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juushikaTitle: The Tea Dragon Festival (Tea Dragon Book 2)
Author: Kay O'Neill
Published: Oni Press, 2019
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 135
Total Page Count: 367,990
Text Number: 1345
Read Because: fan of the author, borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: While out foraging, a villager stumbles on upon a sleeping dragon guardian. This takes place across a single emerald-green summer, which isn't a setting I personally vibe with but makes an interesting contrast to the previous book's snapshots from each season. It localizes the atmosphere, and O'Neill's art shines in the landscapes and rich tones. But the narrative doesn't capitalize on this approach—rather, the larger cast and episodic chapters make for a lot of small, neat resolutions. It's appropriate for a children's book, but as an adult reader it feels repetitive. This didn't grab me in the way I hoped and I find the first book more affecting, but it's still gorgeous, just the right sort of twee, and achingly earnest—in its diversity, its escapism, its kindness.
Title: Bridge to Terabithia
Author: Katherine Paterson
Published: HarperTrophy, 1987 (1977)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 130
Total Page Count: 368,535
Text Number: 1350
Read Because: reread after the book came up in When did we stop caring that elves aren't real? discussion post byrachelmanija, warped AF paperback from my personal library
Review: On the one hand, what was I thinking in rereading a book about grief while grieving? On the other hand, it makes obvious sense.
I loved this book so much as a kid—I thought it was magical and beautifully tragic. It's still familiar almost line for line, but the magic of Terabithia is larger in my memory, and I don't think that's a flaw; rather, it speaks exactly to childhood's ability to imagine and extrapolate: one eerie moment in the woods becomes an entire haunted kingdom. (Also a surprise on this reread: so much fat shaming, just a lot of interpersonal pettiness all around, rather less welcome and apparently unaware that it exists in a narrative about the perils of (not) fitting in.) The tragedy is more strongly foreshadowed than I noticed back then, and the grieving process is accelerated in a way that makes for a cathartic tragedy for a melodramatic kid. But it's also cathartic melodrama for a grieving adult: I hope to build beauty from loss, too; meanwhile, I'm content with the messiness of Jesse's grief, impolite and muddled and profoundly relatable, but forgiven by the narrative and by the other characters.
Title: Brother/Sister
Author: Sean Olin
Published: Razorbill, 2011
Rating: 1.5 of 5
Page Count: 240
Total Page Count: 368,775
Text Number: 1351
Read Because: on this list, borrowed from OpenLibrary
Review: Siblings, left to fend for themselves by their deadbeat mom, recount the series of events which lead them to murder. Let's be upfront, this is trash—a thriller with opposing unreliable narrators, wildly escalating tension, an unusual sibling bond that threatens towards incest, and a twist in the final paragraphs. What makes trash "good" is flexible—the twist, for example, is a fun stinger despite that it's somehow both predictable and insubstantial.
...But this isn't good trash. It's awfully concerned with inanities that derail the tension (and some of them miss the mark in particularly bizarre ways, like the p. 53 reference to "PS3 game cartridges" which do not, in fact, exist). And then the tension ramps at a hilarious speed, but events happen off page and emotions are clumsily rendered. The testimony-style narrative is a fun concept but the voices are ridiculous. It's brief and readable, sometimes fun (but sometimes for the wrong reasons), but it flubs the claustrophobic compulsion and car-crash spectacle that would make it trashy but satisfying.
Author: Kay O'Neill
Published: Oni Press, 2019
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 135
Total Page Count: 367,990
Text Number: 1345
Read Because: fan of the author, borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: While out foraging, a villager stumbles on upon a sleeping dragon guardian. This takes place across a single emerald-green summer, which isn't a setting I personally vibe with but makes an interesting contrast to the previous book's snapshots from each season. It localizes the atmosphere, and O'Neill's art shines in the landscapes and rich tones. But the narrative doesn't capitalize on this approach—rather, the larger cast and episodic chapters make for a lot of small, neat resolutions. It's appropriate for a children's book, but as an adult reader it feels repetitive. This didn't grab me in the way I hoped and I find the first book more affecting, but it's still gorgeous, just the right sort of twee, and achingly earnest—in its diversity, its escapism, its kindness.
Title: Bridge to Terabithia
Author: Katherine Paterson
Published: HarperTrophy, 1987 (1977)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 130
Total Page Count: 368,535
Text Number: 1350
Read Because: reread after the book came up in When did we stop caring that elves aren't real? discussion post by
rachelmanija, warped AF paperback from my personal libraryReview: On the one hand, what was I thinking in rereading a book about grief while grieving? On the other hand, it makes obvious sense.
I loved this book so much as a kid—I thought it was magical and beautifully tragic. It's still familiar almost line for line, but the magic of Terabithia is larger in my memory, and I don't think that's a flaw; rather, it speaks exactly to childhood's ability to imagine and extrapolate: one eerie moment in the woods becomes an entire haunted kingdom. (Also a surprise on this reread: so much fat shaming, just a lot of interpersonal pettiness all around, rather less welcome and apparently unaware that it exists in a narrative about the perils of (not) fitting in.) The tragedy is more strongly foreshadowed than I noticed back then, and the grieving process is accelerated in a way that makes for a cathartic tragedy for a melodramatic kid. But it's also cathartic melodrama for a grieving adult: I hope to build beauty from loss, too; meanwhile, I'm content with the messiness of Jesse's grief, impolite and muddled and profoundly relatable, but forgiven by the narrative and by the other characters.
Title: Brother/Sister
Author: Sean Olin
Published: Razorbill, 2011
Rating: 1.5 of 5
Page Count: 240
Total Page Count: 368,775
Text Number: 1351
Read Because: on this list, borrowed from OpenLibrary
Review: Siblings, left to fend for themselves by their deadbeat mom, recount the series of events which lead them to murder. Let's be upfront, this is trash—a thriller with opposing unreliable narrators, wildly escalating tension, an unusual sibling bond that threatens towards incest, and a twist in the final paragraphs. What makes trash "good" is flexible—the twist, for example, is a fun stinger despite that it's somehow both predictable and insubstantial.
...But this isn't good trash. It's awfully concerned with inanities that derail the tension (and some of them miss the mark in particularly bizarre ways, like the p. 53 reference to "PS3 game cartridges" which do not, in fact, exist). And then the tension ramps at a hilarious speed, but events happen off page and emotions are clumsily rendered. The testimony-style narrative is a fun concept but the voices are ridiculous. It's brief and readable, sometimes fun (but sometimes for the wrong reasons), but it flubs the claustrophobic compulsion and car-crash spectacle that would make it trashy but satisfying.
