The Sweet Far Thing

WARNING: Do not read this if you don't want to see overt references to the events in The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray.

I have a problem. Readers will know it well. You've just finished an absolutely fantastic book and now you need something new to read....only, nothing will compare to what you just read. You could chose a perfectly good book to follow up the great read, but it will suffer a fate worse than a fate worse than death because it pales in comparison to the book you just finished.

The reason I have this problem is Libba Bray's The Sweet Far Thing. TSFT is the third installment in her brilliant Gemma Doyle trilogy. If you haven't read either A Great and Terrible Beauty or Rebel Angels, go out and buy all three books right now. Much like one of my all time favorite books, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, the Gemma Doyle books are confections of magic set in bygone eras of England. For those of you unfamiliar with Gemma and her pals, here's a primer: Girl living in India during the reign of Queen Victoria. Girl's mother is hunted down by a mysterious magic baddie. After Mum's death, Girl gets sent to spooky finishing school in England full of catty girls and long buried secrets. Girl discovers magical realms that she and her friends can enter, but all is not as it seems in this world and danger abounds.

TSFT, the long awaited finale to Bray's trilogy, was incredibly satisfying. As the novel opens, Gemma and her friends Felicity and Ann have returned to Spence after Christmas. Having defeated the big bad in Rebel Angels, all should be peachy for the girls as they head towards their debuts, or in Ann's case, a position as a governess. But Gemma is having doubts about the success of their victory and she cannot enter the Realms, much to Felicity and Ann's dismay. Time is quickly approaching for Gemma to make an alliance with the creatures of the Realms and return the magic that she bound to herself. The East Wing, which has long lain in ruin after the fateful fire during Gemma's mother's days at Spence, is being rebuilt.

Finding a hidden doorway in the ruins of the wing, the girls are once again able to enter the Realms and see their friend Pippa. Soon, however, Gemma finds herself in a struggle for the magic, the Realms, and her sanity as The Order, The Rakshana, and the inhabitants of the Realms grapple for control. As Gemma's tolerance and ability to fend off all threats and advances starts to wear, the girls hear whispers about the Tree of All Souls hidden deep in the dangerous Winterlands. This may be the answer they need - or their very undoing.

Publisher's Weekly called TSFT "a huge work of massive ambition," and at 819 pages, it is. Bray's masterfully crafted worlds and vibrant characters live up to all your hopes and fears for Gemma & co's adieu. Structured like a five act play - Bray, a theater major, was inspired by Shakespeare's tragedies (specifically Macbeth) - TSFT unfolds like those prize balls where you unwrap and unwrap uncovering little treasures on the way to a kick ass present in the center. As the suspense builds slowly and tantalizingly, Ms. Bray's genius emerges. Much like Gemma, who senses something is rotten in the state of Denmark but is unable to act, the reader is desperate for their suspicions to be confirmed as their thumbs start pricking faster than the speed of light.

With the corset metaphors, the heartbreak, and the kick ass girls, TSFT is pitch perfect. Gemma's confusion and isolation surround the reader and the horror comes on such quiet feet that you're terrified long before the climatic battle. All the characters played their roles with charisma, but it was Felicity, who I had been suspecting would betray Gemma, who was truly dazzling. Her acidic tongue and habit of prancing around the Realms in chain mail stole my heart. Fee is far and away my favorite character (sorry, Gemma!), and I am glad I was wrong about her.

As the final installment in a trilogy, TSFT could have been the weakest link. Often, I've been disappointed by authors who start off brilliantly, but succumb to the need for a neat ending. Bray was true to her characters and world in TSFT, and the result is a strong finale that surpasses the promise of A Great and Terrible Beauty and Rebel Angels. Had she gone with a more 'traditional' ending, TSFT would not have worked so well. In fact, Bray discovered that scores of her fans were a bit upset with the resolution to Kartik and Gemma's relationship. Many wanted Gemma to have a happily ever after, but that would have ruined the entire book. I'm thrilled that there is a gorgeous trilogy with tough heroine that isn't going to end up with the guy. While she deserves some happiness after all she's gone through, the end to Gemma's story is rightfully bittersweet, much like the feeling of finishing TSFT.

