In Tandem Reads: THE NEW VOICES OF FANTASY edited by PETER S. BEAGLE & JACOB WEISMAN

SFF is ...changing. Long the bastion of men, especially white men, the genre's stories and boundaries are at last making room for a greater variety of voices and points of view. 2017 has been a particular great year for that in our corner of the woods with FIYAH Lit Magazine, showcasing African American SFF; Comic Con this summer celebrated more diverse characters in comic books and films, including a superb Muslim crimefighter; the Star Trek TV series franchise is being resurrected with black and Asian female crew members, as well as the usual undefined aliens; and of course, everyone is still vibrating over the Star Wars beloved General Leia and the new strong female leads in that world. All of this means that when we had the opportunity to read the New Voices in Fantasy Anthology, we both jumped at the chance.

New Voices is not a YA anthology, although there are contributors who write for YA and MG lit included, but we wanted to look it over anyway, because we strongly support diverse voices in science fiction and fantasy. So, without further ado:

Welcome to another edition of In Tandem, the read-and-review blog series where both A.F. and I give on-the-spot commentary as we read and blog a book together. (Feel free to guess which of us is the yellow owl and which of us is purple ...who's driving this bike??)
We are...
Two writers,
     & Two readers,
            Exploring one book...

In Tandem.

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What would you do if a tornado wanted you to be its Valentine? Or if a haunted spacesuit banged on your door? When is the ideal time to turn into a tiger? Would you post a supernatural portal on Craigslist? In these nineteen stories, the enfants terribles of fantasy have entered the building—in this case, a love-starved, ambulatory skyscraper. The New Voices of Fantasy tethers some of the fastest-rising talents of the last five years, including Sofia Samatar, Maria Dahvana Headley, Max Gladstone, Alyssa Wong, Usman T. Malik, Brooke Bolander, E. Lily Yu, Ben Loory, Ursula Vernon, and more. Their tales were hand-picked by the legendary Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn) and genre expert Jacob Weisman (The Treasury of the Fantastic). So go ahead, join the Communist revolution of the honeybees. The new kids got your back.

“This anthology represents some of the most exciting and interesting work in the fantasy field today, and anyone interested in the genre should read it immediately.” —Booklist ♦ “...a valuable snapshot of SF/F’s newest generation of writers.” —Publishers Weekly ♦ “A stellar anthology that proves not only that fantasy is alive and well, but that it will be for years to come.” —Kirkus

We received copies of this book courtesy of the publishing company, via NetGalley. You can find THE NEW VOICES OF FANTASY edited by Peter S. Beagle & Jacob Weisman at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you!
 

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tanita: I don't know why, but I love, love, love anthologies. Maybe it's the little snippets of someone's work, which gives me a jumping-off point to getting to know them as a writer. Maybe it's the reality that sometimes, I don't have mental bandwidth for a long novel, but there's always time for a story. Maybe it's just that I have attention deficits. I enjoy how some stories turn out to be favorites, and others, not so much, which is always my experience - which makes even reading something I'm not sure I like A Good Thing. You were remarking the other day how hard it is to read them sometimes, though. I agree... this was both fun, and really hard!

sarah: I guess any "new voices" type of thing is going to be highly varied. It's hard for me to do more than a few stories a day... Is it weird that I find short stories require more stamina in a way than novels?
tanita: No, no - not at all. I had to put this down and come back to it repeatedly. For me, the issue with anthologies, where there are rich, fully realized stories is that I can't change lanes that fast. The finned Chevy of my imagination is hurtling down the dark freeway, weird sights blurring as I fly by... and then the story ...ends. I have to find where the car went and turn it around before I can start something new.

The stories featured in this collection were were fully realized, fully populated little worlds we spent time in. Which one was your favorite? Or, which two, probably, that you're having a hard time picking between?
sarah: I have to admit, I'm kind of a sucker for selkie stories--for anything based on myth, really--and so I think my favorite of the bunch is Sofia Samatar's "Selkie Stories Are for Losers." It also is a YA-friendly story, and was nominated for several awards. It does such an amazing job of doing what myths do best--they teach us something about ourselves, show us what already exists in our all-too-human hearts that has existed through history and across time. In the same way, the selkie has both a literal and a metaphorical role in Samatar's story.
tanita: Funny - for the selfsame reason, I kind of hate selkie stories; I find them tragically sad, which is why I loved the Samatar's story -- because her character, too, came from a place of where the story of selkies and sentient sea creatures IS traditionally tragic, and so she decided to reject those stories, in a show of bravado, despite that story being HER story. Similar in themes of loss of wildness and freedom was the story of the anarchist bees - and well done to that person for being able to portray a hivemind in a story - and of course, the Jackalope Wives... I am SO here for any Vernon story, anytime. While I had read this particular story before (which kind of detracts from the "new" voices in the title), I'm glad to see her non-kid work find a larger audience.
sarah: I also liked Ursula Vernon's "Jackalope Wives"--not surprisingly. I'm already a fan of her work for young readers (e.g. the Dragonbreath graphic novels). 

Other stories I enjoyed were "Tornado's Siren" by Brooke Bolander for sheer uniqueness of concept; "Left the Century to Sit Unmoved" by Sarah Pinsker for being YA-friendly, very literary, and leaving the reader with intriguing questions; and "Here Be Dragons" by Chris Tarry for having an interesting new take on dragons and dragonslayers.
tanita: There were echoes, in "The One They Took Before," by Kelly Sandoval, of Seanan McGuire's EVERY HEART A DOORWAY trilogy that was really haunting, in combination with the weirdness of Craigslist. But, my favorite of the new-to-me pieces was Max Gladstone's "A Kiss With Teeth," which started off with me feeling pretty unsure of things... In a novel filled with pieces which will appeal to adults and teens alike, this is definitely an adult story. Parents looking back at their lives before becoming part of the Upright Citizens Brigade and remembering when once they were vampire and vampire hunter, when the night was filled with menace and promise and dangerous, obsessive romance... I adored it. I love that story because it's about maturing - and maturity is something you just don't read a whole lot about in speculative fiction, despite the thousand-year-lived vampires and the like that you get in urban fantasy. More often, you get the angst and drama of what happens when people live nearly forever and don't mature, but just... roll into later adulthood, still acting a fool. It was partly side-eyeing those types of stories, and partially celebrating settled, selfless, mature relationships. Which is super rare. Having read that, I'm very much open to finding Gladstone's other work for adults, in a way I wasn't prior to now (although, not going to lie - I have been struck by the wonderful representation on the covers of his books. I mean, look at this!).


sarah: Yes, I enjoyed the "but what happens AFTER?" approach of Gladstone's story--that was something I liked about "Here Be Dragons," too. There are so many tropes in fantasy, and that's not inherently bad, but fantastical creatures like dragons and vampires and werebeasts and whatnot have been done in the same way so many times (hence the trope, I suppose). Bringing a new approach to existing tropes is something that was well done in this anthology as a whole.

tanita: What else stood out to you about this collection in terms of theme or stylistic choices, or anything, really?
sarah: I wanted to just mention how much I enjoyed the variety and risk-taking in terms of form and storytelling approach--there were surprises at every turn, from unusual characters like bees, buildings, and ducks, to unique conceits of form like the how-to guide, Craigslist ad, and anthropological study. I really enjoyed "The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn" by Usman T. Malik for its sweeping, epic, multigenerational look at jinn mythology--great to see something that's not from the well-used Western mold. I'm already a fan of Rushdie, who similarly draws on the history and myth of the Indian Subcontinent, and I'm glad to see more writing in that vein.
tanita: Oh, yes! My main interest in choosing this anthology is that it is aimed at "new voices;" the overarching meaning, in this particular, is not solely stories I haven't yet read from "new" to the field authors, but additionally, nonwhite voices in fantasy, which brings that new vibe to the entire genre. Usman T. Malik allowed us to glimpse both old Lahore, new, busy Lahore, and the mental and physical and spiritual space in between, bridged by the character's life in the West. It was enchanting, in part because the story was about family stories, and how they stretch the truth and what we understand of truth through time. Wouldn't it be lovely, if an aging relative could remember themselves in another time, in their dementia -- and it would all be real? That... in a way would redeem old age and remakes it into something beautiful.

