Category Archives: Magical Realism

Review: I Crawl Through It by A. S. King

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Magical Realism, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , ,

I Crawl Through It by A. S. KingI Crawl Through It
by A. S. King
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Four teens battle inner traumas from grief to anxiety to neglect. Stanzi’s parents compulsively visit sites of school shootings. China has eaten herself. Lansdale tells outlandish lies that make her hair grow. Gustav is busy assembling an invisible helicopter from a kit the bush man gave him. The bush man has all the answers. He knows the place Gustav and Stanzi can go, a place that has answers for them, too. Escape seems like the perfect solution, until it isn’t.

Honestly, I so didn’t get this book. I wanted to like it. I liked pieces of it. I think each character individually had a really fascinating story. I just didn’t really understand how they fit together and why they were all stories in the same book. Also, I kept expecting the odd stuff to be revealed as metaphors for something. I thought maybe this layer of fantasy would be pulled back to reveal a layer of reality that made sense beneath it – like Neal Shusterman’s Challenger Deep.

That doesn’t happen, though. The story remains sort of this weird urban Alice in Wonderland, where the lines between reality and I’m not even sure what – fantasy? Hallucination? – blur and loop back on themselves.

The narrative is strong and each character is profoundly unique, so there are some really powerful elements present. But I couldn’t get past feeling left hanging, waiting for things to click into place and make some kind of sense. I felt like I missed the boat somehow.

If you’re looking for an intense emotional read where nothing is predictable and the plot really takes you outside the box, I Crawl Through It will not disappoint. If you need a little more sense and reason in your fiction, it may not be the book for you. Try Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman or We Were Liars by E. Lockhart if you’re looking for something different about mental illness.

Language Content
Extreme profanity used with moderate frequency.

Sexual Content
A man lives in a bush near Stanzi’s house. He wears a trench coat but is naked underneath, and sometimes appears to expose himself. Stanzi kisses him, and there are hints that he may be having sex with some teen girls, but it’s never described. Patricia lives with Gary and he asks her for sex, but she makes excuses.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
This isn’t really violence, but Stanzi is obsessed with biology and dissecting things, especially frogs. She doesn’t harm anything living.

Drug Content
The man who lives in the bush sells lemonade with or without roofies. Stanzi believes this is a joke. It’s never specified.

Guilt and Innocence in The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma

Book Review and Content, Magical Realism, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , ,

The Walls Around Us
Nova Ren Suma
Algonquin Books

Violet’s best friend Ori would have done anything for her. That’s what best friends do. At least, that’s what Violet tells herself happened that night behind the theater, the night those two girls died. After that, Ori gets sent upstate to a girls’ prison.

Amber waits for her new prison roommate. She’s known the girl will come since the night the doors opened, the night she saw the girl who didn’t belong. She also knows the new roommate starts the beginning of the end. That they will all die in a few weeks’ time.

In poetic narrative, Suma delivers a story of three girls and the guilt or innocence that binds them to one another. It’s thick, dark, and supernatural.

As a former dancer, I enjoyed the references to ballet and the role the competitive dance world played in shaping Orianna and Violet. It created a natural foundation of tension and sense of rivalry that kept me turning page after page of the story.

The supernatural element comes into play when all the prison doors open one night and many prisoners leave their cells. Amber meets a shadow of a girl who doesn’t belong and afterward sees glimpses of the prison as it looks in the future. It pretty much freaks her out and she worries that she’s losing her mind.

Suma pulls the threads of all the girls’ stories together powerfully in the conclusion of the tale. Again, it’s dark, but it also feels necessary. This is definitely less a feel-good tale and more a deeply thoughtful, balance-in-the-universe sort of story.

Language Content
Infrequent profanity.

Sexual Content
Both Ori and Violet are sexually active. Ori has a loving relationship with a devoted boyfriend, where Violet chooses shallower, physical relationships. In one scene, Violet engages in oral sex with a boy. She’s caught and possibly photographed in the act. There are also several brief references to girl-on-girl experiences within the prison.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
Amber’s stepfather physically abused her. Amber fantasized about ways to murder her father in a journal. Descriptions are brief. The description of his death in a fire is also pretty brief.

Two girls bully another girl pretty severely. There are some brief descriptions of things they do. They’re less violent than straight up horrible.

Drug Content
A vine with flowers, a powerful hallucinogenic, grows outside Amber’s cell window. Some girls smoke the flowers to get high. Another inmate, Peaches, trades drugs to the other girls. No point-of-view characters use drugs in the story.

