Clap When You Land Book Review

Fans of Elizabeth Acevedo, including myself, had been anxiously awaiting her junior novel, and second novel in verse, Clap When You Land. Following the May 2020 release, Clap When You Land received high praise including winning the yearly Goodreads 2020 Choice Award for Young Adult Fiction, and the 2020 Boston Globe Horn Book Honor Award for Fiction and Poetry.

As a huge fan of Acevedo’s first two novels, The Poet X and With the Fire on High, I had incredibly high hopes, and somehow, Acevedo went beyond my highest expectations for her most recent novel.

Clap When You Land follows half-sisters, Camino Rios in the Dominican Republic, and Yahaira (Yaya) Rios in New York, connecting over the recent death of their father, who died in the American Airlines flight 587 crash.

AA587 is not of Acevedo’s invention; it was a flight going from New York to the Dominican Republic in 2001. The accidental crash, taking place only two months and one day after the September 11 attacks appears to have been somewhat ignored or overlooked by the media, but nonetheless brought devastation to the New York-Dominican community. It is the third deadliest aviation accident in US history following the 9/11 attacks (Aviation Safety). There were 260 fatalities and zero survivors in this awful New York City crash, and yet, I had never heard of it before. 68 of the passengers killed were from the Dominican Republic. About 90% of the passengers were of Dominican descent (The Guardian).

Acevedo herself was greatly affected by the flight. “I was 13 years old when that plane crashed. It rocked my community. I mean, everyone knew someone who was on that flight.” (NPR)

Providing this information is not just to give historical background, but to emphasize the real pain associated with the topic of this novel, and the pain Acevedo is working to convey. Although Camino and Yahaira are not real people, I know there is a Camino or a Yahaira or another child who lost a loved one in this crash, and can probably relate to one or both of these characters.

I have to hope that people impacted by this crash find some sort of healing in this book, but I also hope that readers like me who were not impacted by it can find solace in the universality of grief, while also empathizing for those like the sisters even if the reader may not have experienced something similar. I think reading about experiences we may not be able to fully relate to is an important exercise in listening to the situations of others with kindness and openness. No one will ever have the exact same emotions or experiences, but through reading we can learn about the emotions and experiences of others to not only broaden our mind but hopefully practice an ability to listen to and accept others of differing experiences.

I didn’t originally know this was based on a true event. Having Acevedo contextualize it by showing this was a real plane crash with real people brought out more empathy from me than I would have thought. I empathize even with fictional situations, but knowing this book stemmed from real pain and trauma serves as a reminder that this pain happens both in fiction and in real life.

By the way, when I say these sisters are connecting over this death, I mean they had no idea the other sister existed for sixteen years. Both never knew their beloved father had a secret family in a different country 1,534 miles away.

I was worried going into this book there would be some sort of lasting taboo of having a half-sister or of not sharing a parent. I am by definition a half-sister, although I never think in that term. I have learned through growing up, and what is presented by Acevedo as well is, the importance of who loved you and raised you, or who comes to love and accept you, not necessarily who created you. Family isn't always the same parents or the same genes, it's love, and these sisters love one another. Although there was shock between the two characters, they grew and adapted to a new and possibly scary situation. Legally, Camino and Yahaira are half-sisters. But just like my sister and I, they are not half-family, they are family.

Elizabeth Acevedo

Full of grief and love, Acevedo does not caution from showing the pain that the two families are feeling, and yet, these true emotions being evoked, even including pain, seem to create comfort. By showing these two families, it is emphasized that everyone may have different experiences, but grief is universal, although it may feel isolating at times.  

In a book dealing with such heavy topics, I was impressed by is the careful balance of detail and space to imagine when reading the poems. There are no titles for the poems, but I was drawn to the detail on a specific poem from Camino’s perspective.

“I keep rocking next to her. Sometimes words

need time to form; the minutes like slabs

building a ramp out the mouth.” (Acevedo, 192)

I continued to mentally repeat the phrase “minutes like slabs/building a ramp out the mouth”, a line beautifully bringing the physical (ramps) with the more abstract idea of forming words or time passing, to create an image of a ramp being built. For me, I was drawn to the imagery created in such a short phrase, and the impact of these words.  

For those who have read Acevedo’s first novel, The Poet X¸ the prose-like sparsity of the poems is a style readers have seen before. However, the sparsity is not at all a downside to Acevedo’s work, because it brings emphasis to what is being said. Acevedo evokes so much emotion with every word, with space on the page almost like Acevedo, or the reader, taking a breath between these difficult topics.

