A Great And Terrible Beauty

These books are huge. Undeniably huge. This is my most popular post, and I am just as excited as everyone else for The Sweet Far Thing (Book #3!) to be released on December 26th. I’ve pre-ordered as an Xmas gift for my mom.

A film is also in production, and you can get more info at the IMDb. It’s still early days, so no casting has been done yet.

If you can’t wait that long, may I suggest reading the following?

• How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff (Review)
  • Exquisitely well written, a girl and her cousins are caught up in a war that changes the face of England–and how they live now.
• Demonology 101, a comic by Faith Erin Hicks. URL: http://faith.rydia.net (Review)
  • A baby demon girl was left on the doorstep of an agency that usually strives to kill demons. Now in her teens, she is beginning to learn the truth about her origins, and the people who raised her.
• The Temeraire series by Naomi Novik (Review)
  • The Napoleonic war… with dragons. Kick. Ass.
• American Gods by Neil Gaiman (Review)
  • For more mature readers, Shadow becomes embroiled in a war between the old gods and our new deities.

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By Libba Bray
Read: July 2006
Rating: Fabulous

My dear friend Sreya loaned her Libba Bray books to me a few weeks ago. (Really, she owes me half her library, since half of mine has been sitting in hers since we were in high school. But I digress.) She swore I could keep them all indefinately (this in return for her keeping my books endlessly) except for these. I now see why. They are wonderful and precious, and I’m trying to figure out how a girl with zero income can get herself a copy to keep.

It’s Victorian, somewhat Gothic fantasy. The Supernatural. With a hint of the exotic–namely India. It’s also about girls growing up; girls being friends; girls who associate because of circumstances; girls who are becoming women. Girls who, in an era of repression, long to be free and seize what power they can.

All of this is wrapped up in Libba Bray’s first novel, and I am quite in love.
The style is something of a throwback for me, and I wish these had been around when I was in middle and high school. They would have been PERFECT for me; really risque. Now I love being immersed in something that is at once simple and complex, daring and somewhat safe. Of course, safety doesn’t exist in this novel.

Gemma Doyle was raised in India during the British Empire’s reign. It is the late 1800s, and all the prim and proper social requirements apply. Poor Gemma has just turned 16 and wants to leave this dusty backwater and go to England, the land of society balls and debutantes. Her mother will not allow it. Like many mothers and teenagers, Gemma fights with her mother, throwing out words she means–but doesn’t really.

As she runs from the marketplace of their argument, Gemma is seized by a vision and witnesses her mother’s death in the next street over.

Nothing is ever the same for her again.

They return to England to bury Virginia Doyle and send Gemma off to boarding school at last. The family shushes the scandal by claiming that Virginia died of cholera, but Gemma knows better. She is sent to Spence Academy for Young Ladies, as tight-laced and secretly subversive a place as you’d expect. The headmistress is stern and the girls are all playing for social power amongst themselves. Gemma has two choices: cozy up to the charming Felicity and her friend Pippa or remain an outcast with her scholarship roommate, Ann. An accident puts Gemma in with Felicity anyway. Gemme uses the opportunity to force her to accept Ann into their group, and the four girls become a unit.

But the visions have not stopped. And now a mysterious, and beautiful, young man from India, Kartik, is following Gemma and warning her not to follow the visions into the other realm–the place where souls go after their deaths. A place most people only see in dreams, fleetingly. Gemma and her friends are enchanted by the paradise they find there, and begin to take chances with the power given them.

It’s not just schoolgirl tales. A mysterious group of women called the Order once guarded the realms, using their powers to protect and to heal. But something terrible happened at Spence some twenty years ago, and the Order is no more. With the power reawakened in Gemma, the realms are open once more. But a terrible enemy lurks, waiting to extract her revenge… if only Gemma can learn who to trust: herself.

A trilogy, we won’t know the final answer for some time. I’m already buried in the sequel, Rebel Angels, and hoping for the third to come out soon. (Ms. Bray’s LiveJournal says she’s working on it.) I’m happy to wait, though. The books are powerful all on their own, and completely suck you in. I accord some of this to their being written in the first-person present. Gemma narrates as events happen, which gives immediacy an depth of feeling to every event.

And our Gemma is not a wilting flower of the age. She’s a girl with spirit, will, and wit. Her sense of humor is often self-deprecating, and she often has to fight to constrain herself after another girl has done something particularly snide or outright rude. Gemma is often reprimanded by family and teachers, but her friends come to admire her for it–and Felicity is also more and more daring. It quickly comes to light that all four girls have secrets; they only thing they demand within their circle is to tell the truth.

Ms. Bray often says in interviews and on her LJ that she doesn’t outline or plan ahead, and this allows the characters to take over, leaving her with a fascinating study of human nature. She’s absolutely right, and I adore her for it. It helps to have Gemma explaining each time a matter of etiquette or culture comes up.

There are definately elements I recognize from both the Secret Garden and, especially, A Little Princess (girl raised in India returns to England and enters a horrific boarding school where she befriends a lonely girl of lower standing). Nevertheless, Gemma is a breath of fresh air. Felicity is a frighteningly dangerous element. Pippa speaks before she thinks, wounding without thinking. Ann is meek, but has a mean streak lurking from years of maltreatment. Often I wonder how Gemma can call them friends. And yet… they are.

I admire Pippa for her ultimate decision. She follows her fantasy–something few people in that age could do. Felicity has grown on me, and I want her to prove herself to be a true friend to Gemma. Ann… Ann I don’t entirely trust.

And Gemma? She’s way better than Harry Potter! I can’t wait to hear more from her–she’s like a friend telling me her own diary.

…and then there’s Kartik. Beautiful, sensual Kartik, who awakens a side of Gemma she has never known, never expected, never been warned of except to say no. Yum.

Edit 10/6: I left a comment on Libba Bray’s LJ asking the same questions. When I get some solid info, I’ll update this space. The latest post she made confirmed that the first draft has been completed. My guess is that it will be published sometime in 2007.