Review: "Carole" by Clément C. Fabre

 

Carole by Carole by Clément C. Fabre
Translated by Matt Madden
English translation published August 2023 via Europe Comics
★★★★

On the face of it, Carole is two brothers' quest to find their aunt's grave in Istanbul—an aunt who died shortly after birth. Their grandparents, who had long since left Istanbul and established themselves in France, had once tried to find the grave again, but it had seemingly disappeared.

It helped going into this to know that the grave is largely beside the point; the book is a much deeper exploration of culture and history (and history in the making) and family lore than a simple grave, located or lost to time, can offer. I'm reminded of I Want You to Know We're Still Here, in which the author seeks traces of a half-sibling lost to World War II—in both cases, the search for records provide perhaps a more concrete and longer-lasting record than there is anywhere else.

The art is great—the cover is very true to the rest of the book—and I love the way the relationship between Fabre and his brother is depicted. There's a lot of push-pull, with one brother more adventurous and comfortable in the unknown than the other, and even as they clash they clearly get each other. I particularly love that Fabre isn't interested in making himself the, or a, hero of this story; he has a great eye for the reality of the situation.

It helps, reading this, to be okay with somewhat ambiguous endings, but this is a good one. Highly recommend.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Sweet Valley Twins: Teacher's Pet" by Nicole Andelfinger and Claudia Aguirre

Sweet Valley Twins: Teacher's Pet by Nicole Andelfinger and Claudia Aguirre
Published June 2023 via Random House Graphic
★★★

In the second instalment of this Sweet Valley Twins graphic novel adaptation, Elizabeth and Jessica are in competition: their ballet class is scheduled for a performance, and there's only one star role. Elizabeth is the teacher's pet pupil...but Jessica is convinced that she's the better dancer.

On the whole, I think this series is doing an excellent job of staying true to the original while updating things for the 2020s. Elizabeth comes off pretty well here—more 'kind, rational tween' than 'little miss priss', as she often ends up in the books. Jessica...well, Jessica is frowny and green with jealousy and ready to step on anyone who gets in her way for the entire book, but that's also honestly a marked improvement on who Jessica often is in the originals.

The 'Jessica is a better and more dedicated dancer' plotline feels pretty uneven. We're told several times that Jessica practices more than Elizabeth, but most of what we see is Jessica wanting to spend time with the Unicorns, at the beach, etc., rather than practicing. Dance is 'everything' to Jessica, she says, but in practice that seems to mean that 'dance is everything to Jessica as long as she's in the spotlight and there's nothing more interesting going on'. Meanwhile, Elizabeth performs seemingly perfectly until she's under pressure, which means that it's hard to evaluate Jessica's claim throughout the book that she's a better dancer than Elizabeth.

But Jessica's right about one thing: the teacher isn't fair. We saw this in the first book (the teacher being really nasty because Jessica was a normal kid instead of a professional dancer), and here she really does seem to pick a couple of favourites and ignore everyone else. (If I read the non-graphic-novel version of this book, it was a very very long time ago and I don't remember what the teacher is like there!) Jessica eventually gets her attention, of course, but I think her parents would do better to find her a different ballet teacher.

The art style, which feels to me more comic book than graphic novel, isn't really to my personal tastes, but it gets the job done. (Though—at the end, when they're both on stage in one way or another, Jessica still looks furious that Elizabeth has the temerity to exist.) I'll happily continue with the series.

Children's books: "Little Tree and the Wood Wide Web", "21 Things to Do with a Tree", and "Project Earth"

Little Tree and the Wood Wide Web by Lucy Brownridge, illustrated by Hannah Abbo (Ivy Kids Eco)
21 Things to Do with a Tree by Jane Wilsher and Martin Stanev (Ivy Kids Eco)
Project Earth by Carol Kim, illustrated by Ahya Kim (Picture Window Books)

Diving into the world of children's books! This time, a trio of books about trees and taking care of Earth.

Little Tree and the Wood Wide Web is a great way to teach kids a bit about the interconnected nature of, ah, nature. The lushy illustrated picture book tells the story of one young tree struggling to put down its roots in a big forest—and the other trees that come to its aid through a network of woods and fungus. ('The Wood Wide Web' is wonderfully punny, but the book tells us that it was actually coined by Suzanne Simard, who is—I Googled—a professor of forest and conservation sciences at UBC.)

The illustrations are soothing and eye-catching, somehow managing to be both consistent and varied. I love the little faces in the trees, but my favorite spread by far is the one where Little Tree is sad at night; the colors in the leaves are really gorgeous.

