ladybusiness | (Reply)

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Loved your thoughts on the impossibility to define YA. A definition I also often hear is that the stories always take place during the protagonist's teen years, but then you have Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea, for example, whose final three books have middled-ages to elderly heroes and heroines. Teen protagonists are definitely in the majority in YA, but even that rule has its exceptions. Which is why I'd rather go with "books whose publishers decided to market them as YA", period :P

Anyway, on to the book: it's possible that Rosoff has spread deliberate cues throughout the text, but they went completely over my head and I was genuinely surprised. Of course, that's revealing of some unpleasant truths about me and my own assumptions and blind spots (can't say more without spoilers but you know what I mean), but I kind of love how the narrative was yet another reminder that I should always confront them. I'm sure most adult readers will be much more aware than me, but this is one of those cases where I wasn't sorry to have been "fooled".

Also, I thought that his desire to be Finn and even his use of the name were more indicative of the nature of the relationship than of any shady dealings, necessarily. What I loved so much about this book was how well it captured the nature of a feeling that even at my current ripe old age I don't feel I'm entirely done with. I read it as a sort of manic pixie dream person story, but with all the aspects of those narratives I've explained I'm drawn to, and with an embedded analysis of their implications that you don't see everywhere. Which is win win for me.

PS: I do not remember the gay character dying :S #Iamhorrible