Book Review: Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis
Wow, this book actually lived up to the good things I heard about it. I love it when that happens!
Nolan Santiago lives in Arizona, and every time he closes his eyes, he's sucked into the world--and mind and body--of Amara, unfree servant companion to Cilla, a cursed princess on the run from the evil ministers who killed her family in a coup. Cilla's curse means that if she sheds so much as a drop of blood, the surrounding landscape will try to kill her. Amara has magical healing abilities, so it's her job to "distract" the curse and take the damage herself. Which is exactly as awful as it sounds. And Nolan is a constant, unwilling passenger for all this trauma.
I was immediately invested in the characters: Nolan and his difficulty relating to anyone or doing anything in his own life due to the constant interruptions (tough even when they aren't frightening or painful), Amara's fear and mixed feelings for Cilla, Cilla's awkward good intentions going awry because she just doesn't understand the servants' positions. The book did a good job of taking things to their logical conclusions and integrating them into the plot instead of keeping them as window dressing. For instance, in the Dunelands, servants' tongues are cut out when they're children, so servants use sign language. A lot of authors would stop there, having successfully demonstrated that the Dunelands has a horrific class system. This book keeps going. It affects the plot when they go out in public and Amara is revealed as a "runaway" servant because she can't speak aloud, or when she has a silent way to communicate. Cilla will get in trouble (well, Amara will probably get the actual punishment) if her guardian Jorn catches her doing something as low-class as signing. And so forth. Nolan's constant "seizures" mean he once fell off his bike in front of a car and lost a leg.
The pacing is great. We get a lot of information, but it's skillfully woven into constant forward plot movement--conspiracies, fights, solving mysteries. It's refreshing after some books where it seems to take forever for anything to actually happen or for us to get a reason why we should care about any of the characters. This book was just plain fun to read.
It's lovely when a book treats non-mainstream characters as perfectly normal. Nolan's family is Latino, so sometimes they speak Spanish, and when they choose to speak which language has significance--but it's just one of those details about his family like many others. Instead of encouraging the kids to take up business or violin whatever, Nolan's dad encourages Nahuatl lessons. Amara is attracted to both her (male) fellow servant Maart and to Cilla, and the big deal is that it's complicated because she and Cilla can never be equals.
I was also relieved at how the "disability which is really magic" was handled. There are books--you've probably read a few--where the protagonist has been diagnosed with something, usually schizophrenia, because they can see fairies or wizards or whatever. Then the magical world is finally revealed, they are vindicated as "sane," and they go on to have an adventure like any other fantasy protagonist. These stories usually have a lot of unfortunate implications, like suggesting that mental illness is really just misunderstood creativity or something (very reassuring to people who actually can't just move into Fairlyland or Secret Moscow or wherever and be "cured"...), or that it's horribly unfair for the protagonist to be treated like one of those people when they're actually special (...yeah, thanks a lot), or something equally unpleasant. This book doesn't do that. Nolan is seeing something real, but doesn't matter as far as how it affects his life. Having his train of thought interrupted every time he blinks is going to make his day 5000x harder regardless of whether it's interrupted by something real or hallucinated. Feeling Amara's pain every time she's horrifically injured won't magically not affect him depending on whether it's real or not. Seeing people in her world die and feeling like he's lost a loved one of his own is real, lasting emotional trauma which won't be magically "cured." And of course his leg isn't growing back. And his family isn't getting all that money they spent on medical treatments back. And he isn't going to get all those years of his life he missed out on sports and movies and learning how to have actual conversations with people back. Being vindicated that his visions are real doesn't fix any of those things. His magical disability is still a real disability, with consequences that will last even if he manages to get himself out of Amara's head forever.
I thought the transdimensional possession mechanics got a little convoluted toward the end, and the evil ministers' motivations were a bit thinly sketched (in a cartoonishly evil and slightly nonsensical way) and lacked the nuance that every other character got. But that wasn't enough to ruin the book for me, because it was so good overall. The very last chapter in particular was like a punch to the gut in the most amazing way. I would quote the whole thing if it wouldn't give too much away. If anyone else has read it and wants to have spoilery discussions in the comments, I will happily oblige!
