Summer of the Mariposas Review

Summer of the Mariposas - Guadalupe Garcia McCall

2012

 

So I'm taking a Young Adult services class in the fall and figured I might as well start reading some YA books. I know I've previously mentioned my disdain for the genre in general, but I might possibly want to be a YA librarian, which means I'll have to read YA books, so now's the time to decide whether I can stomach it on a regular basis.

Well, mixed things about this book. Odilia is the eldest of the five Garza sisters who live near the Mexican border in Texas. When they discover a corpse in their swimming hole, they decide the logical thing to do is smuggle it into Mexico and return it to the family. Things take a fantastical turn as they encounter a good mix of Mexican folklore in witches, warlocks, el chupacabras, and demon-vampire owls, an Aztec goddess, and La Llorona.

First off, in the Land of Teenage Angst and Heterosexual Love-Triangles, it's nice and refreshing to find a book about five sisters and their interdependence on each other.The focus is very much on female relationships, between the sisters, between them and their grandmother, and between them and their mother. They are also guided by La Llorona and the Aztec goddess Tonantzin, both of which are shown (at least in the book) as maternal figures. So points for that.

Unfortunately, I wasn't terribly impressed. The idea felt a little forced, in that it's hard to believe that 5 teen and preteen girls find a corpse and their immediate thought is "Let's not only touch it, but carry it all the way into Mexico!" I'm pretty sure most people, particularly young people, see a corpse in the pool they've been swimming in, and their first thought is "I need to go take a 5-hour shower." Admittedly, Odilia, the oldest at 15-is, who's point of view it's told from, has her reservations and only agrees to the quest after La Llorona appears to her and explains that this is one of those divine test type things and she'd damn well better go (perhaps not in those words exactly). So, it's billed as a modern Mexican re-telling of the Odyssey, which is a bit of false advertising because it really isn't. At all. There's two fairly blatant references to the Odyssey (a possessive witch named Cecilia, and an androgynous, blind prophet named Teresita), and that's about it. I mean sure, it's a quest, but it's hardly a re-telling.

There was also a  lack of subtlety. They meet this prophet and she's all "These things will happen. Here is what to do about it." And then those exact things happen. And when a whole bunch of other mystical hoo-ha happens, we're given the explicit meaning behind everything. And sisters have this tendency to continually forget that they were told EXACTLY what was going to happen, and then act all surprised when it happened. Odilia appears to have some modicum of logic as she sort of figures things out first, but then her sister completely disregard any warnings she has. And maybe if that happened once, okay, they're all under 14, we can give them a break. But it continually happens. I mean, yeah, they're kids, but I really think that maybe after they've been violently attacked twice by some mythological creature, they might start to err on the side of caution--particularly if they were told about it in the first place.

Plot issues side, McCall does have some excellent, poetic passages. However, it occurs sporadically here while the brunt of the novel is unremarkable description and awkward teenage dialogue like

"'Oh boy, it's getting deep out there!' Velia said. 'What makes you think Mama knows anything about Tonantzin coming to save us? Because, I'll be honest, I didn't know what the heck was going on when the goddess showed up.'
'Whatever,' Juanita retorted..."

It's sort of hard for me to judge YA books because I'm not great at trying to frame it through my teenage-self (actually, I stopped reading YA while I was still a teenager, so I guess, pre-teen self?). I'm sure there are some teens who'll be welcome to the books expository nature. Plus, it's a quick enough read and it's a great introduction to Mexican/Aztec folklore for those who familiar with it. There is a glossary in the back of the Spanish words used throughout. And as I mentioned before, it's certainly a better alternative than the majority of the cookie-cutter paranormal/dystopian romances out there. 

3/5 Fancies.

 

Stay Awake Review

Stay Awake - Dan Chaon
2012

 This was sort of my re-bound book from Miss Peregrine because it had gotten me all worked up for something spooky and then didn't fill my spook-quota. I found this title on Goodread's Best Horror of 2012 list and it looked creepy enough and happened to be in the library, so I gave it a shot.

First off, it's not horror as you traditionally think of horror, like spooks and monsters and demon-children. It's a collection of short stories and while some of them  reference or hint at the supernatural, nothing is totally confirmed. Despite this, I still found it rather creepy because it's dismal and bleak, and there were overriding themes of dead babies, birth defects, widowed/ex-spouses, murdered children, etc,...but all very muted and kind of in the background of the story, such as: "The baby dies and there is a little funeral" and then the story is about the parents, which has a sad, haunting quality to it, rather than someone opening a box and finding dead babies, which is more of the shock & horror approach. These were apparently written over a period of time and published individually in journals prior to this collection, so don't be surprised if something oddly specific like...I don't know, losing your finger while falling off a ladder, happens more than once. The funny thing about collections is that you sometimes read stories in conjunction with stories that weren't meant to be together.

