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Nov. 3rd, 2008 04:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsThis weekend I read three short but awesome YA books that reminded me all over again why I tend to spend more time in that section of the library than any other - I don't know why, but every so often YA fantasy strikes that perfect combination of fantastical happenings and quiet down-to-earth realness that I love but that is surprisingly rare.
Of course, two of the authors were Terry Pratchett and Diana Wynne Jones, so it was really no surprise there.
Johnny and the Bomb is the only one of the Johnny series I don't own, and, as such, the only one I hadn't reread recently. I still think Only You Can Save Mankind is the best of the three - possibly not coincidentally, it's also the darkest - but I love Johnny and the Bomb for the history that's made up of ordinary people and for Yo-less coming into his own.
Mixed Magics, on the other hand, is one of a very few - maybe the only - Diana Wynne Jones book I've never read; it's a set of short stories set in the Chrestomanciverse. Unsurprisingly, I loved them all (and also got surprise throwaway Homeward Bounders canon, but that's another story!) but the standout is definitely Stealer of Souls, in which Cat from Charmed Life and Tonino from Magicians of Caprona meet and completely fail to form an instant connection. This is because Diana Wynne Jones is the sort of writer who allows even her quietest and most generally put-upon characters to have this kind of hilariously (and realistically) bitchy reaction: "[Cat] had grown used to being the youngest and unhappiest person in the castle until Tonino had come along and stolen his thunder." Diana Wynne Jones is the anti-Irritating Person Syndrome and I love her for it.
The third book I read this weekend was The Changeover by Margaret Mahy - the first book of hers I've read, and I can't imagine how it took me this long to discover her. She reminds me of Diana Wynne Jones in all the best ways, by which I mean she never loses track of the real and petty mundanities of life even in the midst of supernatural strangeness. The cover will make it sound like the book is all about the magic and the romance, and those are there, don't get me wrong, but it's just as much about the complex dynamics in the protagonist's family, and the strange awkwardness that is both her and her mother being in situations that force them to grow and see each other in different ways at the same time that they're going through the crisis of the baby brother's supernatural illness. I love how grounded this book is in the middle of all the magic, and I love how real Laura and her dilemmas felt to me (and how she's unsure and upset without being Angsty), and I will definitely be going out and reading as much more by Mahy as I can find.
Of course, two of the authors were Terry Pratchett and Diana Wynne Jones, so it was really no surprise there.
Johnny and the Bomb is the only one of the Johnny series I don't own, and, as such, the only one I hadn't reread recently. I still think Only You Can Save Mankind is the best of the three - possibly not coincidentally, it's also the darkest - but I love Johnny and the Bomb for the history that's made up of ordinary people and for Yo-less coming into his own.
Mixed Magics, on the other hand, is one of a very few - maybe the only - Diana Wynne Jones book I've never read; it's a set of short stories set in the Chrestomanciverse. Unsurprisingly, I loved them all (and also got surprise throwaway Homeward Bounders canon, but that's another story!) but the standout is definitely Stealer of Souls, in which Cat from Charmed Life and Tonino from Magicians of Caprona meet and completely fail to form an instant connection. This is because Diana Wynne Jones is the sort of writer who allows even her quietest and most generally put-upon characters to have this kind of hilariously (and realistically) bitchy reaction: "[Cat] had grown used to being the youngest and unhappiest person in the castle until Tonino had come along and stolen his thunder." Diana Wynne Jones is the anti-Irritating Person Syndrome and I love her for it.
The third book I read this weekend was The Changeover by Margaret Mahy - the first book of hers I've read, and I can't imagine how it took me this long to discover her. She reminds me of Diana Wynne Jones in all the best ways, by which I mean she never loses track of the real and petty mundanities of life even in the midst of supernatural strangeness. The cover will make it sound like the book is all about the magic and the romance, and those are there, don't get me wrong, but it's just as much about the complex dynamics in the protagonist's family, and the strange awkwardness that is both her and her mother being in situations that force them to grow and see each other in different ways at the same time that they're going through the crisis of the baby brother's supernatural illness. I love how grounded this book is in the middle of all the magic, and I love how real Laura and her dilemmas felt to me (and how she's unsure and upset without being Angsty), and I will definitely be going out and reading as much more by Mahy as I can find.
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Date: 2008-11-03 10:12 pm (UTC)Because if you haven't, I have avi files...
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Date: 2008-11-03 10:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-03 10:46 pm (UTC)So of course I had to go reread The Many Lives of Christopher Chant, her books are just so great.
I'm currently in the midst of The Gates of Sleep and have The Fire Rose waiting at home.
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Date: 2008-11-04 02:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 03:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 03:17 am (UTC)Seriously I do not know how I missed Margaret Mahy as a kid, she is exactly the kind of thing I would have loved to pieces (and still do!)
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Date: 2008-11-04 03:18 am (UTC)Oooh awesome! I have not read Gates of Sleep so you will have to tell me what you think.
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Date: 2008-11-04 03:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 10:53 am (UTC)That's all ackshually *returns to lurkin*
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Date: 2008-11-04 02:26 pm (UTC)Diana Wynne Jones has been my favorite also for pretty much ever, I babble about her pretty much nonstop. So discovering Mahy now is like discovering a giant new backlog of DWJ I have not read and fills me with ridiculous joy! Any recs as to which to read next?