Austenland by Shannon Hale

          

VS

                             


Jane Hayes has a secret. To the world she is a moderately successful graphic designer, she has her fair share of dates, and she lives a content if quiet life. But behind closed doors she is a hopeless addict, and her poison is none other than Jane Austen. Nothing in real life can measure up to Mr. Darcy or the idyllic romance born of the shades of Pemberley. So when she suddenly finds herself in possession of a fully paid trip to a real live Austen themed vacation in England, Jane feels this might be just the thing she was looking for. Here is her chance to finally get over her ridiculous infatuation with her fantasy Austen world. So she dives in to the Regency era, ready to get all the nonsense out of her system and move on with her life. But when the lines between the act and real life begin to blur, Jane realizes she might be getting more than she bargained for.

I'm just going to lay it out first of all that this is going to be a book/movie review. I watched the movie and was absolutely enchanted with it. So when I discovered it was also a book I naturally made it my next goal in life to read it as soon as possible.

Of course as it always happens, film and written versions of a story both give a much different story experience. In this case I loved both of them, though for different reasons each way.

Watching the movie was so much fun. It didn't remotely try to take itself seriously and it seamlessly made fun of Austen fanatics while also paying a sort of homage to them. On top of this it had just the right amount of rom com to leave me with warm fuzzies but not an over-sugary taste in my mouth. To say I was enamored of the movie wouldn't be to far from the truth, and I'm not ashamed to admit that my own Austen fanaticism, lying dormant for some time, crept back and has now taken over my life again, at least until the next thing that tickles my fancy.

The book is a short fast read. I read it in about 6 or 7 hours. I really loved Hale's narration and writing style. though I didn't find the book as comedic as the movie, the voice of Jane Hayes was a hoot. It cought be from the very first page and I found that while book!Jane was pretty different from movie!Jane, they both had their merit.

The book and its Jane were much more serious than the movie. I was actually somewhat surprised. by it, though it didn't by any means diminish how good the story was. Book!Jane is ashamed of Her Austen obsession, and the reader eventually gets the feel that she is ashamed of how she has lead her own life up to this point. The added seriousness in the book gives Jane more depth as a character. The arguments that happen within her were pretty on point and identifiable. Each time Jane has that moment of clarity and pulls her head out of the Austen mist the reader gets the same dose of reality. I feel Hale definitely did this on purpose, making the reader step back and see the uncomfortable reality the same way her character was. Just as Jane can't fully immerse herself in Austenland, the reader is not allowed to forget that they are reading some perfect historical fantasy but an 18th century world awkwardly forced into the 21st.

In the movie however, Jane is much more comfortable with her obsession. Her fanaticism is overemphasized to the point of hilarity. She is awkward fangirl with no shame over her love of everything Jane Austen. This is shown in everything from her house decorated from top to bottom complete with full sized Colin Firth cardboard cut-out, the montage showing her obsession fro adolescence to adulthood, and then the fact that she initiates the vacation herself out of interest rather than it being a gift she reluctantly accepts as was the case in the book. The fact that she dresses up in a homemade regency dress and goes through the airport like that speaks for this. Some can call it weird, but that is a fearless fangirl. As an unabashedly obsessed fangirl myself, I actually connected more with movie!Jane than book!Jane. I saw myself in her silly obsessive self, as well in her brave jump into her favorite fantasy. Because I have to say, fan that I am, I would actually love to do something like what she does in this movie and I am not at all ashamed to admit it.

One thing I really missed that was in the movie but not in the books was the friendship of movie!Charming and movie!Jane. In the movie, Miss Charming as not only a form of comedic relief, but a real representative of a female friendship. The viewer got a sense of camaraderie and a 'we're in this together' feeling that really brought the words from the book to life on screen in a way that the written counterpart just didn't achieve. I really liked this friendship between them, because though this is supposed to be a romantic comedy, it doesn't end up being just about men. There was some very real feelings of friendship and connection between these two women who have been thrown together in this strange world.

You do get this very slightly in the book with Amelia and Jane, but this is only at the very end when the facade is over, and therefore doesn't really count as much in my opinion.

Overall, despite having a few repetitive descriptive mechanisms, I really liked the book and highly recommend it to any Jane Austen fan. I also highly HIGHLY recommend the movie, though I will warn that you might not like it as much if you can't sit back and have a little laugh at yourself. If you can it is great to watch and just have a little fun with

The Recruit by Debra A. Kemp

The day one of the Pendragon's equites recognize her, Lin is freed from her torturous life as a slave. But when her newly found father goes off and leaves her with her cold and unloving mother, expected to bend her will to that of the court and the life of a royal woman, Lin wonders if she hasn't fallen into a different sort of slavery. As she could never stand down when she faced Mordred, Lin cannot and will not change herself now. she must follow her heart, and it is not in sewing and arranged marriage. She longs for freedom, the kind she would have were she born a man. But does she ask too much of her father? And could she make it in the life she thinks she wants?

