Saturday 15 February 2014

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.

1 comment:

  1. I completely agree with you.
    I wrote a similar review on the sexual abuse angle.
    Good thoughts.

    ReplyDelete