Inheritance by Malinda Lo
My rating: 3/5 cats
real review added, but it’s after all the maggie pictures because nobody puts maggie in the corner
maggie!! what are you up to??
i reading the book!!
maggie, i hate to break it to you, but that’s book two, and i know you haven’t read book one. also—upside-down, dude.
i hate you—you’re not even my real mom!!! *sulk*
3.5 stars cats.
possible spoilers for book 1—i don’t know how much of the basic plot of this series is known to those who haven’t read it.
3.5 is one of those “me-ratings,” but i definitely think this book and its predecessor Adaptation are valuable and should be pushed on put in front of teens. particularly, but not exclusively, to teens who are questioning or exploring their sexuality.
and i’m so very glad that i read this book so soon after reading Grasshopper Jungle, because i think this one deals with bisexuality in a much more delicate and thoughtful way. this shares a lot of situations with Grasshopper Jungle: aliens, bisexuality, View Spoiler », but it is in every way superior in its treatment.
it’s possibly combustible to point out that Grasshopper Jungle is male-penned/male protagonist and this is female-penned/female protagonist, and that the problems i had with grasshopper jungle (“i’m bisexual, so that means i get to bang everyone—sweet!”) are handled with more maturity and sensitivity here (i’m bisexual and i care about two different people enough to not want to hurt either of their feelings.”) i definitely think that this contrast is indicative of the different sexual values between teen boys and teen girls, but i know that making any kind of absolute gendered statement on the internet is opening up an angry door, so imma back away—this was all just to inquire if anyone knew of any better (i.e.—less careless) examples of bisexual male protagonists in YA lit.
lo is an accomplished writer—she’s not afraid to take her time to tell her story in this densely textured way, and to remind us of the events of the first book without boring exposition. but occasionally she gets a bit too conceptual, with too much time spent away from the action into this sort of anthropological/philosophical realm where the aliens try to explicate to the humans their insights into nebulous concepts like the distinctions between feelings vs emotions or sex vs gender. all of which i found interesting and well-intentioned, but a little muddy. i think the arguments themselves are presenting all the right kinds of important questions, but they don’t explore the complexities, so it’s all a little unsatisfyingly superficial.
but apart from that, i think lo has managed some pretty impressive work in these books; tackling gender, racial, and sexual issues while still telling a fascinating story of alien visitation and speculative evolution.
in this book, reese and david find themselves the focus of attention from the media, the government, conspiracy theorists, and other groups after they are returned home to san francisco after being repaired with imrian dna following a car crash and subsequently quarantined on a secret military base. they have emerged from the experience with new abilities, including telepathy, which both complicates and enhances their newly romantic relationship. also complicating the relationship is amber, the alien with whom reese had a thing before she knew amber was an alien. or before she knew that she could have feelings for a girl, alien or not.
david and reese are subjected to a startling amount of public scrutiny from the curious, the suspicious, and the malicious—people who want to know what happened to them and what the imrian want from humanity. and it’s exhausting—david and reese’s first date includes two sets of security detail, they find themselves juggling the agendas of several different agencies who want to exploit and manipulate them and fending off protesters and reporters while still trying to understand and define their own personal lives. reese, despite her former reluctance to ever have a romantic relationship has suddenly found herself in a love triangle, and it’s a doozy of a love triangle: two genders, three races.
because of her new celebrity status, reese finds that her relationship with david is being discussed, splayed out all over the internet, including racist commentary around the fact that david is chinese. lesson worth repeating: never read the comments board. pretty much everywhere. which only intensifies her conflicted emotions and her fear about her relationship with amber being exposed—being both a girl and—you know—alien. so it’s a coming of age/coming out story with a hell of a twist and lo is really great at handling race and sexuality in a heartbreakingly realistic way. there are other secondary gay characters, a boy and a girl, which allows for some great moments of supportive community but also frustration regarding reese’s hesitation to embrace her bisexuality.
and reese is definitely a realistic and sympathetic character. because it’s hard to address matters of the heart while also saving the world, adjusting to new telepathic abilities, and playing several government agencies against each other. and also, for her, the novelty of being in a relationship at all, let alone two. she is making herself emotionally vulnerable for the first time, so the extra baggage is heavy. she doesn’t want to hurt either amber or david, and she also has some very strong personal ideas about avoiding following her father’s example of being a cheater.
the solution is a bit optimistic and reminiscent of View Spoiler »
but it might work for them!
anyway, i think this is one of those books that more people should read because it addresses important issues and poses smart questions, but i’m just not that into aliens. still—an objectively solid achievement.
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