(no subject)
I'm currently in that state of post-new-Frances-Hardinge depression when I have to face the glum fact that it will likely be YEARS before I see another new Frances Hardinge novel.
Cuckoo Song, though! So good! Has anyone else read it yet? I want to flail my hands around and say all the things I loved about it, but most of them are somewhat spoilery!
The book begins when eleven-year-old Triss -- an isolated, over-protected girl who's always ill -- comes back home after an accident. Her memories are foggy, her 'difficult' little sister seems to hate her more than ever, and there's some kind of awful hole in her stomach; she eats and eats and eats until her parents are terrified, but nothing fills her up ...
That's the beginning, and for the first quarter of the story it's pure psychological horror, classic female-focused psychological horror -- complete with creepy dolls and callbacks to The Yellow Wallpaper and the looming threat of being committed to an asylum -- as Triss navigates the double bind of what's wrong with her now and what was wrong with her and her family before.
Then the first set of mysteries gets solved, and it becomes clear that you're looking at a thoroughly familiar story from a completely different angle, and it's GREAT.
And at the same time it's looking at the aftermath of WWI, and grief and recovery, and shifting cultural gender roles, and what it means to be a monster, and what it means to be family, and the three main characters are Triss and her awful, difficult, angry little sister and AN EMOTIONALLY CONSTIPATED MOTORCYCLE-RIDING FLAPPER WHO DANCES ALL NIGHT IN JAZZ CLUBS, and and and!
And now I have that problem where I have to find something else to read and not spend all my time resenting it for not being a Frances Hardinge book.
This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/375191.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently
comments on Dreamwidth.
Cuckoo Song, though! So good! Has anyone else read it yet? I want to flail my hands around and say all the things I loved about it, but most of them are somewhat spoilery!
The book begins when eleven-year-old Triss -- an isolated, over-protected girl who's always ill -- comes back home after an accident. Her memories are foggy, her 'difficult' little sister seems to hate her more than ever, and there's some kind of awful hole in her stomach; she eats and eats and eats until her parents are terrified, but nothing fills her up ...
That's the beginning, and for the first quarter of the story it's pure psychological horror, classic female-focused psychological horror -- complete with creepy dolls and callbacks to The Yellow Wallpaper and the looming threat of being committed to an asylum -- as Triss navigates the double bind of what's wrong with her now and what was wrong with her and her family before.
Then the first set of mysteries gets solved, and it becomes clear that you're looking at a thoroughly familiar story from a completely different angle, and it's GREAT.
And at the same time it's looking at the aftermath of WWI, and grief and recovery, and shifting cultural gender roles, and what it means to be a monster, and what it means to be family, and the three main characters are Triss and her awful, difficult, angry little sister and AN EMOTIONALLY CONSTIPATED MOTORCYCLE-RIDING FLAPPER WHO DANCES ALL NIGHT IN JAZZ CLUBS, and and and!
And now I have that problem where I have to find something else to read and not spend all my time resenting it for not being a Frances Hardinge book.
This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/375191.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently
comments on Dreamwidth.