I Suddenly Remembered My Charlemagne

Since I was at The Woods last week, I read books! Only four, as I was working. And, you know, hanging out with eldanna. But still.

1. STITCHING SNOW, by R.C. Lewis - I love fairy-tale retellings so much. This was a sci-fi Snow White, starring a Princess on the Run and a dude who, um, follows her, basically. I liked it because "Essie"'s motivations were peeled back really cleverly, and because her abilities as a MAKER (not just as a Hacker) were pretty great. Also: politics. Also: you know how the Grimm version ends? With the superheated shoes? Yeah. That.

2. INFANDOUS, by Elana K. Arnold - This is a Lab book, so: bias, but it did that thing Lab books do where they are VERY VERY AWKWARD (god, I hate the word "raw"), and also don't hold back at all when it comes to sex. This is the story of a girl who made a mistake, a mistake so terrible it cannot be described, and so...she doesn't. And she doesn't even really feel that bad about it. And that was kind of great.

3. The Absolute Value of |-1|, by Steve Brezenoff - Also a Lab book. Even more awkward than INFANDOUS. Teenage boys are THE WORST. And, sometimes, life just kind of sucks.

---> I didn't really "enjoy" either of them. They are not really books to be enjoyed. But they were both very good, if you read to feel exposed (which I, typically, do not).

4. Shadowshaper, by Daniel José Older - This book was BEAUTIFUL. It takes place in Brooklyn, and deals with magic and family and graffiti and heritage, and it was BRILLIANT. Slightly on the nose, perhaps, (the bad guy is a white anthropologist out of Columbia who is trying to insert himself into the Shadowshaper community, because he believes his studies have given him an understanding of it), but also very much on point, so I don't care.

Disclaimer: Steve's a friend. He's a few years ahead of me at Carolrhoda Lab (where we had the same editor), and before that he published, like, a billion chapter books for early readers. His three YA novels are: |-1| (which is the only one I haven't read yet), BROOKLYN, BURNING, and G.I.R.L.

So GIRL came out last year, and I didn't read it because...I don't even know. I mean, I don't read a lot of contemp, but I usually read books by my friends. For some reason (probably surgery and lack of time spent in the book store), I never got around to it. Then, when I was leaving Chapters, I bought the last hardcover just before the trade came out. I took it with me to The Woods in June, and...

Well, The Woods doesn't have wifi, as you know. I got about three chapters in, and thought to myself "I need to stop reading this until I am somewhere where I can livetweet it", and then I thought "No way in hell am I stopping this book", and then I read the whole thing, and drove up to the top of the hill IN THE DARK to go on Twitter and yell at Steve for having written something THAT WAS SO GOOD.

GIRL has two protagonists: Lesh, a teen-age dirtbag, and Svetlana, who has kind of figured herself out ahead of schedule, and whose family isn't really set up for that. Lesh meets Svet, and becomes...obsessed with her? I guess? It's not quite an obsession. Fascination, maybe. He's fascinated by her.

He's also grounded for two weeks, and all he can do is play the in-universe version of World of Warcraft. His (really, really terrible) best friend sets him up as an orc, but the ugliness and violence turns Lesh off, so he makes his own avatar: an elf healer who looks rather like Svet.

As Lesh goes further into the game and further into his real life, things become messy and complicated and kind of terrifying, and ALSO WONDERFUL, and more than one time I yelled "YOU ARE ON A LOCAL SERVER, YOU DUMBASS!".

I basically read YA books for a LIVING, and I have never read anyone who writes teens as real as Steve does. Lesh's self realization is AMAZING (not to mention timely: this came out just as GamerGate really hit mainstream, and watching Lesh be ACTIVELY REPULSED by aspects of the gaming world gave me, like, HOPE FOR HUMANITY), and Svet's entire character arc rang so true with me that alternated between laughing and crying for much of her narration (their families, I can't even. Perfection. Everything about this book is just too good).

Also, when Lesh is playing the game, it's written like the game. It was awesome.

I love this book with the sort of power I rarely feel for contemporary. I don't know if I've EVER love a contemporary book this much. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

++

Also, BROOKLYN, BURNING is a contemp YA about a gender fluid kid in (surprise!) Brooklyn, as well as: love, music, memories, neighbourhood, and the magical powers of a good fountain Coke. Written like a song, Brooklyn, Burning managed to keep me on the edge of tears FOR THE ENTIRE BOOK. I'm still not sure how it happened, but: ye gods. Read this one too.

It occurs to me that I never did my post-Woods book list. I will do that when I get back from Thunder Bay.

IN THE MEAN TIME, today I got Mary Balogh's ONLY A PROMISE, the latest of her Survivors' Club series. The book before that, ONLY ENCHANTING, had a lot of leg work to do (I think it was the "congrats! you get to write seven books instead of three!" book, so she basically had to build up a bunch of characters at the same time), and it did it well, but the pacing was weird, and Flavian is, well...Flavian.

ANYWAY, all of this to say that going into Ralph's book, I had no idea what to expect. We didn't really know much about Ralph, except that he had recovered from his physical injuries but still suffered from INTENSE guilt, and had been suicidal. Emma and I both wondered if Balogh was setting him up with Imogen (she's not), but aside from that...nothing.

It was so. freaking. good.

Like, 10 million things happened. And they were all adorable. And Mary Balogh made me care deeply about a rich white dude. It was incredible.

Also amazing was this book's lady, Chloe. She was smart and capable and brave. She might actually be my favourite one so far.

This was also the first book in this series to have an upstairs/downstairs angle, which I always like. And there was an adorable old married couple that just slayed me. And also Great Aunt Mary who, just, oh, read it.

As always, I am left absolutely loving these people while also desperately wishing for the next book (which will be Imogen. I am not prepared). If you want a good series with historical accuracy, smart yet emotional characters, brilliant writing about various disabilities, and excellent kissing, you should give the Survivors' Club a shot.