The Recruit is the sequel to The Firebrand. The readers return to Lin's epic tale of her childhood and life, as she recounts to her family the past she has covered up for years. 

I still am not a big fan of the way Kemp book-ends the story, beginning and ending it with Lin as an adult and after the fact of everything. My full rant about that can be found here in a previous review. I will say for this second book it was much smoother than the first one. I was grabbed in right away by the story and finished it quickly. Some of this I can account to knowing where and what was going on in the beginning before the real story got started. In the first book I was just lost and as a reader I was doing a lot of 'help! where am I?' until the story finally got started, especially with the triple beginning (Lin after battle, Lin older with children, and then finally FINALLY Lin as a child with the proper beginning of the tale). In this novel however it starts right where the last one left off so I was on solid ground as a reader. When the story launched in fully I was geared up for the ride. 

In retrospect, I suppose one could say that the way the story is set up mimics how stories were told back then: through oration to a group.

For all my issues with the set up of The Firebrand, I was still interested in its sequel and i was not disappointed. I really like Lin's character and I like the theme of her story. She is so firey and she will never back down. For being modeled after Arthurian lore, the story is rather feminist in the respect of Lin and her need to do what her heart pleas for, even is that means donning pants and fighting. I also really like the twist Kemp did in making this story. The series is worth the read, especially for The Recruit. I hope to read another book in the series and finish Lin's story. However it has been about 7 years since this last book's publication so I'm not sure I should be holding my breath. 

this deep silent moment

rain dripping tracks down a window
the world blurring by like my memories of you
years of feeling my throat close, face heat.
why did it feel so good when you hurt me?
yet i drank it in,
secret pleasure in the numbering insecurities.
i was looking for love and i found you instead,

a half smile and biting remarks.
you led me through your door,
i left my innocence on the stoop.
i made room for you
inside me, bit my lips, held the words back,
scratched lines onto my knees,
all the while shrinking.
when did i get so small?
my clothes became tents,
a child playing dress up.
i always felt all of five around you.
your baby, said like it's something to be proud of.
i made space around myself until i was a mouse
you were a giant.
i remember the day you dropped me
at the library. told me to stay,
like a dog, until you finished your exam at four.
i waded into the stacks, left the whispering students,
page turns, and secret games of solitaire behind.
no one turned in my wake, i was a breeze,
semi translucent.
i found the furthest place to hide,
where the shelves were high 
and there was nothing but a muffled silence
as the air swooshed through a vent.
it was the words of a thousand million voices,
rustling against pages in a hundred thousand books.
there was no you, sarcastic venom
dripping from your lips. 
this time it was just me, filling up with words i didn't know i had.
my phone buzzed angrily, you calling me back to your side.
i didn't even think about it when i pulled off a book from the shelf,
put the phone in its place and walked away,
found a place to sink once more to the ground
not in ashes but in perfect repose,
to take in words of my own choosing
all the while reveling in this
deep silent moment
in a world full of new possibility

The Shade of the Moon by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Jon is a claver, one of the elite few granted permission to live ensconced in the protected world of the Sexton enclave. Using the passes Alex gave to Jon's family, Jon, his step-mother Lisa, and Lisa's young son Gabe slipped into this community. It is a place where people have homes, education, purified air and, always enough to eat. It is a humanity moving on pass the catastrophe that changed all their lives as they knew it. But beneath the careful safety of his world lays a poison and everything is shifting. The community of Sexton is supported on the degradation and near slave labor of those unlucky enough not to have admittance to enclave life. The enclave feeds on the 'grubs' as they are called; taking advantage of their hard work, hard lives, and especially their pain. As the enclave pushes the grubs further into the mud, they near a line they might not want to cross. Jon is stuck in the middle. Should he support his grubber family, or his claver one? In a world gone so terribly awry where is the line between good and bad, and which side will Jon take? As a Slip, his future is far from safe. The wrong words or actions could get himself and his loved ones killed, but how far can he go before there is no turning back?

The Shade of the Moon is the fourth book in this YA best-seller series that started with Life As We Knew It which documented the story of a world thrown into catastrophe when the moon is hit by an asteroid and pushed closer to the earth. This newest edition continues the story of Miranda and Alex's lives from the past three stories, this time from the point of view of Miranda's younger brother. He lives the privileged life in a world come to its end. The rest of Jon's family have not been this lucky. The reader sees the character's they came to love living in the city slums outside of Sexton, doomed to being grubs.