Verdict: Recommended!
Nolan Santiago lives in Arizona, and every time he closes his eyes, he's sucked into the world--and mind and body--of Amara, unfree servant companion to Cilla, a cursed princess on the run from the evil ministers who killed her family in a coup. Cilla's curse means that if she sheds so much as a drop of blood, the surrounding landscape will try to kill her. Amara has magical healing abilities, so it's her job to "distract" the curse and take the damage herself. Which is exactly as awful as it sounds. And Nolan is a constant, unwilling passenger for all this trauma.
I was immediately invested in the characters: Nolan and his difficulty relating to anyone or doing anything in his own life due to the constant interruptions (tough even when they aren't frightening or painful), Amara's fear and mixed feelings for Cilla, Cilla's awkward good intentions going awry because she just doesn't understand the servants' positions. The book did a good job of taking things to their logical conclusions and integrating them into the plot instead of keeping them as window dressing. For instance, in the Dunelands, servants' tongues are cut out when they're children, so servants use sign language. A lot of authors would stop there, having successfully demonstrated that the Dunelands has a horrific class system. This book keeps going. It affects the plot when they go out in public and Amara is revealed as a "runaway" servant because she can't speak aloud, or when she has a silent way to communicate. Cilla will get in trouble (well, Amara will probably get the actual punishment) if her guardian Jorn catches her doing something as low-class as signing. And so forth. Nolan's constant "seizures" mean he once fell off his bike in front of a car and lost a leg.
The pacing is great. We get a lot of information, but it's skillfully woven into constant forward plot movement--conspiracies, fights, solving mysteries. It's refreshing after some books where it seems to take forever for anything to actually happen or for us to get a reason why we should care about any of the characters. This book was just plain fun to read.
It's lovely when a book treats non-mainstream characters as perfectly normal. Nolan's family is Latino, so sometimes they speak Spanish, and when they choose to speak which language has significance--but it's just one of those details about his family like many others. Instead of encouraging the kids to take up business or violin whatever, Nolan's dad encourages Nahuatl lessons. Amara is attracted to both her (male) fellow servant Maart and to Cilla, and the big deal is that it's complicated because she and Cilla can never be equals.
I was also relieved at how the "disability which is really magic" was handled. There are books--you've probably read a few--where the protagonist has been diagnosed with something, usually schizophrenia, because they can see fairies or wizards or whatever. Then the magical world is finally revealed, they are vindicated as "sane," and they go on to have an adventure like any other fantasy protagonist. These stories usually have a lot of unfortunate implications, like suggesting that mental illness is really just misunderstood creativity or something (very reassuring to people who actually can't just move into Fairlyland or Secret Moscow or wherever and be "cured"...), or that it's horribly unfair for the protagonist to be treated like one of those people when they're actually special (...yeah, thanks a lot), or something equally unpleasant. This book doesn't do that. Nolan is seeing something real, but doesn't matter as far as how it affects his life. Having his train of thought interrupted every time he blinks is going to make his day 5000x harder regardless of whether it's interrupted by something real or hallucinated. Feeling Amara's pain every time she's horrifically injured won't magically not affect him depending on whether it's real or not. Seeing people in her world die and feeling like he's lost a loved one of his own is real, lasting emotional trauma which won't be magically "cured." And of course his leg isn't growing back. And his family isn't getting all that money they spent on medical treatments back. And he isn't going to get all those years of his life he missed out on sports and movies and learning how to have actual conversations with people back. Being vindicated that his visions are real doesn't fix any of those things. His magical disability is still a real disability, with consequences that will last even if he manages to get himself out of Amara's head forever.
I thought the transdimensional possession mechanics got a little convoluted toward the end, and the evil ministers' motivations were a bit thinly sketched (in a cartoonishly evil and slightly nonsensical way) and lacked the nuance that every other character got. But that wasn't enough to ruin the book for me, because it was so good overall. The very last chapter in particular was like a punch to the gut in the most amazing way. I would quote the whole thing if it wouldn't give too much away. If anyone else has read it and wants to have spoilery discussions in the comments, I will happily oblige!
Verdict: Recommended!