Review: THE WESTING GAME by Ellen Raskin

 

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A bizarre chain of events begins when sixteen unlikely people gather for the reading of Samuel W. Westing's will. And though no one knows why the eccentric, game-loving millionaire has chosen a virtual stranger--and a possible murderer--to inherit his vast fortune, on things for sure: Sam Westing may be dead...but that won't stop him from playing one last game!

I could not stop reading this book! THE WESTING GAME by Ellen Raskin is a phenomenal mystery, and I’m actually in awe of how good it is. As I was reading it, I kept forgetting it’s a novel as it seemed more like a puzzle, and the writing style is just amazing.

It’s one of the children’s titles for my postgrad creative writing course, but it reminded me so much of Virginia Woolf’s style. I actually googled the book to see if it’s taught to children at schools (or just used for degree level courses) because of this almost stream-of-consciousness style and complexity, with so many beautiful nuanced layers. It’s recommended for ages 10 and upward, and I have since learnt it's taught widely in US schools, but as a UK reader, I hadn't heard of this book at all--and here it often seems only to be taught to adults as an example of how children’s stories should be as complex as adult stories, as obviously you shouldn’t “write down” to children. It will give great satisfaction to adult readers who may be reading it aloud to children, as they’ll understand the more complex themes in it that younger children may not. Though I think children 10 and older would grasp the deeper meanings in this book, and YA readers certainly will.

The story follows 16 people (a mixture of children, teenagers, and adults) as they listen to the reading of Sam Westing’s will and discover that one of them is a murderer. All 16 are then thrown into the Westing Game where each must solve clues pertaining to the identity of the murderer. At times, these clues are almost set out like an instruction manual for a game, so we, as the readers, are also playing along. It’s this interactive quality that I’m finding so addictive.

It took me a little while to get into this book, mainly because there are just so many main characters, and we're not told a whole lot about these to start with. But we're thrown right into the mystery, and it's like we're trying to solve the mystery at the same time as learn about the characters--which does work really well as we're trying to work out who the murderer is.

And working out who the murderer is was just something I couldn't do--which rarely happens. But I really had no idea. And for that, I loved this book. It's just so powerful and it was refreshing to read such a complex and wonderfully plotted mystery that kept me on my toes as a reader. I was really making sure to read every single word on each page in case I missed a clue. 

Also, the narrative devices in this book are great. We've got multimedia in this as we get recounts of Sam Westing's will and other documents. And all of these are clues for the mystery too! 

The ending of the book was...strange. I don't know, it's hard to describe it without getting into spoiler territory. Because there are big twists, and though these were satisfying, I was kind of waiting for something more to happen as I was reading...but then by the time I got to the very last page, I realised that the ending was perfect as it was. If there had been another twist it probably would've detracted from the quietly powerful ending--where the true impact of it only hits you after you've stopped reading and you've got time to think.

And those final pages, where time suddenly speeds up and we learn what happens to the children as they grow up and the deaths of the older characters who were adults in the story is really heartbreaking. It's really powerful writing.

Turtle was by far my favourite character, swiftly followed by Angela. These two characters (sisters) really complimented each other, and I loved how many layers they each had, especially the darkness in Angela as (spoiler) she turns out to be the bomber. I also loved Sydelle and Otis (calling Otis the '65 year old delivery boy' was fantastic, by the way!). The other characters (with the exception of Grace, the mother of Angela and Turtle), although still strong with characterisation, didn't quite have the same impact on me as these characters. I think it's because there are just so many main characters in this book. It was a bit overwhelming. For a long time, I didn't even realise that Crow would be a significant character either. So that threw me a little.

Disability representation is also amazing, with the character of Chris who's a wheelchair user--and I loved how this book has other characters making assumptions about Chris and being stereotypical, but that these characters are then either called out, or the narrative voice becomes really snarky as it tackles the misconception. This is honestly one of the best books I've read for disability representation. (And equally, it's not just disability that the book calls out about this; there's also a lot on feminism and the role of women, with characters fighting stereotypes and 'traditional' views.)

The writing style of THE WESTING GAME is fun and snarky, and I can see why it would appeal a lot to children and teenagers. It's just so plucky and fun to read, and the narrative voice of the book is really great. There is a lot of head-hopping in the stream-of-consciousness style as we're bounced from one character to another, but uniting all these characters is this snarky voice--which is both snarky and judgmental on the current POV character and about others in general. And because the head-hopping is constant, and the whole thing is written in this style, very similar to Woolf's, this is one of the rare instances where I do feel that the head-hopping works.

This is a masterful piece of writing. Highly recommended.

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Review: A WORLD WITHOUT YOU by Beth Revis

 

A World Without You by Beth Revis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Seventeen year old Bo has always had delusions that he can travel through time. When he was ten, Bo claimed to have witnessed the Titanic hit an iceberg, and at fifteen, he found himself on a Civil War battlefield, horrified by the bodies surrounding him. So when his concerned parents send him to a school for troubled youth, Bo assumes he knows the truth: that he's actually attending Berkshire Academy, a school for kids who, like Bo, have 'superpowers.' At Berkshire, Bo falls in love with Sofia, a quiet girl with a tragic past and the superpower of invisibility. Sofia helps Bo open up in a way he never has before. In turn, Bo provides comfort to Sofia, who lost her mother and two sisters at a very young age. But even the strength of their love isn't enough to help Sofia escape her deep depression. After she commits suicide, Bo is convinced that she's not actually dead. He believes that she's stuck somewhere in time - that he somehow left her in the past, and now it's his job to save her.

A World Without You is a complex and heartbreaking read, but for me it lacked that extra bit of power that would've made it a 5-star read.

So, we've got Bo who's at a special school for teenagers with severe mental illness and behavioural challenges, only Bo believes he's actually got superpowers and that the school is a place for other people like him. Through his eyes, we meet his classmates and learn of the 'powers' he believes they have. The writing is actually incredible as even from Bo's narrative, I could tell which problems the other characters at the academy had, even though we're immersed in Bo's very distorted view of the world.

Before the book begins, Bo's girlfriend has died, and Bo spend the majority of this book believing that she's not really dead, that she's stuck in time somewhere--because the superpower he believes he has is that he can travel through time and manipulate time. It's honestly heartbreaking reading how he's 'going back in time' constantly searching for Sofia, believing he can save her--when readers know what his reality is.

The writing is also really strong and narrative style is sufficiently different between the two POV characters, Bo and his sister Phoebe. Phoebe's chapters are very different to Bo's--she's grounded in the real world and we see the impact that Bo has on her. There's a lot of discourse on the impact that mental illness has on the family unit as a whole, and we see how Bo's institutionalisation shapes Phoebe and their parents. But I did find this was a little repetitive. Beth Revis has both her narrative POV characters lament A LOT about how Phoebe and Bo's relationship is not a typical relationship. And this was starting to annoy me as I read it. Mentioning it once per narrating character--or even twice--would've done the job, but it's mentioned so much that I began to feel like it was just too repetitive. And this slowed down the pacing for me, particularly in the first two-thirds of the book.

There was also one thing that I didn't particularly like regarding the family dynamics which was made quite obvious via Phoebe's chapters--and that is how her chapters present Bo as a burden on his family. As a disabled and chronically ill reader, this was something that really disappointed me. I mean, obviously, it's just Phoebe's opinion--and she's bearing the grunt of a lot of Bo's illness in the family dynamic as she's now got to be the 'perfect' child and isn't allowed to mess up at all--but I was hoping that there'd be something later to call Phoebe out on this 'Bo is a burden' notion.

The tension develops well across the book--and although the pacing and tension doesn't really change across Phoebe's chapters, you can really see it building to the climax with Bo's. For that reason, from 70% onward, I couldn't put this book down. That's where we see the accumulation of everything: Bo's illness, his grief and refusal to admit Sofia is dead, the pressure that Phoebe's under. There were several moments near the end where my heart was in my mouth, where I couldn't truly believe that what I thought had happened had actually happened. It was heart-wrenching and exhausting to read, but in a good way.