And, in a way, that's what the whole anthology does. Familiar bits of ephemera from our imaginations, from our urban myths and legends, from our cultures and our worlds have been transmuted into something both less familiar and more knowable, both more off-puttingly gross and horrible (and there are some prime bits of horror in this collection - eek), and more charmingly disturbing. This collection runs a good gamut. It's meaty stuff, and could easily be taken along to ease the pain of airports and train rides. It's absorbing and invites the reader to a feast of a thousand different senses. It's not our usual fare here at the Treehouse, but I'm glad we read it.

sarah: Me, too! It definitely fulfills our goal to read widely and diversely, something that we both try to do as much as possible--just not usually at the same time...  In this case, though, a tandem review seemed like a good way to survey the gamut of stories in the anthology--we each responded to different ones, and as a result, hopefully, we were able to do it justice as a collection...and tempt you into picking it up, perhaps.

Thanks for joining us on our latest tandem review journey!

Reading In Tandem: FRED KOREMATSU SPEAKS UP by LAURA ATKINS & STAN YOGI

Boy, talk about TIMING being EVERYthing. Heydey Books could have had no idea how vital and timely their new "Fighting for Justice" series could be, in view of ...well, basically everything lately.
With Sunday, Feb. 19, 2017 being the 75th anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066, which began Japanese Internment, with Google taking Fred Koramatsu Day as an opportunity to create a special Doodle just for him, and with threats active against Muslims, immigrants, refugees, women, people of color, and LGBT people, the scene couldn't have been better set to release this first book in the series about freedom fighters and speaking up - encouraging our younger generation to get in there as well.
Kirkus, in its starred review, says, “Atkins and Yogi raise good questions…that will inspire a new generation of activists. This first book in the Fighting for Justice series is a must-read for all civics classrooms.” Elizabeth Partridge, award-winning author of MARCHING FOR FREEDOM: WALK TOGETHER, CHILDREN, AND DON'T YOU GROW WEARY," simply called it, “Brilliant.” We found ourselves in the curious position of reviewing a MG social studies book/novel. Not our usual neighborhood, when our specialty is diverse YA fiction, but full disclosure, the author, Laura Atkins, is a friend, and we’re excited about her involvement in what we see as a really worthwhile project. So without further ado:
Welcome to another edition of In Tandem, the read-and-review blog series where both A.F. and I give on-the-spot commentary as we read and blog a book together. (Feel free to guess which of us is the yellow owl and which of us is purple ...we're not telling!)
We are...
Two writers,
     & Two readers,             Exploring one book...

In Tandem.

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Fred Korematsu liked listening to music on the radio, playing tennis, and hanging around with his friends—just like lots of other Americans. But everything changed when the United States went to war with Japan in 1941 and the government forced all people of Japanese ancestry to leave their homes on the West Coast and move to distant prison camps. This included Fred, whose parents had immigrated to the United States from Japan many years before. But Fred refused to go. He knew that what the government was doing was unfair. And when he got put in jail for resisting, he knew he couldn't give up.

Inspired by the award-winning book for adults Wherever There's a Fight, the Fighting for Justice series introduces young readers to real-life heroes and heroines of social progress. The story of Fred Korematsu's fight against discrimination explores the life of one courageous person who made the United States a fairer place for all Americans, and it encourages all of us to speak up for justice.

We received copies of this book courtesy of the publishing company. You can find FRED KORAMATSU SPEAKS UP by Laura Atkins & Stan Yogi at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you!

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tanita: Remember the hashtag on social media called #MGGetsReal? Its intention was to highlight some really great middle grade fiction but boy, do I think this one belongs on the list. So, Laura, why Fred Koramatsu? Why his story, out of the many stories of injustice?
Laura: Fred Korematsu’s story is important in many ways. He stood up during one of the worst civil liberties infringements in our nation’s history. It was a time of war and many people were afraid to speak up. He lost so much – his girlfriend, the support of his family and many in his community, and after his conviction, the ability to get certain kinds of work. It took enormous courage to continue to fight Japanese American incarceration, but he stood strong.
Fred didn’t start out meaning to be an activist, but he knew that was right. As my coauthor Stan Yogi says, Fred wasn’t a big man, or a tall man, or a loud man. But that didn’t stop him from having a powerful impact. He’s a hero and model of our time, and not enough people know about his story.
tanita: Truly - most of us, even those of us living in California - had still never heard of Fred Koramatsu, even though there's been Koramatsu Day since 2010!
sarah: So, technical question -- how did you get involved in this project? And, what was your process like, moving from editing to authoring? What were the new challenges and rewards of the journey, as contrasted with your recent picture book?

Laura: I feel incredibly lucky to have been brought into the series. The idea for it was hatched between Stan and the then-publisher at Heyday Books, Malcolm Margolin. Stan had co-written a book for adults called Wherever There’s a Fight, which gives a history of civil liberties fights in California. Malcolm and Stan felt that kids should also learn about people who have stood up for their rights, and they decided to do so through a series of biographies.
tanita: ::Makes note to check out Stan's other book::
Laura: I was brought in first as a developmental editor (I’ve spent over twenty years working in children’s book editorial jobs, at Children’s Book Press, Orchard Books and as an editor at Lee & Low, then freelance). Eventually, we decided that with my children’s book background, and Stan’s personal experience, writing background and social justice orientation (his parents were incarcerated in the prison camps, and he previously worked for the ACLU), we could create a fantastic book together.
In this case, we decided to follow a format that includes Fred’s biography in verse, written to engage readers directly and emotionally with his experiences. I took the lead on that section. And then we have insets which extend themes from Fred’s life, such as talking about discrimination, explaining historical events such as the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and giving more details about Fred’s legal battle, including the role of the Northern California branch of the ACLU. We were able to include lots of images, drawings, photos, and also definitions of key words, a timeline, and questions for kids to consider in their own lives. Stan took the lead on that section. And our editor, Molly Woodward, carried a huge part of the load as we had to pull everything together in a short period of time. Molly was a key person in bringing the book and the series to life.