Reading this story I was reminded of the atrocities you read about in history: America's slave history, the discrimination of Jewish people and other minorities during the Holocaust, etc. The things described in this book are both disturbing and eye-opening, though not unbelievable. People could, would, and have done things as horrible as what is described in this book, and probably much worse. Books like this can really open the reader's eyes to the dark side of the world and it makes me feel like the book was very aptly named. This is a world thrown back into darkness.

As was the case with the preceding three books, this wasn't just a story of survival. This was a narrative that explores humanity in all its spectrum: the good, the evil, and the many shades in between. I was gripped by the story and it only took me a very few days to read it. I did not care much for Jon as a narrator. He was a selfish and often deeply misguided boy. However, the story is playing on these flaws of his, not excusing them. As I mentioned in previous reviews that can be found here and here, I can't stand it when an author excuses bad behavior on a characters part and just lets the plot give the impression that the bad behavior exhibited is okay. In Pfeffer's story however, the reader is acutely aware of how wrong Jon often is. The tone of the story coupled with other characters input makes sure the reader knows Jon's bad actions are not condoned. It was an interesting move on her part, giving us such a distinctly flawed protagonist, but it definitely made the story more interesting. So often we see the story through the eyes of the oppressed, but in this case it is the oppressor who tells all.

Pfeffer's writing style is fair to middling in this novel. I remember having the same issues with her other three books. She gives far too little detail for my tastes and skips over things I would have liked to know more about. Dialogue has also never been a strong point for her. It always ends up coming out stiff and bland, making the emotions the lines are supposed to convey awkward and without chemistry. However, the story overall is attractive enough that these problems didn't deter me from the book. I highly recommend that fans of the series finish this end cap. As far as post-apocalyptic stories go, it's a pretty good one and worth looking into.

Unthinkable by Nancy Werlin

I rate this YA novel 2.5 our 5

Fenella Scarborough was the one to start it all, the one to meet Padraig and change her life and every Scarborough girl forever. But the curse is broken by her descendant Lucy. However to Fenella's utter dismay she did not die as she thought she would with the breaking of the curse that held her captive for 400 years. She lives on, trapped in fairy, when all she wishes for is peace. In an act of desperation she makes a deal with the new fairy queen: if she can complete three new tasks in three months she will be free to die as she so wishes. But nothing is ever that easy with fairies involved and too late Fenalla realizes she might have made a grave mistake. Her tasks are ones of destruction wrought upon her own family, only so newly freed from the curse that plagued them all. Once again Fenella finds herself trapped in fairy deal and everything depends on her winning her way out.

Unthinkable is the companion to Nancy Werlin's Impossible, and the third novel she has written that revolved around the fairy intrigues she started in the first one. I'd like to first off say that I was a huge fan of Impossible. It has been a long time since I read it, enough to where I'm actually slightly hazy on what exactly about it was so amazing, I just remember being entranced. When I found out there was a sequel I was very excited t read it, but I'm sad to say that I was very disappointed.

It was interesting I'll give it that. I had only a little trouble getting started with it and then I finished it in a few days. However, I was not blown away as I was with it's predecessor.

I thought Fenella was dumb frankly, dumb and selfish. I mean after everything that family went through to break the curse, and then she almost screws everything up on an impulse because she wants to die? I wanted to slap her from beginning to end. I mean seriously? Make a deal with fairies and agree before even knowing the full stipulations. I mean come on! She didn't even have a right to be upset when it bit her in the ass. Especially considering the queen of the fairies OFFERS to let her go back to earth and live out her abnormally long existence surrounded by her family, and then when Fenella still says no warns her that she might want to be more careful about agreeing.

I suppose there could be some in between the line comment on how selfish and destructive suicide is in refection on how it effects the people you leave behind, but I'm not really buying that. In any case I never got to liking Fenella.

*WARNING* *SPOILERS AHEAD* *TRIGGER WARNING:  discussion of rape*

When she wavered on her path of destruction, not wanting to hurt her family because she cared for them, I almost liked her. But all that was ruined by the intimate moment between her and Walker. First off why? Was it really necessary in the middle of everything that was going on? It was like she felt entitled to him just because she thought she was going to die, which last I checked isn't the way it works. The whole event was random and awkwardly placed and I think the novel could have done without it. Secondly, there was way too much NO being stated in that scene for me to be comfortable with. The whole thing was made out to be romantic, but it just felt wrong. After all the emphasis on how wrong Padraig was for his forcing himself on all the Scarborough women, both mentally or physically, and yet it's suppose to be okay when Fenella does it? As they say, no means no. No matter what Walker felt for her, or how attracted they were, she basically forced herself on him when he wasn't ready or in any mind for that step. Yes, at the last moment she waited for consent, but that was after ignoring the first dozen times he implicitly told her no. If he hadn't consented, as far as I'm concerned that would be rape. As it was it was still showing that pushing someone into loving you is okay. To bring the fiasco of a moment full circle, afterwards he intimates that he doesn't want it to be real, or to count and doesn't matter. To me those are not the words of someone who wanted sex. Her defensive replies that he wanted it and that he enjoyed himself just nailed it home for me. Those weren't words of  someone who is your lover, those are words of an aggressor, an assailant, a rapist. How many suffering victims of abuse or sexual assault have had to hear someone say that exact thing? Too many. If the role was reversed and it was Walker doing this to Fenella it would totally not be alright, but because Fenella is a woman, her abusive behavior is somehow overlooked.