On the whole, this book has a good depiction of mental illness, if the whole burden issue is overlooked. But it's an important read and I still rate it 4 stars because of the strength of the writing and plot.

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Review: WILDER GIRLS by Rory Power

Wilder Girls by Rory Power
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Everyone loses something to the Tox; Hetty lost her eye, Reese's hand has changed, and Byatt just disappeared completely.

It’s been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put in quarantine. The Tox turned the students strange and savage, the teachers died off one by one. Cut off from the mainland, the girls don’t dare wander past the school’s fence where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure as the Tox takes; their bodies becoming sick and foreign, things bursting out of them, bits missing.

But when Byatt goes missing, Hetty will do anything to find her best friend, even if it means breaking quarantine and braving the horrors that lie in the wilderness past the fence. As she digs deeper, she learns disturbing truths about her school and what else is living on Raxter Island. And that the cure might not be a cure at all... 

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Gah, this book!!!!!

I've had it on my kindle for over a year, and I wasn't sure why I hadn't yet read it, so one day I picked it up, not expecting to be totally grabbed by it...and I didn't surface until I'd finish it. Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration as I read it in sections across about a week. But I truly felt like I was never leaving this book every time I paused. I was so caught up in this world, and I felt like I was living in it. I couldn't stop thinking about it.

It's amazing. Even if I was reading about a pandemic during a real global pandemic... 

Hetty, Byatt, and Reese are at the Raxter school, an all-girls school, on an island, when the Tox breaks out and they're all in quarantine, unable to leave. The Tox is a brutal illness--and it marks its victims in different ways, if they survive it at all. Hetty lost an eye to it, Byatt's got problems with her spine, and Reese has got a scaled hand. And pretty much every character has some sort of disability from it. And I wasn't expecting the disability rep to be great, I'll be honest--but it really is. As a disabled reader, I was so delighted to see this. All the characters in this book are disabled and badass. I loved it!

And Miss Welch--can we just talk about her for a moment? Her characterisation is wonderful. I was really hating her (spoiler ahead--skip to next paragraph to avoid it!) and then there's that amazing reveal where all her actions that make us hate her suddenly make sense, and we learn who the real villain of the book is.

Talking of great reveals--the way we learn info about what the Tox is and what is really going on on Raxter island is just great.

The writing in this book is incredible. It's almost stream-of-consciousness in places, just sooooo immersive and beautifully written. It's told in dual POV between Hetty and Byatt, and even their narrative voices are so distinct, despite both being written in this immersive way.

And the romance. This is such a great LGBT book with romance between Hetty and Reese (I'll be honest, I didn't see that coming as there's a real closeness between Hetty and Byatt, but it felt so natural.) I think Reese is my fave character though. There's something fierce and prickly about her. She's not as easy to like, and I love that.

The only thing that surprised me about this book is the ending... Like, is there going to be a sequel??? Because the (and another spoiler here!) whole book is about beating the Tox, and that just...doesn't happen. It feels like we've got the set up for at least another book. This one finishes with Hetty and Reese escaping the island, but it doesn't feel like the story's over yet. I really hope there's a sequel.

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Review: THE EYES OF MIKRA by Isvari

The Eyes of Mikra by Isvari
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I absolutely loved this story. You know how sometimes a book just grabs you and you can't stop thinking about it? That's this book. It's haunting and emotional, and it's almost got a timeless feel to it as it explores the effects war has on a person's mind.

The book opens with immediate intrigue and mystery and bloodshed. SJ has lost her memory, due to a bomb blast, and we're immediately thrown into the horrors of war, as well as SJ's own struggle to know who she is and to re-find her identity (and learn of the horrors of her past). We've also got the ominous 'presence' of Agent S right from the start, the antagonist, and I love how we only know as much about Agent S as SJ does at this point--we discover who this agent is just as SJ rediscovers her life.

