Heir Apparent by Vivian Vande Velde (a 2005 read)

Heir Apparent by Vivian Vande Velde (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) is one of my all-time favorite books. I love its humorous attack on the way that adventure game stories are constructed, and I love that it stars a girl gamer--someone who's more visible nowadays, but not always visible to game studios.

The heroine is trapped inside a virtual reality game--and the only way to leave is to play her way out. Danger looms and the clock is ticking. Luckily, it's virtual reality, so a game over leads us back to a Groundhog Day style start.

The concept bobbles a little: the beginning sequence repeats several times before the heroine figures out one very specific and very true-to-gampelay step.Of course, adventure gamers will recognize this, and be quite familiar with starting over, and over, and over, until one figures out just which button to smash or which shopkeeper can give directions to the game villain's secret lair. About midway through the book the "game" becomes more fluid and narrative. Still, it's entertaining, and gamers will particularly enjoy the nods to conventions of that medium.

Girlfriend Material and the Romance

Are you here from the Hop? Say hello so I can check out your blog! This week's question is: Post a link to a favorite post or book review that you have written in the past three months. This was tricky: not all of my recent reviews are recent reads, so I'm reconstructing those experiences. One that might interest you, as it's about a new release, is my review of I Am Number Four, because I'm of two minds about the book...

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If you missed it last week, Scholastic editor Cheryl Klein wrote an entry on romance here and author Malinda Lo expanded on it here. They're talking about elements of romance--the themes, the tropes, the plots.

When I was wee, I wanted to write romance novels (I thought that was the only way to be involved in making books; I don't have any great desire to be an author today). I started in on the spinny-display of Harlequins at the library when I was a pre-teen and for more than a decade, a romance or two was always part of my regular reading diet. I really liked historical romance; Kathleen Woodiwiss and Valerie Sherwood were favorites, and not just because they wrote thick novels that I could immerse myself in for a day or two at a time.

While I was devouring romances, I was also devouring books on romance. This was pre-Internet, so it meant books on how to be a romance writer. I no longer remember where I read this, but someone wrote that a book(/story) is a romance when the romance is the plot. In other words, it's not Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, where he canoodles with Ginny Weasley. A romance would be Harry Potter and the Chest Monster of Undeniable Lust, wherein he canoodles with Ginny Weasley and Lord Voldemort is only there as a nemesis to lip-smacking good times.

That's a very simple definition, to be sure. And I was thinking about it as I read Girlfriend Material by Melissa Kantor (Hyperion) the other day. (Digression: I had an advance copy from way back, and poking the button that lets me link to the final cover was a real surprise--quite a change!) Katie would like to spend her summer practicing tennis and taking a writing class, but her mom drags her along to Cape Cod, where some of mom's old friends live. Once there, she's confronted with the idea that her parents might be splitting up, with the realization that an old friend might not be interested in being a new one, and with questions about whether or not she's girlfriend material.

I was trying to read this book as a romance, because her interactions with crush Adam Carpenter seemed to me to be the ones Katie was most interested in throughout the story. Toward the end I finally realized that the romance was there (in form #3, being wanted, and #5, being seen), but that the story was as much about Katie wanting and seeing herself, as well as about the potential-family-breakup plot. Kantor's teenagers are excellent teenagers, by the way; they are inescapably teen without being fascinatingly witty or slangy or mini-adults. And there's no reason why teenagers can't be those things, but it was refreshing to read something different that doesn't have the side problem of making the teenagers too unsympathetic.

And then! Then I wondered: Can a young adult romance be a romance, in the sense of the plot being about romance? Is it acceptable? Is it still young adult if it doesn't rely equally as heavily on self-awareness/new experiences and growth? There are a couple of well-known young adult romance writers (that, admittedly, I'm not well-versed in), and I don't happen to own any of their books--and when I skimmed my shelves just now, I couldn't find a single romance that didn't have a self-growth story just as important as the romance. Am I asking the wrong questions? Are these books out there and I don't know where to look? Is it possible to write these books, given how much coming of age as a solo unit is part and parcel of young adult books? What would you recommend?

The Tomorrow series by John Marsden, 4-7

Wow, what a series. I reviewed the first book here and then the first three as a set here. Today, a (nearly) spoiler-free review of the last four.

Darkness Be My Friend begins at a transition for Ellie and her friends. They're safe, free. They have access to medical care, counseling, leisure, and food. Yet, at the same time, it's not all right. For example, Ellie has had an uncomfortable and unwanted sexual experience that she's not dealing with very well, she's pushing away friends for doing the same things she did in wartime, the group breaks down into chaos during speaking engagements, and at odd moments, fear creeps into everyday situations and threatens to tear at everyone's sanity.

Despite all of this, it's easier, safer to be here--so why would the Wirrawee kids go back into the war zone? Ellie says:

What we needed was a two-sided badge that said 'Mature' on one side and 'Childish' on the other. Then at any moment we could turn it to whatever side we felt like being and the adults could treat us accordingly.

But what's driving them is loyalty: to each other, to their families, to their former way of life.

