Paolo Bacigalupi writes real women in SHIP BREAKER

You don't need me to tell you Ship Breaker is an amazing novel.  It won the 2011 Printz Award and was a National Book Award Finalist.  A lot of people much smarter than me agree Paolo Bacigalupi has written a masterpiece.

Ship Breaker has some of the best world-building I've ever read.  You might expect an epic post-apocalyptic sci-fi pirating novel to be a little far-fetched, but the world Bacigalupi has created felt so real, gritty, and complete I never questioned any aspect of the complex setting.

Nailer is a perfectly flawed hero.  He's loyal and kind, yet fierce.  I was swept away by the story and captivated by Bacgalupi's prose.  The danger and desperation of Bright Sands Beach and Nailer's life of poverty and abuse felt so real, I ached for him to escape.

But more than just an excellent story, I was impressed with the women in this book.  Bacigalupi created a stark dichotomy between rich and poor, or swank and ship breaker, and in doing so he was careful to craft whole and mutli-faceted female characters.  So when Nailer meets Nita, their differences aren't about gender, but about economics and culture.

So often stories that follow the hero's journey have oversimplified archetypal females: the mother, the witch, and the sex-object love interest.  Bright Sands Beach is full of smart, tough, hard-working women who are fleshed out as complex characters.  There's smart and loyal Pima, Nailer's best friend.  There's Sadna, who acts like a mother to Nailer but also beats the crap out of the villain.  There's Sloth the betrayer, and Blue Eyes the crafty cult-member.

Even Nita who is weaker than the other girls because she's grown up in the lap of luxury and needs to be rescued a few times, is awfully tough and pretty smart.  She helps to save herself like any self-respecting heroine should and she has an awesome line at the end basically telling Nailer to suck it up.

I also loved how Bacigalupi crafts the romance.  Nailer's culture values hard-work and the ability to earn a living, so we know he's falling for Nita when he compliments her ability to skin eels.

Ship Breaker is a dark adventure with some tough chicks who hold their own.

Holly Black knows how to make readers feel smart in RED GLOVE

I read because I like to feel smart.  Sure, I read as an exercise in escapism.  I read to step into someone else's shoes and to learn about the world around me.  I read to laugh.  I read to cry.  Sure, whatever.

I love books that make me feel smart.  I'm not talking about reading Plato's Republic and then annoying my friends with Socratic quotes.  Not that kind of smart.  I love figuring things out.  I love that "aha!" moment, when I'm pretty sure I've solved the mystery.  I love that light bulb moment so much, that I'll sometimes put a sticky note on the page where things finally came together.  That way, later when someone asks "When did you figure out the BIG MYSTERY?"  I can say, "HA! I knew all the way back on page 98."  (No one's ever asked, but you know, just in case).

BUT! Here's the thing.  As much as I love feeling smart, I also love being tricked.  And this is where Holly Black is most brilliant.  She's weaved so many mysteries, twists, and turns into Red Glove that while I'm patting myself on the back for figuring one thing out (sticky note ready) BAM!  Someone sneaks up behind me and whacks me on the head with a shovel.  (Not literally, you know what I mean).

Red Glove is the second book in Holly Black's magical mobster Curse Workers Series.  But Red Glove is so much more than a sequel to White Cat.  As Kiersten White eloquently points out, Red Glove avoids all the second book pitfalls and is the "perfect middle book."

Cassel's brother is murdered and he has to figure out who killed him, while hiding his powerful curse, and shaking off both the mob and the feds who are breathing down his neck trying to recruit him.  The thing is, Cassel is a pretty screwed up guy.  With an emotion-worker for a mom, he doesn't trust his own feelings, let alone those of others.  His family is full of criminals and killers, and although he doesn't want to be like them, he doesn't know how to be anything else.  He doesn't trust his own sense of right and wrong.  Lies come more easily than the truth.  His self-loathing is so complete, he can't believe anyone would like him unless they're being conned, worked, and/or lied to.

Black does a brilliant job of letting the reader figure some things out long before Cassel does.  He's so lovably screwed up, he can't see what's right in front of him.  But at the same time, Cassel is so busy lying, hiding, and conning, we never see the end coming.  Dark and heartbreaking, with thrilling set-ups and cons, Red Glove's best con is the one Black pulls on the readers.


