Review: FAMILY OF LIARS by e. lockhart

 

Family of Liars by E. Lockhart
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The prequel to We Were Liars takes readers back to the story of another summer, another generation, and the secrets that will haunt them for decades to come.

A windswept private island off the coast of Massachusetts. 
A hungry ocean, churning with secrets and sorrow.
A fiery, addicted heiress. An irresistible, unpredictable boy. 
A summer of unforgivable betrayal and terrible mistakes.

Welcome back to the Sinclair family. 
They were always liars

— 

Beautiful lyrical prose, as is expected of E. Lockhart, and a wonderful prequel to WE WERE LIARS. Always interesting learning about the previous generation, and the characterisation was masterful. The twists were phenomenal. Complete shockers that I did not see coming. Unreliable narrators (like mother like daughter!), delightful imagery, and a book that speaks so many truths, particularly for the #MeToo movement.

Although this review is short (I’m currently not that well!) this book is an instant favourite.

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Review: DIREWOOD by Catherine Yu

 

Direwood by Catherine Yu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In this velvet-clad 1990s gothic horror, Aja encounters a charming vampire who wants to lure her into the woods—just like her missing sister.

No one ever pays attention to sixteen-year-old Aja until her perfect older sister Fiona goes missing. In
the days leading up to Fiona’s disappearance, Aja notices some extraordinary things: a strange fog
rolling through their idyllic suburban town, a brief moment when the sky seems to rain blood, and a
host of parasitic caterpillars burrowing their way through the trees. Aja’s father, the neighbors, and
even her ex-friend Mary all play down this strange string of occurrences, claiming there must be some
natural explanation. It seems everyone is willing to keep living in denial until other teens start to go
missing too.

Aja is horrified when she meets Padraic, the vampire responsible for all the strange occurrences. His
hypnotic voice lures her to the window and tells her everything she’s longed to hear—she’s beautiful and
special, and he wants nothing more than for Aja to come with him. Aja knows she shouldn’t trust him,
but she’s barely able to resist his enthrallment. And following him into the woods may be the only way
to find Fiona, so she agrees on one condition: He must let her leave alive if she is not wooed after one
week. Though Aja plans to kill him before the week is out, Padraic has his own secrets as well.

In the misty woods, Aja finds that Padraic has made his nest with another vampire in a dilapidated
church infested by blood-sucking butterflies. Within its walls, the vampires are waited on and entertained by other children they’ve enthralled, but there is no sign of Fiona. Before her bargain is up, Aja must find a way to turn her classmates against their captors, find her sister, and save them all—or be forced to join the very monsters she wants to destroy.

—- 

I was delighted to be approved for an ARC of this book, and it’s amazing: compelling, creepy, enchanting. Most of the time when I was reading this book, I felt like I was under a dark spell…delirious…almost like I was drugged. The writing is that good. It just crawls inside you and never lets you go.

It’s been a long time since I read a more traditional vampire story. And I love horror, can’t get enough of it. The imagery in this book is fascinating, and I’m never going to look at butterflies again.

Also, sisterhood. Aja is looking for her missing sister Fiona throughout this book, and we see the power of sisterhood. And that ending! I did not see that coming.

This book is dark and dangerous and creepy and sad. Creepy 90s horror at its best.


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Review: EVERY VARIABLE OF US by Charles A. Bush

 

Every Variable of Us by Charles A. Bush
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

After Philly teenager Alexis Duncan is injured in a gang shooting, her dreams of a college scholarship and pro basketball career vanish in an instant. To avoid becoming another Black teen trapped in her poverty-stricken neighborhood, she shifts her focus to the school's STEM team, a group of nerds seeking their own college scholarships. Academics have never been her thing, but Alexis is freshly motivated by Aamani Chakrabarti, the new Indian student who becomes her mentor (and crush?). Alexis begins to see herself as so much more than an athlete. But just as her future starts to reform, Alexis’s own doubts and old loyalties pull her back into harm’s way.

— 

This book and these characters are going to stay with me for a long, long time. After reading Every Variable of Us, Charles A. Bush is now an auto-buy author for me.

This story is so many things: it’s about loss and grief, it’s about abuse and survival, it’s about resilience and adapting to not-so-great circumstances. It’s about gangs and relationships. It’s about fears of what the future holds. It’s about family and the people we hold dear. And it says a lot about race too.

