Got Blood?

Foul is Fair by Hannah Capin

New York : Wednesday Books, 2020.

326 p. ; 22 cm. 

This novel calls up the Elizabethan & Jacobean revenge tragedy.  I had to chuckle in that while looking for references on revenge tragedies I found this in an article by Justin Cash in The Drama Teacher:   

Revenge tragedies typically consisted of one or more of the following:

• ghosts and the supernatural
• murder
• insanity/mad scenes
• a character seeking revenge against a strong(er) opponent for a real or imagined wrongdoing
• personifications of revenge / the supernatural
• a clear villain (although interestingly the character of Hamlet was a hero seeking revenge)
• onstage violence, often sensational
• blood-filled conclusions
• disguise
• corpses
• often isolated revenger(s)

Yep, Foul is Fair has most of that in spades! The novel is about Jade, a wealthy it-girl who is drugged and gang raped by wealthy/arrogant prep-boys after she and her "coven" of friends crash a party.  The assault is not graphically portrayed, but the victim recalls the words and brutality of the four assailants and their accomplices and promises murderous revenge. Let's just say she keeps her promise! 

This book got a starred review from Booklist which notes: "...this isn't a how-to-murder-your-classmates manual; it's a ferocious, frenzied reaction to a world that has, for too long, treated women as collateral damage in stories that have been deemed more important than theirs....The plot is not rooted in any sort of reality; it is a fever dream, a vicious fantasy, an allegory with bloody teeth." That gets it about right.  In my mind it gets to what is the strength and weakness of the novel.  

I liked a lot about the novel; it is a good escapist read, but Jade and her friends who assist with the bloody revenge plot are extremely unlikable souls themselves. There are no heroes in this tale, just a group of depraved characters who get to exact revenge on a set of even more depraved villains.  I also found some of the supernatural overtures a bit distracting (weird flocks of birds, sudden storms, visions of winged flying characters, unhinged stream of conscience, etc.). But some will love that overwrought drama, and if they do fair enough (of should I say foul enough!). 

If I mention the book to a student, I would definitely let them know it deals with some serious triggering issues - sexual assault, violence, and murder. But if they are looking for a bloody read, I'd suggest it. Oh, and it also strongly echoes Shakespeare's Macbeth, something that students who are reading the play might really enjoy.

  

Still Strong

Speak: the graphic novel by Laurie Halse Anderson (artwork by Emily Carroll)
New York : Farrar Straus Giroux, 2018.
371 p. : chiefly ill. ; 22 cm. 

I am very pleased that a graphic novel adaptation of Anderson's groundbreaking YA novel, Speak, is now out.  It's hard to believe that it has been almost 20 years since Speak came out.  It is a powerful story of a freshman girl who is shamed and shunned for calling the police during a summer party. Melinda, the hero of the novel, also silences herself until she is finally able to speak her truth - she called the police because she was raped by a popular senior boy.

In the powerful introduction to this graphic novel, Anderson states that she first wrote Speak to "deal with the depression and anxiety that had shadowed me since I was raped when I was thirteen years old." She also notes that graphic novels were not the popular and available format for literature that they are now and that most of the social media now so prevalent did not exist back then.  That made her story perfect for updating.

Sadly, her story's as necessary as ever.  Even as I write this, the President of the US (admitted sexual predator ) has just mocked a rape survivor .

Speak has remained a novel that still circulates widely, and hopefully this graphic novel will expand the number of people who read it.

Two Squared

Girls Like Us by Gail Giles
Somerville, Mass. : Candlewick Press, 2015.
210 p. ; 20 cm.

This was a daring book for Gail Giles to write and a rewarding book to read.  In a helpful interview with School Library Journal, Giles says, "I was told by a publisher that I would be 'flayed' if I attempted this. I think trying to get into a mental impairment that you do not have is tricky."

When I first started reading the book, I wasn't sure she was going to pull it off successfully - one character, Quincy, is - as she puts it - "mixed race" and the other, Biddy, has an intellectual disability.  Each chapter is written in the voice of either Quincy or Biddy and features their particular slang and grammatical errors.  But as the novel goes on - and the smarts, courage and strengths of each of the girls is revealed - the dialect begins to feel both natural and respectful.

There is a lot that is touched on in this short, gritty and uplifting novel - prejudice, rape, friendship, race, bullying, sexual abuse, pregnancy, work, and becoming independent.  In spite of this there is a calm and lovely pace to the book and it doesn't usually feel forced.

I'm pleased to see that the book has been well reviewed, was long-listed for the National Book Award, and won the Schneider Family Book Award in 2015.  A teacher here at the UHS recommended the book to me and I'll definitely recommend it to students.