It was a big challenge. Tons of information, research, and sending emails between all three of us. Sometimes it was hard to keep track. But I love that it was so collaborative, and with so many voices, including Stan’s, which comes from a first voice perspective. This was a story that spoke to his family’s experiences, his experiences, and which was personal. For me, I come from an activist background, and so it gave me a chance to talk to kids about the importance of their voices. They can speak up and make a difference, just like Fred.
tanita: Okay, and now I have to sneak in another technical book question in here as well. Speaking of research, many YA writers right now are petrified of historical fiction, because research can be a serious rabbit hole – and especially right now, we’re really big on authenticity in the YA community, so there's a ton of pressure to Get It Right. Can you describe your research process for this book? What was the most interesting discovery you made about Fred's story?
Laura: There was a lot of research here, but it was mostly fun! We were lucky that Lorraine Bannai has a book for adults about Fred Korematsu, Enduring Conviction. Lorraine was one of Fred’s lawyers when he challenged his conviction and she directs the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality and professor of legal skills at Seattle University School of Law. We also had fantastic reference sources such as the Densho archive, which exists to educate about Japanese American incarceration during WWII. Stan brought a lot of background from having written about Fred before. And we had the collaboration and input from Karen Korematsu, Fred’s daughter who also directs the Fred Korematsu Institute. There are also a couple of documentaries made about Fred’s life. Especially helpful was Of Civil Wrongs and Rights.
That said, there was still plenty of additional research to do, plus keeping track of dates, and figuring out which elements to choose to tell the story. I started out speaking to the fantastic Betsy Partridge to get her advice. She was one of my advisors when I did the MFA in Writing for Children at VCFA, and an incredible resource. She was the one who suggested we start with the story of Fred trying to get a haircut and being turned away for being Japanese American. She said that all kids would be able to relate to getting a haircut, so it could be an effective way to draw them into the story.
There were so many details to research, between his biography and the stories extended in the insets. One of my favorites is of the story of Ralph Lazo. He was a high school student in Los Angeles, of Mexican American and Irish ancestry. He had many friends who were Japanese American, and was so outraged by the mass incarceration that he went to live with his friends in the Manzanar prison camp. To me, this is an incredible example of someone standing in solidarity during a difficult time. I had never heard of Ralph Lazo before, and think this will be true for many people who encounter the book. I love that we can use this book, and the series, to focus not just on individuals, but many people who have been involved in speaking up for justice and equality. Activism requires many people speaking out and working together, as we can see today.
tanita: Ralph Lazo was hardcore. Now I have to go and research him - I imagine he must've been quite a guy, just living by his gut and by his principles. The book's little historical details are just what MAKES it for me - you can read it over again and find new details.
sarah: While this looks like a middle grade textbook, it has a lot of scope as a book to engage adults as well... but who’s the target audience for this series in particular?
Laura: We were thinking of a fourth grade audience since that is when young people study California history in this state. I think it works solidly up through the end of middle school, and maybe could work in a high school with people reading below age level. Really, it’s middle grade.
sarah: And, what, to you, is the single most important takeaway from Fred’s story?
Laura: We can look to Fred Korematsu’s story to see that any one of us can speak up and make a difference. Speaking up can mean protesting and speaking out publicly. It can also mean creating art, as many people did in the prison camps, and some of which we include in the book. People can sing, write, be allies to their friends. Any ordinary person can be part of changing the world and making it more equitable and fair for everyone.
tanita: And taking this to be a part of a social studies curricula in elementary school makes that idea accessible earlier. I like that.
So, what’s next for this series? Will you be involved, either as author or editor?
Laura: The next book will be about Biddy Mason, an enslaved woman who won her freedom through the courts in Los Angeles. She went on to save money she made as a midwife and doctor’s assistant, buy property, and become wealthy. She used her money to support the community, including helping to establish the first AME Church in Los Angeles and paying for groceries for people displaced by flooding.
Stan decided to step back after the first book. He’s got other books he wants to focus on and felt that his expertise was more directly related to the Fred Korematsu story. So with Heyday, we decided to have me go forward as project manager, and to find a different coauthor for each book whose lived experience connects to the story being told. I’ve been working with Arisa White, a queer Black woman poet in Oakland who has written for adults. We are honing the biography as we speak, and finding out ways to collaborate on the project. It’s challenging and also so exciting. The Biddy Mason book brings very different challenges from the Fred Korematsu one, and we are learning how to co-write as we go along. It feels so important right now to have first voice writing, and for publishers to be transparent about the process. I love that Heyday was open to taking this more risky and unknown path. And that we are exploring more collaborative ways to talk about our nation’s very troubled history, especially when it comes to telling stories, power and voice. More important now than ever. Watch this space…
tanita: WHOA. I can't even tell you how excited i am about Biddy Mason. I don't think I've ever read a book about her, but I'd heard tangentially of her in reference to her work with the AME. Wow, this is going to be so great! Laura, we're so glad you came to share your project with us, and that you're roaring forth after your MFA project with such power! You're doing amazing work.
sarah: This is fantastic, Laura! Thank you so much, and Happy Book Birthday!!

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Bay Area peeps might just catch up with Tanita and Laura at the free and open to the public Fighting For Justice FRED KORAMATSU SPEAKS UP book launch celebration on Sat, February 4, 2017 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM PST at J-Sei in Emeryville. Click to find out details, come buy a book, and talk to the authors!

Reading In Tandem: THE SEVENTH WISH, by KATE MESSNER

This has been the summer of the monkeybrain - too much going on, too much we wanted to do and we're not going to get it done, because it's nearing the end of August. ::sigh:: One thing we didn't want to miss was talking about Kate Messner's latest book, THE SEVENTH WISH. We became more aware of this book when Kate blogged mid-June about a librarian who loved it, but chose not to feature it in her school library.

Kirkus calls this book "Hopeful, empathetic, and unusually enlightening." Writer Anne Ursu's jacket blurb calls THE SEVENTH WISH "An empathetic, beautiful, magical fiercely necessary book that stares unflinchingly at the the very real challenges contemporary kids face and gently assures them they are not alone. Kate Messner gives her readers a story to cherish.” We read this book together, mainly out of curiosity, but found a deeper well than expected, and we're glad we did. Just be warned, there are a few slightly spoiler-y comments herein, nothing huge, and nothing that would detract from you actually reading the book, but just be warned.

Welcome to another edition of In Tandem, the read-and-review blog series where both A.F. and I give on-the-spot commentary as we read and blog a book together. (Feel free to guess which of us is the yellow owl and which of us is purple ...we're not telling!)

We are...

Two writers,

     & Two readers,

            Exploring one book...

In Tandem.

---

Charlie feels like she's always coming in last. From her Mom's new job to her sister's life at college, everything seems more important than Charlie. Then one day while ice fishing, Charlie makes a discovery that will change everything . . . in the form of a floppy fish offering to grant a wish in exchange for freedom. Charlie can't believe her luck but soon realizes that this fish has a very odd way of granting wishes as even her best intentions go awry. But when her family faces a challenge bigger than any they've ever experienced, Charlie wonders if some things might be too important to risk on a wish fish.

We received copies of this book courtesy of our local library and bookstore. You can find THE SEVENTH WISH by Kate Messner at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you!

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tanita: So, we picked up this book out of basic curiosity. There's a hashtag on social media right now #MGGetsReal which is highlighting some really great middle grade fiction just now, and I'm happy to say I think we can add this to the list.

