No Big Deal by Bethany Rutter — New Review

Cover: bookshop.org

After being slightly disappointed in Dumplin‘ (though I do love the film adaptation), I’ve been low-key on the lookout for other books with positive portrayals of plus-size main characters. I picked this up at my local station’s free bookshelf (whence it shall probably return) and have just been waiting for a gap in my reading schedule to read it.

First, and most important, things first: Emily is so much more consistent than Willowdean! She does go through ups and downs in terms of her self-image, but those always follow on from events in the plot, making them logical, and she’s much more coherent in her narration about why she feels the way she feels, even when she knows her feelings aren’t 100% rational. Emily’s character developments follows a genuine trajectory, one which is satisfying from beginning to end.

And it’s important for me to know that. To realise that I can stand up for things I think are important, even when it means disagreeing with a really, really cute guy — and I don’t have to panic when it happens.

No Big Deal, Bethany Rutter

Perhaps the price of all this internal consistency and self-focus is that No Big Deal‘s secondary characters aren’t drawn as strongly as they could be. Emily has friends, characters that don’t feel like cardboard cutouts and that do have their own lives and their own stories happening in the background, but they just don’t get enough attention to have particularly developed personalities. Abi is positive, Camila is calming, Ella and Sophia are girlfriends — that’s about it. Emily’s family fares better, perhaps because their lives don’t markedly change during the course of the story. (Sidenote: Emily’s mum’s story is just heartbreaking. Sequel?)

Maybe if I wasn’t fat, these things wouldn’t happen to me. Maybe I would be easier to love. Maybe I wouldn’t be as easy to hurt. Maybe I would be more valuable.

No Big Deal, Bethany Rutter

The romantic plot line works very well: the turns it takes feel realistic, without being so predictable that you can see them coming a mile off. The climax evoked the brutal plot twist in Girls Out Late, or the moment in Hairspray when Link tells Tracey the adventure is ‘a little too big’. (Plus-size readers, what are the moments in fiction that hit you in the solar-plexus like these?) As in It Only Happens in the Movies, the ending is more complicated, but feels more rewarding, than a simple happily-ever-after.

The whole of No Big Deal feels like Bethany Rutter’s love letter to teens and young adults struggling with their size in society. At times, that did mean that it came across just a little heavy-handed, but in a way that felt worth it, and wasn’t unpleasant to read.

I’d thoroughly recommend No Big Deal to anyone interested in this style of book!

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

The Butterfly Assassin by Finn Longman — New Review

Cover: bookshop.org

Full disclosure up front: I found out about The Butterfly Assassin because Finn Longman and I are both in the same Discord server, and I read the book because Finn was doing a chapter-by-chapter readalong on their blog (starting here). I won’t pretend these reviews are ever objective, but I may be more than usually biased about this book in particular. The Butterfly Assassin probably ins’t a book I would have picked out to read otherwise, dystopian cities and teen assassins not being things I particularly look for, but there’s a lot more going on under the surface that I really came to appreciate.

She hates herself for letting him see that, but not as much as she hates him for watching.

The Butterfly Assassin, Finn Longman

The Butterfly Assassin is tightly focused on its main character, who goes by both Isabel and Bella. While there are on-page assassinations, the story is really about Isabel’s struggle to escape from her training and the environment that went with it. Where some novels might treat assassin training as cool, Finn presents Isabel’s past as deeply traumatic, and engages skilfully with what character and personality development look like coming out the other side. While Isabel is indisputably the star, all The Butterfly Assassin‘s characters stand out as deeply complex. There are few, if any, easy choices presented on these pages.

As you might expect for a city run by two guilds of assassins, the setting of The Butterfly Assassin is dark, but not unremittingly so. The moments of defiant light emerge all the more clearly against a background that deliberately reflects the bleakest aspects of our real world. In particular, the relationships and connections between characters provide a sense of hope, even when the story turns tragic. It’s too rare to read about friendships being just as important as other kinds of relationship, but Finn presents them beautifully.