Lex is a seventeen-year-old Black girl who’s caught up in a drive by shooting and shot, ending her basketball career. She’s angry and desperate, and so flawed—but understandable and relatable. Her friends are mostly in the ‘gang culture’ and she thought basketball was her way out of the town. After the shooting, she feels she has nothing. Until new student Aamani introduces her to the STEM team and Lex becomes the final After Philly teenager Alexis Duncan is injured in a gang shooting, her dreams of a college scholarship and pro basketball career vanish in an instant. To avoid becoming another Black teen trapped in her poverty-stricken neighborhood, she shifts her focus to the school's STEM team, a group of nerds seeking their own college scholarships. Academics have never been her thing, but Alexis is freshly motivated by Aamani Chakrabarti, the new Indian student who becomes her mentor (and crush?). Alexis begins to see herself as so much more than an athlete. But just as her future starts to reform, Alexis’s own doubts and old loyalties pull her back into harm’s way member of the team, meaning they qualify for competitions.

The character arc for Lex is phenomenal. She goes from looking down on ‘nerds’ to wanting to study and really cares for her STEM teammates. She goes from nearly failing school to improving her GPA by two points, and she finds her own family among new friends. She struggles to navigate her new life as disabled and the effects this has on her career, future, and self-esteem. She wrestles with her sexuality, afraid of being Black and queer, but eventually choosing to embrace her feelings for Aaamani. She examines how much of her fears and beliefs about not being straight are rooted in ideology and her need to minimise the target on her.

Representation in this book is phenomenal. We’ve got Black characters, Asian characters, disabled characters, and neurodivergent characters. We examine white privilege and straight privilege, and we also look at drug addiction and poverty.

Lex’s mother is an addict and her mother’s boyfriend is abusive. Lex has been in multiple foster homes, at least one of which was also abusive. She’s beaten in this book and moves to a ‘crackhouse’ for safety—but she finds people who care for her and are in a position to look after at the end.

Because Lex undergoes such a strong character transformation, there’s very much her old life vs her new. Her former best friend Britt is deeply embedded in the old life—stealing, dealing drugs, living in an abusive foster home, trying to outwit other gangs—and we see her trying to pull Lex back into this life. These moments really are agonising to read. I was begging Lex to not go back to that, to stay with the STEM team, but of course, she didn’t. It was heartbreaking. And especially when Britt is then killed. I did not see that coming, but really I should have because it was inevitable.

And when Britt is murdered, Lex feels she has no choice but to avenge her—something that Aamani gets roped into when trying to stop her. I could not read fast enough here. So powerful and heartbreaking.

Aamani herself is also a great character. She’s Hindu and experiences racism, especially when other characters think she’s Muslim. In the story, she comes out as lesbian first to Lex and then to her parents—and her parents don’t accept it at all. We see Aamani struggling with this and the marriage her parents arrange for her, all the while trying to be Lex’s STEM tutor.

Matthew is on the STEM team and he’s Autistic. There’s an Author’s Note at the start of this book about this representation, emphasising it’s not own-voices autism rep. I loved Matthew’s character and Lex’s friendship with him, but I have seen a few autistic reviewers saying his character is a little stereotypical in places.

Lindsay is also another STEM team member, and Lex doesn’t get on with her at all at first, viewing her as a privileged white girl. Lindsay does seem cold and quite against Lex most of the time, but when we see her family it makes sense. She lives with parents who verbally (and maybe physically?) abuse each other. They have little money and live in a very dangerous neighbourhood. Lindsay is worn out and emotionally exhausted. Her collected, cold persona at school is a facade, and Lex acknowledges that she’s impressed that Lindsay has survived where she’s living.

And the love story. It’s a slow-build f/f between Lex and Aamani, and it challenges a lot of Lex’s misconceptions and her own stereotypes. Lex comes out as bisexual toward the end, as her relationship with Aamani has given her the courage to do this.

There is just so much packed into this story, and I wasn’t expecting it.

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Review: THE VANISHING DEEP by Astrid Scholte

The Vanishing Deep by Astrid Scholte
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Seventeen-year-old Tempe was born into a world of water. When the Great Waves destroyed her planet, its people had to learn to survive living on the water, but the ruins of the cities below still called. Tempe dives daily, scavenging the ruins of a bygone era, searching for anything of value to trade for Notes. It isn't food or clothing that she wants to buy, but her dead sister's life. For a price, the research facility on the island of Palindromena will revive the dearly departed for twenty-four hours before returning them to death. It isn't a heartfelt reunion that Tempe is after; she wants answers. Elysea died keeping a terrible secret, one that has ignited an unquenchable fury in Tempe: Her beloved sister was responsible for the death of their parents. Tempe wants to know why.

