I’m chugging through the books. Because, really, I love to read… Just finished ‘The Hazel Wood’which is YA Fantasy by Melissa Albert. I dug it. Well-written, creepy, and darkly fairytale-d. And it stands alone, which I appreciate in a curmudgeonly way. I love series, but man, sometimes I just want a completed story, in one package.
Of course, when I go to link it for you, it is listed as ‘book one’. so there is that sigh-inducing moment of my day.
The other cringe of today: my realization that the book that i keep finding, that hovers in each of the rooms I tidy daily, moving (by my hand) from desk, to bedside, to floor, to fireside… is one that I have already read.
sigh.
Little Bee, by Chris Cleave. Let’s dodge the appropriate questions of a white guy writing about an African woman, ok? It’s a for-real dodge.
The beginning, the first sequence is just brilliant. How much a life can be like a British pound coin.
Most days I wish I was a British pound coin instead of an African girl. Everyone would be pleased to see me coming.
It is brilliant.
Beyond that, I can tell you that I have forgotten much of the detail. I had evidently blocked the title from my memory, but the story has been with me for many years. And I have been permanently scarred by the story line… the violence, the shock, escape, return, the unrelenting feeling of inevitability that I felt when reading. If you are better at handling life than I am, this is a story to read. Think of the power in words that have carried me this many years… its time I let it move out of my house, to stop tidying it from place to place.
And it brings me back to what I liked about The Hazel Wood. Its all about story. Making our own, being trapped in, breaking out of… story. The power of it. How much it can follow you.
As I grapple with my own recurring story, and the need to release/escape from the poison of repetition, I’m feeling my own dark fairytale winding down, and out. and So there, my friends.
A post on books. More will eventually arrive, because I’m done with avoiding things today.
Pip! (still not english, or Mr. Toad, or 84…)
-uwmf
I also really loved Hazel Wood! And was skeptical when I found out that there was a sequel (recently published). I might have to read it though as the first book was so good. I’m just afraid I won’t remember anything from the first one. 😔
Well, I did actually purchase this one, if you’d like to borrow! 🙂