Adults reading to children—get out your reading glasses, because the text is small. Worth it for the combination of story and science, though!

21 Things to Do with a Tree is, as the title suggests, all about trees and some ways to get to know them better. Some of the activities are more likely to hold kids' attentions than others, but the illustrations are absolutely wonderful—delicate and detailed. They're also casually, naturally inclusive: the children (and adults) in the book have varying skin tones, some are wearing hijabs (and one is wearing a dinosaur sweater—and okay, that has nothing to do with diversity, but it's adorable), and one character is in a wheelchair. There's stuff for kids of different ages and interests and physical abilities in here. It's great. (The book is also careful to slip in safety reminders as needed. Don't eat the berries!)

I'm torn between making a "go climb a tree" joke or making a John Gorka reference—but I guess I can do both! Climbing a tree is already in the book, which gives me twenty-two things to do with a tree.

Another wonderful addition to a kids' bookshelf. Honestly, I'm taking some tips—as a grown adult—from page 24 on how to plant a tree...and I'm also going to go look up Gorka's "Branching Out" again. May this book prove to be as timeless as that song.

In Project Earth, written for slightly more advanced readers, Jina has a problem—climate change! When she learns about the effect climate change is having on polar bears, she's determined to be part of the solution. But that's not as easy as it seems...

This chapter book is a nice introduction to climate change for young readers. Jina's understanding of climate change (and the things that contribute to it) is simple, but that's appropriate for the target age range of 6–8. The illustrations (many of which are full-page) are fantastic and a great fit for the book. And, as a bonus, there's a side story about reaching out to new classmates and making new friends, which manages to fit seamlessly into the broader story.

This is part of a series, so if kids enjoy Jina's adventures there are more books to expand their understanding of how to do right by Earth—I'd love to see a later book find Jina joining in a protest or something regarding policies that are contributing to climate change, since the difference that individuals can make pales in comparison to the damage big corporations can do to the environment.

Thanks to the authors and publishers for providing review copies through NetGalley.

Review: "Beth Hilton, Model" by Lee Wyndham

Beth Hilton, Model by Lee Wyndham
Published ~1961
★★★

Beth has always felt like an ugly duckling compared to her cousin Lisa, who has worked as a model since she was a child—but a stint in charm school leads to some unexpected opportunities for Beth, and suddenly she's the one in front of the camera.

I go through phases of reading old and outdated children's lit, and I seem to be in one of those phases now. Beth Hilton, Model does not disappoint: it feels charmingly wholesome and elderly, with the occasional jolt of WTF to remind you that it was written in the early 60s. There are some attempts at good lessons here—Beth is told, directly, that charm school will not help someone become a model if they don't already have the genetics for it (and to be wary of scams); she's also told more than once to maintain a healthy diet, not skip meals, and that models shouldn't be too thin. (Twiggy hadn't hit the scene yet when this was written, so who knows what she would have been told had this been published ten years later.) It's also well into the book before Beth starts modelling, and I love that she's not an overnight success—she gets a few jobs here and there, but it's a while before she's working regularly, and she's reminded more than once that she's lucky to live nearby and to have family who can support her. I also love the plotline with Pete, her platonic male friend—she's maybe interested in him, but he's more interested in Lisa's glamour. Later, when Beth starts to show some of that glamour too, Pete starts coming round again...and Beth is very sensibly cautious, and does not forget that he wasn't interested in her when she was Beth Hilton, Not a Model. (Later, there's a different boy for whom she's willing to give up an enormous opportunity, and I don't love that—but at least he's willing to do the same for her.)

But at the same time...some of the messaging is less good. Beth is told to lose a few pounds and that "When you're down to where you ought to be, you can binge once in a while for the sake of your morale" (104), which is a recipe for disordered eating. And when sexually assaulted, she's told that "It is your own fault" (159) for not knowing better when a previously charming-seeming man invites her in to "look in on my mother" (157). (Obviously there's no mother there.) Never mind that Beth is naïve and didn't know better; never mind that at other points in the book, she goes with some trepidation, alone, into strange men's apartments or workspaces and those experiences lead to her becoming a sought-after model. It was the 60s, and I know "it was her fault for being assaulted" was the order of the day, but...eurgh.

Anyway. The end of the book takes a wild turn that has nothing to do with modelling (snowstorm! trapped in a house up a mountain! drama!) and is frankly unnecessary to the book, but at least it's entertaining.

Do not recommend unless, like me, you're weirdly into outdated YA. Will absolutely read more.

