In my opinion it is the main story, apart from the dark presence at Morton's Keep and the weird history of the townspeople.

The scenes where Rayne realizes the power of nature in the book were the strongest, for me. One in particular is when she and St. John, who has suspect motives for wanting to get closer to Morton's Keep, are in the woods and a stag suddenly bursts through the foliage. His antlers are covered in moss and pieces of tree and St. John tells her stags strengthen their neck muscles by thrashing around in preparation for mating season. Usually cocky and irreverent, St. John starts backing away from the animal, while Rayne finds it alluring:

"Yeah, well, we should probably get out of here," said St. John. His voice had lifted in pitch; it was starting to sound nervous. "If he doesn't go after that other stag, he might come after us."

"No, he won't," said Rayne. "Oh, he's beautiful." She was feeling incredibly stirred. She thought the stag was noble, powerful, free. Its great spreading antlers could kill, or protect.

After, Rayne makes a move on St. John, stirred by the connection she has with the stag, and he rejects her, taking her home early. Her awareness of the primal energy in the woods is like a balm for her overanxious, shut-down personality. There were also some strong passages which surprised me:

She walked on, and the silence was so heady it was like wine, making her heavy, languid. There was no one to watch her, no one to judge her. She felt like her shape had gone, like her skin wasn't holding her in anymore, she was just flowing through into the woods. She sat down on a fallen tree trunk. The wood was all around her, silent but for tiny rustling noises, glowing in patches where the sun got through. She was flowing into it, she was part of it, all her edges were blurred.

Rayne also has a connection with Ethan, a member of the local Fire Festival group. Through the book this group has an ambiguous reputation. And they remain wary of Morton's Keep and its history. St. John and Ethan are enemies, Raybe doesn't know why, and she's torn between them, although mostly infatuated with St. John and his group of followers, who seem so cool.
I was also suprised by the romance in the story. I thought it would be about a girl leaving her possessive boyfriend at home to get some air and she finds herself in a similar situation in Maracle Lees. Which makes sense for her character, especially in the scene where she hides in a tree trunk which is my favourite scene in the whole book, very powerful. I thought it was cool that Possessed has to do with ancient rituals which have lost their significance, but haven't lost their power. There is a strong folklore magic in the book which was well written.

I also like Kate's reason for writing Possessed, from her website:

To me, the most frightening arena is inside the mind. I wanted to explore that, and the fear of the not-known, in this book. I wanted to look at what would happen when a town-girl is transplanted to a remote place where nights are pitch black and nature dominates. Rayne is deeply drawn to the woods, but she hears strange stories about them, and the mysterious fire people. She must fight to find out the truth, and be brave in facing up to who she really is ....

The sequel to Possessed is called Fire & Rayne, at least in the UK. Possessing Rayne is the UK title to Possessed, so the sequel might have a different North American title.

Possessed is coming out at the beginning of February.

Mandy

*Vegan Virgin Valentine* by Carolyn Mackler

After reading Tangled by Carolyn, I know that she is a GOOD writer. She's very good at it, in fact. And I was in the mood for more of her crafting. And I found a hardcover of Vegan Virgin Valentine at a used bookstore. AND its pink and sparkly. So I felt ready for another of her books.

Mara is in her final year at highschool. She's an intense overachiever. She's already been accepted to Yale, she'll start College in second year, and she's a nose ahead of her lecherous ex-boyfriend for Valedictorian. For every move in Mara's life she and her parents have meticulously planned the details. The worst part is that Mara has no idea that she's "repressed".

Or that's what V calls it. V, Vivienne Vail Valentine, is Mara's niece, although they're the same age. V is the daughter of Mara's flaky sister, Aimee, who arranges her life around guys, travelling from one lifestyle to the next:

My parents had me when they were in their forties. Now they're in their early sixties, which makes them ten or fifteen years older than most people's parents. Not that they show their age, aside from the fact that they geerally go to bed around sunset. We NEVER talk about sex, so I don't know the specifics of my eleventh-hour conception. But I'm convinced that my parents brought me into this world to compensate for my older sister, Aimee, who was eighteen and skidding down a road to nowhere.

