skygiants

rachelmanija has a theory about Books that Commit to their Premise. Peaspout Chen: Future Legend of Skate and Sword absolutely commits to its premise. This is a book about a fourteen-year-old Ice Skating Martial Arts Prodigy who is going to Ice Skating Based Martial Arts School to become an Ice Skating Based Martial Arts Master and BY GOD does she perform a lot of Ice Skating Based Martial Arts! She competes in no less than five increasingly special and increasingly absurd Ice Skating Based Martial Arts Tournaments! We committed!

This book is also committing to a number of other things. It is extremely committing. The things it is committing to include but are not limited to high stakes espionage, heavy-handed geopolitical allegory, some very confusing beats around gender, and a level of unhinged lesbian drama that I absolutely did not expect in a MIDDLE GRADE book! for better and for worse!

The basic plot is that our girl Peasprout, number one skating martial arts prodigy of the large but under-resourced empire of Not China, and her little brother have been sent to Ice Skating Based Martial Arts School on the small but wealthy island of Not Taiwan as part of a goodwill exchange. They are about to be the first skaters from Not China ever to attend the school -- Not Taiwan has a major advantage in Ice Skating Based Martial Arts because they possess the secret of a building material that's Perfect for Ice Skating and never melts, so they can practice all year long -- but nonetheless Peasprout is extremely confident in her abilities and determined to graduate number one!

THINGS ESCALATE DRAMATICALLY FROM THERE.

I think this book is doing several things that are quite good, several things that are quite bad, and several things that I just need help reacting to, all of which I am going to spoil extensively.

The good: we are set up to see Peasprout, as Peasprout sees herself, as a plucky underdog who has not had the resources of her competitors and is upholding the honor of her nation. This is true. Over the course of the book we slowly learn increasing details about the fact that Not China has been making moves of imperialist aggression towards Not Taiwan for two hundred years, that the 'goodwill exchange' is in fact a hostage exchange and Peasprout's counterparts at the Not Chinese court are not being treated well, and that Peasprout lost her parents in a purge indicative of the level of political oppression in Not China, and all this is also true, and I think the way in which we gradually see Peasprout starting to admit this to herself and see her whole situation differently is nuanced and interesting and well-done.

The bad: Peasprout's personality. Oh dear. Let me make it clear: at the beginning of the book I was all in on Peasprout's terrible personality, her absolute self-absorptive self-confidence, the fact that she is constantly thinking about how many awards she has won and how many times she has come best in X and Y, the fact that she doesn't bother to learn people's names unless she thinks they're talented enough to be worth knowing ... all of this is delightful to me. More power to Peasprout and teen heroines with terrible personalities.

However, the third time that Peasprout confidently sauntered off to do something and an obviously well-meaning person was like 'hey this is a major cultural difference, don't do that, it will end badly' and Peasprout ignored them and then it ended badly, I was like 'hey I thought we were going to learn from that last time?' The fourth time I was like 'we are almost halfway through the book and still?' By the fifth time I had given up hope. There is also a major subplot about her little brother extremely and obviously succeeding and making friends while Peasprout makes nothing but enemies, and every time Peasprout is like "!!! you're not succeeding in the way I assume that you have to succeed!" and zooms in to ruin it, and the penny does not drop until like 98% of the way through the book after Peasprout has almost gotten herself executed for treason and espionage.

I am begging you, Peasprout: learn anything. Listen to anyone. The number of ill-advised plans that Peasprout set her mind on and pursued to absolute devastation! The number of times Peasprout fell for an obvious setup and refused to listen to anybody warning her that it was an obvious setup! The number of times that Peasprout was like 'man I misjudged that person, I should go have a conversation with them to find out what they're really like' and then talked completely through it and learned nothing! I am tearing my hair out! God bless Skating Prodigy Peasprout, she certainly can skate and she has no other skills whatsoever.

The unhinged: lesbian drama edition: OKAY. So Peasprout has two main rivals for Top Girl Martial Arts Skater at Martial Arts Skating School; one of them is a bona fide Mean Girl with a Mean Girl Gang, and the other is an awkward and mysterious loner that Peasprout is kind of obsessed with but also finds kind of scary and suspicious.

The awkward and mysterious loner also has a nice, hot twin brother who lurks around outside of school inventing veganism (I was not surprised to learn that the author is also vegan), and he and Peasprout have a blossoming romance and a Near Kiss and he saves both her and her baby brother from peril, but he won't tell her anything about his sister or why she's so weird.

The school keeps getting sabotaged right before major Martial Arts Ice Skating Competition Events, the Mean Girl is constantly accusing Peasprout of being a spy and a saboteur, and Peasprout conversely is convinced the Mean Girl is doing the sabotage and trying to blame it on Peasprout because of their sports rivalry, but!

it turns out!!

THE LONER SISTER AND HER HOT TWIN BROTHER ARE THE SAME PERSON.

she has been pretending to be her brother while he goes off on a secret politics mission, and sabotaging all the places where the boys are supposed to have their Martial Arts Ice Skating Competition Events to avoid being expected to compete in Boys Events and Girls Events at the same time! and she is madly, truly, deeply in love with Peasprout, so she's going to sacrifice herself to make sure Peasprout doesn't take the blame!

but ... alas .... though Peasprout loved the imaginary hot twin brother, she is straight. Or so she says.

"Why are you doing this?" Doi says, her voice breaking. "Why are you trying to stop me?"
"Because I'm your friend!"
"I never wanted you as a friend!"
I don't know what to say to this.
"Do you know," she says, her chest heaving, "what it's like to want something? And then learn that you can never have what you want? Do you have any idea how that feels?"
"Yes, I do! He was good and kind, and he made me feel something I'd never felt before, but I'm never going to see him again, because he never existed!"

THIS IS A MIDDLE GRADE BOOK. It's not that I don't expect lesbians in contemporary middle grade, I just don't expect, you know, this.

the unhinged: other:
okay these are just a few other things about this book that I have to mention because I don't know what to do with them

-- people are constantly referring to the historical event of Not!China's Great Leap. Peasprout Does Not Want To Talk About the Great Leap. It turns out this was a literal leap in which several hundred people were all planning to jump at the same time to redirect an earthquake towards Not Taiwan
-- Not Taiwan is very culturally influence by Not Japan and people are constantly telling an appalled Peasprout that her name is so kawaii
-- a very weird dropped comment about how the baby brother was on wuxia puberty blockers so that he could compete better in ice skating martial arts, but he started them too early and it stunted his growth; this comes up once and never again

Anyway, the book ends with both Peasprout and Doi attempting to sacrifice themselves for each other so neither one of them gets executed for treason, Peasprout actually doing treason against the Empress of Not China, and Peasprout once again affirming that she does not want to date Doi, she just wants Doi to be her Very Good Friend and Best Skating Rival. Okay, sure. At the very last page of the book the real twin brother arrives and he IS hot and one can find out what happens next in Peasprout Chen Two. I'm not sure I can make it through a whole other book of Peasprout Chen's Terrible Decisions, but if anybody knows, I admit I'm incredibly curious.