E.K. Johnston

Exit, Pursued by a Bear – E.K. Johnston

Veronica Mars meets William Shakespeare in E.K. Johnston’s latest brave and unforgettable heroine.

Hermione Winters is captain of her cheerleading team, and in tiny Palermo Heights, this doesn’t mean what you think it means. At PHHS, the cheerleaders don’t cheer for the sports teams; they are the sports team—the pride and joy of a tiny town. The team’s summer training camp is Hermione’s last and marks the beginning of the end of…she’s not sure what. She does know this season could make her a legend. But during a camp party, someone slips something in her drink. And it all goes black.

In every class, there’s a star cheerleader and pariah pregnant girl. They’re never supposed to be the same person. Hermione struggles to regain the control she’s always had and faces a wrenching decision about how to move on. The assault wasn’t the beginning of Hermione Winter’s story and she’s not going to let it be the end. She won’t be anyone’s cautionary tale.

It feels weird to say that a book about rape was good, but this book about rape was good. It’s a hard topic to deal with, and I can’t say I’ve read any other YA that talks about rape so openly, but I think it’s important that this book exists (plus that cover is gorgeous).

That being said, I had some issues with it.

I’ve read reviews that talked about how “easy” this book was, how Hermione’s support system was so perfect and, apart from some nasty rumours early on, she was never treated differently. And it did, for the most part, seem too “perfect” – everyone knew what to say and how to act, and Hermione herself was so well put together, it was hard to believe she was a teenager, nevermind a teenager who had been drugged and raped and – MINI SPOILER ALERT – had an abortion. Just one of those things should have been enough to push her over the edge, but she was remarkably calm, almost robotic, in the way she described her thoughts and feelings.

While Hermione herself mentions that she feels disconnected from the event because she can’t remember what happened, it’s hard, as a reader, to even begin to understand her when the narrative feels so disjointed, more like a checklist of events and moments that had to happen before the climactic scene at the end (which lasted all of two pages) than a real story. I know I liked E.K. Johnston’s writing style when I read A Thousand Nights, so maybe it was Hermione’s character that I couldn’t connect with? I did like her best friend, Polly, though, and I liked Polly’s sideplot, though it did feel like it came out of nowhere.

…if I were dead, they could just bury me…and move on. Broken is harder to deal with.

One thing I absolutely did not get was Hermione’s relationship with Leo. Leo proves himself to be a jealous dick who basically victim-blames Hermione because she dared to speak to other guys at their cheerleading camp, and she dumps him (and rightfully so!). But she never really seemed interested in him in the first place, so why were they together at all? What purpose did he play apart from being the jealous ex who turns around in the end? Literally anyone else could have taken the role of victim-blamer and it wouldn’t have made a difference to the overall story.

You’re okay with asking a girl who was wearing a pretty dress and had nice hair, who went to the dance with her cabin mates, who drank from the same punch bowl as everyone else – you’re okay with asking that girl what mistake she made, and you wouldn’t think to ask a boy how he would avoid raping someone?

E.K. Johnston does get props for setting it in Canada – northern Ontario, no less – with a brief mention of my hometown (Amy, another girl at the cheerleading camp, is from Mississauga), not to mention the fact that Polly decides to attend my alma mater (McMaster represent!). I never realized cheerleading was a big deal in Canada, to be honest, since I don’t think my high school even had a squad. And I also don’t get why Hermione needed to ace calculus to get into a Humanities/Social Science based program, but it’s also been a while since I had to apply to university, so maybe that’s a thing now?

I haven’t read The Winter’s Tale yet (I’ve always wanted to), but now I might have to, to see if I can catch all the Shakespeare references in this book.

Rating:

3,5 interrobangs

A Thousand Nights – E.K. Johnston

Lo-Melkhiin killed three hundred girls before he came to her village, looking for a wife. When she sees the dust cloud on the horizon, she knows he has arrived. She knows he will want the loveliest girl: her sister. She vows she will not let her be next.

And so she is taken in her sister’s place, and she believes death will soon follow. Lo-Melkhiin’s court is a dangerous palace filled with pretty things: intricate statues with wretched eyes, exquisite threads to weave the most beautiful garments. She sees everything as if for the last time. But the first sun rises and sets, and she is not dead. Night after night, Lo-Melkhiin comes to her and listens to the stories she tells, and day after day she is awoken by the sunrise. Exploring the palace, she begins to unlock years of fear that have tormented and silenced a kingdom. Lo-Melkhiin was not always a cruel ruler. Something went wrong.

Far away, in their village, her sister is mourning. Through her pain, she calls upon the desert winds, conjuring a subtle unseen magic, and something besides death stirs the air.

Back at the palace, the words she speaks to Lo-Melkhiin every night are given a strange life of their own. Little things, at first: a dress from home, a vision of her sister. With each tale she spins, her power grows. Soon she dreams of bigger, more terrible magic: power enough to save a king, if she can put an end to the rule of a monster.

Release Date: October 6th, 2015

Thank you to Cuddlebuggery and their Little Blogger, Big Ambition project and Shelly at Read.Sleep.Repeat for sending me the arc! Cuddlebuggery is one of my favourite YA book blogs and, having briefly chatted with her on Twitter, Shelly seems like a total sweetheart (I swear they didn’t pay me to say this).

I’ve seen a lot of reviews comparing this book to The Wrath and the Dawn, but, since I haven’t read The Wrath and the Dawn yet (I know, what am I waiting for?), I figured I’d go into it without any preconceived notions.

Unfortunately, I read this book in between Daughter of Smoke and Bone and Days of Blood and Starlight which was silly of me, because Laini Taylor left me on such a book-high, very few things could have compared to it. So the timing was poor on my part, but I also just couldn’t get into this story.

What I liked:

-the writing. It had the right tone for the story – nothing modern or jarring, it was poetic and lovely and there were some nice descriptions.

-I LOVE that the strongest relationship in the book was between two sisters. As someone who is exceptionally close to her sisters myself, I could relate to that feeling of wanting to protect your older siblings because you can’t stand to see them hurt.

-there were some chapters from the demon-spirit-thing’s point of view, which was cool and added a touch of darkness, but the typeface killed my eyes and made it hard to focus. But maybe I’m just old, I don’t know.

-I appreciate some good old magical realism every now and then.

What I didn’t like:

-I understood that she was Doing a Thing by having the majority of her characters remain nameless, but it felt awkward, especially when the sisters were talking to each other. It was also quite cumbersome to refer to older relatives as her “father’s father’s father”, but I suppose it’s more traditional?

-I’m still not entirely sure how she saved the day. And since there was no romance, I really didn’t understand her decision at the end.

-my biggest problem: where were the stories? I’m not an expert on the tales of Scheherazade or anything, but I expected some stories. Legends or myths or straight-up nonsense – not brief snippets of conversation, usually revolving around her sister (not that there’s anything wrong with telling stories about your siblings, I do it all the time!). I did like that certain things she said seemed to come true, but since it wasn’t saving her life, it was a little bit of a letdown.

Overall, I just couldn’t get into it. There were a lot of pages, but it didn’t seem like much was happening, and I felt like it took me a lot longer to read than it should have. I’m sure there are people who will appreciate the more meandering pace of the novel. Also, the lack of romance was both refreshing and disappointing, and I’m not sure how I feel yet.

That being said, I’m really interested in E.K. Johnston’s forthcoming novel, Exit, Pursued By a Bear, and I’ll probably give that a chance since I liked her writing style.

Rating: