A Literary Wanderer

The Book of Ivy – Amy Engel

Book one of the Book of Ivy duology

🌟🌟🌟🌟/5 

Genre: Dystopia, post-apocalypse, speculative fiction, romance, coming of age, Young/New Adult

Trigger warnings: Mentions of suicide, discussions and displaying aftermath of domestic violence, discussions/mentions of sexual assault (including of a minor).

While many may be of the opinion that the post-apocalyptic recovery, dystopia novel is played out, even hackneyed, looking at the political landscape brewing over the past fifty years has solidified my argument that perhaps we need dystopia now more than ever, specifically political speculative fiction dystopia — and to take these texts seriously as we clearly have not heeded the wisdom of Orwell, Bradbury, and Atwood. 

When I first started reading Amy Engel’s breakout novel, The Book of Ivy, the legislative threat to reproductive rights and queer folk was not quite where it is at the current moment (which only shows just how quickly political landscapes can change with the correct leverage). And I think that it took me a little over a month to complete the novel; and not because it was boring or in any way did not capture my attention, but because I kept being struck by just how not crazy this all sounded: arranged marriages between people of the upper society and the lower society, expectations on reproduction and mandates preventing divorces which are mostly only granted in the case of infertility or severe domestic abuse (and even then it’s iffy), and the threat of being “put out” as the only necessary threat to maintain law and order. While dystopia’s entire basis is to speculate on the world’s current political/social issues and hypothesize what would happen should these issues become even more severe, it is moments like these in our developing political climate that make it harder and harder to read such books because these futures seem absolutely possible (and at this exact moment with the threat to reproductive freedom in the Supreme Court as well as in many states throughout the U.S., I even say probable.)

But this review is not meant to dwell on our current political climate, but to review a piece of fiction. All in all, The Book of Ivy is gripping for the reasons I already listed above, but also for its devotion to illustrating that no person is exactly one thing: no one is completely evil and no person is completely righteous; either side of the binary of a conflict has the potential for valid arguments 

Founded on the basis of a nuclear world war and the devastating floods from climate change, The Book of Ivy provides a bleak look into a future that appears to be coming closer and closer to reality with each passing act of legislation. Though published in 2014, The Book of Ivy speaks possibly even more now to the realities of the goings-on in state legislatures, the continued decline in efforts to combat climate change, and the ever-heightening tensions between people on different sides of a binary political system.

Ivy Westfall, the granddaughter of the surviving “nation’s” founder, is just one pawn in a greater effort of political upheaval and commentary on antiquated gendered roles and rules. Being borne into this family, there are certain expectations which dictate her life: not the least of which including the participation in a plot to murder the president’s son to reclaim power. The trouble with all this is, Ivy was not the one originally expected to take on the most pivotal role and so she has had much less time to prepare than her older sister, and… Bishop Lattimer is actually… a decent man. At war with her upbringing and her eye-opening realization that morality is not as simple as she once believed, Ivy must decide with whom her loyalty lies more: her family, her beloved nation of Westfall, or herself. 

Positives:

At this point, I tragically see something very much like this in our future. Not to get too political, but the ways in which our government is attempting to control human behavior and reproductive patterns is becoming quite bleak when being held up to books like this.

For the most part, it’s quite thorough. Engel does not hold punches when it comes to depicting domestic violence or showing all different viewpoints people can possibly have with these very dark, important questions. This book defines the in-between space, the “shade of grey,” (before that phrase was stolen by the erotica title), with Bishop of all people leading the voice for challenging our upbringings and coming to our own conclusions about what is right (also, challenging the idea about criticism without solutions to propose in its stead.)

The SLOW BURN with Bishop and Ivy is amazing. I know how hard it is to restrain yourself when you’re so ready to get to the steamy or the intense scenes, the satisfying conclusion to all that hard work! And Engel understands the importance of nuanced writing where the development is explicit while at the same time subliminal (a contradiction, I know, but go with me). It seems all at once, as the book progresses, that Bishop and Ivy are getting nowhere and have gone through so much development in such a short amount of time. By the time Ivy and Bishop kiss for the first time, I practically cried with relief because the tension had been building and building and BUILDING – but, of course, it’s not just all about steamy tension. Engel focuses on what truly matters: personality compatibility, where they mesh and where they challenge each other, showing why they work well together so efficiently that it doesn’t have to be explained.

NOTHING was black and white. Every single character had positives and negatives (although Bishop was somewhat saintly for the majority of the novel, which I think was intentional because of his name; har har). The supposed “villain” did not turn out to be the only antagonist in the story and the way that it was handled, I think, was very smart and lends an important lesson for lots of young readers.

Negatives:

Keep in mind, I said the thoroughness (and therefore the realism) was “for the most part.” The realism is jeopardized with some contradicting details or details that just don’t quite add up. For instance, Ivy and her sister, Callie, have both been raised with this plot of overthrowing the current government, and yet only Callie seems to have been trained in certain things. Ivy is useless at stealth and information acquisition, is a terrible actress, and constantly compares herself to Callie who, being first born, was anticipated as being the primary proponent of the plan. Nevertheless, Ivy was always meant to play a role in this plan as well and she had two years to prepare for the change, but it’s a consistent source of internal conflict that it is difficult for her to stay true to the plan because she had less time to prepare and her personality isn’t right for it. But how? How lax was her training that this stuff isn’t second nature to her? I don’t know, it just pulls me out of the realism for her to struggle that much considering her family has been plotting this revenge and insurrection for nearly 18 years. It also confuses me SO MUCH that they would allow a third party who supposedly knows nothing about the plot to become involved by asking him to send messages in code, like???? Why would you let someone get involved and risk them saying that something weird is going on with the Westfall family? That’s just too much of a liability, in my eyes. Also, the plot itself didn’t make a whole lot of sense… It was kind of explained toward the end, but even still it felt overly complicated and like there could have been a simpler method.

Continuing on with the contradictions: it was at one point explained that there were food shortages and the like but then by the middle of the book there’s a huge increase in mentions of meats that are expensive by today’s standards even (a whole barbecue, for instance). And it was made clear that this culture is very conservative as far as interactions between young boys and girls because they wanted to protect the arranged marriages, but then they supposedly had a summer camp that Bishop went to and it was co-ed… And also we’re never really given an explanation of how large this fenced in area is because it seems to be quite small, so… where would there be a summer camp set up? It just takes me out of the story because it doesn’t seem like something that would be in a post-apocalyptic landscape in which society is still working on rebuilding.

I personally did not appreciate how the suicide was handled re: the motivation behind it. I won’t spoil anything here, but I will say that Ivy learns the truth about somebody who died by suicide long ago and I just feel like it’s a romanticized view of why some people would do it but totally ignores the greater implications of what it means. If anyone has read the book and would like to discuss it, I’m interested in getting other people’s view; I personally would have preferred it be something else.

You haven't known true pain until you've waited for a book for three years with absolutely no updates.

Yaaaaasss!!

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