Were we to try and list seven things we liked about this book, for me, the first one would be -- outside of the adorable cover, which Kate Messner probably had no control over -- the first thing that stood out is that it's so normal. I remember ordering this awhile back, and then I forgot the plot, so I'm zipping along, reading, and this girl's an Irish dancer, this girl's an ice fisher, and then - boom! - page 22. I thought, "Oooh!" One of the hallmarks of good speculative fiction is that it sneaks up on you. It sneaks in the magical right in the midst of the -- equally awesome (because what else is clogging if not AMAZING -- but also humanly mundane. I must remember that as a writing skill.

sarah: Yes! I'd forgotten too, and I enjoyed the sudden surprise, in the middle of a normal-seeming story. Relatively normal, that is--to me, a dyed-in-the-wool California girl, all the ice fishing and snow stuff was completely foreign to me. "What is this frozen water you speak of?" So I enjoyed the glimpse into a more northerly lifestyle, and I loved it that Charlie went ice fishing with her friend/neighbor kid Drew--and I loved it that Drew, too, had his own sort of finding-himself struggles throughout the book that echoed a more traditional middle-grade plotline.

tanita: Hah, yeah - I'll not be ice fishing anytime soon. The second thing that stood out to me was that one of the characters wrote an app - just a junior high girl, writing apps and things. As one does when one is messing around with phones and things and is cool and smart. And I thought, "Yes, please; more girls like this!" Mind you, I agree with Charlie: that's a language I don't quite speak, but it was so cool to see it presented.

sarah:That was so fun! And she was in a coding CLUB! And it also wasn't a big deal. Dasha could be a dancer, and a coder, and a second-language student all at the same time--talk about a fleshed-out side character. :)

tanita: There was a quote in a recent New Yorker essay I loved - Kathryn Schulz writing about the Underground Railroad, and how we tend to insert ourselves into history and think we would have done better with issues like slavery. Schulz says, "Lived reality is always a muddle." I thought of that, when on page 84 I read Charlie's musings on a book: "Our class had a whole discussion about what we would have done differently if we were the characters, and we were all kinds of smug about it. We would have wished so much smarter than those dumb story-people." Oh, yeah. We're ALL better on paper.

sarah: YES. I thought this was a very relatable moment, and comes back to the sort of teaching (aka moralistic) element of fairy tales and stories with wishes where the wish comes back to bite you. And of course it's foreshadowing, too, which is always a thing we like.

tanita: HUGE foreshadowing, if only I'd known it.

So, now we come to the adult themes which caused this librarian some concern. The first mention is alcoholism, at the halfway point of the book. It's already established that the people to whom and with whom Charlie is conversing are normal, good people who the reader can trust, and so there is surprise, when we hear the name of the sickness -- and then, compassion. And then immediate talk of dealing with it: "I was still sad, and I made space for that sadness, but I didn't invite it in to take over the house, you know?" - p.96

sarah: I thought that was so well done. I loved Nana McNeill. She kind of fills the role of Wise Elder Dispensing Advice, but as often happens in real life, she is a Wise Elder Not of One's Own Immediate Family, which makes the advice easier to take. I am of the firm opinion that every kid needs at least one of those. And Nana offers WISDOM, but not necessarily easy solutions. In fact, at almost every turn she reminds Charlie that with some things, there is no easy way around--unless you want to fall through the ice.

tanita: Truly, there's "nothing to it, but to go through it." Nana McNeill kind of ...embodies that. And at times, the going through it thing is exquisitely rough. Another thing I loved about this book was the emotional resonance. I was just feeling with Charlie. p - 142 "Hi Carolyn," everyone says, as if they're meeting her at a bake sale and not in a room full of liars who ruin everything for their families. And that is about all of the fakeness I can take." The feels are REAL right here.

Having loved people with addictions for much of my life, I'm not always sure that the "once an addict, always an addict"/disease model of addiction thing is true for everyone - and it's kind of a tough concept to introduce to a tween, to think that this... thing will always be there, that it's something going on the permanent record, as it were - but in another way, it's merciful to present it in this way, especially because an addiction is an insidious boomerang that returns sometimes again and again and again. And as much as we'd like to say, "Yup, that was a bad time, but that's OVER, no more, good riddance," hello, nope. Nope. SO... yeah. This wasn't actually a question of being a bad thing to me, more of being a tough thing.

sarah: I... also have a lot of thoughts about addiction and treatment, and very mixed feelings about 12-step programs (controversy: this much-debated Atlantic article, and this not-quite-rebuttal from Scientific American - just a few recent examples of the discussion). I appreciated very much that this book did not pass overt judgment, but simply presented Abby's addiction treatment as is -- Charlie voices questions and doubts, and they are valuable ones that show the reader that these types of treatments aren't perfect but in many cases, this is what people have to work with. And maybe will inspire young readers, when they get older, to try to think about what WOULD work better and keep us all working towards better solutions. Because, like you said, addiction can and sometimes does return again and again, and it changes loved ones into these desperate strangers, people who can steal from their own relatives (as in this story) or beg their own grown children for drug money (happened to a friend of ours).

tanita: All good points -- no judgment, this just IS. If we can't get over the taboo, the talking and thinking about this that innovators and pioneering young folk need to do to make changes to a system they're going to have to live with won't happen - that's really true.

Another thing I liked about this book was that "I'm sorry" was not AN ANSWER - to anything. It was something said, repeatedly, but... it wasn't all roses and unicorns afterward, and All Was Solved, The End. That is so deeply, deeply important to kids -- for anybody, really -- to know it's okay for "sorry" to not be enough. It's a kind of simplistic belief we foist off on kids, "Say you're sorry!" as if that makes it all right. For a person to know that they don't have to forgive-and-forget in a no-breaths-in-between rush, that they can just... hear the words, sit with them, and know that's forgiveness might be one of the things that they're going to have to get serenity for, because another person's actions are one of the things you can't change - that's so valuable. It's good to allow a kid (or anyone) the freedom to let time do what it does, to give you perspective, etc.

sarah: Yes. It was just so awful to kind of KNOW that wallet theft, that abandonment at the feis, was going to occur, seeing it coming and not being able to stop it. And to be Charlie, wondering if you can find the strength to forgive yet again, or if this is the last straw, something unforgivable. For kids to know that it is OKAY to feel like you just can't forgive and forget, that those feelings are legitimate. That was a recurring theme in this book that I really appreciated -- the fact that so often, kids feel as if their own needs and wishes are less important than those around them -- and sometimes that feeling is TRUE; sometimes kids and their needs are forced to take a backseat, fairly or unfairly. Whether it's due to overwhelming factors like a sibling with an addiction problem, or something more commonplace like a divorce, most if not all kids will be able to relate to that sense of powerlessness.

tanita:(Oh, crud. I have totally lost track of numbers. I like more than seven things about this book - let's just leave it at that, yes? Yes.) I agree - there's another recurring theme that whatever actions don't always equal wanted results. Charlie realizes, remembering the DARE activity, where she signed a car, that "wishing doesn't make it so," in a really real way. "You know the thing about magic, Charlie? We can wish on clovers and shooting stars and ice flowers all we want. But in the end, the only real magic is what's inside us, and the people we love." p.210 And again -- "That's what you don't understand when you take the Sharpie in hand... that addiction is a real thing that can happen. That good people make awful mistakes, and the whole name-signing-on-the car is just some goofy gimmick that gets you out of math class for the afternoon. It doesn't keep terrible things from happening." - Oof.

Which brings me back to the blog post where Kate Messner wrote about the librarian feeling like this book was TOO MUCH for a school library -- I thought it was really thoughtful of her to go deeper and post ongoing discussions with other librarians about how they manage at their schools, and how they're finding solutions to difficult topics. I'll be honest - on the jacket flap this book says it's for ages 9 and up. I am the major book-buyer for my seven-and-nine year old nephews, and I look Elf, the older one, and say, "Nope. Even if he is nine." Because he's just SO young of a nine. THAT BEING SAID: I wouldn't object to having him read this in a classroom, as part of a guided experience. Honestly, if he picked this book up alone and read through it, I would be expecting him to talk about it with someone, and I would hope the adults in his life would be available for that... so though I'm going to hold onto my copy for him for another few months, maybe, I couldn't imagine not having it in a classroom as an option. Not being anyone's mother, and not being in charge of young hearts/minds anymore in a classroom setting, I guess I can be distanced from the issue, but... that's how I feel this minute: isn't it our job as an adult to bring before kids heavy issues to think and discuss about before they get IRL exposure to them?

sarah: I am glad we got to discuss this book. And, I agree with what you said: isn't the purpose of great kids/MG/YA books, in part, to help bring up difficult or painful themes in a safe space? (Of course, part of the problem is that people don't agree on what a "safe space" IS -- to me, it doesn't mean a space where you're safe FROM hearing difficult things or criticism; it's a space where it's safe TO air difficult subjects or criticism...

tanita: ...but, everyone's mileage may vary.

sarah: Right. < / end rant> So, for readers who dare, this is an excellent, amazing book, definitely deserving of the hashtag of #MGGetsReal, and I'm glad we read it.

tanita: Me, too. Until next time we read - happy Thursday, everyone. And remember: when you wish upon a fish your dreams come true. Thank you, Kate Messner, for fulfilling a wish we didn't know we had.

