Bray, Libba - A Great and Terrible Beauty

http://www.broaduniverse.org/broadsheet/0502jt.html

If the contract permits, I will cut and paste here later.

But... squee! I am in print! Online, yes, but in print! I couldn't even reread my review because I felt so embarrassed!

ETA: Full review follows:

Libba Bray's first young adult novel, A Great and Terrible Beauty, tells the story of Gemma Doyle, who is sent to a boarding school in London after a frightening shadow kills her mother in India. The book is a combination of Victorian ghost story and feminist tract, and it's particularly fun to thinkof it as what Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess may have morphed into, had Burnett been at all interested in Victorian gender roles and magic.

Gemma begins as a girl desperate to leave India for London, civilization, and most of all, for a season. Her wish is gratified, but only after she mysteriously witnesses the death of her mother in a vision. She finds herself further isolated in Spence Academy, which is when the book becomes a boarding school narrative. Gemma is nothing like Sara Crewe, and the portrayals of backbiting and hurtfulness among the girls in the school were particularly effective. Amidst conflicting feelings, Gemma eventually finds herself in an uneasy alliance with two of the most popular girls in school, Felicity and Pippa, along with her drab roommate Ann, and together, they begin exploring a secret world of magic.

Although the author set off a few alarms in my head in the beginning of the book, Gemma doesn't emerge as a too-good-to-be-true historical heroine. Bray has Gemma comment on the poverty of London and rail on the unfair treatment of women, but Bray narrowly avoids being too polemic or having Gemma hold too many anachronistic attitudes. While Felicity, Pippa, and Ann start out as stereotypes -- the popular one, the pretty one, and the poor one -- they develop nicely in the book, and I particularly enjoyed how Bray allowed all of the girls to act in unflattering ways to gain popularity, even Gemma. She doesn't allow the girls to fall into the simple dichotomy of popular and mean or unpopular and good.

Things in the book get a little hairier when Bray attempts to bring in feminism, power, and magic. The girls literally have a world of their own in which they don't have to bow to the conventions of society, and Gemma's explorations of her own magical powers are intertwined with her burgeoning sexuality and her interest in Kartik, the beautiful boy from India who is trying to warn her away from her powers. The clear parallel between the unseen but omnipresent male influence over the girls'lives and an all-male organization's attempts to warn Gemma away from a mysterious female Order via Kartik gradually becomes muddier, as Gemma's power is a double-edged sword. My main problem with the book is that Bray brings up many different elements and never quite resolves them satisfactorily. Gemma's often difficult relationship with her mother turns into a much less thorny one; Felicity's growing interest in power never quite comes to a head; and the final scenes of the book turn out to be rather anticlimactic. However, apparently A Great and Terrible Beauty is the first book of a trilogy, which explains the many loose ends.

Although I appreciated the ideas behind A Great and Terrible Beauty, the execution sometimes fails to live up to them. The themes of female submission and empowerment never quite gel satisfactorily, and the tone of gothic horror fades a little by the end. But this would still be a good read for more mature young adult readers with its non-judgmental exploration of female sexuality. Despite its flaws, the book interests me enough to want to read the following two.

Links:
- keilexandra's review

Sheffield, Anne - How You Can Survive When They're Depressed

(subtitle: Living and Coping with Depression Fallout)

I picked this book up for pretty obvious reasons, and because I thought it would be interesting looking at depression from the other side. It's basically the first bit of literature on depression that I've read, so I don't have much to compare it to.

Anne Sheffield suffered from what she calls depression fallout -- the fallout and often subsequent depression and emotional damage caused by living with someone who is depressed. In her case, it was her mother. She later went through a depressive episode or two of her own, and also joined a group of family members and loved ones of "depressives." I was a little weirded out by the term "depressives" and how casually Sheffield uses it ("your depressive" or "the depressive may do blah"). I personally don't like thinking of myself as a depressive. She is also extremely pro-medication, which I have yet to make my mind up about. She generally says that while talk therapy can be useful, medication is the most efficient way to get well.

Of course, I focus more on the depressed person's perspective. But Sheffield's accounts of several relationships with depressed people and the subsequent fallout really is incredibly... er... depressing. I felt like quite a monster by the time I was done with the book. I feel it probably has good advice for people who have to live with other depressed people, and it is good that there is something focusing on them. Sheffield comments more than once that the focus of books and doctors all tends to be on the depressed person instead of on those around them, which is probably true. So all in all, it probably has good advice, but it was still pretty painful reading it and thinking about all the nasty stuff I inflict on other people.