But once revived, Elysea has other plans. She doesn't want to spend her last day in a cold room accounting for a crime she insists she didn't commit. Elysea wants her freedom and one final glimpse at the life that was stolen from her. She persuades Tempe to break her out of the facility, and they embark on a dangerous journey to discover the truth about their parents' death and mend their broken bond. But they're pursued every step of the way by two Palindromena employees desperate to find them before Elysea's time is up--and before the secret behind the revival process and the true cost of restored life is revealed. 

--

The Vanishing Deep has to have some of the most impressive worldbuilding I've ever come across. And I LOVED this world--set in the future where 99% of the world is water, and the ocean itself becomes this dangerous, menacing character.

Tempest has been alone for the last two years, since her sister drowned. Three years before that, her parents both died too. But Tempest can get one of them back--Palendromena offers a revival programme, and Tempest's been diving for relics of the old world that she can sell to fund the revival of her sister. She knows that Elysea died with a huge secret relating to their parents' demise, and this is Tempest's goal in reviving her sister rather than sisterly love.

Well, at least, it is at first.

But Scholte throws us twist after twist, (and this review's going to contain spoilers), and soon Tempest realises that she should've revived Elysea for love to start with, not through anger, as she realises just how much she misses her sister--and how wrong about her sister she was.

And Elysea tells Tempest that their parents are still alive. I did NOT see that twist coming and I just couldn't read fast enough. This is where the action really starts going, when the two girls escape the revival centre and go on a crazy journey to find their family.

And of course they're being chased--it's a thrill-ride. Lor and Raylan are the chasers, and Lor is also the other narrator for this book (the first being Tempest). Lor is such a complex character. Right from the start, I knew he was guarding a big secret and could tell he was defensive--but when we learn the truth near the end, I was speechless. Lor is dead.

And I don't know how I didn't see that coming, because this book is all about life and death, about revival and resurrection. It's about loss and love,too. And the only negative I had about this book was how quickly Lor appears to fall for Tempest. He acts like he's almost instantly in love with her--right after she kidnaps him too. I just didn't really buy it.

But I loved the story. I loved the book. And I loved Tempest--she's cold and she's angry and she gets annoyed. She felt realistic. And this book's ending has some pretty profound things to say about life.

It's also a very feminist story. I actually did an analysis of this book just now for part of my MA degree work: It is very much the female characters who are in control of the narrative--while it's dual POV narration between Tempest (a seventeen-year-old female) and Lor, all of Lor's actions can be seen as reactions until the very end. He constantly reacts to the actions of Tempest, and so it is Tempest who is very much in control of the plot and the actions of other characters. And, at the end, when Lor does instigate his own actions (causing Tempest to be reactionary rather than active) his goal is to save the life of another character who is also female--and is the sister of Tempest, so Tempest, as the main character, is directly benefitting from the one time Lor exerts his own agency.

When you look at which characters are dead by the end of the novel, it's only some of the male characters too. Even the female characters who die during the plot are brought back to life at the end, because of the sacrifice of a male character.

When looking at it like this, it becomes clear that this is a very feminist novel (all the female characters also end up in high positions of power, if they didn't already start it), yet it wasn't until doing this analysis that I realised quite how feminist it is. Until then I'd just been enjoying it more as an entertaining YA novel!

In terms of post-colonialism, there is also a lot of discourse in this book on issues of power and economics in relation to culture. We've got different societies and cultures coming together and we see the clashes as well as the struggle the characters have as they try to decide whether to include the relics from all the cultures in their museums of the 'old world', or whether some should automatically take priority. In the end, it's decided that all cultures will be preserved in the museum, but special focus will be put on that of the previously colonised. The book ends with the colonised taking control once more, and being respected by the others.

There is also quite a bit of rhetoric on historical issues and social discourse between colonisers and the colonised--which directly linked to real-life cases, but had been subverted so it also applied to the fantasy world.

I also noticed a fair bit of characters who were 'othered' due to their appearances and origins; Tempest and Elysea were described as 'water witches' quite a bit, and interestingly, this term was only in relation to the female characters. (And, by the end, the main female characters of the book has claimed the name 'water witch' as a good thing, relating to female empowerment too).

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