![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: The Wolf Wilder
Author: Katherine Rundell
Published: Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2016 (2015)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 275
Total Page Count: 284,790
Text Number: 922
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review:
A girl who returns semi-domesticated wolves to the wild is pulled into tumultuous events in wintery Russia. The use of language here is lovely—I expected flowery, but it's not that; it's powerful, empathetic—a great fit to middle grade. Combined with the premise, this has fantastic atmosphere and wish fulfillment, the punishing chill of Russian winter, of survival; an impetuous and sympathetic heroine who runs with wolves. (Never particularly realistic wolves, but they hug the line of idealized-but-wild, and that's all that really matters.) I don't love the plot as much, it can be too grim to sell the wish fulfillment, and has the predictable pacing expected from the genre. This isn't my favorite new MG novel, but it gave me what I wanted, and I'm glad I waited to read it until midwinter.
Title: The Flowers of Evil Volumes 1-11
Author: Shuzo Oshimi
Published: Bessatsu Shounen Magazine, 2009-2014
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 205, 190, 190, 175, 190, 190, 195, 190, 190, 190, 210 (total 2115)
Total Page Count: 287,570
Text Number: 927-938
Read Because: mentioned in a Yuletide letter
Review: As a middle schooler, Takao is caught stealing a fellow student's gym clothes, setting up a problematic three-way dynamic between thief, victim, and witness that will define his young life. This doesn't go as dark or as strange as it seems like it might, and I regret somewhat that we don't get that narrative; but what it is, a relatively realistic (still moderately tropey; still dark) look at antisocial behavior and strained interpersonal relationships, and the longterm consequences of the events of childhood, works as an examination of the relationship between nonconformity and self-actualization. It's engaging, thorny; the internal landscapes of the characters are well-realized, even given, or because of, the emotional and inconsistent protagonist. Early chapters suffer from big head syndrome, which conveys the character ages but feels weirdly stylized; later art, especially in dialog-free pages, is fantastic.
Title: The Bone Key: The Necromantic Mysteries of Kyle Murchison Booth
Author: Sarah Monette
Published: Prime Books, 2011 (2007)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 290
Total Page Count: 287,860
Text Number: 939
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Ten stories about Kyle Murchison Booth, a museum archivist with an unlucky talent for encountering the strange and supernatural. The atmosphere is phenomenal, a historical horror vibe which is more cozy that particularly scary. The short fiction format is immensely readable; Booth's eccentricities and precise diction make for a charming, sympathetic narrative. It isn't as directly confrontational re: bigotry as the Lovecraft retellings we've seen in the last few years, but quietly and effectively introduces the characterization and representation absent from early horror/weird fiction. I wonder if a skeptical supporting character might help underscore the strangeness of Booth's experience, but the near-universal acceptance he encounters avoids tedium and compliments the character study. Ten stories is an ideal length for this (potentially first?) collection, in terms of variety and readability—but a part of me would happily live forever in the ambiguously historical, deceptively cozy, haunted, evocative world/PoV here presented.
Author: Katherine Rundell
Published: Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2016 (2015)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 275
Total Page Count: 284,790
Text Number: 922
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review:
Once upon a time, a hundred years ago, there was a dark and stormy girl.
The girl was Russian, and although her hair and eyes and fingernails were dark all the time, she was stormy only when she thought it absolutely necessary. Which was fairly often.
A girl who returns semi-domesticated wolves to the wild is pulled into tumultuous events in wintery Russia. The use of language here is lovely—I expected flowery, but it's not that; it's powerful, empathetic—a great fit to middle grade. Combined with the premise, this has fantastic atmosphere and wish fulfillment, the punishing chill of Russian winter, of survival; an impetuous and sympathetic heroine who runs with wolves. (Never particularly realistic wolves, but they hug the line of idealized-but-wild, and that's all that really matters.) I don't love the plot as much, it can be too grim to sell the wish fulfillment, and has the predictable pacing expected from the genre. This isn't my favorite new MG novel, but it gave me what I wanted, and I'm glad I waited to read it until midwinter.
Title: The Flowers of Evil Volumes 1-11
Author: Shuzo Oshimi
Published: Bessatsu Shounen Magazine, 2009-2014
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 205, 190, 190, 175, 190, 190, 195, 190, 190, 190, 210 (total 2115)
Total Page Count: 287,570
Text Number: 927-938
Read Because: mentioned in a Yuletide letter
Review: As a middle schooler, Takao is caught stealing a fellow student's gym clothes, setting up a problematic three-way dynamic between thief, victim, and witness that will define his young life. This doesn't go as dark or as strange as it seems like it might, and I regret somewhat that we don't get that narrative; but what it is, a relatively realistic (still moderately tropey; still dark) look at antisocial behavior and strained interpersonal relationships, and the longterm consequences of the events of childhood, works as an examination of the relationship between nonconformity and self-actualization. It's engaging, thorny; the internal landscapes of the characters are well-realized, even given, or because of, the emotional and inconsistent protagonist. Early chapters suffer from big head syndrome, which conveys the character ages but feels weirdly stylized; later art, especially in dialog-free pages, is fantastic.
Title: The Bone Key: The Necromantic Mysteries of Kyle Murchison Booth
Author: Sarah Monette
Published: Prime Books, 2011 (2007)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 290
Total Page Count: 287,860
Text Number: 939
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Ten stories about Kyle Murchison Booth, a museum archivist with an unlucky talent for encountering the strange and supernatural. The atmosphere is phenomenal, a historical horror vibe which is more cozy that particularly scary. The short fiction format is immensely readable; Booth's eccentricities and precise diction make for a charming, sympathetic narrative. It isn't as directly confrontational re: bigotry as the Lovecraft retellings we've seen in the last few years, but quietly and effectively introduces the characterization and representation absent from early horror/weird fiction. I wonder if a skeptical supporting character might help underscore the strangeness of Booth's experience, but the near-universal acceptance he encounters avoids tedium and compliments the character study. Ten stories is an ideal length for this (potentially first?) collection, in terms of variety and readability—but a part of me would happily live forever in the ambiguously historical, deceptively cozy, haunted, evocative world/PoV here presented.