Reading In Tandem: THIS IS THE STORY OF YOU, by BETH KEPHART

It's July 4th! Maybe by now you're tired of sunshine, patriotic colors, smoke from the bbq or your neighbors, relatives, and friends, and would prefer to get back to your usual semi-monastic existence of reading and not speaking to people. At Wonderland, we are HERE for you.

Welcome to another edition of In Tandem, the read-and-review blog series where both A.F. and I give on-the-spot commentary as we read and blog a book together. (Feel free to guess which of us is the yellow owl and which of us is purple ...we're not telling!)

The School Library Journal says Beth Kephart's latest novel is a "beautifully written book [which] works on many levels and is rich in its characterization, emotion, language, and hint of mystery." Kirkus muses that it is "A masterful exploration of nature’s power to shake human foundations, literal and figurative." With plenty of stars and lots of kudos, Beth Kephart's books are well received by the literary community. However, as Tanita had never before read a Kephart novel (her primary preference for YA speculative fiction with ethnic/culturally diverse characters has caused her to miss Kephart's YA), it seemed a prime opportunity for an introduction. We read this book together, because too often blogging critique miss nuance and depth that we could gain from each other when discussing literature. As we explore Kephart's famously lyrical style, you're welcome to join our discussion. We are...

Two writers,
     & Two readers,
            Exploring one book...

In Tandem.

On Haven, a six-mile long, half-mile-wide stretch of barrier island, Mira Banul and her Year-Rounder friends have proudly risen to every challenge. But when a superstorm defies all predictions and devastates the island, when it strands Mira’s mother and brother on the mainland and upends all logic, nothing will ever be as it was. A stranger appears in the wreck of Mira’s home. A friend obsessed with vanishing is gone. As the mysteries deepen, Mira must find the strength to carry on—to somehow hold her memories in place while learning to trust a radically reinvented future.

Gripping and poetic, This Is the Story of You is about the beauty of nature and the power of family, about finding hope in the wake of tragedy and recovery in the face of overwhelming loss.

---

We found copies of this book courtesy of the public library, and our personal bought-it-myself libraries. You can find THIS IS THE STORY OF YOU by Beth Kephart at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you!

AF: Like our own Sara (Author Sara Lewis Holmes, peerless poet and member of our writing group), Beth Kephart has a wonderful, lyrical way with words that transforms even the most everyday of situations into something mystical--even a sleepy island beach town in the off-season is a place of tiny magics. Friend magic, family magic, and a life that is somehow everything a person needs, even with its downsides: absent fathers, a brother with an incurable genetic disorder, a high school class that consists of the same 14 people you've known forever.

tanita: Having gone to a very small school for ten years with the same people, all that time, I could imagine this little town of Haven... and Kephart does make it sound nice. Safe. Familiar. Unchanging, unchallenging. Like, a good place to... start a heroine's journey. You know when we talked about the "I Wish" song which shows up in so many Disney films, where is really the moment wherein you find what the character wants most? It's a little weird that... we kind of hit the beginning of the book, and I don't know what this character wants.

AF: Something interesting that struck me when reading the beginning of this story: we don't find out our narrator Mira's name until a few chapters in. It gives the reader an impression of "WE-ness" if that makes sense, emphasizing the importance of the community identity, the year-round islanders who are bound together by that identity. It makes the surprise of a brand-new person even more startling: the boy Shift, who shows up in Mira's class one day and captures the heart of her friend Eva.

tanita: Yeah, it's all totally "eddieandbill" and " bettyandisbel" before then, just a recitation of the known, and then suddenly... Shift. Last name? First name? Kingdom? Phylum? What? Maybe that's why Mira is so hard to figure; she's an "us," a "we," and not a "me." But then, suddenly... a name. Shift. And, boom, just like that: the careful lines of the set scene are messed up, the gun is lifted, and it'll go off any second.

It interested me that this novel is described as a mystery. I guess a disaster story is kind of a mystery, because the first thing people ask is, "What happened!?" But, it seemed more obvious here, first -- we know. There's foreshadowing, the whole story through: the teachers who give their students these open-ended assignments called "flows." The science course that's all about conservation, and what is leaving, what is already lost and gone. The jars and jars of ...sand, an element which metaphorically is always slipping away through hourglasses. Oh, and don't forget the cryptic utterances by wise old Shift, mysteriously dark-complected with light hair, in the way that so many mysterious peoples have (he could have had eerily light eyes, that would also have fit the mold). In many ways, this novel seemed more like... a play we already know. A series of scenes acted out with not-quite-real characters, standing in for metaphors.

AF: Yes. This story almost had the feel of magical realism, even though there wasn't anything specifically magical about it--it was more in the way the narrator looks at her life and the way she describes it. Like you said, the not-quite-real characters--they feel like archetypes, almost. Old Carmen, Deni, Eva. Their classmates, who are kind of a collective entity even with their small distinguishing features. The people who make Mira who she is as an individual, who lend her specificity--her mother Mickey, her brother Jasper Lee--are out of the picture for most of the story, though not out of her thoughts.

tanita: Archetypes, stock characters, and a lot of reverie... all of this truly gives the book an almost "Our Town" kind of feel... we're all standing next to the Stage Hand and Mira, watching the story play out, somewhat distantly. I'm intrigued by this. I find that I need to read a few more Kepharts and see if this is a common device of hers, or if she writes fiction which is more immediately accessible. Not that this is inaccessible but that distance... it puts quite a spin on the whole novel, and in a way, its mysterious, enigmatic tone could be a little limiting to some readers... Limiting, and yet, I'm not sure we should be looking for the "perfect" book anyway. Sometimes, you read the story and it percolates further in your brain because something about it leaves you... unfinished. Not as close as you wanted. Maybe this makes it "Literature."

AF: Hm. In the end I was left with so many questions, even though the final reveal dealt with a lot of the small mysteries that were raised throughout the story. I wanted more: and yet, real life doesn't always solve our mysteries for us, either. Things are left unknown, never-to-be-known, all the time. Life can be profoundly unsatisfactory in that way. We might find out the who, as in this story, but the how and the why are still up in the air. The puzzle might never be entirely put together; you might always be missing that one piece of the sky.

tanita: And on that deeply unsettling note, we conclude today's In Tandem. This was a really beautiful book, based loosely on the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, a deeply unsettling event which irrevocably changed the coastlines and the lives of many on the Atlantic side of the country in 2012. With a certain stillness and fine nuance in the narrative, this book will best be appreciated by readers of poetry and plays, or those who have experienced something so big - like a natural disaster - that it's hard to articulate it.

Stay tuned for our next encounter with literature. Until then, have a splendid day doing exactly what makes you feel safest and happiest.

---

According to Wikipedia, Beth Kephart is an American author of non-fiction, poetry and young adult fiction for adults and teens. Kephart has written and published over ten books and has received several grants and awards for her writing. She is primarily known in adult fiction as a memoirist, and teaches workshops and classes for other adults - and teens - to learn to write non-fiction creatively. Kephart has created a detailed teacher's guide to go along with this book.

