Book Reviews: Fifth Quarter and No Quarter, Huff; A Stitch in Time, Lively

[juushika]

Title: Fifth Quarter (Quarters Book 2)
Author: Tanya Huff
Published: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, 2015 (1995)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 415
Total Page Count: 283,415
Text Number: 917
Read Because: recommended by minutia_r, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A pair of assassins find themselves in an unusual situation when confronted with a target who can jump between bodies. —And not the situation that implies; this is grim study of bodies and souls and identities, of strange intimacies and extreme pressures weighing on a sibling bond, of relationships grown in inimical circumstances. Huff's queer characters and non-normative dynamics is consistently refreshing, but this is a level of above, living deep in the id, thorny and intriguing. It's still not a strong technical work: There are relationship arcs I don't buy on both sides (Gyhard's developing feelings make sense; Vree's less so) and the structure here is too similar to Sing the Four Quarters, another cross-country chase, only slightly less burdened by unproductive sideplots but plagued by just as much headhopping. But this is so much my style—a punishing mess ruthlessly explored, but delightfully rooted in the id.


Title: No Quarter (Quarters Book 3)
Author: Tanya Huff
Published: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, 2015 (1996)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 415
Total Page Count: 283,830
Text Number: 918
Read Because: recommended by minutia_r, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Unfinished business follows Vree and Gyhard to Shkoder when they seek bardic assistance for their unusual arrangement. That central dynamic is more successful here than in the previous book, where it was too rushed; there's space within the intimate interior view for clashing motives and repressed desires and storied histories, and it builds a convincing relationship arc. The larger plot is serviceable but less interesting: another cross-country chase (it occurs to me that all four Huff books I've read have had one) with a familiar conflict and reoccurring characters. Magda, with simple but engaging characterization, is the thread that best ties all three books together.


Title: A Stitch in Time
Author: Penelope Lively
Published: HarperCollinsChildren'sBooks, 2017 (1976)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 185
Total Page Count: 284,015
Text Number: 919
Read Because: recommended by starshipfox, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: On summer vacation with her family, a girl stumbles into memories of a Victorian girl who once lived at their beach house. This slipping, fuzzy, not-quite-speculative premise could be frustrating, but it isn't; it has a satisfying conclusion, but more importantly it marries perfectly to the book's tone. Lively shows her protagonist profound respect, and fully inhabits her inner landscape: the intense privacy; the fluidity of personal growth and the snapshot moments which build a life. It works well alongside the precise details that evoke the setting and the gentle criticisms innate to the characterization. This is a gentle, unassuming book which renders an immersive PoV.

Comments

[ambyr]

I recall the fourth Quarters book being more geographically focused, FWIW.

[minutia_r]

Oh, good! I said this before, but I'm so glad the books proved to be the sort of thing you were looking for.

[starshipfox]

I'm glad A Stitch In Time worked for you! It's an odd children's book, one that appeals to me more now than it did when I was a child.

[juushika]

I was thinking about this while reading, about how knowing about Mary Anning affected my reading, adding a layer of commentary about how society views/viewed female scientist to the in-text depiction of how Maria is treated as a little girl. The way that she's dismissed out of hand by others, particularly her parents, particularly her father, and only recognized clearly through rare flashes of insight was one of the bits of the book I found most finely wrought, and it was absolutely part of a larger conversation about sexism.

Manyof those smaller, more intimate children's books work especially well for adult readers; I can appreciate the smaller touches while still, as always, resonating with the universal "coming of age" experience.

[starshipfox]

I really appreciated the Mary Anning connection as an adult reader, and these children's books that speak more to adults are interesting to me. I've come to a lot of children's books as an adult, because I didn't appreciate them as a child, and found that the shortness and intimacy of a children's book can work better as a way to explore certain ideas and themes than a more lengthy "literary" work. Lively, I think, is particularly good at capturing the interactions between parents and adults -- the subtle ways in which a child and their experiences can be utterly dismissed in a way the parents don't see as cruel or arbitrary.