It's their own fault for being timeless: there's a price to pay and a consequence...
I would like to talk to you all about my recent author-crush, Sarah Rees Brennan. Her latest book, "Unspoken" is out today. I got to read it a little early, because apparently the local bookstore gets books in early? Or something? Anyway, they called me last week, and I read it over the weekend, and I heart it so very, very much. Thank you, Third Place Books!
"Unspoken" is a modern YA twist on a gothic romance/mystery, with spooky manors on the hill and creepy forests and murders and spears and magic helmets ... OK, not the spears and magic helmets so much, but you get the idea. The unofficial subtitle for the series is "Hot Blond Death." Which I think would be an excellent name for a band. Their first single could be "Cereal Killers" and make a lot of metaphors about stalks of wheat. But I digress.
The main character is a teenaged girl - sassy reporter sleuth! - in a small English town, who has always had an imaginary friend that made her a slight social outcast. Only now, it turns out he's real, and he's a part of the mysterious family who has historically owned the town. They were gone, but now they're back. The lords of the manor, the scary people that old creepy rhymes are made of, and he lives in her head, and she lives in his. Awkward.
I don't want to spoil the book for anyone, so I'm going to stay away from specifics, because if I get into specifics, I'll be unable to stop myself from spoilers. It's a thing. But to stay vague and yet still enthusiastic - it's extrememly well written. I'm jealous of Brennan's turns of phrase, and her ability to inject humor into extremely fraught situations. The characters are smart and full and they grab you and shake you about a little. Which is good, because the tension means that I read it really fast and maybe started getting excited and skimming here and there thinking "AAAAUUUUGH WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN" and then I had to go back and reread some bits because I was so anxious that I'd missed something crucial - so it's a good thing that the characters kept me grounded in the story. Of course, if they hadn't, I might not have been so invested.
There are some things I could talk about critically, and quibble with her choices, but I don't want to write a review like that. Especially since I think the book works as a whole and those quibbles are just that, and they didn't throw me out of the story, it's only afterward that I thought, huh, that was an interesting choice. Or, maybe it might have been more clear to me that was happening if she'd done *this* instead of *that*. But then again, in rushing through the book in a paroxysm of anxiety, I'm sure I missed some clues to things, so she probably did try to ... but there, I'm not going to spoil it.
There are those who've written reviews who have felt heartbroken about the ending - and I will say that it is an ending that will make you weep a little, if weeping a little is a thing you do. But it's also the first book of a trilogy, so I have hope. Hope, that savage creature, is clawing a little bit at me, because the next book is not due out for ANOTHER YEAR WOE, because that's how publishing works. Also writing, as many of us who are writers know. But I felt like the ending made sense for the plot and the characters, and of course, there is all this tension and worry and WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN still, which is a hard pitch to continue at the end of a book. And then to make your readers wait, cackling a bit with glee, is cruel, but so very writerly. *shakes fist at writers, except for myself, but I have yet to write a trilogy, so there*
So happy release day to Unspoken. If you haven't discovered Sarah Rees Brennan yet, I highly recommend her. Her other books include "Team Human (Friends Don't Let Friends Date Vampires)" with Justine Larbelustier (also most excellent), and The Demon's Lexicon trilogy (brilliant and also finished, so you can get past the cruel cliffhanging endings quicker). And some short stories, and her blog where she does *hilarious* parodies and write-ups of other novels, and I find her extremely entertaining. If it weren't creepy I would stalk her and ask her to tell me a story. Luckily, she keeps writing them, so I don't have to.
"Unspoken" is a modern YA twist on a gothic romance/mystery, with spooky manors on the hill and creepy forests and murders and spears and magic helmets ... OK, not the spears and magic helmets so much, but you get the idea. The unofficial subtitle for the series is "Hot Blond Death." Which I think would be an excellent name for a band. Their first single could be "Cereal Killers" and make a lot of metaphors about stalks of wheat. But I digress.
The main character is a teenaged girl - sassy reporter sleuth! - in a small English town, who has always had an imaginary friend that made her a slight social outcast. Only now, it turns out he's real, and he's a part of the mysterious family who has historically owned the town. They were gone, but now they're back. The lords of the manor, the scary people that old creepy rhymes are made of, and he lives in her head, and she lives in his. Awkward.
I don't want to spoil the book for anyone, so I'm going to stay away from specifics, because if I get into specifics, I'll be unable to stop myself from spoilers. It's a thing. But to stay vague and yet still enthusiastic - it's extrememly well written. I'm jealous of Brennan's turns of phrase, and her ability to inject humor into extremely fraught situations. The characters are smart and full and they grab you and shake you about a little. Which is good, because the tension means that I read it really fast and maybe started getting excited and skimming here and there thinking "AAAAUUUUGH WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN" and then I had to go back and reread some bits because I was so anxious that I'd missed something crucial - so it's a good thing that the characters kept me grounded in the story. Of course, if they hadn't, I might not have been so invested.
There are some things I could talk about critically, and quibble with her choices, but I don't want to write a review like that. Especially since I think the book works as a whole and those quibbles are just that, and they didn't throw me out of the story, it's only afterward that I thought, huh, that was an interesting choice. Or, maybe it might have been more clear to me that was happening if she'd done *this* instead of *that*. But then again, in rushing through the book in a paroxysm of anxiety, I'm sure I missed some clues to things, so she probably did try to ... but there, I'm not going to spoil it.
There are those who've written reviews who have felt heartbroken about the ending - and I will say that it is an ending that will make you weep a little, if weeping a little is a thing you do. But it's also the first book of a trilogy, so I have hope. Hope, that savage creature, is clawing a little bit at me, because the next book is not due out for ANOTHER YEAR WOE, because that's how publishing works. Also writing, as many of us who are writers know. But I felt like the ending made sense for the plot and the characters, and of course, there is all this tension and worry and WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN still, which is a hard pitch to continue at the end of a book. And then to make your readers wait, cackling a bit with glee, is cruel, but so very writerly. *shakes fist at writers, except for myself, but I have yet to write a trilogy, so there*
So happy release day to Unspoken. If you haven't discovered Sarah Rees Brennan yet, I highly recommend her. Her other books include "Team Human (Friends Don't Let Friends Date Vampires)" with Justine Larbelustier (also most excellent), and The Demon's Lexicon trilogy (brilliant and also finished, so you can get past the cruel cliffhanging endings quicker). And some short stories, and her blog where she does *hilarious* parodies and write-ups of other novels, and I find her extremely entertaining. If it weren't creepy I would stalk her and ask her to tell me a story. Luckily, she keeps writing them, so I don't have to.