Thinking Book Thoughts

I don't think his depictions of women are bad. I think they're complicated and often disappointing.

Our understanding of every woman in both books is filtered through a teenage boy who is trying to figure them out without… ever asking them. I don’t necessarily fault the characters for that, I know I wasn’t the most thoughtful, empathetic person on the planet when I was 16, but still, the result is that we only ever know our protagonists. This normally wouldn’t bother me, a more or less first-person book is bound to run into that limitation, but UGh the women and girls of both of these stories could have been so much more than they were. 

There is definite improvement in Exile, but in Grasshopper the women and girls of the story are more or less set dressing… Acting more than once as little more than wombs to produce more male characters for Austin to empathize with and talk about. The way he talks about his grandmothers… I just… was it strictly necessary to describe your grandmother’s breasts as being like frosted cupcakes… at least 2 separate times…? I’d like to know what that contributed. Please. Tell me. The girl who gets the worst of it in the first book is absolutely Shann. I really LIKE Shann. She is cool and funny and interesting (from what little we have of her) and yet her only role in the story is to act as one of the ingredients to Austin’s internal struggle. And then to… give birth to a second male protagonist for you to empathize with and read about… I was really hoping for her to get more in the second book, and she kind of just doesn’t. She’s so shafted by this story. And I’m not just talking about the things that happen to her, you’re allowed to have a female character not have a happy ending. I’m talking about the way the story (if a story could be said to have a will of its own, or maybe cough cough I’m talking about the writer) just does not care about her. She’s not a sexy lamp, but oh dear god does she come very close. 

By the second book, we have Mel, Connie, Wendy, and Shann. Who are all living breathing women(and girl) who actually exist in the story and even have dialogue! Incredible. And we get to spend time with them, not a ton, but it’s massive compared to Grasshopper. The issue I have with the women in Exile is that while they have far more going on than the women of Grasshopper, it’s always from a distance and met with confusion. Yes, these women are complex and dare I say, realistic, but everything they go through is happening somewhere Arek can’t see. A limitation of the narration……… except it’s not. We get all kinds of information we probably shouldn’t, to the point where Austin just straight-up has to say “look, I’m not going to tell you where all this came from, just trust me.” And you do. Arek’s narration works more or less the same way. We could have had a better understanding of why these women are the complicated, messy ways they are. We just don’t. And that’s not necessarily bad, that’s life, babe. But because it’s specifically women, over and over again, whose hurt and trauma remains unexplored, with our only glimpse into them being Arek saying something along the lines of “I just don’t get it.” While most of the male characters, by comparison, seem super well adjusted (all things considered) and cool and are treated with understanding and respect? COME. ON. If I were being unkind, I’d say it has a very “broads, eh?” vibe to it. 

And with Mel… I don’t dislike Mel, but who is she? We spend WAY more time with her than we ever did with Shann, and yet… I feel like I know way less about her. All I can really remember of her is that… Arek thinks she’s brave and blissfully uncomplicated and way way smarter than he’d ever be. Again, we get the suggestion that there’s more going on behind what is plainly visible to Arek, but no… actual… page time… spent on it… If it weren’t for the fact that I’m supposed to believe she’s like, a human, with feelings and stuff, and a teenager at that, I’d really think there was just nothing going on in her head all the time. A huge disservice to Mel, and frankly, the teenagers reading the book. Stop letting boys believe that girls are these smart, perfect, mature superhumans who are just better, and more equipped to deal with things, or else ditzy and useless. Fuck that. Come ON, ANDREW. I KNOW YOU’VE MET A GIRL.

Whether positive or not, it is still relegation to the other. It feels to me like he others women constantly, without really trying to understand them. Painting them as brave and strong and complex, yes, but unfathomably so. Their pain, their strength is different, unknowable. And I just don't think that's fair.

And dear god, do not get me STARTED on the whole “boys will always want to go away :(“ thing. Every time that line came up I nearly rolled my eyes out of my got damn skull. I believe you, Andrew, I do. But did you ever stop to consider that girls want to go away too? That a sense of adventure and longing are not actually gendered? Look at me… I’ve got started, haven’t I… Well, I’ll say this and I’ll leave it at that: I hate this because girls do want to go away. They want to run and never come back. They want to let go of stifling home lives and societal expectations and find something cool and crazy that no one has ever seen but them! MAYBE EVEN MORE THAN YOU DO. But at the very least, as much as you do. There are a lot of reasons they might not, but it sure as hell isn’t because they don’t want to. And every time I read “boys just want to go away,” followed by some implication that women could just never understand that drive… It fucking hurt, man. It’s straight-up dehumanizing. And it makes me think of all the women and girls who dream of going away. And all the men and boys who think they don’t have the same feelings as them. 