As a creative writing major and as an intern at a literary magazine, I've read and analyzed a lot of short fiction and I am of the camp that believes short stories do not necessarily have to have a definite, conclusive, "the butler did it" ending. I think that short stories can get away with vague, open, conclusions (as long as they are well written, of course). This book is full of those kinds of endings, so if you're the kind of person who wants to know exactly what it was all about and you want stories that end (and there's nothing wrong with that, matter of taste), you will not like this book. But I liked it.

Admittedly, I feel like some of the stories may have ended too vaguely--like I was just getting into it, and suddenly it was over. But then there were those that really worked well, such as: "To Psychic Underworld:", "The Bees," and "The Farm. The Gold. The Lily-White Hands." If you think you might pick up this book to try one of the stories, I heartily endorse that last one. It's the final in the collection and a good example why you should always leave the best for last.

 I had initially averaged this book out to 3/5, but then, the final story just blew me away and so I racked it up to 3.5/5.

Swamplandia! Review

Swamplandia! - Karen Russell

2011

The best way to describe this book is like the Florida swamps where the story takes place. It moves kind of slow, but the longer you stay, the more you are sucked in. Some parts flow quicker than others and though it is mostly open and bright, it can sometimes lead you through some pretty dark spots. Also, there are a lot of alligators.

Thirteen-year-old Ava Bigtree lives on an island, one of Florida’s Ten Thousand Islands, where her family wrestles alligators for tourists in their self-run amusement park, Swamplandia! The story begins, though, with the beginning of Swamplandia’s decline. Ava’s mother, their star wrestler, dies of cancer, and a rival amusement park opens on the mainland.  As Ava and her siblings struggle with the loss of a parent, the park struggles with a loss of revenue. Ava’s self-proclaimed genius brother, Kiwi, flees to the mainland in hopes of landing a job to send money home and discovers the joys of minimum wage work. Her teenage sister, Osceola, begins communicating with the dead and goes on dates with ghosts—or so she claims.

The eccentricity of the book’s setting reminded me somewhat of E.L. Konigsberg. The story does, however, take a rather dark turn towards the end, which serves to mark the shift in the characters' attitudes and I could go into some literary analysis ripe with dichotomies and symbolism here, but that would be spoiler-y, and besides this is a review not an essay.  Basically, I think I see what the author was going for...though it also sort of put a damper on the whole tone of the book. I don't want to give too much away because what I really liked about the book was the ambiguous IS IT REAL OR IS IT NOT feeling--is Osceola really dating ghosts? Is the entrance to the underworld really in the swamp? I went back and forth a number of times throughout the novel. Too often I read books that attempt to do similar things, but the author lacks the subtlety for me to really question both sides.

As I mentioned, the book does begin slowly and what I initially thought was the Big Plot Event doesn’t happen until almost halfway through. Looking back, I realize that the Big Plot Event, really isn’t the main plot of the story, and that’s why it happens so late. The story is about the decay of Swamplandia! and with it, the Bigtree Family’s way of life. It is also about the swamp and one of the things I really enjoyed about this book was that Russell completely brought me there.

Now, the most I've experienced of Florida swamps was a short trip to the Everglades. It began as an ambitious and highly romanticized adventure into one of our nation’s great parks and ended as a half-hour tromp across a humid boardwalk where I spotted one lazy and bemused alligator, and then a hike through a wooded area that was comprised of 30% air and 60% mosquitoes.

The point is, I was previously aware of  how much I dislike being near swamps (yes, I realize I am a massive baby).  But Russell doesn’t just transport you to the swamp, she transports you through the eyes of Ava Bigtree, and so her familiarity and love of her surroundings comes through in the descriptions as well. I kept catching myself thinking “I really should check out the ‘glades again” (though perhaps that just the 20-degrees-outside talking) before remembering the stupendous fiasco my trip was.

Aside from the ending where things get a bit...uncomfortable, the majority of the book is fairly light and there's a good smattering of humor, particularly in Kiwi's chapters. Overall,  Swamplandia! really draws you into the environment and it certainly beats trudging through the swamp myself.

4/5 Fancies.