Now, I'm not saying that Fenella did rape Walker. In the end he did consent. I just feel like the whole tenor of the moment was wrong. Something like forcing yourself on someone shouldn't be romanticized, especially in a YA book. Everyone has their kinks, and there are books out there to satisfy that, but a book like this geared towards a young and easily influenced audience is not that place. Let's not forget that because of a certain series I shall not name, a generation of young people think extremely controlling partners to the point of stalking, is something attractive and hot. Going into someone's house as night and watching someone sleep is not hot, it is scary and wrong. Having sex with someone who is clearly not ready for it and says no is not hot, it is scary and wrong.Many people still believe men cannot be abused by women, and moments like in this story back that up. Not only that, but it throws a soft light on date rape, and rape in relationships. Those things can and do happen more than anyone wants to admit to, and portraying it as romantic love only makes it worse.

So yeah, there isn't much that speaks on behalf of Fenella, and the fact that the plot glosses over and excuses her many many transgressions in the story just makes it worse. She was dumb and impulsive to begin with, which caused the whole mess that supplies the story for the novel. At best she was self-serving, at worst unstable and abusive. I like flawed character as much as the next reader, but that only works if the writing is up front about the problems. If the writing acts like it is not a problem, readers can get the impression that it isn't a problem. The responsibility is with the writer to understand what they are putting into the world and the consequences that holds. This is even more important when writing for young audiences

On a lesser note, I would also like to add that the Walker plot device and the loophole it consequently presented was really weak and slightly outlandish. I could see the author had set it up from the beginning, so I wasn't blindsided by it, but it was still a bit much.  You know when you lose the believability of your reader during a fairy tale, you're doing something wrong.

Slow Realizations

Here is another story I wrote and got published in the Fall 2013 edition of FishHook. 

“What’s wrong, Molly?”

            “Nothing,” she snapped, yanking the covers over her shoulder as she turned away from me.

            Well, that was certainly convincing. So it would be the good old ‘nothing’ routine, otherwise known as specifically something, but to hell if she would ever reveal what it was. There would have been a time, maybe a few years back when I wouldn’t have let it go. But then again, the time where I could scoop her into my arms and she would not only let me but pour her heart out to me was gone. Maybe this was something marriage did to people. Maybe not. It seemed like something that was good to know, but I’d lost the will to ask. It was all so muddied up and confusing now, as if we had both begun to slowly speak a different language as the years crept by, until finally neither of us could understand a word the other was saying.

            I rolled over the other way and faced the wall. It was late and the call of sleep was too good to ignore. And anyway, my brother would be arriving early tomorrow. They had never really gotten along. Maybe that was why she’d been nothing but a shrew the past few nights, nervous and snappish, yelling at me whenever I opened my mouth and even spanking Devon for spilling over a cup of grape juice in the TV room. That at least had been bothering me, if nothing else. Molly had never so much as swatted Devon before, not even when he’d gone through the “terrible twos” and somehow picked up the word “douche” in his vocabulary. Now that he’d reached three and half it had been nothing but smooth sailing. Poor kid didn’t mean to knock over the glass. But tell that to Molly. In hindsight saying that had been a bad idea.

            I remember when she used to look at me, her blue eyes, so like my own, soft and warm. They were nothing but ice now. Except where Devon was concerned. Those looks reserved for me went to him when he came along. I suppose I could be jealous, but I couldn’t stomach it. He was my kid, an innocent child, he didn’t know.  Pulling the cover over my legs a little more I settled in a bit more and pushed the thoughts away. It was going to be an early start tomorrow.

            “So how is everything? I can’t believe it’s been so long.”

            Robbie glanced at me and smiled wide, “Almost four years.” He said.

            “I can’t wait for you to meet Devon. He’s such a great kid. So smart.” I said, glancing at the familiar features of my little brother before switching lanes and turning off onto my street.

            “Me neither,” he said.

