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Book Review: Dispossessed by Piper Mejia

Cover image for Dispossessed by Piper Mejia

Dispossessed by Piper Mejia

IFWG Publishing Australia (2021)

ISBN: 978-1-925956-83-2

Available:  Paperback, Kindle edition ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

Dispossessed is a character-driven debut YA novel from New Zealand author Piper Mejia.

With unusual traits and a rapidly changing physical presence, sixteen-year–old foster child Slate is a perpetual loner who is used to rejection. When Malice, a woman claiming to be from social services, picks him up to take him to another home he isn’t surprised. But when she reveals she is taking him to his grandfather in New Zealand, he is introduced to a band of strangers living a nomadic lifestyle, and possibilities for a life he never imagined. There Slate finds a diverse group of people with unique traits and surprising abilities: people who are supposedly his kin.

Like Slate, no one understands Warnner, an institutionalized boy with a history of abandonment. When Warnner finds the community Slate has recently joined, he is intrigued and drawn to the people running it, because of the uncanny traits they appear to share with him. Unlike Slate’s restless distrust, Warnner’s interest in joining is almost immediate, and conflict brews between the two. The community’s world and way of life is soon pitted against a group of fanatics out to hunt, violate, and destroy them, forcing rivalries into the background as tense and tentative cooperation among the dispossessed becomes required for the community’s survival.

At times poignant, this tale is driven by rich cast of characters and a strong sense of place.  Mejia centers otherness and relies on the surreal in this carefully constructed society, using some Māori terminology, but with a minimal presence of the indigenous population. Instead, Mejia addresses marginalization as experienced by this community of outsiders, the dispossessed, and builds an intricate world where misfits find community and individual variances do not impose limits so much as they open doors to alternatives. A vividly imagined YA fantasy about kinship, community, and the differences that make people who they are, Dispossessed may resonate with readers of varied backgrounds who have felt alienated or misunderstood. Recommended for ages 13-18 who enjoyed the work of Daniel José Older’s Shadowshaper and The Stars Never Rise by Rachel Vincent.

 

Contains: violence, torture, violence directed at the dispossessed, a marginalized group.

 

Reviewed by E.F. Schraeder

 

 

 

 

Key words New Zealand. YA. Urban Fantasy. Fantasy.

Posted on April 8, 2021 by , Reply

Help a Reader Out: A Book List for Teenage Boys

Stephanie Ellis, a participant on Monster Librarian’s Facebook page, noted that right now there is a lot of great YA horror with girls as protagonists or major characters, but she’s having trouble finding any with boys as protagonists (writers, take note). I personally think it is lovely that we’re seeing more girls take on major roles in horror fiction, but in looking at this list by Kelly Jensen of YA horror fiction for the second half of 2019, 28 of the books have women as authors or editors (there is one anthology, slanted significantly toward women authors) and just three have men as authors. So many women writers getting published and lots of girls and women as protagonists or major characters is a great problem to have… unless you are looking specifically for YA horror with boys as protagonists and major characters. There are a lot of boys who are reluctant readers and an engaging YA read will grab them. Of course we shouldn’t all expect all books to be mirrors of our experiences, but there are now many more options for boys to read stories that showcase girls as protagonists and point-of-view characters, so there are more windows to look through, and doors to step through, in YA horror than ever before.  A note: I’d like to see alternatives to traditional depictions of masculinity in future YA horror. It makes for some pretty great writing when you see it!

A few things about teens who seek out horror. In a very small 2007 study, Sharon McKool discovered that there are many kids who jump straight from reading Goosebumps to reading Stephen King (this included her own son).  Based on my even earlier experience as a college student in the 1990s, I had more than one classmate who first engaged in reading when he first discovered Stephen King, and thought he was the greatest writer ever. A teenage boy was the first to hand me Anne Rice. My brother, not a reader, was gripped by In Cold Blood. YA is not a stopping point for these boys.

