Annexed by Sharon Dogar

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I first heard of Sharon Dogar’s Annexed because of the controversy. This novel, told from the perspective of Peter van Pels (the boy who was briefly loved by Anne Frank during their tenure in the famous attic), would apparently detail their sexual relationship–a fact which very much upset van Pels’ last surviving relative. Book banners and horrified parents were immediately up in arms–how could anyone both appropriate and besmirch Anne Frank’s memory?

To which I only gave a derisive snort–had these people even read Anne’s diary?

I did, and though it’s been about a decade, even I recall with clarity the sexual passages in the uncensored diary. Sure, some of these passages stood out in my mind because I was, myself, a teenager, but they also seemed striking to me because they were so very true to a young girl’s sexual awakening. In fact, that fearless honesty is what makes Frank’s diary one of the few Holocaust narratives that I don’t find, honestly, a little tiresome. This was a voice that had so much more to talk about than the horrors of war–including, certainly, sex.

Ironically, Dogar talks about sex far less than Anne Frank did. I went into Annexed expecting something akin to sexy Anne Frank fan-fiction. In terms of sexual content, there’s almost none, despite the adolescent male narrator. Peter van Pels has a handful of wet dreams at the beginning of the novel–later, he and Anne kiss and cuddle and once he mentions feeling her breasts against him. The horror! These accounts struck me as merely honest; this is not a salacious book.

But it is a fairly effective one. Dogar gives us a complimentary narrative to set alongside Anne’s. Though I was initially annoyed by the plain-spoken voice she utilizes for Peter’s narration, eventually I was convinced of the honesty of the tone. Though not particularly artful, this is a good match for Anne’s writing in the original diary. In terms of characterization, Peter himself is exceptionally well-realized, and his interactions with his parents, and the other attic inhabitants (not to mention the attic cats) do quite a bit to endear him to the reader. And his relationship with Anne builds slowly, deliberately, and absolutely believably.

Peter’s observations about Anne, both initially and as the relationship developed, were fascinating. Though I’ve seen some reviewers decry Dogar’s portrayal of Anne as an annoyingly-driven young writer, I bought it, and I certainly bought Peter’s self-consciousness about their young relationship being preserved for the ages in Anne’s diary. In a way, I can’t help but think of them as a young version of the couple in Margaret Atwood’s “Their Attitudes Differ”: “Please die, I said, so I can write about it.” Dogar does a good job of accurately reflecting the thorny complications of a relationship with a writer.

Not everything in here works perfectly. I was irritated by some of the stylistic choices: the dull-as-dirt chapter headings, the intrusive frame narration that only got more grating as the book proceeded, the stark weirdness of a present-tense narration in a story that’s a flashback. I’m certain Dogar did this deliberately; she eventually merges the voices. But when it comes down to it, it just doesn’t work. Dying Peter’s voice intrudes even on the later scenes, which are, themselves, quite dark as they’re set in the death camps. I found myself skipping many of these italicized passages to no ill effect so I could better focus on the central story of Peter as a living boy.

Despite this, the core story remains powerful and affecting. Ultimately Dogar is successful at giving voice to Peter, a real person who has so often been relegated to playing a bit part in the life of a girl he once briefly loved.

Disclosure: I received a review copy of this volume from netgalley.com.

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Ascendant by Diana Peterfreund

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ascendant is a rare breed even among unicorns–a sequel that improves on the first volume’s vision.

Everything that worked well in Rampant is present here: a small army of well-developed characters, a strong voice that’s never grating, an absolutely fearless heroine who is nevertheless absolutely human, a fascinating mythology. But rather than defaulting to formula, as many sequels do (Catching Fire and Pretties come most immediately to mind), Ascendant spins an entirely new story. And, while some of the story elements present–namely, the introduction of a love triangle–have become old hat in YA lately, Diana Peterfreund spins even this in a new way, offering no easy, or obvious answers.

Ascendant continues the story of sixteen-year-old Astrid Llewelyn, who was forced to abandon her life as a normal teenage girl when she discovered that she has the power to tame the killer unicorns which have recently (and bloodily) revealed themselves to humanity. At the beginning of the novel, she’s well-established in a cloister full of virginal teenage huntresses, who have been grappling, variously, with boredom, with a mysterious power-dampening illness, and with their developing identities as warriors.