            As we pulled in Molly was waiting on the stoop, Devon in her arms. She walked down the steps in her bare feet while I began pulling the luggage out of the back. Her laugh carried over to me and I glanced up. It was such a beautiful sound. How long had it been since she’d done that? She stood next to Robbie, her smile wide, her eyes bright. I watched as they walked on into the house ahead of me. Frowning I went to shut the trunk, but I must have done it harder than I meant to. The slam echoed down the street.

            From the chair I stared into the TV without really seeing anything. It was great to see Robbie, but I’d forgotten how he took up a room, drawing everyone’s glance and conversation. Though I was older, I’d never been able to get a word  in edgewise. I looked away from a commercial advertising acne medication and over at Molly. She sat close to Robbie, her body leaning toward him, the smile she’d put on when he arrived still there, wider even. I looked away again and caught sight of Devon sneaking off toward the kitchen. Before he could get more than a few steps away I was up and after him, but Robbie beat me to it, scooping him up and into his arms. For a moment I just stood there staring, uncertain what to do. I glanced at my wife. She wasn’t looking at me, but at Robbie, something like admiration there. I turned to Robbie, his brown eyes dancing, and then looked into the eyes of my son. As I looked between Robbie and Devon my mouth went dry. A snippet from freshman biology had surfaced in my brain, a useless something about genes, and suddenly, everything became clear. 

Copyright © 2013 Alissa Tsaparikos

Free Will

This story was published in the Fall 2013 edition of FishHook

 “Do you believe fate’s a fixed thing?”

I started as Emily turned to me, catching my eye. I’d been looking at her hair and the way the long waves fell along her shoulders while she swept down the straight and narrow aisles of the sports section in Wal-Mart. Soon she would be half a world away at a private university, and I would no longer watch and marvel at how the blond tresses caught the light and shimmered. It made my breath catch painfully.

I looked away, pretending to study the faded blue polish on my nails. “What do you mean?”

“Like, do you feel as if we are always running towards our futures, inevitably?” She picked up a metal bat with black tape artfully crisscrossed for grip, and balanced it in her hands. “Is every step we make up to us, or are we always taking the steps we had to take, carrying us toward the end that we were always destined for?”

I frowned and watched her swing the bat slowly, testing it further. That was Emily in everything though, testing, pushing, questioning the world. Next fall her parents were paying for her to study art and philosophy with a minor in humanities and it always showed. Even now, sometime after midnight in the only twenty-four hour Wal-Mart in town, buying a present for her brother’s birthday at the last possible moment, she must philosophize. I watched the way she crouched down and pretended to get ready to slug a home run, her beautiful neck extending slightly as she looked down the length of the bat. Down the row an older man in a stocker vest eyed us with a frown. It drew heat to my face but Emily giggled and stuck her tongue out at me. The fearlessness of it, this moment, this conversation, was something I admired in her, even coveted and wished for myself. And yet, I wondered if she could see the trepidation I felt when she started in. In the fall I would be enrolled as a freshman at the community college two miles from my house studying business and communications, my father’s choice.

I clasped my hands together, then stopped and surreptitiously wiped them on my jeans. Shaking my head I drew a breath to finally answer her question. “I don’t know. Wouldn’t it not matter either way? You’d still get the same ending.”

“It isn’t a question of whether it matters, it’s a question of free will.” She sounded out her statement, her tone calm and introspective. Slowly she swung the bat a few more times. “Are we helpless to deviate from the tract, or do our decisions count?”

 I didn’t answer this time and left her to her own musings. Emily loved to talk about free will. It was easy for her to do. I was relatively sure her parents had been coaching her from the womb to come out screaming about freedom and the perils of losing one’s individuality. I shook my head again. I sometimes wondered if I’d know what to do with the choice if I had it.

Picking up a tennis ball from a basket of them, I tossed it from hand to hand, my thoughts back on the future, as they always seemed to be lately. When Emily and I filled out applications, she’d made me apply for every one she did. When I got the acceptance letters to every one that Emily had, including one she hadn’t, I hid them between my mattress and said nothing. I scuffed my shoe hard against the floor’s shiny beige tiles, all but kicking it as I thought of them. No matter how many nice schools I got accepted to, and no matter how much I wanted to go, my father would never allow it. His money, his choice, he liked to say. I had yet to tell her we weren’t headed in the same direction and I felt sick every time I thought about it.

“So, I think this is it.” She licked her lips. A flush ran through me and I jumped when she spoke again. “Do you think he’ll like it?”

I nodded. “His old bat is dented to hell, he’s needed a new one, even if he refuses to hear reason.”

As we headed to check out Emily walked just ahead of me and I watched her graceful gait and thought about what she had said, about destiny and choice.

It was Saturday tomorrow, the first day of summer vacation, and I’d be back at Emily’s house for her brother’s birthday party. But tonight she dropped me off at home.