There's a sense that this series is timeless; the war has knocked out electricity, so electronic devices from cell phones to computers are out of commission, and only occasionally are there batteries for a radio. The series was first published in 1995 (and, of course, written earlier) and continued to come out over the next few years. Every now and then we get a sense of the time scope--there's a reference to electronic mail early in the series, later e-mail. But without television, radio, and the Internet, after loss of watches, sometimes, and periods of unconsciousness, the sense of date is lost. Time is passing, but it is no longer organized by calendars.

Time's passage is evident, too, in the emotional and psychological focus. Now, the focus is less on questioning oneself, less on purpose, less on whether or not to be involved in war; there is no choice, and perhaps there was never a choice. Instead, the characters delve further into the questions of how they got here. By mid-book, it's easy to see the psychological change--the fun, if it ever was, is gone; the fear is all. Adults supposed to protect them have betrayed them. The danger is greater, and failure more likely. But, the questions are not so much about will I or won't I, but what will I live for--or die for.


By the fifth book, Burning for Revenge there is a grim awareness that they have no future plans. They are, perhaps, not long for this world. There is no route back. Sometimes there are dreams; they still want to see the world, but are painfully aware that they weren't paying much attention to it.

Ellie's group happens into situation where they can make major damage, and try to leverage that for rescue. Then, while in hiding, they discover bands of free children in nearby Stratton, doing what their group had been doing--perhaps more successfully at times--and regain a sense that they are not entirely alone. At the same time, they cross an invisible line. They may still look like kids on the outside, but they're adults on the inside, and are becoming more self-aware. They've come to terms with physical damage, but are finding it harder and harder to rebound from psychological damage; still, recognizing this gives them the first glimpse that there could be a future, an after.


 
In The Night is for Hunting, as you might have predicted, Ellie's group gets involved with the free kids. Wrangling them isn't easy, and not only because the children have been living independently for so long. They have to care for others again. They have to integrate the children's unpredictable behavior, and have to ensure their safety. And hardest of all, the must recognize for themselves that their own childhoods are over and can never be regained.


The seventh and final book in the series, The Other Side of Dawn, is the final battle. They are close, so close, to the end, and the question is whether they will live through it. Circumstances are dire and they are in danger as never before. Ellie, in particular, has to face the possibility that everything she loves is gone, look death in the eye, and figure out the aftermath--if there is one. The saying is that the darkest hour is just before the dawn, and that holds true in this book. The saying, though, implies that dawn will come, and never mentions the shadows that follow.


Marsden wrote a follow-up series, The Ellie Chronicles. I haven't decided whether or not I will pick those up, because I thought that the series wrapped up where it should have, and I have a bit of epilogue fatigue. (Generally, I think stories should stop before the epilogue, or integrate some of what's perceived to be needed in the epilogue into the last chapters.) I really enjoyed reading this series, and I definitely recommend it if you are a Hunger Games fan--particularly if you are a Team Katniss fan! Ellie and Katniss would probably be good friends, and they'd want to be on the same side. This series has as much character focus as plot focus, too, if that's what you're after.

Peter and the Starcatchers (a 2005 read)

Back during the August book giveaway, I promised that I'd (eventually!) find my review of Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson (Disney Editions, which became Hyperion).

My review: It was okay. For the most part, technically well done. I told a friend that this could have been very much like the Muppet Show, especially with a side of Dave Barry: fun for kids, fun for adults. So, it could have been more "slapschtick-y." On the flip side, it could have been very vivid. Really, it ended up being neither. At the same time, I can respect that the story is not too complicated for its intended (I think) middle-grade audience.

The second half of the book picks up the pace, and here and there bits of the Barry sense of humor shine through; I detect his influence especially in the lighting-fast changes of which side is winning (and there are more than two). Toward the end, there are some moments--well, potential moments--when some of the basic decisions that produce the Peter who becomes Pan almost move you, but then...then, you realize everything you feel is inside your head, based on what you know of his future as the boy who never grows up. A nice book, and well-packaged, but not a classic. That said, this "prequel" is more accessible than the original, and leaves behind some of the more outdated aspects of Barrie's work.

Zarah the Windseeker and The Shadow Speaker

I can't remember where I first heard about Zarah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - Graphia). It took me a while to get a copy, because I ordered it at the same time as something that was on backorder. Once I had it, I zipped right through it.

Zarah is dada: vines grow intertwined with her dreadlocks. She's a Windseeker: she can fly. She has to figure out how to save her best friend and not get killed inside the Forbidden Greeny Jungle.

There were a few spots where I felt the story was a little uneven, like Zarah was sometimes suddenly older or younger without that being tied to the story; I thought there was perhaps too much beginning and too much end to this story, and not enough middle. Those are really minor quibbles, though, compared to the absolutely fabulous world-building. I love this world. I love that plants and people have to exist together--that you grow computers from seeds, that a big plant is a building. I love that the Jungle is really, truly wild and that if you're going to enter it, it's going to take the woods trope and make it huge. I love that--I think that this book is both a fantasy and a science fiction as much as a story about empowerment without being a didactic message book.