The battle scenes are gorgeously written and vividly described; they held my interest and I’m not even normally a fan of action sequences! Peterfreund weaves a story of girl warriors that easily rises to Buffy-like levels. But unlike Buffy, there’s no weird sexualization or male gaze here. Astrid and the other hunters are strong and fierce, but battle has a very clear effect on both their bodies and psyches. The question of their power, of retaining it and remaining, still, undeniably female even if not traditionally feminine, was a core theme in Rampant and becomes even more central here.

The unicorn mythology is also further developed in this volume. Ascendant opens with a description of the unicorn tapestries, and we get a new unicorn species whose appearance and ability is nicely described. We’re introduced to the “einhorns” as Astrid departs from her cloister in Rome to seek new employment at a scenic French retreat. I wasn’t expecting this scene shift, but it was a pleasant surprise–Peterfreund’s vision of Europe is a bit rosy and cliche, perhaps, but it’s exactly what you want to find in the story of a worldly unicorn hunter.

In France, Astrid’s moral quandaries become even more perplexing. She’s employed by the wife of her former enemy, who treats her like a beloved child in exchange for Astrid’s help in controlling the captive einhorns so that they can be used for some unsavory animal testing. Meanwhile, her boyfriend Giovanni is missing in action, and her slightly sleazy, but still sexy, ex has made a reappearance. Most YA love triangles tend toward the obvious: deep down, we know who Katniss or Bella will choose. But I never felt like either of these options were really a certainty–and both choices have their very believable drawbacks. I mean, as cute as Giovanni sounds, the dude really is conspicuously absent for most of the novel. And really, since he’s eighteen-year-old in a long distance relationship, I’m not sure if I would buy the sort of dogged monogamy you usually get in YA fantasy.

And Ascendant really isn’t most YA fantasy–it’s grounded, almost entirely believable (except, maybe, still, for Astrid’s mother, who remains annoying and one-note, though luckily she hardly figures in this story), and it takes the sexual and moral questions it raises seriously. And it’s shocking–there was a twist here that I genuinely didn’t see coming, but that was still clearly a believable episode in Astrid’s development as a warrior. Peterfreund also seems to genuinely love the unicorn mythology she’s working with. With some writers, you get a feeling that they approach their paranormal subject matter with a little bit of embarrassment. Peterfreund doesn’t–she embraces her unicorns for all their worth, making them complex, but still in keeping with traditional mythology. And she writes them beautifully. I mean, guys, there was this scene where Astrid watches a baby unicorn being born and it just hit me in the gut and made me misty-eyed and now I totally wish I could have an adorable baby killer unicorn.

(Please?)

Other things I totally want: a third book in this series. Though Ascendant ends on a fairly satisfying note, I’d love to see what happens to Astrid, Giovanni, Cory, and Phil–there are so many threads left hanging! And Peterfreund has already proven herself an author of rare capabilities, one who can write a series where each book truly enriches the overall experience. The fact that this, of all series, hasn’t been contracted for a third book yet just seems criminal to me.

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Good news, everyone! My publication dry-spell is over!

It seems that the best way to get published is to give in to your excessive nerdom. The wonderful Margaret Bashaar has accepted a poem for publication in her 2011 anthology, Make It So. That’s right–it’s an anthology of Star Trek: TNG poetry. The moment I heard about it, I got to work.

Here’s a little tease, of the first two lines:

A Proposition

Geordi, even I knew the shiver
of Tasha’s bare thighs around my waist . . .

If you’re not excited by that then you might be an android.

(If you are excited by that then you might be an android.)

In other news, I recently finished Diana Peterfreund’s Ascendant, which was amazing (review will be posted tomorrow). But now I’m reading I am Number Four and . . . well . . .

I’m not sure if perhaps it’s just looking bad by comparison. But so far, it’s not looking very good. It’s what I typically think of as “idiot sci-fi.” Take, for example, this explanation of the premise, which comes not far into the novel’s first chapter:

[. . .] we protect ourselves because of the charm that was placed upon us when we left, a charm guaranteeing that we can only be killed in the order of our numbers, so long as we stay apart. If we come together, then the charm is broken. When one of us is found and killed, a circular scar wraps around the right ankle of those still alive. And residing on our left ankle, formed when the Loric charm was first cast, is a small scar identical to the amulet each of us wears. The circular scars are another part of the charm. A warning system so that we know where we stand with each other, and so that we know when they’ll be coming for us next.

Is it just me, or is that sort of unbelievable gibberish? And really kind of silly, even by, say, high-fantasy standards, much less science fictional ones?