I walked up the drive, squinting at the darkened windows as I went. If I was lucky no one would be waiting up. I unlocked the door and edged inside, closing it carefully, trying to stop the hinges from squeaking. Behind me the lamp turned on. For a moment I froze and closed my eyes, bracing myself, and then slowly turned about to face my father. He sat in the old brown armchair near the wall arms crossed, the yellow glow of the lamp only barely reaching him. Even half in the shadow I could see his eyes boring into mine. My father was a large man, imposing. I took after my mother, or at least how I remember her before the cancer; slight and plain, with black hair, defenseless.

            “Where have you been, Anna?”

            Heat burnt its way across my skin. I hated him. “Me and Emily went to Wal-Mart – to get a present for her brother, Sam.”

            “It’s almost one in the morning.”

            I shuffled my feet and glanced at him, found his direct glare still leveled on me, and instead focused on the crucifix that hung on the wall a few feet from his head. How many times had I avoided his eyes? I didn’t have to think about it, the occasions were countless, this house with my father’s will and my fear. I thought again free will. Of Emily.

“Go to bed. Pray to God for forgiveness.”

“I don’t think God cares if I went to Wal-Mart after midnight.” The words slipped out. It took a moment for what I said to register but once it did my father’s eyes bulged in shock and anger, his large brown mustache adding to the picture, making him look like a walrus being strangled.  It was so absurd I could have laughed.

Before I could do anything my father was up and out of the chair, standing at his full height. He struck hard and fast and I wheeled backward with the force of the blow, my cheek burning. He stood still, almost surprised by his own actions. His breathing was harsh, as if he had just run up a hill.

Hand to my cheek, I straightened. “I’m tired.”

He didn’t reply and I turned away, retreating down the small dark hallway that led to my room at the back of the house. I didn’t turn the light on or take my clothes off, only stumbled forward in the semi-light of the street light that slipped through my half open blinds. I felt for the edge of my bed and then fell onto it. I hadn’t lied. I was tired. Tired of doing as I was told. Tired of staying on the straight and narrow path that, according to my father, leads to salvation.

I kept my eyes closed, ignored the heat and sting of my cheek, and drifted.  Hair like warm sunlight, long and soft to the touch, drifted through my thoughts. It fell across my face, trails of perfect gold. And lips, small and soft, but with the slightest hint of chap, moving over mine. And everything inside me felt warm and ached simultaneously.

I forced my eyes open, shuddering. My pulse thudded too fast and I listened to the beats war with the ticking clock in the silence of my room. My stomach twisted in on itself. A bitter path burnt its way up my throat as I swallowed convulsively. I became afraid to close my eyes, afraid of what I might see, and ashamed of what I might want to see. God might not punish me for going to Wal-Mart late at night, but he might for who I went with.

I curled into myself and tried not to think. Sleep did not come easy or stay long. I would glance at the hour hand ever so often and watch as it moved further around the face, but there was no rest. There could never be any rest.

I must have fallen asleep, because I woke to the instant ringing of my phone. My body and mind felt heavy, but I pulled myself up and answered the cordless phone by my bed, stifling a yawn.

“Oh, good, it’s you! I always hate talking to your dad.” Emily’s voice was filled with energy. “You really need to get a cell phone.”

I suddenly felt much more awake. “Yeah, but you know how my dad is.”

Her voice lowered. “Yeah.”

I glanced at the clock and saw that it was just a little after noon. Cradling the phone between my head and shoulder, I peeled off the wrinkled clothes. Pausing over my open drawers for a moment, I finally settled on a blue blouse and shorts, pulling them on. Emily had helped pick out the shirt as the only one I owned that properly flattered my figure. As I smoothed my hands over my breasts, I felt a flutter in my chest. I wondered if she would remember saying it.  

Emily had started humming absentmindedly on the other end, her tone low and throaty. A rush of warmth traveled down and through me at the sound, and I shifted my legs against the ache it left between my thighs.

I looked up at my wall suddenly, at the crucifix that hung there next to a small mirror. A familiar bitterness of guilt and fear filled my mouth with the taste of copper. I looked away from Jesus in his pain and into the mirror instead, taking in my flushed cheeks. One was darker, a not quite bruise and I lifted a hand to it, touched it softly, how I imagined Emily might touch me. She had never hurt me, never made me feel this pain. Slowly a conviction fell into place as I listened, and though it made me squirm, it did not lessen. “So when do you want me to pick you up?” she asked, breaking back into the conversation.

“I’m ready,” I said.

***

The party was going well. Everyone was relaxed, except me. Jock guys and a few of their girlfriends stood about in groups or danced to the music that pulsed a booming beat from a stereo off to the side of the yard.  It reminded me of school, of the pressure of fitting in.

