Turnskin

Title: Turnskin

Author: Nicole Kimberling

Publisher: Blind Eye Books (2008)

Genre(s): Fiction, Gay/Lesbian Interest

Length: 259 pages

Synopsis:  Tom Fletcher is a Shifter, born with the ability to changed his physical appearance in remarkable ways.  For the most part, though, he downplays his skills; raised in a rural community of non-Shifters (known as Skins), it seemed prudent to keep a low profile, with one notable exception.  Tom is a playwright and an actor, and his Shifting abilities give him opportunities onstage that no Skin could hope to match.  Unfortunately, his hometown isn't exactly a center of culture.  He knows he's destined for the stage, but he'd have to travel to the city of Riverside to have that chance, and as a Shifter, regulations make such travel difficult.  Opportunity goes hand in hand with danger, however, as Tom learns when he meets the mysterious Cloud Coldmoon.  Before Tom realizes it, he's swept up in a whirlwind romance, suspected of murder, and fleeing to Riverside with little more than his scripts and the name of a theatre run by his cousins.  Tom finds that the city has its own problems, and soon realizes that the person he's been all his life might not be the person who can succeed in Riverside.  He's finally been offered his shot at a life on the stage, but what face will he have to wear to get it?

 

My Rating: 3 Stars

My Opinion:  This book seemed to have so much potential.  It was, to be extravagant with my metaphors, rather like a souffle: brilliant ideas played off one another, rising to unexpected heights and opening the door for everything from social commentary to art criticism.  But...somewhere in its creation, someone slammed the oven door and this particular souffle fell terribly flat.  Tom's voice is disconcertingly young, in ways that  go beyond the naivete of a country bumpkin moving to the big city.  I had to reread the initial pages several times before I could come to the conclusion that he wasn't a teenage boy.  The conflicts arise and dissolve with no real logic.  Major problems present themselves, often quite suddenly, then are pushed to the side, forgotten and unresolved, or resolved unrealistically.  The characters feel sketchy and one dimensional at times, and the romance that ostensibly drives the book forward never really rings true.  Generally, issues like this would have cost the book an additional star in my rating system, but the concept of this novel really is magnificent.  Kimberling's world offers a chance to consider concepts of identity in its extremes.  What does the idea of gender mean to a group of people who can change their appearance completely?  What about the concept of race?   What about sexuality?  Unfortunately, she all too often couches this conversation in terms of extremism, making it almost a satire of itself.  The heart of the story, however, is not satirical in nature, and considering the entirety of the book in such a light would undo the self discovery that's intended to be the true theme.  The book itself seems to morph from moment to moment, uncertain of where it's headed or even where it's been.  Before it can offer lessons on self-discovery, it would first have to take its own advice.

Ash

Title: Ash

Author: Malinda Lo

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (2009)

Genre(s): Young Adult Fiction, Fairy Tales, Gay/Lesbian Interest

Length: 264 pages

Synopsis:  Aisling, nicknamed Ash, lives in a kingdom where the tradition of magic is as deep as the roots of the mysterious and wild Wood.  Ash’s mother trained with the local greenwitch in the old ways of magic, and though her husband thinks her fairy-tales are folly, after his wife’s death, he still brings returns home from merchant business with books of fantastical stories for Ash.  When Ash is left in the care of her unfeeling stepmother and more alone than she has ever been before, she turns more and more to her books, the both the fairy tales her father gave her and the little herbal journal written by her mother.  She finds comfort in these “rustic beliefs,” as her stepmother calls them, but even Ash cannot quite believe it when she begins to develop a friendship with a fairy called Sidhean.  He is a strange, dangerous, and fascinating being, and Ash’s only link to her beloved mother.  But when Ash meets Kaisa, the King’s Huntress, she begins to realize that it may be possible for her to love, and be loved, again.  Sidhean’s powers hold the key that could let her escape her stepmother, but among the fairies there is always a price to pay for magic.  The closer she comes to happiness, the more Ash begins to wonder what price she will have to pay for love.

My Rating: 4 Stars

My Opinion: 

This is a truly elegant retelling.  It is easily recognizable as a Cinderella story, but none of the conventions are forced into place.  Those that are used fall naturally in the course of the story, and those that are left out are not missed.  The unique twists to this retelling are also logical extensions of the story as it develops, so that by the end it seems that perhaps this version of the story has always existed alongside its better known cousin.  The end is somewhat troubling, however.  As promised, I won’t spoil it for readers, and I do certainly recommend it for fans of fantasy and fairy tales.  While Lo has created dangerously unpredictable fairy characters more reminiscent of the Brothers Grimm than Disney, Ash’s escape from Sidhean’s influence seems to resolve itself a little too easily.  Where the relationship between Kaisa and Ash explores the more tender aspects of love, Sidhean represents a darker side.  Though the threat he represents is real and quite frightening, that particular storm dissipates with nothing but a grumble of thunder.