And I just want to talk a bit about the structure--The Eyes of Mikra is the memoir of the MC, SJ. I'll admit, I didn't entirely realise it was her memoir until I was about a third of the way through, when the text explicitly says it. Up until then I'd thought it was multiple timelines, where one is told through diary extracts and the other through present-day action. But there were times when the writing seemed too reflective and not immediate enough to be present-day, so the revelation that we're actually reading a fictional memoir was great. I'm actually a huge fan of memoir, but I've never really read a fictional one--though as soon as I realised this is SJ's memoir, I realised it had a similar tone to The DNA of You and Me by Andrea Rothman--both have this contemplative voice, and are so, so emotional.

I'm also not usually a fan of books where part of the story is told through diary extracts, but the narrative device really works here. It gives an extra layer to an already complex and sophisticated story. And the diary extracts are cleverly woven into the story to add to the details we already know. And the diary extracts also have a distinctive voice too--we can really get a 'then' and 'now' sense. And the diary adds authenticity to SJ's story, especially as the voice changes and feels very natural for character growth.

One thing I really liked about this story is its emphasis on appearance and disfigurement. You've got the MC with prominent scars on her face that are in the healing process--and I felt that the way other characters react to this, namely her mother, was really telling for their relationships. I also love how at one point the mother brings her a photo of her as a child, in order to try and jog her memory of who she is, and it's a photo of the MC as a child with her favourite toy, a stuffed dog. But the thing that SJ focuses on in the photo is the tear across the dog's eyes. I thought this was a great parallel to SJ scars--"I'd pored over him myself for weeks, in the end convincing myself that my haphazard stitches made him more beautiful than the tear"--and this is just so poignant to SJ as she adapts to her new life. And this parallel of a dog with the MC is explored later in the book too, as near the end SJ tells us how she gets companionship from a stray dog. It's a really poignant moment, and it gives the whole narrative a circular feel.

It's also got some dark content that prompts the reader to look at the horrors of war and the moral dilemmas soldiers may face, such as shooting children. This book also looks at ideas of innocence and purity (in childhood) and it's contrasted powerfully with the horrors of war. And the imagery is so strong and vivid, especially when it comes to showing the different sides of human nature.

And it's got a lot of discourse on family and secrets too--as well as a feminist streak (I was so glad when SJ challenged Laki on her views on women's roles, but also how it shows how different people/societies look at this and the way beliefs are engrained like this). It's amazing how many things are blended into this story so effectively. There really is so much to say about it.

And the ending! There's a great twist. Such a reveal!

I really recommend this book. The Eyes of Mikra has everything you could want: a strong-willed MC, spies, secrets, love and death, a clever narrative, and a cast of realistic and believable characters.


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Review: IN A PICKLE OVER PANDAS by Melanie S. Weiss

In A Pickle Over PANDAS by Melanie S. Weiss
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this picture book on PANDAS mainly as research to see how picture books tackle medical issues such as PANDAS and the level of detail into which they go into. I myself am an adult with PANS (similar to PANDAS) and I've written a lot of articles on my experiences with PANS, but these are all aimed at adults. So I was interested to see how a children's picture book would tackle it.

This book does go into a lot of detail about PANDAS--more than I thought it would do for this age range, but it is all necessary and important info (from my perspective as an adult). However, I do wonder if it's really suitable for children of the intended age range for the readership. It does get very technical, and it does have some pretty scary illustrations representing the mental health symptoms that PANDAS can cause. 

But, then again, if a parent is buying this for their child, chances are the child is going to have PANDAS and the book is being used as a tool to help explain the illness to the child, so the child would already be familiar with the symptoms. Therefore I think this book is more suitable for children who already have PANDAS rather than children who don't. But it is still important reading for parents as the more knowledge they have of neuropsychiatric disorders such as PANDAS and PANS the better, especially when these disorders are often misdiagnosed.

