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Oct. 13th, 2021 06:51 pmAfter my leisurely read through The Hands of the Emperor, I zoomed through Aster Glenn Gray's newest romance, The Larks Still Bravely Singing, in one delightful afternoon.
The protagonists of this one, David and Robert, first met at boarding school, during which time Robert decided not to pursue his crush on slightly-younger David out of a lofty sense of nobility and self-sacrifice. When the book begins, they're meeting again in the recovery ward after both have been invalided out of World War I. Robert's missing a leg and David's down an arm, but the physical war wounds matter less than the internal trauma both of them have taken, and the way neither of them can quite recognize themselves anymore as the people they used to be.
As with most of Aster Glenn Gray's romance, the tension and conflicts between the characters are entirely internal and really carefully drawn out of the characters' self-perceptions, preconceived ideas and fears, and hooking up -- even falling in love -- doesn't magically fix any of that. The way in which they're both frequently deeply frustrated with each other, and also simultaneously so terrified of failing each other that the temptation to simply Be What The Other Person Needs becomes a major problem in and of itself, is extremely well portrayed and feels deeply realistic. I love that we see them in several stages of the relationship and in all of them they're still figuring out what they need from each other and what they need from themselves, and that those things are inevitably going to be different.
The other thing that really works for me about the shape of the book is the way that David and Robert relate to each other is so shaped by their first meeting in boarding school and the schoolboy norms they've both internalized -- though the war and their trauma has pushed them in some ways into an early adulthood, in other ways they're still very much the kids they were, which is always one of the things that gets me the most about World War I! Anyway. Extremely extremely good book, and now thanks to the characters being nerds about it I also really want to go reread a bunch of Robert Louis Stevenson.
The protagonists of this one, David and Robert, first met at boarding school, during which time Robert decided not to pursue his crush on slightly-younger David out of a lofty sense of nobility and self-sacrifice. When the book begins, they're meeting again in the recovery ward after both have been invalided out of World War I. Robert's missing a leg and David's down an arm, but the physical war wounds matter less than the internal trauma both of them have taken, and the way neither of them can quite recognize themselves anymore as the people they used to be.
As with most of Aster Glenn Gray's romance, the tension and conflicts between the characters are entirely internal and really carefully drawn out of the characters' self-perceptions, preconceived ideas and fears, and hooking up -- even falling in love -- doesn't magically fix any of that. The way in which they're both frequently deeply frustrated with each other, and also simultaneously so terrified of failing each other that the temptation to simply Be What The Other Person Needs becomes a major problem in and of itself, is extremely well portrayed and feels deeply realistic. I love that we see them in several stages of the relationship and in all of them they're still figuring out what they need from each other and what they need from themselves, and that those things are inevitably going to be different.
The other thing that really works for me about the shape of the book is the way that David and Robert relate to each other is so shaped by their first meeting in boarding school and the schoolboy norms they've both internalized -- though the war and their trauma has pushed them in some ways into an early adulthood, in other ways they're still very much the kids they were, which is always one of the things that gets me the most about World War I! Anyway. Extremely extremely good book, and now thanks to the characters being nerds about it I also really want to go reread a bunch of Robert Louis Stevenson.
