Much delayed reviews
Mar. 31st, 2019 11:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhDread Nation by Justina Ireland. A really fantastic YA fantasy/horror/alternate history. Here the Battle of Gettysburg went a little differently than you might remember - namely, that it was called off in a panic after the dead rose and attacked and consumed their former companions. The entire Civil War, in fact, ended in a rushed compromise, with an agreement to end slavery but to place former slaves, along with Native Americans, on the front lines of protecting civilization from the 'shamblers', as they're called. A decade or two later, the United States is mostly returning to stability, and Jane McKeene, the daughter of a white plantation mistress and some nameless field hand, is finishing up her final year of military training at "Miss Preston’s School of Combat" in Baltimore. As a black woman, Jane is required to fight the shamblers, but as one with important connections, she intends to become an Attendant for a rich white family – a role that's half body guard, half duenna, and some unstated but significant percentage status symbol. It's not a great life, but it's a hell of a lot better than being sent onto the front lines with no guidance and broken weapons.
Jane, her school friend/rival Katherine (light-skinned enough to pass for white, pretty, fashionable, and in Jane's opinion way too shallow), and Jane's ex-boyfriend/black market connection Red Jack (cunning, out for himself, but loyal to a few) end up uncovering a vast conspiracy and are sent away as punishment. The divide in the novel between Baltimore (an East Coast city that's somewhat successful at pretending it can go back to how life was before the zombies came) and Summerland, Kansas (utopian dream city trying to create a new order of society) allow Ireland to do a lot of very effective worldbuilding from multiple perspectives.
Dread Nation is told in Jane's extremely engaging first-person dialect – "Rose Hill mostly grew tobacco, which Momma and a couple of the bigger field hands would ride into town to trade for cloth and other essentials. Early on, back before I can remember, Momma had tried growing tomatoes and other vegetables; when it became obvious that her small bundle of tobacco was worth more than all the food combined, she switched. Momma is savvy like that. The dead may have risen and we might have been living in the end times of Revelation, but folks still wanted their tobacco." – and every chapter starts with an excerpt from a letter written between Jane and her mother, which allows for an extremely emotional development near the end of the book.
It's got a page-turner of a plot, excellent writing, creepy zombies and even creepier structural oppression, very few annoying YA ticks (the plot does not center around a love triangle, thankfully!), great historical worldbuilding, and is just generally good all around. There is a sequel planned, but Dread Nation ends in a place that could easily be read as a stand-alone. Overall, y'all got to read this book. I loved it.
The Parting Glass by Gina Marie Guadagnino. A novel set in 1830s New York City starring Mary Ballard, lady's maid to elegant young heiress Charlotte Walden. The Parting Glass is the sort of novel that really wants to beat the reader over the head with its theme, which in this case is: everyone has secrets. Mary's secret is that she's in love with Charlotte. Also that's she really Maire O’Farren, and her English accent and previous experience as a lady's maid are all lies. Charlotte's secret is that she's sleeping with the stable boy, Johnny Prior. Johnny's secret is that he's really Mary's brother, and Charlotte has no idea. And on and on outwards: the secrets of Charlotte's best friend, of the sympathetic Irish pub owner, of the black prostitute Mary starts a no-strings-attached relationship with as a substitute for Charlotte. (By the way, Liddie – said prostitute and illegitimate daughter of actor Edmund Kean – is the best character in The Parting Glass and I wish the novel was all about her.) Each chapter starts with an excerpt from The Duties of a Lady’s Maid, an actual guidebook of the period, which gave the fictional segments a powerful context in the extreme submissiveness and abnegation expected of servants.
"Lesbian romance in 1830s NYC" is basically everything I want out of life, which is why I feel a bit churlish saying the writing quality and plot didn't quite live up to my usual expectations. There's so many intriguing conflicts here – rich vs poor, male vs female, Irish vs nativist – and though Guadagnino clearly put them intentionally into her worldbuilding, they could have been explored with more complexity. I also super, super hated the epilogue, which seemed to erase all of Mary's character development; honestly, if you skip the last ten pages it'll be a significantly better book. But then again... lesbian romance in 1830s NYC. I'll forgive a lot for that. The Parting Glass is even set in the mansions of Washington Square, which I have a particular fascination for. These days they mostly contain academic offices for NYU, but I spent too many years walking past them daily not to love novels that recreate their former inner lives.
