'The Taming of Mei Lin' by Jeannie Lin/'Ash' by Malinda Lo

[annwfyn]

'The Taming of Mei Lin' by Jeannie Lin

This isn't really a novel - it's more of a short story - so I feel like a bit of a cheat adding this. However, I'm lazy and therefore willing to do this.

First of all, this story is a bit of a spin off to 'Butterfly Swords' and is the story of Ai Li's grandmother and grandfather, who are mentioned in that novel, and if you're a 'Butterfly Swords' fan, it's probably worth reading for that. If you haven't read 'Butterfly Swords' or didn't enjoy it, I'm not so sure I'd recommend it.

I mean, it's not bad, it just feels a lot more generic. Yes, the setting is still a historical China, which is cool, but I felt that far less effort had gone into creating the texture and flavour that I adored in 'Butterfly Swords'. As well as that, the characters were infinitely less interesting, and I honestly found the hero quite generic. A lone brooding duellist, captured by a spunky young heroine? Really? Goodness, that's original!

I'm being harsh, I know, especially as it is only a short story and there isn't really as much room to build up the setting as there would be in a full length novel. I also suspect that because I enjoyed 'Butterfly Swords' so much, I've set the bar much higher and I probably should be kinder, but I'm a harsh person and don't want to give Jeannie Lin too much of a 'get out of jail free' card, because I know she's capable of so much more.

********************

'Ash' by Malinda Lo

This novel is the novel that I think proves Father Christmas exists.

No, really. How else could it be that someone could write an awesome young adult lesbian fairytale romance, featuring two kick arse heroines, some fairies, awesome world building and a happy ever after filled with adventure and the promise of more awesome things they can do together? I mean, that doesn't just happen, does it?

I adored Ash from start to finish, and my only sadness about this book is that it wasn't around when I was a teenager. It reminds me a little of a non-hetero Robin McKinley novel - it takes a very traditional fairy story (in this case, Cinderella) and reworks it absolutely beautifully.

I would recommend this absolutely and wholeheartedly, and I am fighting back the urge to say that if you don't like it at all, you are dead inside, have no soul, and I pity you.

Um. Apparently I didn't fight back the urge that well, did I?

Assorted YA: Tarik, Akata Witch, Huntress, Gay Neck, Tall Story

[sanguinity]

I read a lot of these over the summer and don't have details at my fingertips anymore, but if you want more info about any, ask and I'll try to oblige.


34. Walter Dean Myers, The Legend of Tarik.

Tarik is a Nigerian boy on a sword-and-sorcery quest for revenge against the Spanish warlord who killed his family. Delivers exactly as advertised, right up the middle of the genre. I have a huge affection for Stria, the Axe Crazy girl who trains and travels with Tarik. (In fact, I'm considering nominating and asking for Stria fic, in some future exchange.)


35. Nnedi Okorafor, Akata Witch.

It seriously bums me that this has not gotten more buzz. While reading it, I was trying to come up with a better capsule-summary than "Nigerian Harry Potter", but the farther I read, the stronger those parallels became. Lots of cool fantastical worldbuilding, another appearance of the Greeny Forbidden Jungle, and none of the stuff that made me grind my teeth about Harry Potter itself. It deserves a lot more love than it's gotten, imo.


36. Malinda Lo, Huntress.

From page one, it started hitting all my favorite tropes from my teenagerhood. (You know that cozy feeling when you realize what you're holding in your hands is one of these books? Like that.) Except unlike the books from my teenagerhood, this one has lesbians in. Happy Sanguinity.


37. Dhan Gopal Mukerji, Gay-Neck, The Story of a Pigeon.

When I was a kid, I adored old-fashioned boys' adventure books, a genre that I largely avoid nowadays because they are too often so badly riddled with the leavings of the various Kyriarchy Fairies.

But this? Runs straight up the middle of that genre. It's about a boy and his pigeon, circa 1910 or so (the second half of the book takes place during WWI), and the adventures they have together. (Cross-country treks! Derring-do!) I thoroughly enjoyed it, and am even happier to know that Mukerji wrote a fistful of these, and that at least some of them were popular enough that you can still lay hands on them.

Oh, and for those of you who worry about Death By Newbery Medal, (skip spoiler)

the pigeon lives.

38. Candy Gourlay, Tall Story.

…agh, I'm hard-pressed to summarize. It deserves a full review, and I don't feel qualified to give it. This is a sweet story about teenage siblings who are reunited for the first time since toddlerhood (persistent immigration issues had kept one in the Philippines after the rest of the family had moved to London). The characters' hopes for and frustrations with each other are nicely drawn, and almost all of them are ultimately sympathetic, even when they are in conflict with each other. I like the characters themselves, too. (Andi and her basketball!) I like that the author gives respect to both scientific stories and folk stories. I like that one of the big themes is the effect of emigration on communities, and emigrants' ties to their communities of origin. I have question marks about some of the tropier bits (the rural Philippine village strikes me as quaintly backwards, and there's stuff I can't put my finger on about the novel's treatment of the brother's medical condition).

Heh. I don't so much want to write a review, as to have a convo with someone else about it. It's a sweet, fun story, with a lot to recommend it, but I have just enough questions about the tropier bits to want to rip it open and start pulling apart the gear train to see exactly what it's doing. Y'know?