Sam’s friends comprised of the high school baseball team and a few miscellaneous people. Though they were all a few years younger than me I still glanced about nervously, wishing Emily would hurry up and come back. The two of us had been running around on errands for her parents all day, picking up things for the party, helping prepare the food, and setting up. Emily was on yet another trip to the corner store to pick up more paper plates. I’d been tired and declined her offer to go, but I’d regretted that decision the moment she’d left.

I caught sight of Sam, laughing and pantomiming some kind of story to his friends and marveled at how different he looked. When it was just his family, he was always so laid back. At those times I could see how he could be Emily’s brother. Now, however, he was a different person entirely, and it reminded me why I could never be absolutely comfortable around him.  

Around his friends and at school, Sam became one of them. No longer was he the open minded son of the only liberal family in town. He was the star baseball player that strutted down the hall, who led a group of followers like a shepherd. The funny thing was, it seemed to me that the sheep were actually herding him.

Sam playfully punched one of his buddies on the shoulder, and I felt a spike of nerves spiral as I thought about the decision I was on the edge of making. There had been a conversation I couldn’t ever quite get out of my head.

During spring break, Emily insisted the three of us watch some movie that I can’t remember the name of, but in it, a brother walks in on his sister sleeping with her boyfriend. What I do remember is the look on Sam’s face, how he’d turned to Emily and said, “You better hope that never happens with us. I don’t care who you’re with but I’ll kick their ass.” Emily, of course, argued with him over this for the next hour; eventually the serious tone turned to one of joking, but I’d never stopped feeling sick about it. And as I looked at all these people, they morphed until all of them had my father’s face.

“Guess who.” A pair of hands descended over my eyes, the small warm palms resting on my face.

A different kind of thrill went through me and I smiled. “Are you the Goblin King?”

“Yes, and I’ve come to steal you away.”

“Good to know.” I laughed. I pushed her hands away and turned around. She stood confidently, her smile wide and brilliant. In her hands was a felt bag that looked heavy.

She raised it. “I have a surprise,” she said, and then turned on her heel. “Come on.” She didn’t look back and I hurriedly got up and jogged after her. She led us away from the house, away from the party.

Music still pulsed, the beat thrumming and vibrating, but it dulled as we walked. Emily’s house was located a bit out of town, surrounded by fields on one side and a small stand of trees on the other. She wove through the sparse trunks and finally emerged in one of the more secluded fields. She sank to the ground and I followed suit as she revealed a six pack of wine coolers, the surprise I assumed.

“Won’t your parents notice?”

“Nah, they won’t miss it,” she said. “And anyway, they’re in the house watching some old movie and probably going to sleep, so don’t worry.” She held one out to me. Before today I might have argued, but feeling again the shiver up my spine, I reached out and took it. Tonight anything was possible, why not this. I took my first sip, felt the tangy burn on the back of my tongue and looked into the night.

 The stars were beautiful, arrayed and winking above in the endless black like so much glitter and dust thrown across the sky. After running about all day, it was nice to just lie in the cool darkness.

We hadn’t been there long but between us the six-pack was already finished. I wasn’t drunk, but I still felt pleasantly warm. I also felt brave.

“Are you ever afraid of being different?” I asked.

Next to me Emily shifted closer, but I kept my eyes on the stars. “No, never,” she said. “I like it.”

“But aren’t you afraid of what people will think? Isn’t it better to do what everyone wants?”

Emily sat up. I looked over to her. Her hair floated over her shoulder as she looked down, a pale glow in the moonlight.  “No, it isn’t better.”

“Different isn’t always better,” My voice was barely above a whisper. “Different can hurt.”

“It’s worth it.”

Barely breathing, I pushed myself up on my elbows, bringing my face a few breaths from hers. I paused for a moment and then kissed the edge of her lips and then pulled away, dizzy and frightened.

Her eyes were huge and dark and I waited for her to get up and run from me. But she stayed where she was and I watched as she came nearer and nearer, until our noses were nearly touching. I felt her lips, soft and moist, against mine for a second time. This time, I lifted a hand and ran it through her hair. She smelled of apples and tasted like watermelon. She was unbearably sweet. It made me ache. I wished it could go on for a lifetime. Maybe it did.

We wound about each other, my fingers tangled in her hair, her legs rubbing against mine. When I shifted my weight onto her she made no protest. I searched her face, asking and praying with my eyes that this was okay. The blood rushed through my ears, a steady and deafening pulse as I brought my lips to hers again and then began to work my hand under her shirt, lifting it up as I went. That’s when the flashlights fell on us.

We hadn’t heard them coming, Sam and his friends come to play midnight baseball only to find us in the middle of the field that was to be their make-shift diamond. There was laughing, a shout, words and curses, everyone frozen in the light. And then I was ripped away from Emily, thrown back against the ground hard. A blinding light was shoved in my face and I blinked desperately.