I also found the lack of titles interesting. Although I do not believe titles make a full work less cohesive, but the lack of titles made it feel like one 400+ page poem to me. Although reminding me of a very long poem, I did not at all feel a drag of 400 pages. Instead, I sped through it and could not put the book down. By only indicating the speaker (Camino, Yahaira, or both) of the poem, I felt as if I were being sat down and told a story by Camino and Yahaira about their journey together. No titles to separate the poems remind me of someone telling their life story, which does not often have a title.

Throughout the novel, the sisters learn that their late father was far more flawed than the two had thought. Acevedo shows girls growing up from idolizing their father to being upset and confused by his choices to forgiving and still loving him. I think the arc the sisters have of learning not to idolize their father, while continuing to love and mourn him, is an incredibly realistic yet complex view of growing older and losing a loved one. The balance and struggle of accepting faults while mourning someone is something I can relate to, and I appreciated seeing this represented. These characters acknowledge the faults of their father while learning to accept their own grief among other mixed emotions, and I think this is incredibly important.

With aching emotions Acevedo creates a beautiful portrait of grief and love. I was yet again impressed by her and I continue to look forward to her future writing.

-SS

Works cited: “ASN Aircraft Accident Airbus A30.” Aviation Safety Network, Flight Safety Foundation, 20 Apr. 2014, web.archive.org/web/20140420004450/aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20011112-0.

Acevedo, Elizabeth. Clap When You Land. Quill Tree Books, 2020.

Garcia-Navarro, Lulu. “Tragedy Reveals 2 Secret Families In 'Clap When You Land'.” NPR, 10 May 2020.

Catherine House Book Review

 “Trust us, you belong here.”

Would you go three years with no music, no television, no family, for the promise of a lifetime of success?

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas is a young adult dark academia novel with a sprinkle of science fiction about Catherine House, a secretive boarding school. I don’t mean secretive as in it just has the odd secret society or two.

In Catherine House students go to this school in the woods-or as the faculty call it, “a community of minds” (Thomas, 8), exchanging any and all contact with the outside world for the promise of emerging as the best of the best; alumni have gone on to become supreme court justices, prize-winning authors, and presidents to name a few of their accomplishments. Thomas herself describes the school as a “cult-like college” (Debutiful).

Students are desperate at times to belong to this bizarre community (cult?), at the risk of throwing away their own individualism, or even their own lives.

I absolutely loved not only the dark academia element (which I am a sucker for) but the slow-burn gothic elements which pulled me in from the very beginning.

Dark academia is an element, aesthetic, or genre that I have found often in writing or film. The Secret History by Donna Tartt is sometimes seen as what made dark academia popular as a literary genre, but I am sure she was not the first to write in the genre. Dark academia, from my understanding, is a focus on topics like higher education, writing, the arts, or classic literature to name a few things. For me, dark academia conjures my childhood dream: Sitting in an old gothic-style library with dark shadows and obscure books to discover. 

What I love about it the genre is not only the fact that it often focuses on literature, but it raises above everything a passion for self-discovery and learning, something I have had since I learned to read. For me, reading dark academia literature makes me feel at home. These characters live and breathe their passion, usually an intense passion for learning, which is all I have felt for years. I have noticed many of the books have references or influences of both classic and gothic literature or art. But what about “dark”? There is also an underlying focus on longing, existentialism, pondering mysteries, and even death. Sometimes the genre plays into the idea of getting too immersed in your passion, almost to a fault. It’s a genre I’m still learning about and trying to wrap my head around defining it, but it is truly fascinating to me.

Catherine House captures this almost obsessive pursuit for knowledge perfectly, while also exposing the flaws in this pursuit.  

With it being described as a gothic-inspired book, atmosphere is crucial, and the setting was carefully constructed. Thomas worked hard to achieve this: “I wanted this school—and the story—to feel strange, sideways, almost palpably dreadful.” (Write or Die Tribe) Catherine House, the building, is a character that I just want to understand the intricacies of. The unknown secrets surrounding the school, the students disappearing, and the complete insularity from the world is incredibly unsettling. These characters cannot leave for three years, and as I read, a little voice in the back of my mind whispered, “why can’t they?”

To add to the unease, anyone who strays from expectations is threatened with being sent to the “Catherine House Restoration Center” “to readjust your relationship to Catherine and your environment” (Thomas, 11). From the beginning, the characters are told if they do not comply to this strict school, they are sent to what to me sounds incredibly ominous (but note, it’s still in Catherine House. Even in defying the school, they are not allowed to leave).

Although atmosphere is crucial to the book, we can’t forget about the characters. While Thomas’ novel has been the discussion of many interviews, like any novel it does not go without critique. As a fan of this book, I was very intrigued by a common issue people had with the novel: Ines, the protagonist.

“I think [one of] the three biggest things that didn’t work for me in this story [was] Ines.” (The Bookish Chick)

“[Ines] doesn’t need Catherine House, she needs some help. Actual help.” (Goodreads)

“Ines is a terrible character.” (Goodreads)

“I don't understand what Thomas intended by creating such a frustrating character.” (Goodreads)

I am very interested in the discussion, especially the criticism, of Ines.

Ines went through trauma before the novel starts, and I greatly appreciated the representation of Ines’ struggle with trauma and arguably symptoms of depression. Ines is never diagnosed with a mental illness, and I have no desire to diagnose her. However, at a time in my life I was someone who struggled to get out of bed, to care about school, or even about my own health, and I saw myself in Ines.

Reading this book, I saw this girl who had huge dreams of success while wearing the proverbial weighted vest of all the pressure around her. I saw myself, junior year of college, completely floundering to honestly care about life in the rush of intense classes and preparing to apply to graduate school. I saw Ines, and for once I thought to myself, “It’s not just me”. She may be unlikeable to some, but I think characters like her are important, in this case those who desire success while also struggling with motivation.

Characters don’t need to be likeable to make the novel good or enjoyable. They can offer so much more than likeability. We read to see differences as well as similarities, and these may be different morals or values or simply an abrasive personality. In my eyes, Ines offers insight into struggling to succeed. She is an academic that is imperfect, something I struggle to allow for myself. Ines is a young adult without an outlined path or one clear determination, and I think that’s realistic for a lot of people. Also, people don’t need to be likeable. Ines isn’t putting pretenses for other characters nor readers. In a world with many women being told to smile, Ines turns and walks away, and I admire that.

For me, I think the part that she is an unlikeable woman especially plays into some of the comments I saw.

I have to wonder how these critiques would change if Ines were a man. I have noticed common critiques of women characters as “unlikeable”, which I don’t see as much for men characters, who although have similar characteristics to these “unlikeable” women, are more often described as “moody” and mysterious”.

No matter the gender though, give me an unlikeable person who does not become stereotypically “likeable” over their arc. I find those characters interesting, because being unlikeable means these characters are not changing for someone or for expectations, but also, we simply don’t see those characters often.                                                                                                                                           

Author Elisabeth Thomas

Elisabeth Thomas writes some great characters, and I think she brings these characters into inventive situations to bring out the truest form of themselves, whether that form be likeable or not. In these terrifying scenarios, Ines and her friends drop all pretenses and are their raw, true selves, which I found refreshing.

NPR lists Catherine House as one of the best books of 2020, and if this review caught your eye, I would definitely recommend giving it a read. I highly recommend Thomas’ book to fans of books like The Secret History by Donna Tartt, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, or other dark academia novels.

In an interview with Debutiful, Thomas states she is currently working on her sophomore novel. Catherine House is Thomas’ debut novel.

-SS

Sources: https://debutiful.net/2020/05/12/elisabeth-thomas-interview-catherine-house/

https://www.writeordietribe.com/author-interviews/interview-with-elisabeth-thomas

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51934838-catherine-house?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=hAeP032lBc&rank=2

https://thebookishchick.com/2020/08/25/review-catherine-house/

https://apps.npr.org/best-books/#view=covers&year=2020

Book and author photographs from Goodreads.com

"The Moon Within" Book Review

 

The Moon Within by debut author Aida Salazar is a beautiful middle grade novel in verse which explores growing older and self-discovery.

The protagonist, Celi Rivera, has questions about growing older: about her changing body, about her first attraction to a boy, and her best friend Mar’s exploration of what it means to be genderfluid.

It is incredibly important to Celi’s mother that Celi will have a moon ceremony, a ceremony marking her transition from girl to woman, as Celi explains in one of the first poems, “Moon Ceremony”. Celi initially refuses not only the ceremony, but the prospect of growing older:

“I dread the ceremony where she will gather

all six of my aunts

some of my dance teachers

a constellation of grown-up women

to talk to me

about what it means to bleed monthly…

Embarrassment will eat me up whole!” (9-10)

Celi expressed a fear that may be relatable to both readers who have gone through a moon ceremony, and those who have dealt with their first menstruation as well. Although she is embarrassed, her Mima explains,

“Our ancestors honored

our flowering in this way.

