Wings - Aprilynne Pike
Yes, this is the first book I’ve read all of since About a Boy last year. I started reading something else but got bogged down … whereas I finished Wings in less than two days. It’s that kind of book!
I’m going to cheat a bit here and not do a proper review. But then this is "tomdg creates", not "other people create and I just pass comment" – and I did say a while ago that this was really about my take on what I read, and isn’t intended to be a proper review anyway.
I don’t read a lot of Young Adult fiction, I’m a bit old for that. (But then, I love chic lit and I’m a bit … well, male for that ...) but I really enjoyed this. I came across it because a long, long time ago (sorry, American Pie on the stereo ...) I bumped into the author online when we both posted blurbs to the terminal "Miss Snark’s Crapometer". I started following her blog, and watched with interest as she got an agent, wrote Wings, sold it, edited it, and then saw it leap to the top of the New York Times Bestsellers List. So after all that of course I had to read it. And then to cap it all, I won a copy through a contest on her blog! What a lovely person she is! Although I have to admit here that even in this day and age it would be stretching a point for me to say "I knew her before she was famous"!
One thing I liked about this was the way Laurel, the main character, struggles with being caught between the world she comes from and the one she lives in. Probably a common theme in this kind of fantasy, but it really spoke to me about the experience of being an immigrant – something I know a little about, having been brought up in the UK in an American family. I doubt whether that was intended (although you never know …) but certainly I felt a lot of that experience came out in the book.
Another highlight of the book for me was Laurel going to the ball in chapter 12. This really spoke to me about learning to be comfortable with who I am, and it’s a really charming chapter.
But what really makes this book great is the author’s habit of taking something that is a common theme and approaching it from a completely different angle. The obvious example of this is of course her take on faeries, which is not just original but also pretty well thought through. But a couple of other examples.
I read somewhere that the #1 cliché of YA fiction is "Kill the parents". Think Harry Potter … I can see that it’s a great plot device: otherwise, a lot of your protagonist’s problems will just be solved for them by their parents. But (and I know this from reading it in an interview!) Aprilynne Pike deliberately chose not to go down that route, because she wanted to show that a teenager can have a healthy relationship with their parents (I paraphrase … and as an aside, I read in a survey recently that the vast majority of todays teenagers think their parents CAN understand them – what are kids coming to these days?!?) And yet Laurel’s parents are not able to simply solve all her problems for her, for reasons that are not just believable but unavoidable.
And second, it’s a classic plotline to have a girl having to choose between two boys, one "good" and the other "bad". And superficially, that’s what we have here: David as the "good" one, and Tam as the "bad". Classic plotline, and one I am rather uncomfortable with. Except – Tam isn’t bad. Yes, he oozes sexuality in a way that made me a little uncomfortable given the "11+" on the cover, but the more we get to know him … well, I won’t say any more.
Everything you though you knew … whether it’s about faeries or about the clichés of YA fiction … get ready to think again.
When is book two out?
I’m going to cheat a bit here and not do a proper review. But then this is "tomdg creates", not "other people create and I just pass comment" – and I did say a while ago that this was really about my take on what I read, and isn’t intended to be a proper review anyway.
I don’t read a lot of Young Adult fiction, I’m a bit old for that. (But then, I love chic lit and I’m a bit … well, male for that ...) but I really enjoyed this. I came across it because a long, long time ago (sorry, American Pie on the stereo ...) I bumped into the author online when we both posted blurbs to the terminal "Miss Snark’s Crapometer". I started following her blog, and watched with interest as she got an agent, wrote Wings, sold it, edited it, and then saw it leap to the top of the New York Times Bestsellers List. So after all that of course I had to read it. And then to cap it all, I won a copy through a contest on her blog! What a lovely person she is! Although I have to admit here that even in this day and age it would be stretching a point for me to say "I knew her before she was famous"!
One thing I liked about this was the way Laurel, the main character, struggles with being caught between the world she comes from and the one she lives in. Probably a common theme in this kind of fantasy, but it really spoke to me about the experience of being an immigrant – something I know a little about, having been brought up in the UK in an American family. I doubt whether that was intended (although you never know …) but certainly I felt a lot of that experience came out in the book.
Another highlight of the book for me was Laurel going to the ball in chapter 12. This really spoke to me about learning to be comfortable with who I am, and it’s a really charming chapter.
But what really makes this book great is the author’s habit of taking something that is a common theme and approaching it from a completely different angle. The obvious example of this is of course her take on faeries, which is not just original but also pretty well thought through. But a couple of other examples.
I read somewhere that the #1 cliché of YA fiction is "Kill the parents". Think Harry Potter … I can see that it’s a great plot device: otherwise, a lot of your protagonist’s problems will just be solved for them by their parents. But (and I know this from reading it in an interview!) Aprilynne Pike deliberately chose not to go down that route, because she wanted to show that a teenager can have a healthy relationship with their parents (I paraphrase … and as an aside, I read in a survey recently that the vast majority of todays teenagers think their parents CAN understand them – what are kids coming to these days?!?) And yet Laurel’s parents are not able to simply solve all her problems for her, for reasons that are not just believable but unavoidable.
And second, it’s a classic plotline to have a girl having to choose between two boys, one "good" and the other "bad". And superficially, that’s what we have here: David as the "good" one, and Tam as the "bad". Classic plotline, and one I am rather uncomfortable with. Except – Tam isn’t bad. Yes, he oozes sexuality in a way that made me a little uncomfortable given the "11+" on the cover, but the more we get to know him … well, I won’t say any more.
Everything you though you knew … whether it’s about faeries or about the clichés of YA fiction … get ready to think again.
When is book two out?
Labels: Reading
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