LRRC Week 11
Well, the name of the game is self-isolation, and you know what that means! More time for reading! Just ignore the fact that as of this writing, I'm still having to go into work. Boooooo.
Anyway. Hang in there y'all.
#21: DOCILE by K.M. Szpara
So, right off the bat, there's been a lot of discussion around this book's handling of slavery and race, and I'm not really going to get into that because it's definitely not my place to say whether or not Szpara handles those topics well. There's some good pieces out there by Black writers, go read those!
In terms of just the actual story, I liked it. It will probably come as no surprise to those of you who know me well that I like character dynamics that are a little bit fucked up. I'm also a big fan of queer writers being allowed to write things that are messy and fucked up and real. And I liked those aspects here.
The plot is engaging, and I was definitely hooked into the story pretty easily, turning pages to find out what happened next. If anything was missing for me, I'd say the characterization at times. A major aspect of the story revolves around the one main character losing his identity and personality (and then finding it again), and I felt like both a) we didn't have enough time to get to know him beforehand and b) the change happened very quickly, so that it was harder to recall what he'd been "before". The change did feel pretty insidious and made a certain amount of sense, though, so props for that.
Also, this book kind of struggles with the same thing that a lot of "resistance" books I've read recently do, which is that the "designated resistance" are...kind of bad? Like, the ones in this book actively endanger the main character at multiple points early on, and I'm not sure that I ever felt this was adequately dealt with. It leaves with a bit of an odd, confused message, in my opinion.
In any case, I found it to be a generally enjoyable read - it felt very much like reading fanfic, in all of the good and bad ways (and y'all know I am a huge fanfic fan, so no disrespect meant here)!
#22: STEPSISTER by Jennifer Donnelly
I have a bit of a weakness for fairy tale retellings, and this was a particularly good one. I had a lot of fun with this book!
As the title implies, it's about Cinderella's stepsisters (and one in particular), though it's less a true retelling than a sequel. It hit a really sweet spot for me in expanding on and complicating the original story and the characters within without completely throwing out the original meaning.
The character of Ella is still kind and good, and though the stepsisters are sympathetic from the start, there's still appreciation of the fact that the situation sucked for all of them. They all get to be complicated people, without losing the parts of the original fairy tale that spoke to people. Also, the exploration of what it means to be beautiful was something I really loved and connected with. It also made me surprisingly emotional! Hey tears, where did you come from?
The one thing that did strike me a little oddly was that it's set in the real world. This is mostly fine, and I understand why they did it (the reference to real life military commanders wouldn't have had nearly the same impact if they'd been fictional) but it did raise some questions. Like, if you set a story in vaguely-historic (but definitely in the 1600-1700s) France, especially if it involves royalty, I'm gonna raise my eyebrows a little bit! Yes, 2017 Beauty and the Beast, I'm looking at you!!!
NEXT WEEK'S AGENDA
#23: Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells
#24: The Cruel Prince by Holly Black