Review: "I See You, Survivor" by Liz Ianelli

I See You, Survivor by Liz Ianelli
Published August 2023 via Hachette Books
★★★

I am scared right now. I am so scared you will think I'm crazy or dangerous for admitting that. I'm scared you will close this book and say, I thought Liz was strong, that she was a fighter and a survivor, but this...this feels like too much. (loc. 507*)

Ianelli was fifteen when her parents sent her to the Family—a "therapeutic boarding school" for troubled teenagers. She was eighteen when the facility could no longer hold her against her will and she left—but the trauma of her experience didn't end there.

On the surface, the troubled teen industry seems to be doing a good thing: taking at-risk youth and putting them in programs that are heavy on structure. The claims are big—that they save teenagers from addiction, promiscuity, early death. But the facts are bigger: the industry is unregulated, staff are rarely adequately trained, abuse is rampant, and reports of deaths at (and, critically, after) such programs are high. (And then the programs explain it all away by saying "they were already troubled, not our fault, at least we kept them alive for a few extra months or years".) I've read a fair amount about the troubled teen industry already, enough to go into Ianelli's book expecting abuse. And, well, that's what's in here. Physical, sexual, emotional, medical, spiritual abuse—let's just say that the Family didn't do things by halves.

It's a complicated, messy story, a manifesto and a lament and a confession and a record all rolled up in a ball of rage. The voice will likely be hit or miss for readers, but Ianelli is doing something valuable in her focus on not just her time in the Family but the continued struggle that came after, as a direct result of those years at the Family. I don't recommend going into this blind, because, as Ianelli notes, survivors of such programs (I hesitate to call them "schools") are often doubted—as in, "okay, it wasn't a good place, but surely it can't have been that bad". Sometimes it's easier to believe reports of abuse if they come from an outside source, so if this is a new topic for you...find some outside sources too, because these are voices and stories that should be taken seriously.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Review: "Temples & Tuk Tuks" by Lydia Laube

Temples & Tuk Tuks by Lydia Laube
Published 2004
★★★

Laube managed quite a writing career for herself, spinning her far-flung holidays into travelogue after travelogue. I read Behind the Veil (in which she took a temporary job in Saudi Arabia) some time ago, and I was curious about Temples & Tuk Tuks because I've found so little travel literature covering Cambodia.

The energy is good here, but on the whole I think I would have preferred this—and would be more likely to continue with Laube's books—had Laube been living and working in the countries (in this case Cambodia) she visited rather than just visiting; as far as I can tell, Saudi Arabia is the only country for which that was the case. Because Laube was here and there and all over the place in Cambodia, that makes it hard to get to know individual characters and their stories; instead, a large amount of the book's real estate is dedicated to descriptions of the guest houses she stayed in and meals she ate. And that's...fine...but not really where the stories I'm interested in are.

If there's anyone out there going from country to country as a travelling nurse...please go find yourself a publisher, because I'd read the hell out of that memoir series.

Review: "The Definition of Beautiful" by Charlotte Bellows

The Definition of Beautiful by Charlotte Bellows
Published September 2023 via Freehand Books
★★★

Bellows was in Grade 9 when the pandemic shut the world down. With time to spare, she set about trying to lose some weight—and, in the privacy of a world removed from everyone else, but with seemingly half the Internet determined to lose lockdown weight, a diet spiralled into an eating disorder.

I'm intrigued by this as something of a pandemic memoir. It's not at all the focus, but I've read enough articles talking about the impact of the pandemic on mental health, and on eating disorders more specifically, that this feels like the beginning of what might be a wave of memoirs about that. At one point Bellows' therapist observes that "The timing really is awful ... You have an eating disorder during a global pandemic. Normally, as part of the healing process, you would reconnect with teenage life. But now, with all these restrictions, you're stuck in a tricky situation" (loc. 792*). Isolation exacerbated by isolation, I suppose.

Bellows wrote The Definition of Beautiful while coming out of that eating disorder—and out of the more restrictive pandemic regulations—and while still a teenager. It's not entirely unique for that latter point, but this particular book is a truly impressive feat for a teenager. Writing a good story or essay is one thing, but managing a full-length book is another thing for anyone, let alone a teenager, and Bellows does an excellent job with pacing in particular, and with to-the-point but fully realized scenes. There are some places where I think age might help (more on that in a moment), but on the whole this puts a lot of adult-written memoirs to shame. (One of my primary thoughts while reading was This is clearly someone who reads a lot, which is always a good feeling.)

