Nancy Springer
Completed 11/20/2016 Reviewed 11/21/2016
4 stars
This is a difficult book to categorize. I suppose it qualifies as magical realism,
although I’m not an expert on that genre.
At the very least, it’s a fantasy about a woman with some magical
abilities. It won the Tiptree award which
honors SF/F books which deal with gender issues. It’s highly deserving. This is perhaps one of the most creative ways
of exploring gender issues that I’ve read in a long time.
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It’s a complicated premise, and Springer did a terrific job
of creating an understandable plot despite the complexity of the doppelgangers
and the blinking mother. The mother
reminded me of Dolores Umbrage from the Harry Potter series, evil wrapped in a
compact package, ignoring pleas for love and understanding so that she can see
the world how she wants to see it. It’s
all both funny and frightening.
There is a much referenced quote that I’d like to quote as
well: “Dimly, with her burning heart more than her mind, she began
to understand why she had always liked gay men. They suffered, were persecuted,
they were outsiders in a world where studbuck male heteros held all the power,
they did not count, they were Other – the way women were.” This quote speaks so perfectly to both women
and gay men, on how we experience the world, as the Other. And the timing of reading this quote in this
book, when current events demonstrate how much the white male heteros are
trying to hold onto all the power, was just perfect for me.
My only
complaint with the book was that the 10-year old Sky was often too whiney. I think she was supposed to be. After all, she was supposed to be 10 and
un-nurtured. But it got to me after a
while, and I felt distracted by Sky rather than feeling like she was integral
to the story. It all makes sense and
comes together in the end, but her journey was just a little too annoying.
I give this
book four out of five stars. I found it
to be a refreshing piece of fantasy, or magical realism, or perhaps we could
call it suburban fantasy. It came real
close to being five stars, but the annoying Sky character broke my love affair
with the book. I highly recommend it
though for anyone who feels powerless, has unreconciled aspects of themselves,
or feels unsatisfied with where they ended up in their lives.
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