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Review: THE WICKER KING by K. Ancrum

The Wicker King by K. Ancrum
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have such complicated feelings about this book. It's just...phenomenal.

You know every now and again a book just totally grabs you and you can't put it down? Reading it becomes addictive and you constantly think about the characters? This is one of those books, for me. I read it in three days, and I can't believe I've finished it now. I almost feel lost without more to read as I was so engrossed and caught up in this book. I truly was living and breathing August and Jack's story. And it's a story of a complicated friendship that turns to love, of illness and insanity, of neglect and desperation, of needing to find the people who 'get' you.

The relationship between August and Jack is INTENSE. And it's so well written. It was so tangible and I felt like I could just reach out and grab it. It's so vivid and real. I almost haven't got the words for describing it. I have never seen a relationship written as well as this. It just felt so...real. I could feel the boys' love for each other, and that ending, where they admit their feelings, was such a cathartic moment. It's the characters realising they're in love, something which the readers (and other characters) realise much earlier on.

The book's about the hallucinations that Jack develops and how with each day he's sucked more into this internal world, and how August reacts to this--the codependency that he has for Jack, and his own deteriorating mental health as a result of going along with Jack's hallucinations. August's deterioration is really well done, and we see him putting himself in more and more dangerous situations--life-endangering situations--because he does whatever Jack requests.

I think one of the reasons this book has resonated so much with me is because I have experienced psychosis, and K. Ancrum captures the nature of hallucinations so perfectly--even though we see it all through August's point of view. My psychosis, like Jack's, had a physical cause. Brain inflammation and a brain cyst in my case, rather than a brain tumour. And Jack's hallucinatory world and his behaviour just made so much sense to me. I could see myself in him, and it brought so much of that back to me.

I almost feel like I haven't even processed just how amazing this book is yet. It's just so haunting. Usually by the time I review books, I've thought a lot about why a book creates the impact it does, and how, but I feel totally overwhelmed by the power of this one, and I wanted to write this review now to reflect these feelings. 

Also, the narrative devices in this book are amazing--it's a multimedia book, and parts of the story are told via hospitalisation reports, detention slips, photos of the main characters, and a note where Jack is asking out August. The note is a reoccurring piece of the story, and we see how Jack's crossed it out at various times, then scribbled over it again, as he's struggling to process his feelings for August. This added a whole new dimension to the story too. 

I highly recommend this book.


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Review: A SONG BELOW WATER by Bethany C. Morrow

A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This has to be one of the best YA fantasy/magical realism books I've read in a long time. I've actually been in a reading slump recently for fantasy--it's actually become rare (unfortunately) that I finish a fantasy, as I'm mainly into thrillers now. But this wasn't the case with A SONG BELOW WATER. This is a refreshing and authentic story.

This book is about two sisters, Effie and Tavia. It's about Black Girl Magic, Sirens, Oppression, and Racism. And it's about secrets and identity, and not knowing quite how you fit in--I especially loved Effie's story as she discovers what she is. Her sister's a siren, and there's this whole mystery over what she is. And the reveal at the end--it was perfect. (Oh and the sisters are more like 'soul sister's--they're not related by blood, and I loved what this book says about family.)

The worldbuilding is so rich and beautifully layered. Again, I find magical realism kind of hard to get to grips with, but the moment I started reading this, I was drawn in. It felt like I was really stepping into this world, and all the mythical creatures that walk this alternate Portland just seemed like they fitted in there. It was seamless.

A SONG BELOW WATER is such a relevant book for these times as it explores how Black women are treated and it's about its young Black characters finding their voices in society. There were a lot of scenes in this book that I found chilling--particularly how sirens (all of whom are Black in the book) are often given collars that silence their voices. This book really makes us think.

I actually came across A SONG BELOW WATER following the recent #BlackLivesMatter movement where the publishing industry encouraged everyone to read books by Black authors. This is one of them that I discovered, and I am so glad I did--and I'll definitely be interested in anything more that Bethany C. Morrow writes.