It seems at odds with the way he thinks he’s under some moral imperative to offer people biscuits at every possible opportunity.

The Butterfly Assassin, Finn Longman

While the prose of The Butterfly Assassin isn’t particularly descriptive most of the time, there are moments of visual beauty, mostly around pictures the characters have painted. The lack of description elsewhere serves to make these moments really pull the reader’s attention, and end up being one of the most memorable things about the setting. It’s also worth mentioning that the narrative voice is occasionally laugh-out-loud funny.

While this isn’t a review of the readalong, it definitely improved my experience reading the book and gave me a lot to think of in terms of metaphor and character mirroring. Finn’s careful not to spoil book two, but there are a few places where if you’re reading chapter-by-chapter, you will find out some things in advance of where they feature in the text. That didn’t spoil it for me, but I’m not a very spoiler-sensitive reader, so your mileage may vary.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

The Deathless Girls by Kiran Millwood Hargrave — New Review

Cover: bookshop.org

As I mentioned when I reviewed Dracula, The Deathless Girls is on the agenda of my ‘Gothic Fiction’ reading holiday. When I agreed to go, I was fully expecting the other books to be along the lines of The Monk or The Mysteries of Udolpho. It came as a (pleasant) surprise to discover that both The Deathless Girls and Shadowplay were published in my lifetime. (I didn’t take the Gothic fiction module at uni, but I certainly heard enough from those that did to put me off 1790s Gothic novels.) What took me even more by surprise was learning that The Deathless Girls is a Young Adult novel. If last year’s singing holiday is anything to judge by, it’s safe to say most of the holiday readers will have left their young adult years long behind them, so I’m intrigued to hear what people have to say about this is October!

I hauled my breaking heart, my hurt, into my throat, and sang something low and sweet: a mourning song. A song for Mamă and for Old Charani, and Dika, and all the other burnt and broken bodies that had once held the souls of those we loved.
I sang their spirits free and safe and unburdened with the knowledge of what had become of us, and sent them spinning up to the stars, or into the trees, or wherever they felt happiest.

The Deathless Girls, Kiran Millwood Hargrave

As a standalone novel, The Deathless Girls is a little underwhelming. Lil and Kizzy’s relationship feels like well-trodden ground: Lil’s the less extroverted sister who follows in Kizzy’s lead and wishes she could stand out more. Similarly, the romance between Lil and Mira is standard Young Adult fare, complete with moments of Lil somehow managing to miss the obvious clues that her feelings are reciprocated. Mira doesn’t get much of a personality beyond their relationship and being a victim, which is a shame. Kiran Millwood Hargave’s prose is nice, especially when she writes about Lil singing, but sadly that subplot doesn’t really go anywhere.

In the forests there would be witch haze and willow bark, other remedies the trees could give to soothe her sore skin. If knowing the land and all it could offer was bestial, I didn’t want to be human.

The Deathless Girls, Kiran Millwood Hargrave

All that said, The Deathless Girls shouldn’t be taken as a standalone novel. It’s a response to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and that’s where most of the interest lies. Lil, Kizzy and Mira could not be more different from Jonathan Harker, Doctor John Seward and Abraham van Helsing. The European characters in Dracula come from a much more civilised world than the vampires, their fears are about that bestial influence on civilised society. Lil and Kizzy come from a society more connected to nature, literally living with wild animals in their midsts. It’s a really interesting flip, over and above the fact more obvious difference that Lil and Kizzy are women with more agency than Mina and Lucy are allowed in the original novel.

Kiran Millwood Hargrave fits The Deathless Girls almost perfectly into the spaces for story that Dracula leaves unexplored. Her Dracul follows the same vampire logic as Stoker’s Dracula, which feels important and respectful to the original text. Even knowing which Dracula characters the story was based on, Kiran Millwood Hargrave managed to keep the ending from being too transparently forecast.