Reading In Tandem: A.S. King's I CRAWL THROUGH IT

Welcome to another edition of In Tandem, the read-and-review blog series where both A.F. and I give on-the-spot commentary as we read and blog a book together. (You can feel free to guess which of us is the yellow owl and which of us is purple ...we're not telling!)

We were excited when our blog buddy, Melissa @The Book Nut, volunteered to head up the team to organize the Kansas City KidlitCon for this autumn. She's interested in local authors, and capably got on the ball to secure A.S. King as one of our keynote speakers as soon as possible. Since through the years we've been working our way through various A.S. King books, including THE DUST OF 100 DOGS, PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ, and most recently, GLORY O'BRIEN'S HISTORY OF THE FUTURE, we thought we'd grab a new one, in celebration of A.S. King being our keynote. We'd heard a lot about this book. I CRAWL THROUGH IT has been described as one of the author's more "surrealistic" landscapes.

Two writers,
& Two readers,
With one book.

In Tandem.

Four talented teenagers are traumatized-coping with grief, surviving trauma, facing the anxiety of standardized tests and the neglect of self-absorbed adults—and they'll do anything to escape the pressure. They'll even build an invisible helicopter, to fly far away to a place where everyone will understand them... until they learn the only way to escape reality is to fly right into it.

We read library copies of this book in the treehouse. You can find I CRAWL THROUGH IT by A.S. King at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you.

---

tanita: Welcome to another edition of Tandem Reads! Our last Tandem was, uh...June of last year, where we reviewed a Stephanie Kuehn scary book. Our irregular little series is a lot of fun for us, despite the fact that we don't seem to do it too often. Today, spoilers kind of abound -- in an oblique way - for this book, so be forewarned: it was just hard to discuss without getting a bit specific, but we hope it's not too much. You'll certainly still need to read the book. Well, okay then! Let's just jump in - a very offbeat novel with a beginning that required ... a little concentration to figure out what was going on.

Aquafortis: This book actually took me a long time to get into--I'd say about a quarter of the way into the book before I really felt connected to the characters and what was happening...or not happening. I think the trouble for me was that there was not as much in the way of action in the first part, and more character development. And because the characters were so enigmatic and their world so strange, I was never entirely sure WHAT was happening. I have had trouble in the past connecting to magical realism, so it could well just be me...maybe that's part of it.

tanita: ... you are not alone. I feel you on the novel's beginning. I kept thinking, Okay, the helicopter: is this an existent thing, or a non-existent thing?? Only on Tuesdays? WHAT!?
I expected to flail in this novel - and possibly fail and drown - but because of more recent of King's works, I didn't expect it to go too badly. I mean, I struggle with magical realism, period. I remember reading The Dust of 100 Dogs, my first of A.S. King's novel for YA, and not knowing if I'd properly followed the narrative. I jumped in and was like, "Wait, Pirates??? Wha??? DOGS!?" It was... kind of a shock! And yet: there's an entertainment factor in just letting go and letting her tell the story. Kind of like letting a child sweep you into their narrative where there are some inconsistencies, but it's not your job to point them out or to define reality for that kid. (NOT that I think A.S. King writes at all childishly. Just a par example.)

Aquafortis: Yes, the helicopter was a snag for me. I kept going back and forth, thinking, it is REAL--no, wait--it's not real--it's invisible--no it isn't... I might just be one of those people who isn't comfortable with not knowing. (And you might already know this about me...) I still don't know what the heck the Place of Arrivals was, though. I guess my problem there is literalness, and the desire to try to interpret things in light of the real world. It's hard for me to take this kind of thing at face value, because my tendency is to analyze and assign meaning...

I did notice something interesting, which is that the parts of the book that seemed...REAL...were heightened for me. The closer we get to the end, the more of these flashes of reality there were, and so I connected with the story more as it progressed. I started to feel for the characters more when they seemed to be doing real things in the real world, after spending so long in a place of randomness and imagination, a place of questionable believability.

tanita: I believe that maybe The Place of Arrivals... doesn't matter. I mean, it's not a place you have to go by helicopter, but it's more the place where the characters, uh, arrived? It was Away. They wanted to go Away, and they did. And, as often happens when you go Away and don't have a serious plan about it -- but you carry some stuff on you, and you're vulnerable and a teen, someone can take your crap. You have to hide it. You have to pretend. And, maybe they met some artists. Maybe those artists were... not as cool a commune/collective place as they had once been, and it had become scary. Maybe a real adult woman - fearing for their safety - thought, "to heck with this, they need to go home and I'm taking them." Or, maybe the adults were incidental and imaginary. SO hard to tell. And, at the end of the day, it's not the adults' story, really.

Aquafortis: It reminds me of the "other minds" problem--how do we ever truly know ANYONE is really there or if they're figments of our imagination? And on some level, everything IS filtered through our own minds, and so the story at hand at any given moment IS what is real for the person telling it.

tanita: That sounds both wonderful... and terrible. Kind of life life...

Aquafortis: In the end, bizarrely enough, the character who seemed to exist most in the real world for me was China's dominatrix mother--also the news reporters, who seem to kind of come from some "outside world" and serve to remind us of what appears to be people's interior, imaginative lives spilling out all over the place.

tanita: The character with whom I connected all along was China Knowles. Poetry... it's supposed to be ineffable anyway, so the sort of cryptic, disconnected characterization from the others allowed me to sort of snag onto her earlier. I also felt like the Unspeakable Thing made her cryptic nature make sense: SOMETHING happened with Irenic (& wth kind of name is that, anyway? she should have mocked him in her mind for it) Brown, and it was A Thing that could not be spoken of: again, making China's obliqueness easier to take. (and I agree about her mother -- the swirling sense of shame in China that her mother and father have alternative lifestyles coupled with their horror to find out that ... they thought they were doing Parenting okay, and that pain and shame had snuck in on their watch.)

Aquafortis: I liked her too. Not only because China is the writer, the observer, but her way of dealing with her past traumas felt more familiar, I suppose. Not in a literal sense, but swallowing one's self in order to not-think about certain things, in order to keep the world at bay--I think most of us know how that feels. And so China, and the things that happened to her, felt more real to me.

tanita: The one I couldn't deal with was Lying Lansdale. I just... argh. Her character by turns scared and worried me. The Man Behind the Bush - forces her to take a kiss and a letter. What was that!? I was ...upset. The question seems to swirl around - including with China - is she trampy, or is she in trouble? Hard to tell. (Also, the letters...? I want to assign meaning to those, but...)

Aquafortis: I know!! Lansdale. She was the character I understood the least, felt most distant from--maybe she was less developed as a character, or maybe I simply wasn't clear on what was driving her. I just kind of wanted...more...something. I wanted to know her more, but she seemed like, at most, a side player in the lives of Stanzi and China. And yet she's also the one who connects most directly with the "outside world" in a way, with the news man. I'm not sure what it all means.

And yes, the letters! I kept wondering, if I go back through the book and write down all the letters that the Bush Man gave them, would it spell out a secret message? But I was too lazy.

tanita: HAHAHA! Talk about assigning meaning. I think it would spell the same gibberish Stanzi wrote on her test papers...

I want to talk about the student test thing. ALL OF THIS is supposed to have taken place because of test stress. I just didn't relate to that. I went to a ridiculously laid back little school - which was private, yes, but which never put undue stress on those tests because, well, we weren't expected to go to any college but a private Christian liberal arts college or somewhere else private and small, and most of those are ... easier to get into, if you cough out a wad of change. So, I didn't get test pressure in the same way that kids who are a.) super smart like you or b.) who went to big state schools like you did/do. So, tell me how realistic the school pressure thing felt to you?

