(no subject)

[skygiants]

I just read Malinda Lo's Adaptation duology (Adaptation and Inheritance) which has ... hmm. It's interesting, because I feel like these books are very much in dialogue with a specific kind of YA that tends not to quite work for me, and so the ways in which these do and don't work for me are also very much part of that dialogue.

Adaptation starts off with Our Heroine Reese Holloway and her hot high school debate team partner David Li getting stranded halfway across the country after a MYSTERIOUS EVENT when hundreds of birds attack planes across the country. Over the course of their efforts to get home, David and Reese end up receiving medical treatment in a mysterious facility in Area 51! And once they get home, superpowers? Strange telepathic connections?? Government conspiracies???

Also, Reese meets a hot girl with her own secrets, which leads to the inevitable love triangle.

There is other stuff going on in the book, but I'm going to talk for a while about the love triangle because that is kind of a focus of what both did and didn't work for me. On the one hand: I am definitely excited that there exists a mainstream YA novel with a bisexual love triangle! And Malinda Lo handles all the broader aspects of that -- especially once Reese, David, and Amber all come into the public eye and the internet trolls start having a field day with Amber's sexuality and David's race -- really well. Both Amber and David are sympathetic, and with only vague spoilers, I will also say that the way it is resolved is, I'm pretty sure, a direct and intentional counter to the way most love triangles are handled in YA novels, which I really appreciate.

It is however still a very love triangle-y love triangle while it is going on, and a very, very YA love triangle to boot -- by which I mean (sorry, YA genre) I don't feel like I have much of an idea at any given time why all of these people are SO INTO each other, except that they're all attractive and the plot says so. I think the first 'I love you's start dropping about two or three weeks into the plot, and this may well be the way teenagers behave, but as a not-teenager I'm just like 'NO YOU DON'T, YOU BARELY KNOW EACH OTHER.' Which, I mean, is addressed --

REESE: Why do you like me? You barely knew me. You still barely know me.
AMBER: If you want me to list the top ten reasons, I can't. I only need one reason, and that reason is that you and I work together. We work.

Which -- OK, but ... I would actually like the top ten reasons, please! Or at least to be able as a reader to have some sense of what they are.

Reese is also a very YA heroine in that she's fairly plot-reactionary and I don't have a great sense of what makes her tick in and of herself, other than that she's somewhat insecure and worried about dating. I do really like her relationships with her parents and her best friend Julian, who is fascinated by government cover-ups and aliens and does journalism for a conspiracy website -- in fact Julian is probably my favorite character in the books -- but these relationships don't get anywhere near as much page time as the love triangle, because YA, and love triangle.

Like I said, I think a lot of the things that don't work for me are just things that don't work for me about much of the shape of the genre right now. All the same, I am very glad these books exist and are in the genre they are in; they don't specifically have to be for me.

Comments

[damselfish]

"I don't feel like I have much of an idea at any given time why all of these people are SO INTO each other, except that they're all attractive and the plot says so"

This is something I found really irritating about the book. I have such... mixed feelings.

I really liked Ash and Huntress, I liked the characters, but everyone in the Adaptation books fell flat except for Julian (this is pretty common in love triangle books, IME, where the friend is always more interesting than either love interest).

Still, these books really put Lo on the map as compared to Ash and Huntress, and people like them so much better, so yay! That's good! I don't get why that's the case, but I'm... glad they're doing well?

[hebethen]

As someone who liked Adaptation better than Ash/Huntress, I felt that the romances, particularly in Ash, were similarly by fiat, except with even less questioning. In addition to that, I also had the (very personal-to-me) issue of being distracted by the linguistic hodgepodgery of that duology(?)'s worldbuilding, which of course isn't going to be a problem with a story set in the "real world".

I still recall with vivid clarity that I wished Ash focused on the relationship with the younger stepsister instead -- I found her so much more interesting than the love interest!

[damselfish]

Haha, the younger sister WAS interesting! But I always like sympathetic sisters in cinderella retellings. I think the by fiat love interests bothered me less because of the language, whereas in Adaptation the more spartan language made it too obvious. I was totally along for Ash's fairytale vibe.

[skygiants]

I also remember really liking the younger stepsister in Ash!

I think the by fiat romance didn't bother me as much in Ash because, like, romances are always a little by fiat in a fairy tale, right?

[skygiants]

I've not yet read Huntress, but I also liked Ash more than this, and for similar reasons -- the prose and the sort of dreamlike feel of it made it much easier for me to just kind of slide along with the story without being too bothered by pesky questions like 'but why ....?'

But like, yeah, I'm glad the duology did well, and put Lo on the map! And that it did what it meant to do, which was working for people who like this sort of thing, and giving them a different and less straight and white version of this sort of thing.

[happydork]

I read Adaptation on Tuesday/Wednesday, and have been putting off reading Inheritance because while I love Malinda Lo's blogging and I adored Ash and Huntress, Adaptation was . . . you've nailed it, I think -- it loves the genre it's in a lot more than I do, so it's having that conversation from a place of love rather than the place I'm standing, which is more "How about you stop doing the things that you like doing for the audience that likes those things and instead do the things that I like for the audience that is me?"

[skygiants]

Ha, yes, right? And, like, it's perfectly reasonable to write That Wildly Successful Book That's Everywhere and change the things you need to change to make it sneakily better and more interesting while still being wildly successful. Somewhat generic easy-to-self-insert POV characters and angsty love triangles really do work for teen readers! Teen readers are the intended audience! I can't argue with it, I'm just a little wistful.

[sovay]

her best friend Julian, who is fascinated by government cover-ups and aliens and does journalism for a conspiracy website -- in fact Julian is probably my favorite character in the books

Do you mind if I ask what happens to Julian, considering that the non-romance plot sounds like it's some kind of superpowered government conspiracy?

[skygiants]

Have no fears for Julian, he makes out like a BANDIT and utilizes his exclusive access to Reesse and David to



SPOILERS



team up with a famous journalist, co-write an award-winning expose of the government conspiracy, and talk his way into accompanying the protagonists on a year-long exchange student trip to an alien planet! You see why I would quite like the book about Julian, who has more chutzpah than Reese and all her love interests combined.

[sovay]

and talk his way into accompanying the protagonists on a year-long exchange student trip to an alien planet!

Sweet!

You see why I would quite like the book about Julian, who has more chutzpah than Reese and all her love interests combined.

Seriously. Tell me the author is writing one!

[skygiants]

WOULD THAT I COULD

[sovay]

WOULD THAT I COULD

DAMMIT.

(Something about the year-long alien exchange trip reminded me of Prewytt Brumblydge, which is generally a favorable sign.)

[evewithanapple]

I haven't read the Adaptation duology, but this is basically spot-on as to my reaction when I read Ash. I'm glad these books exist! I understand what she's trying to do! I hope it works for some of her readers! But alas, it does not work for me.

[skygiants]

Yeah, exactly! I will go on being glad they exist, will almost certainly never reread. (Though Ash actually worked better for me than the Adaptation duology -- I thought it was insubstantial but enjoyable. I think because it was fairy-taleish it was easier for me to handwave the characterization.)

[evewithanapple]

Yeah, Ash didn't frustrate me like it sounds as though these books would, but it was very . . . insubstantial is a good word. It was clearly aping that high-fantasy-style fairy tale prose, but it wasn't pretty enough to stand out- just kind of bland and pastel. (Also, Emma Donoghue already wrote the definitive lesbian fairy tale retelling, and all others are tragically doomed to exist in her shadow.)