While I wouldn’t necessarily recommend The Deathless Girls over any other Young Adult novel, it should bring up some really interesting discussions when paired with Dracula, so I’m looking forward to my reading holiday! Two down, one to go.

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera — Reread Review

Cover: bookshop.org

They Both Die at the End is one of the few books I actually reviewed before I started this blog, and so I’m able to confidently say that my opinion of it hasn’t materially changed since I last read it. I wish I could be one of those people for whom this and Reasons to Stay Alive are meaningfully uplifting books on the subject of what it means to live a life. Given how much I think about ‘wasting’ my time, Mateo’s story ought to resonate with me, as should the message of living life while you can instead of worrying about when you might not be able to. Obviously, not every book can speak to every person’s individual existential crisis, but I wish there were more books with a different message than ‘romantic love makes life worthwhile’.

I spent a lot of time feeling guilty for living after I lost my family, but now I can’t beat this weird Decker guilt for dying, knowing I’m leaving this crew behind.

They Both Die at the End, Adam Silvera

All that said, They Both Die at the End clearly works for many readers! It’s a bit slow to get going: neither Mateo nor Rufus are particularly likeable when they’re alone (or, in Rufus’s case, with friends) and there’s no obvious momentum carrying the story forward until they come together and start learning about and influencing each other. The same can probably be said for a lot of romance novels, so this isn’t necessarily a criticism.

They Both Die at the End is built around the concept of ‘Death-Cast’, a service that warns people up to 24 hours before they’re going to die, and Adam Silvera does a lot of really clever worldbuilding around this idea. As well as the service itself, he includes details of how it could be abused, other apps and services that would spring up around it, the effect it would have on medical and journalist professionals. The whole thing is solidly thought-through and, even without an explanation of how it actually works, feels believable.

No matter when it happens, we all have our endings. No one goes on, but what we leave behind keeps us alive for someone else.

They Both Die at the End, Adam Silvera

The very premise of They Both Die at the End naturally promises to explore questions of life and death and the meaning ascribed to both, which poses the risk of coming across a little heavy-handed. Adam Silvera isn’t necessarily saying anything new, but even for a reader who doesn’t vibe with the central thesis, the story of Mateo and Rufus is still affecting without being manipulatively tear-jerking.

While I raced through They Both Die at the End easily enough, and did get misty-eyed over Rufus and Mateo, the fact that I had the exact same reaction twice five years apart suggests this just isn’t a book I need to return to again.

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn — New Review, Bookclub Edition

Cover: bookshop.org

I knew from Kate’s description that Legendborn was dark academia meets Arthuriana with a fantastic twist. None of those things necessarily appeals to me particularly, but I did appreciate the moment I put the book down about a third in to ask myself whether that was ‘the twist’ or if there was another one coming. (I won’t spoil anyone’s own appreciation by answering that question here.)

How does this boy navigate my emotions like a seasoned sailor, finding the clean skies and bringing them closer, when all I seem able to do is hold fast to the storms?

Legendborn, Tracy Dean

Tracey Deonn, first and foremost, does that thing great young adult books do (and some other books, as well): all Bree’s emotions are incredibly real and raw. The grief over losing her mother, the giddy attraction to Nick, the anger and disgust in response to racism all jump out from the pages. In turn, this makes the relationships very compelling — whether it’s the romance or Bree’s friendship with Alice or the steadfast support of her father. Legendborn really fired on all emotional cylinders.

As discussed, the plot is also impactful with at least one jaw-dropping twist. Bree’s storyline is tight and easy to keep track of. Her antagonism with Sel, and the way that changes over the course of the novel, really adds depth to the action. However, the number of scions and squires and descendants of the knights of the round table get a little hard to track. Reliably remembering whether a specific page is on Bree’s side or against proved challenging, let alone accurately tracking who makes up each of the bonded pairs. It always becomes obvious who’s who fairly quickly, but apart from Greer few of the characters on this level stand out as particularly distinct, which did make the death scenes less emotionally-affecting than they could have been.