The other thing that I love about this book (and The Shadow Speaker) is the exploration of the monstrous. I'd been looking for books related to this theme for a while. What I mean is not so much monsters in the literal sense, though Zarah must confront more than one, but the idea of questioning what it means to be a monster, whether or not you are a monster yourself (perhaps an especially interesting question for a teenager, who is told from all sides in U.S. culture that she is, and for exploring girls/women portrayed as monsters), whether it's even a bad thing to be a monster. Despite all of the vampires and werewolves hanging around the bookshelves right now, I haven't found many books where that's more than a device to separate two lovers.

After reading Zarah, I was really interested in reading more by the same author because I thought her work was good, but had potential to be really, really good. I was pleasantly unsurprised to see The Shadow Speaker (Hyperion) living up to that.

Shadow Speaker shares some of the universe of Zarah the Windseeker, and it's the stronger, smarter older sister to that book. In this, Ejii is a shadow speaker, someone who can speak to spirits and who, as her powers mature, can read the lives and motivations of others; at times she's revered for this, and others, treated as a monster (luckily for theme-exploring me). Her Earth is an odd one, disrupted by war and magic--creating a vivid and interesting world for her to navigate as she tries to catch up with Jaa, her queen (and her father's murderer), who is on her way to a summit between the worlds. It's Ejii's ability to see motivations that helps her in the big confrontation. Again I'm drawn in by the world-building: it follows neither the rules of fantasy nor the rules of science fiction.  I adore the magic technology, the mix of the familiar and the odd-to-me. I recommend both of these, as well as reading this post by the author on the cover designs.

The Tomorrow series by John Marsden

The Dead of the Night by John Marsden and The Third Day, the Frost (also released as A Killing Frost) (Tomorrow series)

I reviewed the first book in this series here the other day, and today I'm going to (re)review the first three as a set; they all come in around 200 pages, and while each book has its own story arc, I perceive a larger arc in these first three as a group, at least compared to the beginning of the fourth book, which I'm on right now.

After the chunk at the beginning of the first book that sets up our understanding of the teens as everyday Australians in the early 1990s (though there are very few clues as to the time period--I'm putting a few references together with the publication date of the books), there is a certain emotional sameness in Tomorrow, When the War Began; The Dead of the Night; and The Third Day, the Frost. Ellie and her friends are, in this stretch, trying to figure it all out. When they rebel, they really rebel, creating major headaches for the enemy, but as they spiral around their interest in and repugnance toward the war, they also circle greater and greater consequences. Still, for most of the first three books, the group still sees some tiny sheen on the whole thing, like it's not quite real--like it's almost fun, almost a lark if you turn your head and squint a little.

I am a sucker for wars, dystopia, peril, kids figuring out adult things, and the Tomorrow series has all of it. But one thing that strikes me about these books is that I feel very strongly that the teenagers are still teenagers; they talk like real teenagers. They have perceptions and prejudices and are questioning. They have short-lived romances and petty squabbles. They are smart--and it's tied in to who they are.

Marsden doesn't let up on the reality and ugliness of the war, but he also doesn't let Ellie and the others slide into inhumanity, even as they wonder whether they've crossed a line somewhere; big things and small things happen in turn, a reminder that even in turmoil, small gestures can be very much appreciated.

I am reading the Australian versions (and providing images as I can get them); in the U.S., they're published by Scholastic. I've labeled these with the title of the first in the series so that it's easier to find them, if I want to look back later!

Freebie and Multimedia! Cornelia Funke: Reckless

Cornelia Funke has a new book coming out. It's a fantasy wrapped up with bits of fairy tales, and the tagline: If you're looking for happily ever after, you came to the wrong place. It sounds pretty good to me, but here's another cool thing you can look at beyond the book's website:

Cornelia Funke—the beloved and bestselling author of The Thief Lord and the Inkworld Trilogy—invites you "behind the mirror" for an once-in-a-lifetime theatrical storytelling event! Join Cornelia and special guests Lionel Wigram and Elliot Hill LIVE Tuesday, September 14th at 1:30 pm EST for the worldwide launch of Reckless, featuring a special musical performance by Adam Watts.
This event is not to be missed as Cornelia takes the stage to perform a dramatic reading from her anticipated new novel, Reckless, with acclaimed stage actor Elliot Hill. Following the reading, you will witness a rare conversation between Cornelia and Reckless co-creator Lionel Wigram, executive producer of the Harry Potter movies and producer/co-writer of the Sherlock Holmes film. Together they will pull back the curtain on the creative process and give fans an intimate look at how the world of Reckless came into being.

The event will also include an interactive audience Q&A session and a live musical performance by special guest, Adam Watts, who will sing an exclusive song inspired by Reckless. Storytelling, film and music combine in this unprecedented event sure to spark the imaginations of fans young and old!

I won't be able to take a look, but I love that this combines literature, theater, and music in one event. You can read the first chapter of the book on the website.