**Ok, so I know I'm breaking my own rules by raving about a book with a male protagonist.  But, I wouldn't mess with ANY of the women in this book, they're all pretty kick-ass in their own right.  And, they're my rules and I can break them if I want to.  So there.

Books that kick ass despite being about boys

When I started this seldom-updated blog, my mission was to write about books featuring strong girls.  Not so much in opposition to books about boys, as much as in opposition to books about weak girls who are saved by boy strong boys.

But because of this mission, I often refrain from gushing about a book that knocks my socks off simply because it's not about a strong heroine.  But I just read T.H. Mafi's post and was totally inspired.

So for this post, I'm going to share with you my story of how I met my "magical friend" and give you my official list of "Books About Boys that Rocked My World."

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone came out when I was in high school.  Of course I didn't read it.  It's a children's book and I was a teenager and thus stayed away from anything that could pin me as a child.

I had heard all about Harry Potter, who hadn't? But it just seemed so silly.  I even saw the first movie, but was not all that impressed.  It was long and had this silly sport on broomsticks.

I didn't start reading Harry Potter until grad school.  I was student-teaching in an 8th grade class and found that every student had Potter on the brain.  They talked about muggles and Quidditch, and I just didn't get it.  It was like a different language.  I couldn't relate.

So, in an effort to be a better teacher, I started reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  I was hooked.  Any scrap of free-time was now filled with Hogwarts.

I was earning my masters while student teaching.  I was the busiest and most exhausted I'd ever been in my life and all I could think about was getting home to bed with my cat and some tea so I could be swept away to Hogwarts.

I was amazed by how immersed in that other world I became.  I was shocked by how strongly I felt for these characters.  (I'm still not over Sirius).  It was truly magical.  And it was the gateway drug.

Harry Potter led to Lemony Snicket which led to The Golden Compass and all of a sudden this huge world of YA literature opened up to me.  My childhood ambition to be a children's fantasy writer was reignited.
I was teaching and writing my masters's thesis, while wishing I could write about kids with magical powers.  But my career was already set, so I didn't give writing much *serious* thought.  Plus, how does anyone go about becoming a "writer" anyway?  I was going to be a teacher.

Eight years later and that ambition has not faded, but grown.  As much as I love my students, I wish I could spend more time writing stories for them to get lost in instead of preparing them for state tests. So I lead a double life, teaching and writing.

Part of me wishes that I had read Harry Potter when I was in high school.  Maybe I would have recognized my dream then.  Maybe I could have chosen a sensible path to writer-dom and majored in literature and gotten my MFA or gone into publishing or...something.  Maybe things wouldn't seem so hard now.  Or maybe I needed my adult brain to understand and appreciate the best children's literature.

All I know is, today a student mentioned "Harry Potter's owl" and I felt an immediate tightening in my chest.  I know Hedwig's fate and like most parts of this next Potter film, I'm both anticipating and dreading it.

So, in celebration of the latest Potter film, here is--in no particular order--my list of
Books About Boys that Rocked my World

The entire Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling (if you don't like it, then we can't be friends.  That simple)

The entire Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan (I've heard it criticized for being too similar to Potter.  But in the same vein, Potter can be criticized for being similar to Lord of the Rings or Star Wars.  It's the epic hero's journey, people!  The greatest story ever told (over and over again).  So, to the critics I say: shut up and go read some Joseph Campbell)

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (not YA, and not a strong girl to be found, but a damn good book)

Looking for Alaska by John Green (if you consider yourself a fan of YA and have not read this, then you need to correct that problem immediately)

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie  (people say boys don't read.  Have you tried giving them this?)

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (ah-may-zing.  Can't really say if it's about a boy, and ain't that the point?  this is a contemporary hero's journey)

The Road by Cormac McCarthy (some make fun of it for being pretentious, but that doesn't make this novel any less brilliant)

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (not a novel, but another book that pushed me over he edge and got me to actually sit down and start writing)

That's my list.  What's yours?