It is a ritual taken away from us

during so many conquests.” (10, italics in original)

Salazar here not only shares an important part of her heritage with the reader, but she is alluding to the need to take back this ceremony from the times whiteness has attempted to snuff out the rich heritage that Mima is passing along. This snuffing is from the shame that is associated with menstrual cycles, while Celi’s culture celebrates it. Through the reader being privy to Celi’s thoughts, the emphasis on her ceremony brings up interesting points of discussions on preserving culture and taking back a sense of ownership when puberty may make someone feel out of control of their body. Like the ritual being taken away by colonizers, Celi tries to take back control of her body and her moon ceremony.

Although Celi struggles with the idea of growing older, poem by poem she comes to explore what it is to be changing. We follow Celi as she grows to accept her changing body through dance, comradery, and self-love. Dance is one of the spaces that allows Celi to feel comfortable in her body and her femininity, as explored in the poem “Puerto Rican Drum Dance”.

She began dancing as a very young girl:

“I held the tips of my little dress

and pretended I was catching

butterflies in the air.

That is what the music told me to do.” (89) 

Celi for once does not have questions when she dances, she simply knows how to dance, how to answer the rhythm of the music.

The verse of this poem sways like a dancer and Salazar expertly breaks lines to create space within the poem, like a dancer awaiting their next move. Salazar’s poetry is full of vivid imagery which made me feel as if I were falling into the middle of Celi’s world.

Celi is not the only young character going through change, but her best friend, Marco (previously known as Magda), begins to explore his gender fluidity and finds his own self best expressed through his short hair and pants instead of the long dresses Celi loves to wear.

The Moon Within is an honest portrayal of some of the feelings of growing up and having a changing body and mind. Salazar’s verse is an excellent novel exploring the themes of changing and growing older.

Kirkus Reviews calls The Moon Within “a worthy successor to Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret”, and US Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera says the book is “revolutionary and culturally ecstatic”.

This book was not published until I was in my twenties, but I wish I had this book when I was Celi’s age, and I hope that readers going through a similar experience as Celi or Mar will find this book. In beautiful prose, Salazar works to destigmatize gender fluidity and menstrual cycles. I can imagine readers experiencing either of these topics will find solace not only in feeling less alone, but seeing Salazar turn these experiences into beautiful poems.

Salazar has more books planned for publication, including Jovita Wore Pants, her first picture book about the revolutionary Jovita Valdovinos. She also recently published her sophomore novel The Land of the Cranes, a novel in verse about a young girl being held in a family detention center for migrants and refugees.

-SS

 

Sources:

http://www.aidasalazar.com/about.html

Book Review of "A Song Below Water"

A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow is a fantastic book about prejudice, friendship, and magic. Written in powerful prose with dynamic main characters, Morrow balances magic with real-life events in her novel to create an impactful and resounding story.

Morrow’s first young adult novel follows Tavia and Effie, best friends who are more like sisters. In this world, all sirens are Black women, including the siren Tavia. Although not related, Effie and Tavia refer to one another as sisters, and have such a powerful, and perhaps magical, love for one another. Morrow carries the important theme of sisterhood throughout the story, and shows the true, honest, and loving friendship these two young women have. The two are not only some of the few black people in Portland, Oregon, but Tavia is one of the only magical folk in the city. Tavia is a siren who mostly converses through ASL, except around Effie. Magic weaves through her story, sometimes taking the stage and other times swirling through the background. I would personally call this a light fantasy novel, while others have shelved it as magical realism or urban fantasy (according to Goodreads).

Morrow perfectly describes her book on twitter as embodying “Black girl magic” and excellently focuses on the idea of voice as magic and resistance in her novel.

Although a beautiful and magical book, the more you read, the more chilling the book gets.

At the start of the book, a Black woman named Rhoda Taylor was murdered by her boyfriend. However, she only appeared on the news “because social media had been circulating it and demanding to know why no one seemed to be saying her name” (12). Soon, Tavia learns “the defense is saying the deceased was a siren. Which means she wasn’t a victim after all” (13). Sirens have a voice full of so much power that it can control others. Sirens are powerful, and therefore they are feared. Humans blame Taylor for her own murder.

Art of protagonists by Twitter user @layahimalaya

This hate of sirens was not started by Rhoda Taylor’s murder. The hate is traced back to at least the 1960s “Siren Trials”, when sirens were publicly outed and murdered. The murderers were never brought to justice (27), and this trial seems to be well-remembered and is a cause for fear in the town among humans.