Finally, I have a moment of pure book geekdom to share. Among the many people thanked in Liba Bray's acknowledgements for TSFT are two authors I've had the pleasure of meeting - Jo Knowles and Cecil Castellucci. Not only was I chuffed to actually know two people in an author's acknowledgements, but I was the one who broke the news to Ms. Knowles. Moments like that remind me how much I love my job. Now, I'm off to read Ms. Austen's Northanger Abbey in hopes Catherine Morland can help me recover from TSFT. I think that if Catherine read Libba Bray's books, she'd die of imagination overload...

New Year, New Whatever...

A few months ago, I read Nick Hornby’s Polysyllabic Spree. A collection of essays Hornby wrote for his column in the Believer, TPS is a year in books. The premise, that Hornby - best known for his lad-lit titles About a Boy and High Fidelity - as an author and avid reader, has more books than he can possibly read. Each month he purchases heaps of books and only reads a few. Included in Hornby’s genial ramblings about literature, life, and the pursuit of more bookshelves are some gleefully brilliant witticisms like his realization that “if I’ve forgotten everything I’ve ever read then I can read some of my favorite books again as if for the first time,” and his demi-rant about the spare school of style which he asserts is an attempt to make writing a more masculine (and thus proper-er) job. All in all, TPS is more a collection of essays than a book. Lacking an overall coherency beyond the stated premise of man vs. monthly flow of books, it did not cover the theme I had hoped for - what does one learn from all this?

At the risk of committing one of the most egregious sins in writing (or at least journalism), I need to move on from Hornby before I do indeed bury the lead. TPS inspired me. I, too, suffer from Hornby’s particular strain of bibliophilia. Despite the fact that my bookshelves are dangerously overloaded and I have little time to read, I cannot stop purchasing books. I buy loads and loads, often at the risk of my bank account balance or my brain cells (this latter part comes into play in used bookstores and library sales where my oddly strictured willingness to read almost anything leads me to purchase trashy titles due to their relatively low cost). As the author events manager for a large bookstore in Boston, I’m constantly thinking about books and getting free advance copies of new titles. Combine these facts with the thought that had been rolling around in my head for a while that I’d like to try my hand at book reviewing (because who wouldn’t want to get paid to read books and then say what they thought about them?) and the end result was my desire for a book commentating blog.

What is book commentating? I won’t call myself a reviewer. Reviewers have two rules that I am willfully going to break in this blog because they do not suit my purposes: (1) Being Current - You can’t review a book that was published six months ago, let alone six years ago, and expect to remain a reviewer. They’re supposed to write about the newly published, newly released, or newly opened so that everyone else can stay home and form opinions from what the reviewer tells them so they can save time rather than risk that trial (and possible error) themselves; and (2) Remembering The Audience - Reviewers have to keep in mind that people will read what they say and possibly send them hate mail. Actually, they have a responsibility to be interesting and relevant to their audience. I could care less about that since this blog is about me and what I read. I don’t need to sell newspapers with this blog, and I won’t lose my day job if I don’t have any readers. Book commentating then, is reading a book and then reporting on said book (hm, sounds a lot like those horrid book reports we all used to do in school). With my qualifications, and just enough vanity to think what I have to say matters, this blog should be fun for me and hopefully entertaining for you, dear reader.

As this is the first of the new year, and invariably at this time I start thinking reading resolutions, it might be a good idea to set my intentions to paper, so to speak. Last year, I said I wanted to read more non-fiction and more classics. I succeeded with the non-fiction (although non-fiction was still a fraction of what I read compared to fiction), but failed with the classics (I never did get past the first page of Wives and Daughters, and I think that was the only classic attempted). Similarly this year I hope to broaden my book knowledge through three goals: (1) to read a better variety - non-fiction, classics, perhaps the odd book I’d turned up my nose at before; (2) to give new books a chance (but not to the point of forcing myself to read something dreadful, there is after all a finite amount of reading time for me so why waste it on anything less than fabulous?); and (3) to think about what I’ve read and write about it here.

So, with that said, on to the next…

(Many thanks to R for titling this blog. L, I loved your idea too, but I think you need to write that one!)