Good books
Sep. 11th, 2011 11:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seldneiOkay, two books I've read this year that I highly recommend:
Chime by Franny Billingsley - YA, fantasy/supernatural; the protagonist is so well drawn, with such a great voice--you will have a hint of what's going on way before she does, and that's a good thing in this case; it's a historical, slightly gothic, folkloric mystery. With paper clips. Excellent secondary characters, too.
Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healey - YA, fantasy. Holy cats, I loved this book. For the first chapter or two, you're going to think Oh, great, another brooding-emo-boyfriend book, but it's definitely more than that. And the thing that you think is the main plot? What would be the main plot and climactic showdown usually? Not actually it.
Another really well-done main character, and really good secondary characters. In some ways it reminded me of War For the Oaks, where you find out there's a lot more to the characters than you expect. It's got a neat mix of New Zealand and Western folklore going on, and the coolest thing, I thought, was a paragraph towards the end ...
... this is actually the second book in the past few months I've read that's used the Orpheus myth, and in this one, toward the end the character who takes on the Eurydice role actually describes it--not touching, not talking, not helping when "Orpheus" stumbles. And I'd never thought of that story from her point of view before; you always focus on how hard it is for Orpheus to not look back, to keep going, and his tragedy. Now, granted, I think I always assumed Eurydice was just a ghost and not actually self-aware as she drifted behind Orpheus, but what if she did know what was going on? Can you imagine? She made it the whole way, and then that knucklehead turns around and--poof!--all undone.
Both of these books will break your heart, but they are not unrelentingly bleak. More Rose or Martha than Donna. :)
Chime by Franny Billingsley - YA, fantasy/supernatural; the protagonist is so well drawn, with such a great voice--you will have a hint of what's going on way before she does, and that's a good thing in this case; it's a historical, slightly gothic, folkloric mystery. With paper clips. Excellent secondary characters, too.
Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healey - YA, fantasy. Holy cats, I loved this book. For the first chapter or two, you're going to think Oh, great, another brooding-emo-boyfriend book, but it's definitely more than that. And the thing that you think is the main plot? What would be the main plot and climactic showdown usually? Not actually it.
Another really well-done main character, and really good secondary characters. In some ways it reminded me of War For the Oaks, where you find out there's a lot more to the characters than you expect. It's got a neat mix of New Zealand and Western folklore going on, and the coolest thing, I thought, was a paragraph towards the end ...
... this is actually the second book in the past few months I've read that's used the Orpheus myth, and in this one, toward the end the character who takes on the Eurydice role actually describes it--not touching, not talking, not helping when "Orpheus" stumbles. And I'd never thought of that story from her point of view before; you always focus on how hard it is for Orpheus to not look back, to keep going, and his tragedy. Now, granted, I think I always assumed Eurydice was just a ghost and not actually self-aware as she drifted behind Orpheus, but what if she did know what was going on? Can you imagine? She made it the whole way, and then that knucklehead turns around and--poof!--all undone.
Both of these books will break your heart, but they are not unrelentingly bleak. More Rose or Martha than Donna. :)