Following Rhoda Taylor’s murder trial, Tavia begins to fear for her own life, as all sirens are seen as dangerous, as murderers. Those found out to be sirens are forced to wear an electronic collar to control their magical voice.

Although these sirens are of course not all murderers, Tavia says “none of us are immune to the public distrust of sirens” (29). Tavia is emphasizing that this distrust pervades society, and perhaps Tavia, a siren herself, has been inundated and therefore mislead by these implicit biases.

The real-world parallel of Morrow’s novel is undeniable. On her Twitter account, she says “I wanted this book to be a reflection on a recent past, not a statement on the brutal present, but I pray it finds the black girls who need it”. Morrow’s book came out not only during the current prominent civil rights movement in America, but being published June 2, 2020, Morrow’s book was published only three months after the murder of Breonna Taylor, to name just one of the many, many Black people who have been unjustly killed at the hands of the American police.

Not only is the parallel to the real world undeniable, the publication of A Song Below Water was perfectly timed, in my opinion. In an interview with Den of Geek, Morrow speaks further on the timely nature of the novel: “In conversation with my sister, I said, ‘My voice is power,’ an assertive, knowing statement and I meant it literally; I was talking about why the world gets so frothingly, viciously, violently enraged at the audacity of Black women daring to have opinions online…I was referring to the ridiculous gaslighting that comes with it where much of the abuse heaped on the Black woman in question is around the supposed fact that she’s a nobody and she means nothing, and no one cares what she thinks—despite that everyone is dogpiling her to tell her so”. 

Author Bethany C. Morrow

Morrow has found a way to elevate her voice in a time when voices like hers are the most important to listen to with regards to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Morrow’s book has not gone unnoticed. Following A Song Below Water’s publication, Morrow was listed on USA Today’s 100 Black novelists and fiction writers you should read, and is highly rated on the popular website, Goodreads.

This is a beautiful, timely book that should be read by anyone. With excellent writing skill, Morrow balances real-life issues with captivating magical elements. All I want is to sing my praises for A Song Below Water, and I hope this review can be seen especially by who Morrow refers to as “the black girls who need it”.

Morrow has announced a sequel to her novel, A Chorus Rises, will be released in 2021, which I am surely looking forward to.

-SS

Citations: https://twitter.com/BCMorrow/status/1267832662196137986

https://www.denofgeek.com/books/a-song-below-water-bethany-c-morrow-interview/

Art: https://twitter.com/layahimalaya/ 

Photo: https://twitter.com/BCMorrow/photo

Review of “We Are Water Protectors” by Carole Lindstrom

“We Are Water Protectors” written by Carole Lindstrom and illustrated by Michaela Goade is a new picture book you need to look out for.

“We Are Water Protectors” is a book full of vibrant, eye catching images and powerful prose to match.

The author, Carole Lindstrom writes the books from passion and experience. She identifies as Anishinaabe (also known as Nishnaabe or Anishinabe)/Metis and is tribally enrolled with the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe (Carolelindstrom.com). Lindstrom also published the children’s book “Girls Dance, Boys Fiddle” in 2013.

This book has not gone unnoticed by book bloggers. A popular blog, Book Riot, lists the book under “Ten Picture Books for the Budding Environmentalists”, and Lindstrom’s book is also featured on CBC, The New York Times, and Publisher’s Weekly.

The phrase “We are water protectors” may sound familiar. “We are water protectors” says Don Sampson to tribes opposed to the movement protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Sampson is both the head of the climate change program from the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians (ATNI), and a traditional chief of the Walla Walla Tribe of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (Seattle Times). Sampson and his family fought with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe during the Standing Rock protest against the pipeline.

                                    

Photo from Dakota Access Pipeline protests in October of 2016

However, Lynda V. Mapes’ article continues “The fight isn’t only about one pipeline, but the larger battle for clean energy in a world in grave jeopardy because of emissions from fossil fuels that are heating the planet.” Sampson concludes “How can anyone look into the eyes of grandchildren and say, we did nothing.” Although popularized protests at the Dakota Access Pipeline have passed, the fight to protect water and the legacy of the protests continue.

Lindstrom takes this popular quote, “we are water protectors”, to invite readers into an important project and movement taking place in the United States. 

It is important to also remember these pipes is a twofold threat of the environment and the culture of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s homeland. “An oil spill would permanently contaminate the reservation’s water supply and that construction of the pipeline would destroy sacred sites where many of their ancestors are buried” (Medina, 2016).