While it’s not a perfect book, I really enjoyed Legendborn and will definitely be adding the sequel to my TBR.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta — Reread Review

Cover: melinamarchetta.wordpress.com

On the Jellicoe Road was the first Melina Marchetta book I encountered, though not the first one I read. My Auntie Carol bought it for me on a trip to Australia before my first year of university, and I proceeded to leave it on a shelf until a different Australian friend bought me Saving Francesca and prompted me to revisit a book I hadn’t thought about in years.

I love reading about the kids in the eighties, even though I can’t make head or tail of the story. Hannah hasn’t structured it properly yet. I’ve got so used to reading it out of sequence but one day I’d like to put it in order without worrying that she’ll turn up and catch me with it.

On the Jellicoe Road, Melina Marchetta

On a first read, On the Jellicoe Road’s double narrative sweeps the reader along in exactly the same way Hannah’s manuscript carries Taylor. That it’s not immediately easy to make head or tail of the story doesn’t make the ride any less enjoyable. Even on a second read, it’s fun for the reader to piece together what they remember of the links between the two stories. It’s particularly rewarding to see the adults those kids in the eighties have become; Melina Marchetta gets to show off friendships that have actually lasted for decades, as well as ones which feel like they will.

Taylor Markham is as good an angsty teen girl protagonist as A Deadly Education’s Galadriel, and the cast of classmates and schoolmates that surround her are just as much of a found family, if not moreso. Like Galadriel, Taylor makes herself difficult to like at times, which only makes her character development more rewarding. Taylor’s relationship and love interest are a much more integral part of the story than Francesca’s were, which is why On the Jellicoe Road gets that extra half a star!

“Just say you get expelled?”
“Then so be it. I still would have driven for seven hours and ordered you hot chocolate and white toast and marmalade.”
“And you don’t call that romantic? God, you’ve got a lot to learn.”

On the Jellicoe Road, Melina Marchetta

On the Jellicoe Road has as much character development as any of Melina Marchetta’s other novels and, on top of that, it also has more plot than most of the other Young Adult titles. The ending is big and brilliant and memorable. Even reading the book for a third time drives the reader towards it with eager anticipation. It’s not quite fair to compare On the Jellicoe Road with Finnikin of the Rock, because both stories are doing very different things, while sharing many Melina Marchetta’s trademark positives.

As it turns out, my Auntie Carol has spot-on taste, because On the Jellicoe Road is my favourite of the Melina Marchetta books I’ve read.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta — Reread Review

Cover: bookshop.org

Looking back from a distance of years since I last read it, I think I expected Looking for Alibrandi to be similar to Melina Marchetta‘s other YA novel, Saving Francesca, and they certainly do have their similarities: they’re both about young Australian girls of around the same age, with a similar school experience, dealing with friends and family and boys. But the Australian family Josie lives in is very different from those depicted in Saving Francesca and The Piper’s Son.

He rode away as I yelled, “Try to wear a tie.” Somehow, whether he heard it or not, I knew he wouldn’t.

Looking for Alibrandi, Melina Marchetta

Josie’s Catholic Italian family are a lot stricter than the characters in Melina Marchetta’s other YA novels, and their origin story links much more heavily to Australia’s settler roots, which gives the novel a less modern feel. While never dipping directly into Nonna Katia’s perspective, Melina Marchatta does a good job painting the picture of what Australia was like for a newcomer two generations ago. The references to Josie’s grandfather cutting cane and the character of Marcus Sanford was strongly reminiscent of The Thorn Birds‘ Luke O’Neill.

We actually didn’t have our first conversation for a week. We just needed each other’s presence.