Two things that didn't work as well for me: First, a fair amount of the book takes place in Bellows' dreams, in a place she calls the Deep, which I'm not particularly keen on. I'm not actually sure if it's all actual (lucid?) dreams she had or more of a literary device to illustrate where one's mind tends to live during an eating disorder, but whether fiction of nonfiction dreams have always felt too intangible to hold my focus when reading. (Personal preference and your mileage may vary.) And second, at times—especially early on in the book—word choices and phrasing tilted a bit far towards angst. The book makes up for it in taking a clear-eyed (and almost numbers-free) look at the experience of illness and recovery, but that's really the one thing where I think time and distance would be a benefit.

Here's hoping that Bellows keeps writing. It'll be interesting to see where she goes with it, either fiction or nonfiction.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*I read an ARC, and quotes may not be final.

Review: "A Little Love Song" by Michelle Magorian

A Little Love Song by Michelle Magorian
Published 1991
★★★★

Good Night, Mr. Tom was my favourite book for approximately an age after I first read it in middle school, and I've meant for years to give A Little Love Song a go. In it, Rose and her older sister are off to the seaside for the summer, out of the way of war. It's meant to be a quiet few months for them, but they—Rose in particular—have some growing up to do.

Here's what's interesting about Rose: she and her sister, Diana, have grown up with some amount of money and privilege. They're sheltered: they barely know how to boil water. And when Diana befriends a young woman who is unmarried and pregnant, Rose is borderline appalled. She...doesn't know what she doesn't know, basically. Rose manages to learn that particular lesson fairly quickly (and redeems herself when it counts), but throughout the book she comes up, again and again, against her naïveté. She hasn't learned to judge what sorts of boys are worth her time and effort, and some of the decisions she makes are accordingly inadvisable. But that's what's great about the book: Rose makes these decisions, and then she lives with them. Nobody swoops in at the last moment to save her from her naïveté.

All's well in the end, of course. Readers will see some of it (e.g., the intersection between Hilda's story and Rose's) coming, but there's plenty to keep a reader on her toes. I wish I'd read this ten or fifteen years ago (when I was, you know, younger and less jaded...or something like that), but I'm glad it survived my bruised and battered to-read list.

Review: "Let's Never Speak of This Again" by Megan Williams

Let's Never Speak of This Again by Megan Williams
Published August 2023 via Text Publishing
★★★★

For Abby, teenagedom feels uncertain—she has supportive friends and family, and she's proud of her place as the youngest member of the school netball team, but (she's a teenager, and) that doesn't always mean she feels like she fits in, and a new girl at school compounds her uncertainty.

I read this partly for the cover and partly because it promised a story more about friendship than about romance, and I thirst for platonic friendship stories. It delivers: it's an understated story, and it's best not to go in if you're looking for something fast-paced with a lot of action...but for coming-of-age wrestling with what it means to have old friends and new friends, and how to support friends through hard things, it's great. One of my favorite moments comes early on, after Abby unknowingly kisses her cousin's cousin, and she's squicked out but not ashamed—she's ready to turn it into a cringey story for her friends. And later, when things get difficult, I love that she tries but also often does or says the wrong thing. She's still figuring it out.

I've said it over and over, but we need more stories like this—ones where romance might be a factor, but it's not the point of the book or the central part of the protagonist's life. Again, look for this when you want something quieter, but I love this sort of thoughtful, relatable thing where the intensity of friendship takes the center stage.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Short story: Review: "Calypso's Guest" by Andrew Sean Greer

Calypso's Guest by Andrew Sean Greer
Published August 2023 via Amazon Original Stories

In this twist on The Odyssey, a man alone on a planet wants for nothing—a veritable army of robots does his bidding, creates just about anything he could ever ask for, can build and rebuild the world to his specifications.

But: he's been there for centuries, alone, and he can never leave. He'll be there for centuries more. And it's only when someone else crash-lands on his planet that he gets a brief—and doomed to be temporary—respite.

Though it spans some seven years—and stretches beyond those years—this is a short story, and I would have read and read and read. By the time we meet the unnamed narrator, our Calypso, he is resigned to his fate; he has found a certain peace in his prison, but it is a prison nonetheless, and he has long since lost interest in exploring its boundaries or seeking (a futile) escape.

There's a certain hopelessness to this story—in the narrator's resignation, and in the futility of his hope that he will no longer be alone. I imagine it will frustrate some readers, but if you can sit in that futility (it took me a while to understand why he would not have bothered to explore the rest of his planet, his prison), it's a fascinating read. The narrator's exact circumstances are not always detailed (presumably he cannot be killed, but can he be injured? How badly? Are there any creatures on his island that he must fear?), but it does make one thankful for mortality, no?

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.