On the one hand, I wanted more, but on the other hand, lesbian romance in 1830s NYC. I think that's all you need to know to decide if this is a book for you.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
Jane, her school friend/rival Katherine (light-skinned enough to pass for white, pretty, fashionable, and in Jane's opinion way too shallow), and Jane's ex-boyfriend/black market connection Red Jack (cunning, out for himself, but loyal to a few) end up uncovering a vast conspiracy and are sent away as punishment. The divide in the novel between Baltimore (an East Coast city that's somewhat successful at pretending it can go back to how life was before the zombies came) and Summerland, Kansas (utopian dream city trying to create a new order of society) allow Ireland to do a lot of very effective worldbuilding from multiple perspectives.
Dread Nation is told in Jane's extremely engaging first-person dialect – "Rose Hill mostly grew tobacco, which Momma and a couple of the bigger field hands would ride into town to trade for cloth and other essentials. Early on, back before I can remember, Momma had tried growing tomatoes and other vegetables; when it became obvious that her small bundle of tobacco was worth more than all the food combined, she switched. Momma is savvy like that. The dead may have risen and we might have been living in the end times of Revelation, but folks still wanted their tobacco." – and every chapter starts with an excerpt from a letter written between Jane and her mother, which allows for an extremely emotional development near the end of the book.
It's got a page-turner of a plot, excellent writing, creepy zombies and even creepier structural oppression, very few annoying YA ticks (the plot does not center around a love triangle, thankfully!), great historical worldbuilding, and is just generally good all around. There is a sequel planned, but Dread Nation ends in a place that could easily be read as a stand-alone. Overall, y'all got to read this book. I loved it.
The Parting Glass by Gina Marie Guadagnino. A novel set in 1830s New York City starring Mary Ballard, lady's maid to elegant young heiress Charlotte Walden. The Parting Glass is the sort of novel that really wants to beat the reader over the head with its theme, which in this case is: everyone has secrets. Mary's secret is that she's in love with Charlotte. Also that's she really Maire O’Farren, and her English accent and previous experience as a lady's maid are all lies. Charlotte's secret is that she's sleeping with the stable boy, Johnny Prior. Johnny's secret is that he's really Mary's brother, and Charlotte has no idea. And on and on outwards: the secrets of Charlotte's best friend, of the sympathetic Irish pub owner, of the black prostitute Mary starts a no-strings-attached relationship with as a substitute for Charlotte. (By the way, Liddie – said prostitute and illegitimate daughter of actor Edmund Kean – is the best character in The Parting Glass and I wish the novel was all about her.) Each chapter starts with an excerpt from The Duties of a Lady’s Maid, an actual guidebook of the period, which gave the fictional segments a powerful context in the extreme submissiveness and abnegation expected of servants.
"Lesbian romance in 1830s NYC" is basically everything I want out of life, which is why I feel a bit churlish saying the writing quality and plot didn't quite live up to my usual expectations. There's so many intriguing conflicts here – rich vs poor, male vs female, Irish vs nativist – and though Guadagnino clearly put them intentionally into her worldbuilding, they could have been explored with more complexity. I also super, super hated the epilogue, which seemed to erase all of Mary's character development; honestly, if you skip the last ten pages it'll be a significantly better book. But then again... lesbian romance in 1830s NYC. I'll forgive a lot for that. The Parting Glass is even set in the mansions of Washington Square, which I have a particular fascination for. These days they mostly contain academic offices for NYU, but I spent too many years walking past them daily not to love novels that recreate their former inner lives.
On the one hand, I wanted more, but on the other hand, lesbian romance in 1830s NYC. I think that's all you need to know to decide if this is a book for you.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-02 03:03 am (UTC)It definitely indicates something about me that I read this all the way through, thought, "yes, these are all things likely to bother me," and then went ahead and put it on hold anyway. As you say, the lure of 1830s NYC lesbians is a powerful thing.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-10 10:57 pm (UTC)