Looking for Alibrandi, Melina Marchetta

Despite Josie claiming friendship as one of the things life is all about, her friendships with girls her own age mostly aren’t as well-developed or as solid-feeling as in Saving Francesca and The Piper’s Son. Lee, Sera and Anna are all distinct characters, but Josie’s relationships with them are a little shallowly drawn. They provide conflict in the plot as much as they provide comfort, if not more so. Excitingly, Josie’s animosity with Ivy is given more growth towards the end of the novel.

Some of the events in Looking for Alibrandi are truly traumatic, and yet the feelings don’t hit quite hard enough, at least on a second read. The relationships between Josie, John and Jacob are all there and feel realistic, but perhaps none of them are given quite enough time to shine. The standout subplots are definitely the ones centred on Josie’s family, rather than her friends.

I enjoyed revisiting Looking for Alibrandi. Even if the emotions didn’t affect me as much this time around, I was able to appreciate the historical aspects of the story that I hadn’t considered before.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

This Lie Will Kill You by Chelsea Pitcher — New Review

Cover: bookshop.org

My cover of This Lie Will Kill You announces that its audience is ‘fans of One of Us Is Lying‘, which I’ve neither seen nor read. Despite that, I picked it up at my local tube station because the premise sounded interesting. Reading a mystery by a completely untried author is a different experience than with other genres. Whenever a clue is sufficiently noticeable, you have to ask yourself whether this is going to be a red herring or if the author just isn’t very good.

She’d lost herself, completely faded into nothing when Ruby’s father had disappeared, and while she’d been getting herself back day by day, she was a long way from solid.

This Lie Will Kill You, Chelsea Pitcher

Fortunately, Chelsea Pitcher proved not to be an author who’d drop clues too obviously and too early. Early indications did point in one particular direction, which was paid off around the midpoint of the book and, crucially, did not turn out to have given the ending away within five chapters. In addition to whatever similarities This Lie Will Kill You bears to One of Us Is Lying, there are also clearly inspirations from Agatha Christie. The structure is similar to And Then There Were None in that the reader is trying to work out which of the characters summoned to the location is involved in the plot, as well as the truth about all of their pasts.

Instead of (supposedly) rational adults, Chelsea Pitcher’s characters are teenagers, so of course the emotions are turned up to eleven, especially when romance is involved. Adult readers may not be convinced that a brief high school relationship amounts to soulmates meant to be together forever — but what matters is that it’s totally in character for Chelsea Pitcher’s teens to think so. The elegance and beauty of the prose helps to sell it without becoming distracting.

There had to be another way. But just as he closed his mouth, the lights started flickering, and it seemed like a sign. A warning of flickering to come. Of fire.

This Lie Will Kill You, Chelsea Pitcher

In some ways, the plot is similarly over-the-top and doesn’t entirely hold up to rational scrutiny, but then, high conceit mysteries don’t really play by the same rules as more realistic fare. It’s inherent in the subgenre that people are going to go to an awful lot more trouble than is really credible. As long as it holds together in universe, it’s still enjoyable reading. Where This Lie Will Kill You somewhat steps out of keeping is when it expects the reader to sympathise with the person putting this whole machination together. Given what ends up happening, the ending is just a little too light and hopeful to feel comfortable. (The ending would’ve hit harder if it had engaged with the darkness the way The Tulip Touch does.)

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Love and Other Four-letter Words by Carolyn Mackler — Reread Review

Cover: thestorygraph.com

I remembered liking Love and Other Four-letter Words as a teen, but didn’t recall any details of the plot. If I had, I might not have picked a story about a young person rocked by their parents separation so soon after reviewing The Suitcase Kid. While the circumstances are similar, Love and Other Four-letter Words is a more mature, more rounded story, as befits Carolyn Mackler writing for an older audience. That said, the themes of friendship (both old and new) certainly recalled Best Friend Next Door.