Given the background of the book, Lindstrom has a big shoe to fill, and she truly succeeds with her touching and beautiful work.

“We Are Water Protectors” is narrated by a young, unnamed girl. At the beginning of the book, she is told “Water is the first medicine” by Nokemis, who appears to be a grandmother or an older maternal figure.

Right off the bat Lindstrom emphasizes the importance of water, while Goade highlights its beauty and power through the illustration. Lindstrom continues, “We come from water. It nourished us inside our mother’s body. As it nourishes us here on Mother Earth. Water is sacred.” These short sentences remind me of water washing on and off of the beach, ebbing and flowing through the book.

She continues, “The river’s rhythm runs through my veins. Runs through my people’s veins.” Again, the importance of water is established. The protagonist states the river runs through her people’s veins, connecting them altogether in a water system as unique and complex as the individuals within her community. In the illustration her dark hair flows across the page into a blue-green body of water, complete with fish, bright coral lily flowers, and lily pads.

This photo not only emphasizes how the river “runs through [her] veins”, but the river is part of her identity and her people’s identity. She finds love and joy in the water, but also a need to protect what is being taken from them.

The narrator continues, “my people talk of a black snake that will destroy the land. Spoil the water. Poison plants and animals. Wreck everything in its path…Its venom burns the land, courses through the water, making it unfit to drink.”

Here the water and land are threatened, as is perhaps the characters’ identity as water protectors. As opposed to the previously calming blues and greens, the snake is on this bright orange background, almost reminiscent of the sky during fires that California has come to know. This orange cloud seems to suffocate or suppress the flowers on the bottom left which bend over the pipe, as if weeping its petals away. The portrayal of the pipe as a snake emphasizes the real danger that these pipes being built have on the plants and animals, as well as the people. The snakes [or pipes] not only poison the living, but the water itself is unfit to drink. Water, a necessity for organisms to live, is being taken by this snake pipe.

However, the protagonist does not lose hope. She says “TAKE COURAGE! I must keep the black snake away from my village’s water. I must rally my people together.”

The protagonist calls the reader to action in her our actions. She is saying take courage to herself, her village, and everyone reading this. In the face of black snakes and threatened land, she tells herself to have courage in order to save her village.

“We Are Water Protectors” is a powerful, resonating, and timely book that I think readers of all ages should pick up.

-SS

References:

Carole Lindstrom - author of children's literature. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.carolelindstrom.com/

Mapes, L. V. (2020, August 6). What’s next for the Dakota Access Pipeline? Recent court rulings cast doubt on future. The Seattle Times. Retrieved from https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/whats-next-for-the-dakota-access-pipeline-recent-court-rulings-cast-doubt-on-future/

Medina, D. A. (2016, November 4). Dakota Access Pipeline: What's Behind the Protests? NBC News. Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/dakota-pipeline-protests/dakota-access-pipeline-what-s-behind-protests-n676801

Book review on “Foul is Fair”

Partial list of content warnings for novel: mentions of rape and sexual assault (not depicted), physical violence/murder, suicide attempt/ideation, abuse, transphobia, substance abuse

Foul is Fair by Hannah Capin is full of power. This “scorching and cathartic retelling of Macbeth for the #MeToo era” is pitched as “a bloody, thrilling revenge fantasy for the girls who have had enough. Golden boys beware: something wicked this way comes.”

The Me Too Movement?

Macbeth?

Revenge?

All in a YA novel?

I’m in.

Foul is Fair follows Elle (Elizabeth Jade Khanjara) and her intoxicating group of friends: Mads, Jenny, and Summer. They remind me of “Queen Bees”, the girls so many wanted to be but never would be.

Nothing happens to those girls? Right?

Well Capin destroys expectations:

A new spin on Macbeth

A young adult novel full of both poetry and violence

A girl allowed to be powerful

By taking that power for herself.

Elle and her friends crash an elusive St. Andrew’s Prep party on her 16^th birthday, and the four expect a night of fun and partying.

Our expectations are yanked to the side when Elle is drugged, raped, and assaulted by four boys (including friends Andrew Mack and Duncan). Elle has left the party, and in her place is Jade with short black hair, painted nails, and a taste for revenge.

After putting the pieces of that night together, she lives her new life as Jade. Jade is not a victim. Jade turns her entire life around, takes her life back, and to my shock, enrolls in St. Andrew’s: the school of her rapists. Jade slips into her new school seamlessly, saying all the right things to get the popular friends, and dating the oh-so popular Andrew. Yes, Andrew Mack. Jade and Andrew, or Lady Macbeth and Macbeth, rule the school now, but this never distracts Jade from her goals.

