Just as there are months that, although short, seem interminable (goodbye February, it's nice to see the back of you), there are short books that feel like they just go on and on... One such is A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik, a YA fantasy novel set in the Scholomance, a school of magic where students have a 50% chance of making it through graduation. There's not a single grown-up or authority figure in sight, nor any teachers; the kids are basically left to their own devices in a building teeming with a wide variety of preposterously named creatures that want to kill and/or eat them. We never find out the origins of these life-forms or the reasons behind their murderous intents. Then again, since we only glimpse the outside through the memories of the main character, a whiny grouch called Galadriel, we're unable to understand the point of so many resources being devoted to educating children in such a lethal environment. Yes, "only the best survive" and all that — but what's their purpose in the world if they make it out alive?
This excessively infodumpy novel read like a cross between Harry Potter (school setting; magic; spells) and the Hunger Games (constant danger of being killed by creatures or peers; alliances; enclaves/districts). It tries so very hard to coax the brave souls who made it all the way through into picking up the sequel with what's supposed to be a "GASP!" ending. In my case, it was far too little, too late.
I'm a huge fan of Maureen Johnson's Truly Devious series and recently saw someone on YouTube recommend A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson as a read-alike. It follows Pip, a 17-year-old "good girl" from a small Connecticut town, as she works on her senior capstone project. She chose as her topic the disappearance of a girl called Andie Bell and the guilt of Andie's boyfriend Sal (who committed suicide shortly afterwards) 5 years previously. Pip is convinced of his innocence; however, since she intimately knows some of the people at the periphery of the case, she has to learn to look at the evidence dispassionately. She teams up with Sal's brother Ravi to uncover important new facts, but two factors hamper this endeavour: she begins receiving increasingly threatening notes, and the deadline for writing her college-application personal statement looms ever closer.
I love a YA novel with satisfying psychological complexity! While I did correctly guess part of the solution, I was not disappointed in the least. I appreciated that the main character showed a willingness to question herself and her assumptions, and often had to reflect on what was the right thing to do. The author included some mentions of the impacts of racism on Sal and his family; in my opinion, this could have been explored further. Overall, this was a very satisfying read — in fact, I put a hold on the second volume in this series even before reaching the end.
The third book I finished this was yet another YA novel: Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé. It's also set in a school, this time the prestigious and exclusive Niveus Academy, where students start receiving scandalous texts, photos and videos from someone calling themselves "Aces." Their attacks target two promising individuals: talented musician Devon Richards and popular girl Chiamaka Adebayo. As their secrets are revealed and their bright futures threatened, Von and Chi begin questioning everything and distrusting everyone around them. Is it sheer coincidence that they're the institution's only Black pupils? Why is Aces bent on destroying them, and can this shadowy figure be stopped? This was such an interesting, thrilling debut from a young author. She brilliantly maintained a feeling of impending doom throughout. I found her treatment of poverty, racism and homophobia refreshingly honest, and she's amazing at expressing the relationships between her characters. I hope to borrow her subsequent works in the future!
I was able to squeeze in one last novel this week: Before Mars, the third volume in Emma Newman's Planetfall series (I read the previous ones, Planetfall and After Atlas, earlier this year). We're introduced to Dr. Anna Kubrin, a geologist and painter sent to join an established team at Mars Principia base, as she concludes her 6-month voyage to the Red Planet. Immediately, strange things begin to happen: she finds a warning message she seems to have written herself, detects discrepancies in the materials she thought she'd brought from Earth, notices her wedding ring no longer bears an inscription, and discovers a footprint in a supposedly unexplored area of the planet's surface. Anna rejects the possibility that she may be experiencing a psychotic break, but all of this awakens the long-buried trauma of her father's violent, irrational behaviour. In addition to dealing with this mental stress and the unwarranted hostility of one of her new coworkers, she must also come to terms with her frustration at not feeling the "appropriate" emotions of a wife and mother so far away from her family.
As ever, Emma Newman centres her narrative on the difficulties humans encounter while surrounded by omnipresent, invasive technology. The uneasy alliance of her characters with Artificial Intelligence seems highly relevant these days. I appreciate that, as in After Atlas, the future she imagines treats gender neutrality as just one element of a person's identity, and that using ze and hir is no big deal; I sincerely hope that reality proves her right. What I found most striking about this particular novel is its rare representation of a woman for whom motherhood doesn't come naturally. As the author explains in her acknowledgements, she was motivated by her own experience to contribute to destigmatizing this subject, which has too long been taboo in fiction. Obviously, I'll be reading the fourth book in this series quite soon.