As we unlaced our sneakers and waded into Cayuga Lake, a motorboat whipped by, towing a small boy on an oversized yellow inner tube. The kid, both hands gripping the plastic handles, had a frantic expression on his face as his pleas to stop were swallowed by the rumble of the horsepower. The spotter was consumed with smearing on sunblock, the driver consumed with bikini-clad women capsizing a Sunfish. Which left the boy with two options: to catapult himself into murky waters, or to get dragged along, completely out of his control, until the powers-that-be decided to terminate his joyride. He chose the latter.

I kept revisiting that image over the next few weeks, as I watched my life being disassembled, one familiarity at a time.

Love and Other Four-letter Words, Carolyn Mackler

Sammie Davis was immediately sympathetic as a main character, her entire life changing around her and out of her control. Adult readers can see the places where she makes mistakes in how she handles things, but they are realistic errors given her age, and they build up to a satisfying emotional conclusion. Carolyn Mackler writes Sammie’s friends and family like real people, who all have their own lives going on, even when those lives aren’t particularly centred in the narrative.

The romance felt realistic, with all of that teenage held-breath excitement, without stealing focus from the rest of the story. There isn’t space for Sammie’s love interest to get a whole lot of personality, but he has enough for a book which is only about the very, very early stages of their relationship, and it’s nice that Sammie’s friendship with Phoebe gets more attention and feels like it has more of an impact on her life. Friendship is important and, as an author, Carolyn Mackler really seems to get that.

Love and Other Four-Letter Words is probably the reason I keep reading and rereading novels by Carolyn Mackler. None of the others quite live up to this level, yet, but I still have more to go so maybe I’ll discover another favourite.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Becoming Bindy Mackenzie by Jaclyn Moriarty — Reread Review

Cover: scholastic.co.uk

In Jaclyn Moriarty‘s Ashbury/Brookfield series, it’s quite a leap from Feeling Sorry for Celia to Finding Cassie Crazy in terms of the complexity of the plot and the depth of the characters. The jump from Finding Cassie Crazy to Becoming Bindy Mackenzie is bigger still. In the US, it was published as ‘The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie’, which gives you some idea of the dramatically higher stakes compared to the earlier books.

Unfortunately, it only partly works, at least for me as an adult reader. As far as I remember, when I read it closer to Bindy’s age, I really loved it, but at 34 the entire ‘murder’ plot feels unrealistic and also… uneccessary. There is more than enough going on in Becoming Bindy Mackenzie; the book doesn’t need a criminal gang of adults (who are, incidentally, almost as inept as the cast of teachers and parents).

I don’t know how I’m going to tell Dad. He will be so disappointed in me. I know it.
But he could not be as disappointed in me as I am in myself.

Becoming Bindy MacKenzie, Jaclyn Moriarty

What Jaclyn Moriarty does exceptionally well is Bindy’s character arc. Like Emma Woodhouse, Bindy starts the novel extremely unlikeable — in a peculiarly relatable way — but develops from there. Now that I no longer find these books as hysterical as I once did, the set-up section did feel a little long, but the look into Bindy’s history, and the way it explains why she is the way she is (without her first person narration ever being aware that’s what she’s doing) is really effective.

Emily Thompson may be many things, but, above all, she is loyal, determined and brave.
Imagine if she were my friend.

Becoming Bindy Mackenzie, Jaclyn Moriarty

As in the other two Jaclyn Moriarty books I’ve reviewed, all the other teenage characters are also well drawn, despite Bindy’s initial insistence on hating them all. Everyone (bar some of the adults) is a fundamentally good person, and that’s really nice. Reading about their developing friendships is the reason I sped through Becoming Bindy Mackenzie extremely fast, without even looking at the page numbers or realising when I was starting a new chapter.

Overall, I’d position Becoming Bindy Mackenzie as my second-favourite of the Ashbury/Brookfield series. There’s a lot to like, but the thriller plot doesn’t fully work for me.

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.