But many boys aren’t ready to make that jump and take the path that leads through YA fiction, and that’s awesome, because there are some great books available for them. There are even outstanding authors who first wrote for adults who have now also written YA horror, like Jonathan Maberry, Jeff Strand, and Steven Wedel (author of Murdered by Human Wolves, written for an adult audience, as well as co-author with Carrie Jones of one of the books Jensen mentioned as coming out later this year). These authors have the opportunity to introduce the adult horror genre to their young adult audiences craving more. However, since the current crop of upcoming YA horror fiction doesn’t seem to offer much in the way of boys as protagonists or major characters, here are a few older titles you can turn to. They are very different in tone, level of gore, age appropriateness, writing style, type of creature, and quality, so you can’t just hand the list over to any teenage boy and say “pick one.” But it is a starting place for making recommendations to the right kids. We’ve reviewed many, but not all, of these books. If the book was published before 2014, you’ll need to search the original MonsterLibrarian.com.com website to find it, but it should be pretty simple to find most of these reviewed elsewhere as well.

 

A Bad Day for Voodoo by Jeff Strand (2013) This Bram Stoker nominee is both funny and violent. Strand has written other books for younger readers that aren’t as violent, and comic horror for adults that can get very gory.

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (2011). This outstanding book should be in every collection. It is powerful and wrenching, and gorgeously illustrated.

Anna Dressed in Blood (2 book series): Anna Dressed in Blood (2011), Girl of Nightmares (2012) by Kendare Blake. Anna Dressed in Blood is consistently recommended as a “book to read” on recommendation lists for YA horror.

Escape from Furnace (5 book series): Lockdown (2009), Solitary (2010), Death Sentence (2011), Fugitives (2012), Execution (2012)  by Alexander Gordon Smith. This action-packed dystopian series about a brutal underground prison for delinquent teenagers has some really difficult torture and body horror scenarios.

Five Nights at Freddy’s (2 book series): The Silver Eyes (2016), The Twisted Ones (2017) by Scott Cawthorn and Kira Breed-Wrisely. These are based on the popular video game Five Nights at Freddy’s. 

Gone (8 book series): Gone (2008), Hunger (2009), Lies (2010), Plague (2011), Fear (2012), Light (2013),  Monster (2017), Villain (2018) by Michael Grant

Heap House (The Iremonger Trilogy, #1) by Edward Carey (2014)

Lockwood & Co. ( 5 book series): The Screaming Staircase (2013), The Whispering Skull (2014), The Hollow Boy (2015), The Creeping Shadow (2016), The Empty Grave (2017)  by Jonathan Stroud. These will probably appeal more to younger teens and are slanted toward mystery.

Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children (6 book series): Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2011), Hollow City (2014), Library of Souls (2015), Map of Days (2018), The Conference of the Birds (upcoming)  by Ransom Riggs. The use of vintage photographs and documents really sets these apart. A movie was made of the first book in 2016.

Peeps by Scott Westerfeld (2005)

Red Eye (10 book series): Flesh and Blood, Bad Bones, Savage Island, and Whiteout all have boys as protagonists. Tony Jones has done a summary of the 10 books in this UK series here.

Rot & Ruin (4 book series) : Rot & Ruin (2010), Dust & Decay (2011), Flesh & Bone (2012), Fire & Ash (2013). by Jonathan Maberry. This Stoker Award-winning series is essential. Bits & Pieces (2015) collects shorter pieces that take place in the same fictional world, and Broken Lands (2018) is the first book in a follow-up series.

Rotters by Daniel Kraus (2011)

Skeleton Creek (5 book series):  Skeleton Creek (2009), Ghost in the Machine (2009), The Crossbones (2010), The Raven (2011), The Phantom Room (2014) by Patrick Carman. Skeleton Creek is an interactive series that directs readers to YouTube videos and websites intended to give the story a feeling of realism.

Slasher Girls & Monster Boys edited by April Genevieve Tucholke (2015). This is on HWA’s “Summer Scares” list for 2019.