Review: The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke

Book Review and Content, Clean Fiction, Fantasy, Magical Realism, Middle Grade 8-12, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , ,

The Thief Lord
Cornelia Funke
Scholastic, Inc.
Published January 1, 2000

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

The adventure begins when an apparently grief-stricken couple hire detective Victor Getz to track down their missing nephews: Prosper, age twelve and Bo, age five. Instead of languishing in the chill of the Venice streets as their aunt fears, Prosper and Bo have allied themselves with a band of urchins led by a boy who calls himself the Thief Lord.

When a shop owner whispers to the group of a special task for the Thief Lord worth an enormous amount of money, the kids are quick to relay the information to their leader. But not even the Thief Lord could foresee what would happen if the artifact is recovered and the magical merry-go-round is rebuilt.

Quirky characters and quick humor make it easy to get lost in Funke’s award-winning, whimsical tale. Sections from Victor’s point-of-view keep the story grounded and realistic, balancing the children’s idealism and limited understanding of the world around them.

The story creates several moments in which its characters have opportunities to choose how to respond to situations and face grave consequences. When the children discover the true identity of the Thief Lord, they must reevaluate their relationships with him. Some respond with understanding and loyalty, but others embrace feelings of betrayal and remain unforgiving. When the merry-go-round is restored and its magical properties discovered, the children must decide whether it should be used at all.

The variety of narrators make this novel a great read for young and old alike. Recommended especially for readers who enjoy realistic fiction with a twist of fantasy.

Profanity and Crude Language Content
Very mild profanity.

Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
Mild.

Drug Content
None.

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Review: The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye J. Walton

Book Review and Content, Coming of Age, Fantasy, Magical Realism, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , ,

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender
Leslye J. Walton
Candlewick Press
Published January 1, 2014

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Ava Lavender comes from a long line of peculiarly gifted women who’ve been unlucky in love. She relates her family history beginning with her great-grandparents and their journey from France to the United States in the early 1900s. Ava’s grandmother is the surviving member of her small family by the time she marries. Desperate to escape the bitter memories of her lost loved ones, Emiliene and her husband head west, finally settling in a small Washington town. Emiliene bears one child, Ava’s mother, before her husband dies. Each member of Emiliene’s family bears some peculiarity, and it seems Viviane, Emiliene’s child is no exception, when she is born with an incredibly keen sense of smell. But it is Ava, Viviane’s daughter who possesses the most notable peculiarity: she is born with wings.

Ava spends her young life sheltered in her grandmother’s home with her mother and twin brother and their live-in handyman. Gabe is determined to teach Ava to fly, and spends a great deal of time building flying contraptions so he can do just that. The only problem is that none of them seem to work. As Ava reaches her middle teen years, she begins to grow curious about the world outside her family’s home. As she begins to venture out, she must face the various ways people respond to her wings. She finds herself labeled both angel and demon, worshipped and hunted. As danger closes in around her, Ava’s brother (who appears to have some form of Autism) tries repeatedly to warn the family, but the message doesn’t at first make sense to them. Emiliene and Viviane must piece together the clues and find Ava before it’s too late.

The most striking thing about this novel is the style in which it is written. It’s very whimsical and a little bit dark, both quirky and hopeful. Each of the focal characters is expertly created and their stories deeply interesting. There are definitely some intense moments which make this a story better suited to older teens. Readers who enjoy stories in the vein of the movie Big Fish will enjoy this novel.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Infrequent but extreme.

Sexual Content
Brief references to sex, including references to a brother and sister who were rumored to be lovers and two men who are lovers. In one scene a man violently assaults a woman. Details of the attack are brief but brutal, and the progression of events is really choppy, making it difficult to tell what’s happening. The girl is raped. Details of the rape are very limited.

Spiritual Content
Emiliene is haunted by the ghosts of her deceased siblings and a former resident of her home. Rumor has it that a young girl living in sin attempted to receive communion and the host caught fire as it touched her mouth. This event occurs again featuring one of the main characters in the story.
Violence
See above for assault. Emiliene’s brother is shot in the face by his lover. His ghost bears the scars from his gruesome demise. Details are limited. One of Emiliene’s sisters commits suicide by removing her heart. Again, gruesome, but with limited details.

Drug Content
A young man drugs a relative in his care.

Note: I received a copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

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