Author photo courtesy of the author's website.

Aquafortis: can't help but say obviously there IS something to the idea of test stress. And it's something you and I did not have to deal with because we did not go to school in the No Child Left Behind days. So I'm hesitant to look to my own personal experiences for insight--also because I was one of the weirdos who kind of liked taking tests because I was generally good at it.

In thinking about this, though, I remembered that my AP/IB Biology teacher my senior year showed us a video about Harvard Med School and how kids were constantly under pressure and committing suicide from stress and so forth. And, in looking back, I feel like I had a lot of teachers like Mr. Carroll who really cared about their students and about the learning experience.

...but this is all simply to say that my experience may not shed much light on the pressure felt by the kids in the book. I actually wanted that aspect of the story to be explored more--I wanted to SEE why it was a thing, who was exerting the pressure and why exactly, because it can be something that is extremely politicized...and yet it is not universal to feel this sort of pressure--I would venture to say that's true even now with tests taking a much larger role.

tanita: Okay. So, in the end, I CRAWL THROUGH IT was weirdly enjoyable, but my enjoyment isn't the question, really: I wondered how and if Actual Teens (TM) would relate. Teen Me... aka "Me From the Past" would have been confused by this, but would probably have stuck with it because a.) A.S. King a "cool kids" author, b.) I personally enjoyed reading things no one else had read, in hopes it was obscure enough to make ME cool.

Aquafortis: I'm honestly not sure what Teen Me would have done with this one. I was decidedly less interested in literary fiction, but...maybe, depending on who handed it to me, or if I'd already read/enjoyed her other work. I CAN think of teens who would, though, connect with it. And maybe there is something generational, something having to do with living in a world of school shootings and test pressure that makes the old fears, like an eccentric naked man behind a bush, seem familiar and old hat and even comforting in a way. Maybe when the world seems to make less and less sense, a story in which reality is amorphous is just...the way things are.

Conclusion: A challenging, plot, a surrealist narrative, filled with relatable yet deeply quirky people whose choices - or lack of them - will leave you thoughtful or provoked. Disturbing, enigmatic, ambiguous - this has all the earmarks of a good Tandem Read. Thanks for joining us as we reviewed this notable and memorable book from A.S. King.

IN TANDEM: DELICATE MONSTERS by STEPHANIE KUEHN

Happy Friday!
Welcome to another edition of In Tandem, the dual read-and-review blog series where both A.F. and I give our on-the-spot commentary as we read and team blog a book. (You can feel free to guess which of us is the yellow owl and which of us is the pinkish-purply owl...frankly, it depends on the day of the week!)

This week's book has been described as a "disturbing and engrossing" psychological thriller, and Kirkus says it's about "reckless redemption" and not for the faint of heart. To read a Kuehn book is to delve into the bits of humanity that you might not yet have a name for, to be profoundly uncomfortable with your thoughts, and to realize that the species as a whole has more in common with a rabid pack of hyenas than you'd prefer to believe. In the name of full disclosure, we enjoyed meeting the author in person last autumn at KidlitCon over dinner, and were glad for the chance to team read this novel.

NB: Here There Be Dragons. This is as close to a "reader advisory" as we get. This novel contains some disturbing ambiguous scenes of abuse, violence, partying, sexual activity and disturbing depictions of mental illness. Older teens and those who enjoy digging into the twists of our psyche will be just fine. *dusts off hands* Now! We're going to talk about this book - sans spoilers - and we hope you'll join us. We're...

 
Two writers,
& Two readers,
With one book.

In Tandem.

When nearly killing a classmate gets seventeen-year-old Sadie Su kicked out of her third boarding school in four years, she returns to her family's California vineyard estate. Here, she's meant to stay out of trouble. Here, she's meant to do a lot of things. But it's hard. She's bored. And when Sadie's bored, the only thing she likes is trouble.

Emerson Tate's a poor boy living in a rich town, with his widowed mother and strange, haunted little brother. All he wants his senior year is to play basketball and make something happen with the girl of his dreams. That's why Emerson's not happy Sadie's back. An old childhood friend, she knows his worst secrets. The things he longs to forget. The things she won't ever let him.

Haunted is a good word for fifteen-year-old Miles Tate. Miles can see the future, after all. And he knows his vision of tragic violence at his school will come true, because his visions always do. That's what he tells the new girl in town. The one who listens to him. The one who recognizes the darkness in his past.

But can Miles stop the violence? Or has the future already been written? Maybe tragedy is his destiny. Maybe it's all of theirs.

---

We received copies of this book courtesy of St. Martin's Griffin Press for our tandem review. You can find DELICATE MONSTERS by Stephanie Kuehn at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you.

tanita: Wow, well, I started this novel Tuesday night at bedtime, and when I realized what a mistake that was I stopped -- took a deep breath, and ...finished the last ten pages Wednesday morning. I read most of this book in one setting, not because I couldn't put it down in the way that warmly memorable characters or snappy dialog or whatnot pulls you along, but because I kind of couldn't believe the stuff that was happening... I kept saying, "No, seriously!?" The things that were happening to the characters throughout the narrative kept me reading.

Sarah (aquafortis): I agree with that assessment entirely--it was very hard to put down, in a kind of train-wreck way. Each of these characters is battling their own private slide downward into morally dangerous territory. Battling their own worst selves, and often ignoring the better angels of their nature. It was both difficult to read and difficult to set aside.

When I think about character likeability, I first think about the book THAW, by Monica Roe which was a Cybils finalist some years back in YA Fiction, where I just could not like the character but he redeemed himself through personal growth. I feel like I have levels of not-liking which are sort of like those stupid survey choices:

• I would actively hang out with this person and could see them being a good friend!
• I would probably like this person
• I would be okay with this person, but I'd probably never hang out with them
• I would actively dislike this person
• Person is a sociopath

The main characters in this book are somewhere between active dislike and sociopath for me. What I found myself wanting more of as I read was what made them this way in terms of background, environment, childhood...and yet it was clear that I wouldn't be able to know that kind of thing until the author revealed it, because it would tip her hand, maybe.

tanita: As I read this book, I kept a few notes. Ten chapters in, I wrote, I can see the rough shape of a tragedy forming -- and boy, could I.

As I read, I also thought about things like "likeability" in characters. The characters in this book make me feel by turns discomfort and active dislike. No one feels... safe, or truly friendly. Which I noted as an interesting observation, followed by... What do I need from characters in books I read? For them to be my temporary friends? Not... really. Do I need for them to allow me to accompany them on a journey as they grow/change? Not always, but more of that, I think. So, then, I asked myself, Do we get what we need from the characters in this book? Do I see potential in the characters for growth or change? Do I want to go with them on this journey? No. Yes. Maybe.

Which, for me, is what makes Kuehn's books masterfully frightening. Because I'm being dragged on this trip regardless, and I don't sometimes understand why, or where we're going, and I'm absolutely positive that I won't know where I am when we get there, or like what I see. For some people, this kind of book is utterly, appallingly addictive. You just have to know what happens next...


AF: Her writing consistently astonishes me.

tanita: Oh, yeah. Such beautiful writing - really confident, clear writing. The sort of writing that makes you have to read slowly to let the concepts sort of hydrate in your brain before they bloom...