The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein (2 book series): This Dark Endeavor and Such Wicked Intent by Kenneth Oppel (reprinted 2012) I fangirl these ones! Kenneth Oppel is a very talented writer.

The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group by Catherine Jinks (2019)

The Devil’s Engine (3 book series): Hellraisers (2015), Hellfighters (2016), Hellwalkers (2017)  by Alexander Gordon Smith

The Enemy (7 book series): The Enemy (2010), The Dead (2011), The Fear (2012),  The Sacrifice (2013), The Fallen (2014), The Hunted (2015), The End (2017) by Charlie Higson. This post-apocalyptic series begins after nearly all the adults have been turned into cannabilistic zombies, and the children and teens are banding together in gangs, in hopes of surviving.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (2009). This Newbery Award-winning book is outstanding and covers a boy’s life from young child to young man. The artwork by Dave McKean is startling and effective.

The Graveyard Book (graphic novel) by Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russell (2018)

The Illuminae Files: Illuminae (2015), Gemina (2016), and Obsidio (2018) by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. These look more intimidating than they actually are. The stories are set up as a series of chat logs, emails, video transcriptions, photos, sketches, maps, and impressive double page illustrations, so even though the books are substantial they don’t need to be intimidating. They have a futuristic science-fiction setting.

The Monstrumologist (4 book series): The Monstrumologist, The Curse of the Wendigo, The Isle of Blood, The Final Descent by Rick Yancey. Will is the 12 year old apprentice to a “monstrumologist,” both scientist and monster-slayer, writing of his experiences. Set in the Victorian era, the language can be difficult and flowery.  Although The Monstrumologist is a Printz Honor book, it is not for everyone. It will appeal most to readers with advanced vocabulary and a very strong stomach for gore and body horror.

The Thief of Always by Clive Barker (1992,  reissued 2014). Clive Barker takes a different tone in this story of a house where it’s always a holiday. Many, many horror fans and writers have mentioned this as a gateway title to adult horror.

The Thief of Always (graphic novel) by Clive Barker, adapted by Kris Obrisko, art by Gabriel Hernandez (2010)

Thirsty by M.T. Anderson (1997, reissued 2010) Published in the days when YA horror was a rare treat, nobody had heard of that Harry Potter guy, and Amelia Atwater-Rhodes was a big deal, Thirsty remains memorable to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on June 12, 2019 by , Reply

Book Review: Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand

Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand

Katherine Tegen Books, 2018

ISBN-13: 978-0062696601

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook, MP3 CD

 

My previous experience with Claire Legrand’s work was with her extremely creepy middle-grade book The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls. I could see just from the cover and inside flap of this book that her YA work would be completely different, so I started it without any expectations except for great writing (it is, after all, on the final ballot for the 2018 Stoker Award). The story’s bones quickly took on a predictable shape: strangers move to an isolated community where someone (usually a woman) has made a deal with an evil supernatural creature to provide human sacrifices in exchange for power, beauty, and prosperity.  The three primary characters are described on the inside cover flap in stereotypical phrases: Marion is the “new girl; Zoey is the “pariah”; and Val is the “queen bee”.  The girls as portrayed by Legrand, however, can’t be summed up so easily.

Marion’s family is moving to Sawkill Island, an exclusive community of wealthy people uninterested in anything that doesn’t directly affect them, and where her mother has taken a job as full-time housekeeper to the prominent Mortimer family. She has put her grief for her father’s sudden death on hold so she can protect her risk-taking older sister Charlotte and her suicidally depressed mother.  I must say I was impressed with how, in a few brief pages, Legrand distills the essence of what it’s like to wade through that first year after the death of a loved one. Legrand describes her as plain and awkward, in contrast to her sister, who is extroverted and social.