In an unapologetically bold yet poetic prose, we watch Jade create her own power to dismantle the golden boys one by one.

The writing of this book truly draws you in from the first line: every sentence appears to be perfectly crafted and thought out, so much so some of this book would not leave me three months after I finished the book.

I love how upfront this book is, how Capin doesn’t shy from brutality. Jade doesn’t just dismantle the golden boys:

She kills them.

I’m going to be honest: I don’t know how a group of high school girls get away with multiple murders of teen boys, but Capin’s writing is so captivating that I don’t care. I am so invested in Jade’s story, and Capin has drawn me in to that amazing point where I am able to suspend belief of high school murders. I’ve just accepted Jade is the reincarnation of Lady Macbeth but she has a cellphone and red lipstick and potentially a bit more of a thirst for blood. Jade could murder someone, and I’d just go with it.

Oh right. She did.

Or, she convinces her boyfriend Mack to kill Duncan. Sound familiar?

With Macbeth, we need witches, and that’s where the best friends Mads, Jenny, and Summer come in. Mads, Jade’s best friend, since the days of skinned knees, Summer, the supermodel embodiment of summer, and Jenny, “so sweet she’ll kill you” (5).

Come not within the measure of their wrath.

Together, the four of them cast spells on boys with the bat of their winged eyeliner.

Mads is a really engaging character, and I appreciate the subtle inclusion of the history of their relationship: “When her parents still called her by her deadname and the only time she could wear girl-clothes was when she was with me. Mads, who last night was the only one I could think about once I could finally stand without falling…Mads, who knew what happened without me saying anything, and found a pair of lacrosse sticks in the pool house and together we broke all the windows we could find, and the glass shattered and caught in the nets and our hands bled bright and furious” (6). The friendship of Mads and Jade shines with complete, undeniable love, and Mads is the first to back up Jade. Honestly, we all need a Mads.

The complete sisterhood the girls create is admirable. No matter what, they will always be there for one another. “Mads tips her head toward mine and I do the same. Until we’re foreheads-together, eye to eye, no room for lies. ‘You tell me when you need me.’ I say, ‘I don’t need anyone.’ She laughs, but it’s the most beautiful sound in the world. She says, ‘I know.’” (81)

Foul is Fair challenges the concept on a demure sidelined woman character: Jade is full of ferocity and I love it. She never has to explain her anger to her friends; they accept what has happened to her and in their world, what needs to be done. Although I don’t condone this sort of violence necessarily, it makes for a great book, and an amazing rise of awareness for sexual violence.

I truly loved this book, and I look forward to Capin’s promising future in writing. I highly recommend you check out Foul is Fair and keep an eye out for her future books.

I received a free ARC from Goodreads in exchange for an honest review. Some sites say Foul is Fair was released 2/4/20, and Amazon says it will be available 2/18/20. Keep an eye out!

-SS

Works Cited:  

Capin, Hannah. Foul Is Fair. Wednesday Books, 2020.

A full list of content advisories can be found here: https://www.hannahcapin.com/foulisfair

A Brief Review to Dr. Griswold’s Audacious Kids

So this is what the last weekend of Spring Break feels like… Well at least time slowed down enough to get in a good reading. No, that doesn’t mean binge reading the rest of the Hunger Game Series or seeing what this Insurgent thing is all about. It was just enough time to take a trip back into some childhood classics that Jerry Griswold talks about in his latest edition of Audacious Kids: The Classic American Children’s Story (2014). If one holds any interest in discovering what children’s literature is all about, this text, can definitively overcome the desires to indulge in other silly Spring Break festivities.

Griswold’s book was a fantastic and insightful piece of literature that discovers the mapping of what children’s literature really holds, beyond what many were first able to see. It was revolutionary for its time and still continues to be through this newest edition. While Griswold’s work on American childhood classics, between the years 1865 to 1914, was enticed by a sort of psychoanalytic theory, as he suggests, it is merely a starting place for the child character from these text to discover more about the American society and culture. Children’s literature is a part of the American identity and even American history as a “pervasive notion of ‘America-as-Child’ shaped the way Americans saw themselves and their history” (27). It’s no wonder these children’s classics ensue those feelings of nostalgia unlike any other. Even Sunday-School books are considered children’s text and remain a collection of formulaic and didactic stories. The Golden Age of American children’s literature, however, really allows space for a “… literary boom [of children’s text to] reflect the era’s particular attention to The Child” (6). Here is the time where picture books rose and allowed more controversial topics to be covered in a more complicated way to engage parent readers and children in a new way (1-11).

