two completely unrelated books with oddly similar covers (and one more)

[psocoptera]

I read these books because of their covers. I had at some point read a review of Aristotle and Dante, or maybe picked it up somewhere, and had decided not to read it, but then I realized I was still thinking about that striking, beautiful cover and regretting my choice. Only I couldn't remember the dang title of the book, and in the course of googling for "book cover with calligraphy" stumbled across Assassin's Curse, and these books could hardly be more different (except for both being YA) but I loved both, so, hurrah for good covers.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, by Benjamin Alire Saenz, is - well, I was going to say a contemporary YA, but in fact it's set in 1987-88, which I suppose is no longer "contemporary" despite having occurred within my personal lifetime. I'm not usually so into realism; I made an exception for this book (beyond the cover thing) because I like queer romance, but what I actually ended up finding even more compelling was the stuff about their identities as Mexican-Americans. Not to digress into my own biographic novel here, but my high school was two-thirds Hispanic, but very, well, divided. ("Segregated" is a word with a LOT of baggage but possibly not inapplicable here.) I know El Paso (where the book is set) isn't San Diego and six years (how much older the characters are than me) is not trivial in teen culture, but, like, I don't know, I didn't really realize, until I was reading this book, how much I wanted to have some even tiny fragment of an idea of who even any of all those people at my high school even *were*. I mean, ugh, it is hard to write about racism without just perpetuating it, but it was like living with this thick glass wall, where the majority of people at my school were visible but un-interactable, and reading this book I could imagine I was getting a little glimpse across that wall into a little bit of something that one of those thousand people might possibly have felt. (Or at least some interesting hindsight. The chola who rode my bus, who slapped me in the face in junior high - she *rode my bus*. She was not, unlike most of the cholas, from the low-income Hispanic & Filipino locale of our school, she was from *my* affluent white neighborhood, and, like, that must have influenced her decision of how to identify and perform that identity. I mean, I'm not saying that excuses the face-slapping, but it's sort of interesting to be seeing a new perspective on it 25 years later. Also, er, as a non-Latina I'm probably appropriating the word chola, sorry.) ANYWAYS. Recommended to people who like realistic YA, the crush-on-your-best-friend trope, or, apparently, people with unresolved issues around Mexican-American teenagerdom in the 80s and 90s.

The Assassin's Curse, by Cassandra Rose Clarke, on the other hand, is exactly the sort of thing I go for, YA fantasy with a romance and action and some interesting magic and vivid settings etc. It's the first of two and I can't wait to get my hands on the second one. Camels! Pirates! Accidental bonds! Huddling for warmth! Possibly the only YA I have read in which the *boy* worries a lot about his appearance, gets called ugly, etc, nice change from the standard focus on the girl's looks. (Okay, it's not just insecurity, dude is actually like scarred/disfigured, but in more like a Zuko way than a Phantom of the Opera way. Dude is actually... non-trivially Zuko-esque.) Highly recommended to fans of books like Graceling or Song of the Lioness, or to Katara/Zuko shippers.

Cold Magic by Kate Elliott is the first in an adult fantasy trilogy and has nothing to do with either of the previous two books (well, except for some overlap with Assassin's Curse in dealing with arranged marriages, involuntary bonding, being able to travel through otherworlds, things like that). It's sort of like the emotional plot of Pride and Prejudice mixed with the action and alternate history of the Temeraire books (only even more wildly alternate, Years of Rice and Salt serious remixing of who-immigrated-and-conquered-where) with some of the curses-and-identities stuff from Spindle's End, and, I don't know, how many more good things do I have to compare this to before you're sold? There are complicated politics and also sabre-tooth weres. It would make a fabulous, beautiful movie - so much of the emotional stuff might actually be more powerful on faces than on the page, and I would love to see the intricate world-building brought to life as set design and costumes. REGENCY PHOENICIANS. The only thing stopping me from madly searching for fanart is fear of getting spoiled for the other two books.

Comments

[myalexandria.livejournal.com]

these all sound amazing and I'm especially excited about the Saenz. Thanks.

[jaipur.livejournal.com]

Is Cold Magic also technically YA? I'm not usually a fan of YA (though Life of Pi was billed as YA and I thought it was marvelous).

But your description of racism as living with a thick glass wall is beautiful. That captures so well the silence and separation that grips so many of us, even if we say "we're not racist!" because we aren't overtly or consciously supremacist, and would never be violent or openly denigrating. It's the avoidance and non-interaction--well, I can't do it justice, but you caught it beautifully.

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

Cold Magic is not YA - the protagonist is 20, and while there is some identity stuff that would not be out of place in a YA, the world is, I don't know, complicated in a way that YA generally isn't?

[ursula]

I think Cold Magic was marketed as YA, but it doesn't really read like YA to me. It's just more focused on one viewpoint than most other Kate Elliott books.

[mightyinkas.livejournal.com]

Well, I lucked out - my library had both The Assassin's Curse and The Pirate's Wish as downloadable ebooks. They were, in a word, delicious. So thank you for the recommendation. :D