Legacy, Trauma, and All That’s Left Behind
Today, I’m reviewing three very different books that all share a common element: a death that leaves behind a legacy of trauma. I didn’t actually plan it that way, these just happened to be the books that came up next by date in the rotation but we love a theme so I’m not complaining. It was interesting to read then in a cluster and to see the ways in which three authors dealt with the theme in three separate genres and the way that each story played out given the conventions of the chosen genre.
November 10th
Arnie Tenderton wants his novel published and he wants Claudia Conley as his agent. She’s already rejected him once but this time, he’s going to make her an offer she can’t refuse. At the secluded property where she’s spending Christmas alone. But there’s more to this revenge plot then there seems and Arnie isn’t letting Claudia go until she knows the whole story.
I wasn’t sure I how felt about this one at first - it seemed like it might just be Misery with an agent rather than a writer - but the deeper I got, the more I realized the genius of what I was reading. Wrobel knows her tropes and knows how to play with them to mess with readers’ expectations, to distract and mislead. She also knows when to use them to fullest advantage, to bring a story to a perfect climax so that it can ride off into a magical, lyrical sunset. Revenge Plot really is a perfect thriller from start to finish.
Wrobel doesn’t, however, lose sight of her characters and that’s what makes this a good novel aside from it being an excellent example of its genre. I don’t want to say too much because I don’t want to ruin a major plot point but it’s really the relationships between people that shades this book toward horror. It’s the way they treat one another that leaves the legacy of trauma. And it’s the way it all resolves that starts the healing process. Ish.
People really are the worst.
Three generations of women are haunted by genocide.
Marina returns to Palestine to locate her grandmother’s legacy but everyone warns her away from the house that belonged to her family, claiming it is haunted. When Marina is in an accident, her mother Haifa, named after the city of her own mother’s birth, hurries to Marina’s side only to be drawn in by the house as well.
This is a beautifully written book about something ugly and horrific something that scars people and places forever. It is a metaphor that is more than that, a legend that comes from truth, a warning. It is a story about the deep, deep trauma the Israelis have wrought on the Palestinians and continue to wreak on them, the scars they so casually dig into a people and a land that they take and take and take over and over and over again.
There is a reason the house talks to “you. “
You should listen.
November 3rd
Yes, this is a romantasy and that part is cute, they bicker, there’s a knife-fight, etc. But, what I really want to talk about is how much of this book is about empire and colonialism and the trauma it leaves behind. How, even when it’s supposedly ended, the idea of colonialism and whiteness can be used to exploit social divisions. To determine who women’s bodies. Which languages are spoken. Who controls governments.
Princess Layla’s father would never marry her off to a colonizer. Her father, unfortunately is dead and her mother is our for herself (I have a lot of feelings about evil mothers but I see why it was necessary for this book) and her strategy to bring Layla under control is to traumatize her by several means, one of which is to literally colonize her. Layla decides she’s going to fight.
This is a YA book and all of the above, it’s important in YA. Kids need to see it. They need to understand it and, like Layla, they need to learn to fight it. Yes, white kids too; they need to learn to check their privilege or use it to get other people seats at the table. So, read lots of books, kids. Learn lots of things. Get angry.
Should have some spooky stuff for next time. Remember, Off The Reservation is out today.