Children’s stories are unique in the sense that they open a space for complete freedom to mask large social issues and discretely reach all parents who read to their little ones. In a space where the image of a mighty king may be ridiculed by a child character and the adult is left with a more independent minded approach to social constructions, but the adult is also left with the inquisitive young mind listening to the story that may ask some curious questions.  At the heart of many American childhood classics, a message calls to its audience intrinsically cultivating positive thinking, a psychology often replaced by religion. For example, this can be seen through Pollyanna’s positive shenanigans all over town that ends up being a “contagious and redemptive effect in her community” (33).

Both introductions, the original and the 2014, are included in this intelligent work opening the doors of discovery and uncovering a thread found throughout these childhood classics. Some of the famous works include: Pollyanna, The Secret Garden, The Prince and the Pauper, The Wizard of Oz, Tarzan of the Apes, and not to be forgotten, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Even though the list continues, what is most fascinating, are the similarities Griswold highlights as a “basic plot” that creates uniformity into the childhood classics of this era. This “basic plot” begins with a child who is separated from his or her parents at a young age, leaving the child orphaned. Once orphaned, the child begins a journey in which he or she must explore a different socio economic lifestyle. Then, the antagonist adult figure enters the story and begins treating the child badly or creating tension for the child, forcing the child character to work to overcome the antagonist, who is often a parental figure of the same sex. Once this pragmatic situation is resolved, the child character encounters a combination effect of his/her past life to the life they now harness, creating a new and present life as a meeting ground between both worlds, and ultimately leaves the antagonist ultimately apologizing to the child or dying (16-30). Griswold provides various examples to support this claim, making it seems uncanny to never have noticed it previously.

Griswold truly expands on what he defines as “The Three Lives of the Child-Hero” and analyzes the psychological appeal that this “basic plot” holds a deeper level of influence and awareness. Griswold adapted the Oedipal connection these stories contain, where variations of the “lost child” expose the process of growing up as psychologically complicated. The search for identity can now be defined as the adaptation of two lives when analyzing these children texts and their characters. Today the “lost child” in many YA novels is left dealing with the end of the world he/she knows, and the main character’s struggle, while still combating authority, is capturing the evidence that children’s text can create a unique and continuous “phenomenon of stories shared by the young and old [as] a hallmark of our own era” (11-15).

With clever chapter titles like: “There’s No Place But Home,” “Ur of the Ur-Stories,” and “Imposters, Succession, and Faux Histories,” this book is a perfect read for anyone harvesting curiosity into the realm of children’s literature. These chapters will intro

duce complex ideas into childhood favorite tales, so the next time you come across the latest kid movie, you won’t be able to resist searching for the moral indications of the children of our current era.

Interesting points:

- “If historical and regional books emphasized verisimilitude and facts, another kind of fiction sent America’s young readers spinning in the opposite direction of fantasy,” and three of these texts which stand out are: Charlotte’s Web (1952), The Phantom Tollbooth (1961), A Wrinkle in Time (1962).

- “Oedipal emotions are a normal part of every child’s life. They involve not only an antagonistic relation with the same-sex parent but also a special affection for the opposite-sex parent. It is not surprising, consequently, that the child-heroes of American children’s books often find a special helper in an adult of the opposite sex…” (25).

- “What cannot be ignored is how much the land of Oz is a reflection of actual circumstances in the United States at the turn of the century… as in fairyland… Immigrants believed that streets were paved with gold, only to discover, perhaps, that they were really made with yellow bricks” (44).

- In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, “the nocturnal floating of the raft [connects to the dreamlike and unconscious by] the powerful unconscious flow of the river, Huck’s essential passivity as wide-eyed floater and voyeur, an atavistic and irrational world of superstitions and freakish happenstance, a story full of disguises and lies and revelations and childhood memories… seems to have a description of the very essence of the dream state”(59).

- In Tarzan “Burroughs’s ‘doubtless’ and ‘unquestionably’… is nothing less than a return to the Ancestral, the Source… And that means loincloth nakedness! ... And that means apocalyptic truth! Frank admission that, at bottom, we are basically animals… beneath politics and good manners lie sex and the wish for dominance… And that means freedom! ... from office politics and civilized bureaucracies. Here is unchecked and untrammeled egotism…” (129).