Shortly after she arrives, Marion starts feeling strange. She is thrown from a skittish horse and hurt badly enough that she ends up in the hospital (I was really unhappy with this part of the book, because her behavior afterwards is characterized as a “freakish” seizure, and the police chief reacts by pushing her down, straddling her, and pinning her hands to the ground. He should know better. DON’T DO THIS. Overall, I was not happy with the portrayal of seizures in this story, but this actually has the possibility of leading to real physical harm). Zoey, the police chief’s daughter, our “pariah”, is first on the scene. She’s biracial, geeky, a lower socioeconomic bracket than most of the other kids at her school, and her recent breakup with her boyfriend Grayson is the cause of much rumor and speculation (It’s an interesting reversal to have an African-American police chief, even if he is characterized by some members of the community as lazy and incompetent). Zoey is grieving the loss of her best friend, Thora, the most recent in a long string of girls who have mysteriously disappeared on Sawkill Island. The disappearances area are attributed to a local legend, a supernatural monster called the Collector. Zoey suspects that Val Mortimer, the island’s “queen bee” is behind the disappearances, but can’t prove it. We as readers know pretty quickly, though, because Val shows up at the scene after the monster that pulls her strings pushes her to make  Charlotte the next victim. Val, beautiful and charismatic, quickly claims Charlotte as a friend. I thought that Zoey and Marion would end up teaming up to protect Charlotte and take down Val and the Collector, but that’s not what happens at all.  Instead, the gruesome “deal with the devil” plot takes a left turn, and the story becomes more about relationships than fighting a “big bad”.

In an interview, Claire Legrand described Sawkill Girls as her “angry, queer, feminist novel”, and a response to slasher movie tropes like the “final girl”. I think that summary doesn’t really do the book justice. One thing that’s really great about this book is how smoothly it integrates relationships and examines the way teens navigate identities that aren’t often represented. Both Val and Marion have either had relationships or fantasies with people of both sexes, and Legrand writes them into a beautiful lesbian love story(I loathed the fact that Val and Marion specifically were in a relationship, but it was very well done). Zoey is trying to deal with the discover that she is asexual, and what that means about her relationship with her former boyfriend/best friend, Grayson, a great example of healthy masculinity.  Legrand blows up the stereotypes she assigned her primary characters by making them into prickly, angry, grieving, loving, lonely, confused girls determined to keep each other alive and save the world.  They fight, they say and do terrible and sometimes unforgivable things, but when it comes down to it they do not allow themselves to be turned against one another. This is especially clear with Zoey and Val, who have a long and difficult history. It’s a really complicated, messy way to look at girls’ relationships, and I think the horror genre gave Legrand space to work with some of these difficult and intense feelings at a heightened level.

Legrand’s challenge to the “final girls” trope is less obvious, because the initial plot doesn’t follow the pattern of a typical slasher film. The characters are better developed, and the killer isn’t a maniac in a mask. Among the three girls, none of them fits the type exactly– Zoey probably comes closest, but she isn’t conventionally attractive– and none of them dies. The plot of the book is a mess, and the relatively simple plot structure of a slasher film gets buried with the addition of patriarchal cults, tessering (a la A Wrinkle in Time), doppelgangers, a sentient island, and nightmare alternate worlds. While Legrand does a great job establishing setting and atmosphere and creating her primary characters, she has simply too much going on. There is no doubt that she can write creepy, compelling, and horrific scenes, but the pieces don’t all hang together.

While Sawkill Girls is being marketed as a YA book, and is under consideration for the Stoker Award in the Young Adult category,  I’m not sure if the audience that will appreciate it is actually a teen audience, although there are few well-written asexual or bisexual characters in the YA genre, so it’s worth reading. “New adult” readers, with enough experience to recognize and critique the tropes, will really enjoy the characters and the challenge to genre norms about girls and women. I found many parts compelling or enjoyable, but in the end, I was frustrated because the story failed to hold together. However, despite its flaws, there is much to like, or even love, in Sawkill Girls. Recommended.

Contains: body horror, murder, gore, violent and abusive behavior, gaslighting, sexual situations.

Editor’s note: Sawkill Girls is on the final ballot for the 2018 Stoker Awards in the category of Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel. 

Posted on March 27, 2019 by , Reply
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