Mara and V don't get along at all, even though V and Aimee stay with her family in between their travelling around. V is an "in-your-face" girl, who shows up to her first day at Mara's school in a tight tank top that says "I just cain't say no!" and makes out with her ex-boyfriend Travis. When Aimee moves to Costa Rica to persue her dream of learning how to make Central American cuisine, it looks like V is there to stay permanently.

While the story starts out with V acting out and really not fitting in at school or at home, the book is really about Mara and her breaking away. Seriously, she's almost 18 and she and her parents have one of those family cell phone plans so her dad can phone her all the time, and she thinks there's no problem with that! When V begins to call her on these types of things, at first Mara is angry and offended, but then she sees that V may be on to something.

Some of my favourite scenes are Mara's college drama class, taken with academic goals in mind, of course. Her teacher, Dr. Hendrick, keeps harassing Mara about her lack of dance rhythm in class. He's kind of self-important and keeps making the group do wacky improv scenarios, which are hilarious:

Twenty minutes into class, Dr. Hendrick instructed us to divide into groups of four and create a nature scene--one person as earth, one as wind, one as water, and one as fire. I was so paralyzed by the extreme cheesiness of the exercise that I didn't look around for three other people. And then, before I knew it, the class was all quadrupled up.

Dr. Hendrick sashayed behind me, rested his sweaty paws on my shoulders, and steered me toward the nearest group of four. "I hope you don't mind adopting Ms. Valentine," he said to them. "But all the elements are taken," a college girl whined. I think her name is Rhonda. Her tags are always sticking out of her T-shirts. I've had a bad feeling about her from the first day.

Mara also works at a coffee shop called Common Grounds, as a way to round-out her college resume. She doesn't want to look like a closeted nerd with no real world experience. She secretly pines for her boss, 22 year old James, who lives his life with a different definition of success. Mara is so inexperienced with guys, and wary because Travis was pushy with her, and it makes her so funny when she's around James:

"Guys can be such jerks sometimes," James said.
"Not all of them. Not you."
"Do you know that I would never push you to do anything you didn't want to do?" "I know."
"Good."

I have to admit I was relieved to hear that because, as we were discussing exes, I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that James is twenty-two. And I have a feeling that by the time people are in their twenties, they're not exactly walking in slow numerical order around the bases.

My one qualm about the story is the neat ending for Mara and Claudia. Sometimes friendships are strained too far and can't snap back. This is especially true, I found, in highschool. It would have been okay with me to show this type of very natural loose end in the book. I found that in Tangled, a loose end was left with Skye's character--you don't get to know exactly how she's doing by the last page--and I like this type of ambiguity. Although I guess Mara and Travis will never really see eye-to-eye; their whole competition for valedictorian, fueled by all of the emotions built up between them, makes for some hilarious moments in the book!

Also, I like what Carolyn has to say about the origin of her book from the back cover:

Mara Valentine first came to me in a short story. I loved how she was so rigid, but at the same time hungering to break out. And V goes back about ten years, when I met these two girls in South Dakota who were aunt and niece. They've always stuck with me. Imagine how wild it would be to have an aunt and niece the same age! What if they were total opposites? I knew that V was exactly what Mara needed to shake up the status quo.

Aw, and not to load you down with too much bolding but this is too sweet:

In the middle of writing Vegan Virgin Valentine, I married my husband. Jonas and my falling-in-love story is not dissimilar to Mara’s saga with James, the owner of Common Grounds. When I first met Jonas, I labeled him “friend material.” He didn’t fit into the category of guys I usually dated – for one, I was taller than him. And for two, it just seemed so easy to get along with him. Aren’t relationships supposed to involved lots of angst and tear-filled tissues? But I, like Mara, ultimately learned that love does not fit neatly into a category. And sometimes you have to leave your comfort zone to find something wonderful. Oh! And another similarity I have with Mara – I’m a devout vegetarian. But a title like Vegetarian Virgin Valentine didn’t have quite the same ring to it! (From Carolyn Mackler's website)

It's very cool when an author has a "Behind the Book" section on their website.

Two for two, Carolyn!

Mandy