So, beautiful writing about ...sociopaths. Unreliable narrators. Murky scenarios, where doubts and fears and good and bad are all rolled in, as Dorothy Parker says, "a crazy plaid." I roll my eyes a lot when I hear people say, "Man, Stephanie Kuehn must have really dark places in her soul," yadda, yadda, yadda. That isn't true - this is fiction, and we all have dark places in our souls; we writers merely take license and delve into them. I applaud the author for her ability. I think it's amazing that she has the language to articulate and explore these places.


AF: All of Stephanie Kuehn's books are very well crafted, but this one in certain ways impressed me the most because the characters are the most challenging for me as a reader. As a writer, creating a character who is unlike you is a challenge to begin with, but the thought of creating--and KNOWING--a character that is so very far removed from the "normal" conception of functional reality that most of us live in...What a task to set oneself, but she lives up to it and somehow blends the beautiful and the terrible in a way that quietly hooks you...

tanita: ...with those sociopaths. It's hard to know how to feel about characters who really would have no feelings... about ... you. People are so charmingly canine; we're ready to wag our tails and lick anyone who wags their tail first. But, cats are kind of sociopaths, and people who, like cats, go their own way - who may or may not do anything more than crouch in a corner and stare at you with eyes that are all pupil... for most folk, they're flat-out disturbing, discomfiting, and we're not really sure they belong indoors. Of course, inside or out, they're apt to chase us, toy with us, and wound us - and then abruptly get up and leave us alone. I'd say that if this book were about cats and dogs, Sadie Su would be a giant, fluffy Persian cat.
As I was reading, I wondered if it was significant that Sadie is very wealthy. Can you blow people off like that and really own your crazy so well if you're poor? I mean, Emerson is poor in a rich person's paradise (and the depictions of the Napa Valley, where I've lived, were spot on)... but he's invested in "normal" really heavily.

AF: I'd love to unpack issues of class a little more. I thought that was an interesting aspect of the book that I almost wanted to see investigated in more depth. One of the things that put me off about Sadie's character right away was her snobbishness about the West-Coast public school environment. As a primarily public school kid, it's the kind of character trait that makes me think "blah blah BLAH boarding school East Coast Europe WHATEVER snore," but it's also an important factor that sets her apart from her fellow students and has informed her identity. Her family's wealth, and its dysfunction, create an intriguing backdrop for Sadie that makes me want to know more about what has formed her character--so that I CAN have more of that sense of empathy. Or maybe it's that BA in Psychology still lurking in the back of my head, wanting to know what makes people tick.

tanita: You make a good point.
Because almost every depiction of the bipolar or depressive or other mentally ill folk in fiction depicts them as Seriously Deranged ...I was a little uneasy about some of the negative portrayals in this book ... to me, such extreme depictions make people say, "Oh, I'm not like that," and can make it harder for people not to fear people with a disease, and for others to acknowledge that they have it. To that end, I found myself wishing that the author had spent more time on the character of Emerson - although, maybe the time spent was enough, in spite of the label placed on his family. Maybe the author was deliberately brief, because all of Emerson's issues and all of his guilt loops had a simple and straightforward answer: as his friend Trey said, when you screw up, you apologize. His issues, despite his family having been touched with mental illness, were in some ways much more straightforward.

AF: Yes, I loved that simplicity of Trey's advice. THAT moment felt like it could have been a turning point, and I think I really wanted it to be. I guess Emerson's final act in the novel was his way of apologizing, and while that felt very real, I wanted more to be made of the question of whether it was an act of escape or an act of redemption; generosity, or cowardice. There is a lot of complexity there, and as you said, there is a danger to the possibility of oversimplifying portrayals of mental illness. And I know some of my repulsion is connected to the fact that I really cannot handle animal abuse (in fiction or reality), but it also seems to be a frequent shorthand in fiction for "bad person," for sociopathy, and I have trouble with that.

tanita: And then there are those other characters in the novel, and you find yourself sifting through levels of "bad." Who is worse, someone who actively acknowledges that they'd just as soon rabbit-punch you in the back of the head, or someone who sneakily trips you and helps you up after you fall down a flight of stairs?

AF:What was interesting, too, was the arc of each character. Maybe "arc" isn't even the right word, because all three wandered back and forth between redeemable and irredeemable. (I guess it's safe to say none of them is static!) In the end, we are faced with the dilemma of moral ambiguity, "levels of 'bad'" as you mentioned. And yet we also understand WHY they do what they do--it isn't arbitrary behavior. On the contrary, the action of the book, the characters' actions, seem in many ways inevitable. That's one of the things that's so disturbing.

tanita: I've read interviews with the author where she talks about empathy and compassion. Part of why she writes this way, she says, is to reflect the way that she feels about people - it's never one way. You can be afraid of someone, attracted to someone, and repelled by them and want them desperately to both hang with you and to leave you alone. We're all a pastiche of particular (and peculiar)... reactions to and interactions with other individuals. I think I have learned to think about empathy in a new way, since reading her books - empathy is simply the ability to feel what other people feel, in this respect. You may or may not understand or be able to like them better because of it, but you GET them.

AF: Yes, exactly. And, yet...

tanita: I get a sense that you didn't like this book very much. I feel that's okay to say... I realize I admired this book, because of the writing... but just as I can't say I like something like Stephen King's MISERY, I can't say I like this novel. It's masterful and disturbing, but ...well, it's disturbing. It's, as you said, real and raw, and this kind of "real" scares me far more than chainsaw wielding maniacs (rare in real life) and stuff like vampires and zombies and rabid unicorns (so far nonexistent). And I think I read sometimes to be ...comforted? To be comforted that my worldview is right, or shared, to be comforted that Whatever triumphs over whatever Conflict the character is going through, to be ...reassured. For people who read to have their worldviews challenged, to get a frisson of Otherness and horror, this is definitely their book.

AF:I feel the same--I admired the book very much, and was amazed at the depth with which she explored the characters and their torturous worlds. But I can't like them. I really wanted to like Emerson, really wanted to like Miles, for much of the book. But as we gradually learn more and more...as the story unfolds...I went from "wanting to like" to just wanting to understand, and even that I had some difficulty with because I wasn't sure about the nature of the mental issues, whether there was bipolar or dissociative issues...and then Miles as a character kept a LOT of secrets from us throughout the book.

This is the Stephanie Kuehn book whose characters I have connected with the least. Their unreliability, their unpredictability, their destructiveness and sadism, pushed me away. That's very much something personal, not a comment on the writing itself.

I could still see this making a really good movie, because of the mysterious "following just behind the character's head" sensation that the author creates. In writing, we end up being SO close inside each character that we don't see what they aren't thinking about, if that makes sense.

tanita: I keep hearing people talking about this ending being "up in the air." It a little bewildering for me because it's not up in the air, at least it isn't for me. I know exactly what's going to happen - a happening that's been played out repeatedly in past years in conflicts between teens and the "warrior" mindset police confronting them. There's a certain air of tragic inevitability here; maybe tragedy is the destiny of these teens. Maybe they're past the point where an apology would have made a difference. And yet... and yet... even to the last scene, I wanted something better for them all. Not gonna lie, they broke my heart a little.

AF:I think, with the ending, it just went fast for me...choppy movie-like scenes where, instead, I wanted it unpacked a bit more. Not that they need to have explanatory soliloquies, but...Something. Maybe I'm just a completist who wants to understand everything and not have the end of the story left up in the air. :)

tanita: So - tragic, disturbing, enigmatic, ambiguous -- yet brilliant in a way that leaves us uncomfortable. Those are the descriptions we'll stick with. Thanks for reading along with me, and thanks to our readers for joining us for another round of In Tandem.

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Psst! If you're in the SF Bay Area, Stephanie Kuehn is having the book launch for DELICATE MONSTERS on June 13th at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloway's Books. Check it out!