“What the fuck were you doing to my sister?”

Sam’s words were slightly slurred and he swayed slightly as he stood over me. It seemed that Emily wasn’t the only one who’d lifted from her parents that night.

“Dude, I didn’t know your sister was a lesbo,” said one of the guys off to the side.

There was some laughter, but it was hard, dangerous. As my eyes adjusted I could just make out some of their faces in the dark, half in, half out of shadow. But they didn’t look like themselves. They looked like their parents, sitting rigidly in the pews at church, their eyes dead ice.

Emily had gotten to her feet and run forward, but Sam shoved her back. There was more laughter but, Sam wheeled about. “Shut the fuck up.”

He turned to the person who had spoken a moment ago. “Hold her,” he said, pointing to Emily. There was more shouting and cursing and I scrambled to my feet, trying to see what was happening, but Sam blocked my path.  He was a big guy, naturally athletic. He’d only just turned seventeen, but he was often confused for Emily’s twin, rather than her younger brother. He stood tall in front of me, a swinging metal bat with a black tape grip in one hand.

A strangled howl came from the darkness behind Sam and suddenly Emily burst into the light, and was at my side before anyone could react. Her hand filled mine and I squeezed it tight. Sam suddenly seemed unsure.

“What the fuck did you think you were going to do?” she asked. “Beat it out of us? Mom and Dad would be really proud.”

Ever so slowly he’d been swinging the bat in a bigger and bigger arc, but at her words he stopped it at the highest arc, balanced in the air. “Get out of here, I warned you.”

“The fuck I will. I’d like to see you make me.”

There were more jeers, but I knew what Sam was really saying, knew there were two battles being fought here.

He stayed silent, the bat wavered. “Fine.”

I kept my eyes on the bat as I stepped in front of Emily. It was as natural as breathing. I couldn’t be sure if the arc downward would be completed, and probably somewhere in the world someone was arguing about destiny versus free will, but I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

by Alissa Tsaparikos

Copyright © 2013 Alissa Tsaparikos

The Firebrand by Debra A. Kemp

I rate this novel 3 out of 5

Lin was born a slave, one among many of Dunn na Carraice. But from the moment she came to understand her position in life she knows she must fight it. when she catches the eye of the sadistic Prince Mordred, the youngest Prince of Orkney, he becomes hell bent on seeing her spirit broken and her already desperate life becomes a daily test of courage and strength as the young Lin is put through what no person ever should. She thinks she would rather die than give in, but as the threat of her brother being sold looms over her, she questions all her choices. Is her pride really worth the life of her brother? But a shocking revelation throws everything into a new perspective and Lin finally realizes why she had to fight all along.

This is the first novel in The House of Pendragon series. If it were not for the set up of this story I think I would have rated it as a 4 at least. As it was I think the book-end narration type was a real hindrance to the story. The novel begins with a grown up Lin in a battle that is vaguely talked about and really confusing for a reader who doesn't have any idea what is going on in the story yet. Then it skips ahead a number of years, explaining a bit more background as it goes, before finally getting to Lin telling her young son the story of her childhood as a slave. This brings us to the entire bulk of the story, which we remain in as readers until the very end where it again reverts back to the older story telling Lin.

I think the way the novel was set up was awkward and a disadvantage to the story. I know that as a reader, I nearly stopped reading it several times within the first part before it got to the real story. What's more, with the beginning the way it is, it basically gives away the entire surprise plot point of the ending. It's like telling the end of the story first. I'm not sure if Kemp felt that the real story couldn't stand alone and so she did it this way to give the story more structure and plot, however I found it disappointing. There was nothing I didn't know about how it was going to end and that was a major flaw in the story arc.

I personally think the story could stand on it's own. There was a little stiffness to the narration at first, and I don't quite believe in Kemp's version of how a six year old would think, but it smoothed out as the narration continued and Lin got older.

One last flaw of the set up that bothered me is, with her re-accounting her story, she produces full memory with complete narration. It stretched the believablity of her story telling. How could someone remember so much, so fully, so many years after the fact? Unless they had intense and frankly terrifying memory capabilities, they couldn't.  This story would have worked much better if Kemp had simply started with Lin as a child and then narrated the story normally beginning to end.

All my complaints set aside though, I very much liked the story (as in the the middle part that the book actually focuses on). I read the book fast, and I am interested in reading the second book out in the series. I hope the structure of the second is a bit better though. I usually like books that take place in tandem to the Arthurian legends and I wasn't disappointed with this twist on the story, just the way it was set up.

*A note for any still interested in reading this novel. This is not a YA novel. It is rather graphic and sometimes very disturbing. It is a very intense and interesting story, but the faint of heart should tread carefully.