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May. 2nd, 2013 04:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI've read and enjoyed most of Alaya Dawn Johnson's other books, but oh man, The Summer Prince! Not only is it the best thing she has written by far, it is one of the best things I've read so far this year.
The Summer Prince is set in the future Brazilian city of Palmares Tres, several centuries after some sort of apocalypse. Palmares Tres is mostly matriarchal, and is ruled by a Queen. Every five years, men campaign to serve as Summer King; one is elected. He becomes a political and media darling for a year, and is then voluntarily sacrificed, and chooses the new ruling Queen in the ultimate act of disinterested non-partisanship as he dies.
(The actual political mechanics of the cycle are more complicated than that. Because everything is more complicated than that.)
Anyway, Our Heroine June is not super involved in politics -- her family is privileged, her mother's wife is politically influential, but June is a TEENAGED REBEL who just wants to make POLITICALLY CONFRONTATIONAL PUBLIC ART. Stealth graffiti! YOUTH POWER! The only valid art is TRANSGRESSIVE! You know, that kind of thing.
Then Enki -- the son of an immigrant who grew up in lowest class of Palmares Tres' citizens -- gets elected, the most popular Summer King in decades. Enki claims himself as an artist, too, and his one-year term is the canvas that he's going to use to make the greatest political statement he possibly can.
June thinks: MY PERFECT ARTISTIC COLLABORATOR!
June's best friend-sometimes-with-benefits Gil thinks: WHAT A HOTTIE.
(Okay, June also thinks 'what a hottie,' but mostly she is very determined to focus on ART.)
Anyway, Gil starts dating Enki and becomes a minor celebrity by association, and June and Enki start collaborating on increasingly more controversial projects, and the political situation in Palmares Tres gets more and more tense, and soon June finds herself having to make much harder choices than she planned on. Choices like, "how do I make a powerful artistic statement about a divisive political issue when my feelings about that issue are 'BUT ACTUALLY IT'S REALLY COMPLICATED?'" and "do I care more about being recognized as a great artist, or actually making the change my art is about?"
Man, it's just a really good, really complicated book that asks smart questions, and I am not capturing the half of it. I haven't even talked about the way various different issues of class and age and power and technology intersect within the city, or June's fraught and fascinating relationship with her mother and stepmother, or HOW MUCH I SHIP JUNE WITH HER BEST LADY RIVAL BEBEL WHO IS TOTALLY IN LOVE WITH HER. Why is no one writing me June/Bebel fanfic RIGHT NOW. Someone had better get on this come Yuletide. Everyone read this book and write me that!
(I am actually not sure how I feel about the ending, for the record. But I like the rest of the book so much I don't care.)
The Summer Prince is set in the future Brazilian city of Palmares Tres, several centuries after some sort of apocalypse. Palmares Tres is mostly matriarchal, and is ruled by a Queen. Every five years, men campaign to serve as Summer King; one is elected. He becomes a political and media darling for a year, and is then voluntarily sacrificed, and chooses the new ruling Queen in the ultimate act of disinterested non-partisanship as he dies.
(The actual political mechanics of the cycle are more complicated than that. Because everything is more complicated than that.)
Anyway, Our Heroine June is not super involved in politics -- her family is privileged, her mother's wife is politically influential, but June is a TEENAGED REBEL who just wants to make POLITICALLY CONFRONTATIONAL PUBLIC ART. Stealth graffiti! YOUTH POWER! The only valid art is TRANSGRESSIVE! You know, that kind of thing.
Then Enki -- the son of an immigrant who grew up in lowest class of Palmares Tres' citizens -- gets elected, the most popular Summer King in decades. Enki claims himself as an artist, too, and his one-year term is the canvas that he's going to use to make the greatest political statement he possibly can.
June thinks: MY PERFECT ARTISTIC COLLABORATOR!
June's best friend-sometimes-with-benefits Gil thinks: WHAT A HOTTIE.
(Okay, June also thinks 'what a hottie,' but mostly she is very determined to focus on ART.)
Anyway, Gil starts dating Enki and becomes a minor celebrity by association, and June and Enki start collaborating on increasingly more controversial projects, and the political situation in Palmares Tres gets more and more tense, and soon June finds herself having to make much harder choices than she planned on. Choices like, "how do I make a powerful artistic statement about a divisive political issue when my feelings about that issue are 'BUT ACTUALLY IT'S REALLY COMPLICATED?'" and "do I care more about being recognized as a great artist, or actually making the change my art is about?"
Man, it's just a really good, really complicated book that asks smart questions, and I am not capturing the half of it. I haven't even talked about the way various different issues of class and age and power and technology intersect within the city, or June's fraught and fascinating relationship with her mother and stepmother, or HOW MUCH I SHIP JUNE WITH HER BEST LADY RIVAL BEBEL WHO IS TOTALLY IN LOVE WITH HER. Why is no one writing me June/Bebel fanfic RIGHT NOW. Someone had better get on this come Yuletide. Everyone read this book and write me that!
(I am actually not sure how I feel about the ending, for the record. But I like the rest of the book so much I don't care.)
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Date: 2013-05-02 09:54 pm (UTC)I wish I was more familiar with the Epic of Gilgamesh so I could go "DEM PARALLELS" or "WOT A COINCIDENCE", as appropriate.
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Date: 2013-05-02 10:04 pm (UTC)ME TOO. I've read Gilgamesh, but it was like nine years ago and I've pretty much forgotten all of it.
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Date: 2013-05-02 09:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-02 10:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-02 10:03 pm (UTC)June also cracks me up so much because she is such a teenager at times. I really like how the book goes with that and how she's not a perfect activist person, but trying to figure all the stuff out.
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Date: 2013-05-02 10:07 pm (UTC)And hah, I love that too! It hits just the right balance for me of having her be a totally believable, super flawed and self-centered teenager, but have her grow enough over the course of the book that I don't get frustrated waiting for her to grow up.
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Date: 2013-05-03 12:27 am (UTC)NOT BECAUSE OF HUMAN SACRIFICE
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Date: 2013-05-03 12:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-03 01:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-03 01:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-03 03:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-03 04:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-11 06:09 pm (UTC)I totally ship June/Bebel, too. BEBEL'S LOVE FOR JUNE IS SO CANON. And now that the spoilerly thing that spoiler spoiler spoiler happened, IT COULD WORK. RIGHT.
(Wicked icon because in my head, even though I know it's totally wrong, Bebel looks like a younger Kristen Chenowith.)
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Date: 2013-05-13 09:03 pm (UTC)(In my head she looks like Sophie Okenodo!)