Middle grade fantasy I read this week:
Oct. 31st, 2022 08:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conulyThe Lock-Eater
I really liked this one! The writing was solid, plotting and characterization apt, twists both twisty but also appropriately foreshadowed, and the villains at least seem like actual people instead of total cardboard cutouts.
I do have a complaint, which is a weird sort of complaint and I'm not sure if I really ought to make this complaint or not.
So, the author is clearly going for LGBTQ-inclusive writing. The main character very early on develops a crush on another girl, which is reciprocated, and she's not particularly worried about telling people other than in the way any 12 year old wouldn't want that secret to get out. The villain also was in love with his male best friend. (It ended badly, but it was always going to, even if they weren't in love.)
Also, we're told both at the beginning and at the end of the book that non-cis people exist in this universe and people generally accept that. Or, we're not told the latter part, but given how unremarkable our protagonist seems to think it is, I guess we can assume it. Which is great! Like, it'd be better if some of those people showed up on the page, but whatever.
Except one third-tier baddy, aligned with the main villain (mostly - they're not all one big happy evil family) spends a significant portion of his screentime pissing and moaning about the protagonist's dress sense, wearing a boy's jacket of all things. Everybody else thinks her fashion sense is amazing, but that's not the point.
Like... is the point that the bad guys are all queerphobic? Valid, though I bet a lot of kids would be happy enough to not get the reminder - and also, there's nothing else in this setting to suggest that that even is a thing people need to worry about. There is approximately no way the only people to have these reprehensible opinions are the rich and powerful. Or is it just to show that he's got no sense of style and is also super petty in his attacks on her perceived lack of sophistication? In that case, why harp on girl clothes vs boy clothes?
And once I ask that question I also ask "Why is this a foundling home for girls specifically? There's less than a dozen of them. Surely it'd be more cost effective to put all the foundlings in the same facility, something even the most gender-binary-obsessed societies do!" I ask that because once they move locations at the end of the book and become an open-admission school, we're told specifically that they take boys and girls and also kids who are both or neither (none of whom, again, show up on the page). Which is great, but it makes me ask these questions about the setting.
I can only include good intentions, lack of follow-through in his worldbuilding.
It actually is taking up a lot more of my headspace than it really merits, but it's like historical fiction with potatoes in pre-Columbian Afroeurasia. That sort of thing really itches.
I also read the first Skyborn book by Jessica Khoury. Honestly, I picked this book because I liked the other one of hers I read, but I still thought it'd be pretty paint-by-numbers. And I won't lie and say it's the most innovative middle grade fantasy I've ever read in my life, but it still managed to both interest and surprise me. Definitely worth handing off to kids in the intended age range.
I really liked this one! The writing was solid, plotting and characterization apt, twists both twisty but also appropriately foreshadowed, and the villains at least seem like actual people instead of total cardboard cutouts.
I do have a complaint, which is a weird sort of complaint and I'm not sure if I really ought to make this complaint or not.
So, the author is clearly going for LGBTQ-inclusive writing. The main character very early on develops a crush on another girl, which is reciprocated, and she's not particularly worried about telling people other than in the way any 12 year old wouldn't want that secret to get out. The villain also was in love with his male best friend. (It ended badly, but it was always going to, even if they weren't in love.)
Also, we're told both at the beginning and at the end of the book that non-cis people exist in this universe and people generally accept that. Or, we're not told the latter part, but given how unremarkable our protagonist seems to think it is, I guess we can assume it. Which is great! Like, it'd be better if some of those people showed up on the page, but whatever.
Except one third-tier baddy, aligned with the main villain (mostly - they're not all one big happy evil family) spends a significant portion of his screentime pissing and moaning about the protagonist's dress sense, wearing a boy's jacket of all things. Everybody else thinks her fashion sense is amazing, but that's not the point.
Like... is the point that the bad guys are all queerphobic? Valid, though I bet a lot of kids would be happy enough to not get the reminder - and also, there's nothing else in this setting to suggest that that even is a thing people need to worry about. There is approximately no way the only people to have these reprehensible opinions are the rich and powerful. Or is it just to show that he's got no sense of style and is also super petty in his attacks on her perceived lack of sophistication? In that case, why harp on girl clothes vs boy clothes?
And once I ask that question I also ask "Why is this a foundling home for girls specifically? There's less than a dozen of them. Surely it'd be more cost effective to put all the foundlings in the same facility, something even the most gender-binary-obsessed societies do!" I ask that because once they move locations at the end of the book and become an open-admission school, we're told specifically that they take boys and girls and also kids who are both or neither (none of whom, again, show up on the page). Which is great, but it makes me ask these questions about the setting.
I can only include good intentions, lack of follow-through in his worldbuilding.
It actually is taking up a lot more of my headspace than it really merits, but it's like historical fiction with potatoes in pre-Columbian Afroeurasia. That sort of thing really itches.
I also read the first Skyborn book by Jessica Khoury. Honestly, I picked this book because I liked the other one of hers I read, but I still thought it'd be pretty paint-by-numbers. And I won't lie and say it's the most innovative middle grade fantasy I've ever read in my life, but it still managed to both interest and surprise me. Definitely worth handing off to kids in the intended age range.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-29 10:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-30 05:44 am (UTC)In this case, since it only comes up in that one way, I really think the author would've done better to have the baddie hyperfocus on the fact that the patterns clash or that the cut is odd or that the colors are unconventionally matched or something.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-29 12:58 pm (UTC)I would not confuse the enforcement of gender norms with queer phobia. Maybe, there is a strong sense of gender, but no one cares about sexual orientation?
A world can not care about sexual orientation and still treat girls badly.
It is weird though that someone would care about a girl wearing boy's clothes.
If you don't care about girls and have put them all in the orphanage, why does anyone care what they wear?
no subject
Date: 2022-10-30 05:43 am (UTC)Strong sense of gender is not consistent with the protagonist thinking that the deliveryperson who uses they/them pronouns is not very remarkable.
If you don't care about girls and have put them all in the orphanage, why does anyone care what they wear?
Oh, well, at that point she's out of the orphanage and is wandering around pretending to be a child prodigy. Like Mozart, but with less music and more magic.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-30 05:39 am (UTC)But similar to what you noted, there's one scene in it where a comedic drinking song is sung, and the punchline is that the man about to be married ends up having to wear a dress, and the pastor says he doesn't know who's the bride. It's a minor thing I guess and a very small part of the story, but I wish the author had found something else to joke about. The book introduces a married female couple towards the end so it seems LGB friendly.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-30 05:44 am (UTC)