Of course, there’s been a rash of science fiction books for young adults out lately, all advertised as “sci-fi but not for sci-fi fans!” As a sci-fi fan, I find that depressing. I know that SF isn’t a terribly popular genre right now, and I realize that the lingo and the nerdiness can be kind of off-putting. But it’s not as if I like my sci-fi particularly hard–I prefer character-driven stories just like the rest of you. But I also like a universe that’s cohesive and fairly believable, one that isn’t somewhat fundamentally silly but at least attempts to follow some sort of rules. And I’d love to read some science fiction that seems to come out of a deep love of the genre, rather than as a result of trend-chasing (dystopians are over! aliens must be next!).

I suppose if I want to read it, I’ll have to write it.

Minor spoilers ahead.

The DUFF by Kody Keplinger

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I hesitated over the first few pages of The DUFF, unsure as to whether what I was reading could conceivably live up to the hype. I found those opening chapters a little overwritten and maybe kind of . . . voicey? I realize that’s not a word, but it’s the first phrase that comes to mind for me when I read something that’s sort of IN YOUR FACE. TEENAGED! Usually, this is only a problem with older writers who really don’t know how to sound genuinely adolescent and so they throw in slang and get kind of sloppy with their diction. The problem is, I never spoke like that, even as a teen (as my husband will tell you, Phoebe is, and always has been, Serious Business), and so I often find that kind of voice sort of condescending.

But Kody Keplinger, author of The DUFF was seventeen when she wrote it–so I decided to keep reading and to overlook passages like this one, no matter how they rattled me: “Wesley Rush was the most disgusting womanizing playboy to ever darken the doorstep of Hamilton High . . . but he was kind of hot. Maybe if you could put him on mute . . . and cut off his hands . . . maybe–just maybe–he’d be toelrable then. Otherwise he was a real piece of shit. Horndog shit.”

I mean, ugh. But I figured that Keplinger might be able to speak honestly about the emotional situation of high school, and so I gave The DUFF the benefit of the doubt, and kept reading.

I’m so glad I did.

I was surprised to find that The DUFF is actually a very, very dark story. Although it would seem, from the hype, to be purely a story about labels, self esteem and, ill-advised sex, it’s actually about much more than that.

Bianca Piper, the eponymous DUFF, is that rare creature in YA fiction: a working class kid in a stunningly well-realized working class home. Her father works at an electronics big box store. Her mom’s been gone for awhile. Her house is a mess, no matter how many times she refolds her laundry as a sort of calming ritual. Her relationship with her friends–a pair of gorgeous cheerleaders who have problems of their own–is sometimes strained, and she dreams about running away to New York and having the sort of privileged life that she hasn’t experienced in her small suburban town.

So when her mom files for divorce, and her sleazy ex pops into town, Bianca hops into bed with the first guy who would have her (and, wonderfully, she’s not a virgin! I mean, Holy Christ, how rare is that in YA?), we totally understand.

Luckily, sex with Wesley is not a panacea. Bianca spends most of the book avoiding conflict–the conflict of her home life, her father’s mounting alcoholism, her friends’ anger, her growing feelings toward Wesley. In less capable hands, this plot would have felt stretched-thin, but Keplinger’s story remains incredibly true to life and, therefore, engaging.

There are a few hiccups here, though. Though the prose gets better and better as we get deeper into the novel, as Keplinger finds her rhythm, there were a few odd parentheticals (twice, she weirdly ruminates over whether or not different women are, or should be, wearing pantyhose) and bizarre instances of lapsed word choice (specifically, “wangled,” twice in a dozen pages) that pulled me out of the action. And while the ending was satisfying, it was also saccharine and overly neat. Not only does Bianca get the guy despite other romantic entanglements, but alcohol issues, friend issues, and absent parent issues (in fact, two instances of absent parent issues!) all get tied up with a pretty little bow. For me, this was a shame–it was the first time in the story when I felt like it wasn’t realistic, or honest. Now keep in mind that I’m not a fan of tragedy porn endings (see my review of Mockingjay), but a little more thorniness here would have been nice.

I’m not worried, though. On Keplinger’s blog, she discusses how Judy Blume is one of her literary heroes. I can see their similarities–they both deal with issues of suburban life that are often ignored by YA writers, and often fearlessly. If Keplinger can keep Blume’s endings in mind as an appropriate model (the end of Forever . . . is, for me, much more emotionally accurate than the ending of The DUFF), she’ll be doing her own stories a great favor. I’m glad that she’s aware of the ways in which she has room to grow–because we, as her audience, can only benefit from that growth.

All in all, this is an incredible debut.

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