Random YA

[cahn]

I think I'll start putting ratings, because I've realized I have the lame habit of saying nice things about books I don't like that much and negative things about books I like a lot. Though maybe don't take the ratings too seriously either.

The Enemy (Higson) 3-/5 - Dystopian Zombies. Adults are zombies; the kids must fight against them. Random gratuitous character death (including an entire arc that culminates in a predictable but rather meaningless death). Because, well, zombies. I am pretty well convinced that zombies are Not My Thing.

The Emerald Atlas (Stephens) 3/5 - A nice C.S. Lewis pastiche minus the allegory. The writing is a little better than the dystopian stuff the Kid's been feeding me. The main problem I had with this one is that it took a while to decide what it wanted to be -- first it thought it was Lemony Snicket, then it thought it was Roald Dahl, then it thought it wanted to get more serious and be Lewis or Hobbit-like, and then when time travel was added into the mix I almost put down the book. My sister told me I was almost to the end of the obnoxious part, so I didn't. But be warned, the first 25% of this book is really annoying. For example, there's a hilarious woman in a swan hat who is described in great detail and who never ever shows up in the rest of the book -- has this guy ever heard of Chekhov's gun? It also has the usual flaws endemic to the breed: dwarves who sounds like Scotty; a wise mentor who never explains anything that might be, you know, useful; kids who do stupid things based on incomplete information just to make the book longer, and so on. Still, if "nice C.S. Lewis pastiche minus allegory" is your thing, then go for it. I suppose this book convinced me it was not my thing.

Izzy, Willy-Nilly (Voigt, reread) 4/5 (though bear in mind my extreme partiality to Voigt is skewing this) - not one of my favorite Voigts, but I like pretty much everything she's ever written. Anyway. Teenage Izzy loses her leg in a drunk driver accident, and with any other author I would refuse to read a book of that description because it would be really bad, but Voigt, I think, pulls it off. What I really thought while reading it this time through, though, is how much I wanted for lightreads to read it and tell me what she thinks, because although I think Voigt did well in not falling into any "oh woe is me forevah!" or alternately "I am MarySue!Supergirl!" traps, and treating identity/body image in a sensitive and thoughtful way, I am not the best at picking up on this kind of thing.

Comments

[joyce.livejournal.com]

I loved Cynthia Voight as a kid. I keep wanting to re-read, but I'm kind of scared they won't hold up.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

I didn't find them until about 5 years ago, and my feeling is that they are amazing, especially the Tillerman books (although I must confess I never actually finished Homecoming, it was that painful). So... yeah, I would say they hold up. Voigt seems to me to be much deeper than the usual YA stuff.

[joyce.livejournal.com]

Did you ever read Jackaroo? The Tillerman books are great, but I remember Jackaroo hitting that sensawonder point. :)

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah! You know, Jackaroo (and at least one of the other Kingdom books) I read much earlier, and it has definitely grown on me... I remember I thought it was good, but now I really like it :) I do think Jackaroo is the best Kingdom book -- I don't like the other ones as well.

I think Voigt has (especially in Jackaroo) a deceptively simple style, but she's thinking about all kinds of things underneath. I don't think you'll be disappointed on another reading.