There are things that come with womanhood that would be difficult for someone who hasn't lived it to understand, but I genuinely don't believe it's impossible. Or at least we can get a lot closer to it than Smith seems to be willing to in these books.  

There's a theme that I only just now noticed properly. It's clear throughout the book that there is a difference between the children of this new world and its adults, who were the children of the old world. I initially read it as simply Smith's assertion that people would be fundamentally different (and happier) without a lot of the baggage that we've put onto ourselves and each other. It's a sentiment I agree with, I think it's hard not to, and I sort of took it at face value as just that. A fantastical way for him to illustrate the contrast between people who grow up with arbitrary rules and people who don't. It's simple but effective. It took ages (almost at the end of the book, actually) for it to occur to me that it might be something else too.

Austin’s role in the book strongly influenced the way that I read it, I saw it as a sort of love letter. A father's message to his children. Part educational, part confession of a failure to be able to educate. An admission of guilt and longing, and alongside all of it, understanding. Understanding of children's failures, of their guilt and longing. A way to say, "I'm sorry, I hear you, I forgive you, I love you, and all the things that words can never say, and I hope you feel all those things for me." Maybe I'm projecting a little (a lot)... But anyway, it was near the end of the book where Arek finally meets Breakfast and he describes the feeling of safety and acceptance he experiences despite knowing him for less than a day that I started to think of it differently. I do very much still believe it’s about the “true” nature of people and examining the restraints we put on ourselves, but I think that distinction -before and after the hole- is about generation gaps too. 

I mean, obviously, I know I know, bear with me. I don't mean the immediately apparent gap of kids that have grown up in a post-apocalyptic bunker and adults who didn't, I mean just normal old generation gaps. The kind you have with your parents. The kind every person feels no matter when they were born, that may only be widening as the changes of the world increase more rapidly. And it's about the way that people need understanding, and they need someone that they can trust to know what they mean. For Arek, for all the kids, adults are confusing. They're complicated and weird and at times scary. And they're so inaccessible.

And Smith understands that. Whether through recollection of his own youth or seeing it in kids he knows, he gets that. The unyielding void of questions that adults often seem like to kids. The answers to which aren't always nice, that lead to experiences and knowledge you don't always want. I'm not a kid anymore, and they still seem like that to me. There are topics I'm afraid to broach, people I'm afraid to be alone with. Because I don't know what they know, and I don't know if I want to.

Adults represent a mystery that at first Arek wants to crack. Eventually, the closer he gets, the more experience he has, he realizes that it isn't all fun and games. That maybe there are things he really should just leave alone until he's older. Other kids are safe, and they get it. There's a certain wordless commonality. I think it's telling that he feels this way even with Breakfast, who is closer to what you would think of as a proper "child" than Arek is. Irl, 16-year-olds don't really hang out with 10-year-olds unless they have to, usually pretty spoiled for choice in terms of people their own age. But even with their age gap and completely different lives, Breakfast understands things that an adult just won't. He thinks and feels in a way that an adult just won't. And that would be true giant fucking bugs or no. It's something Arek needs.

The different states of being, before and after the hole, are a much more complex, and relevant metaphor than I initially gave them credit for. It's really nice, I guess that's the word, to see a fully fledged adult™ treat the topic so kindly. Without bitterness at "kids these days." And it makes me all wisty about the teens and kids out there finding their people. Their communities. Whether it be in person or online. It's ok that adults don't get it. Do you, one day the kids that come after will do their own thing and you won't get it. And that's ok too. Just remember to treat them with the same kindness and empathy Smith is extending here. Even if you never got it from anyone yourself. I hope you did, but... Well. I know how it is. We can be better though. If we try.

Let's not become our parents!

-Every generation ever 😂

(Unfortunately, I will be talking about Grasshopper a lot. It seems like I can kind of only think of this book through the lens of the first, idk maybe that’s something I’ll be able to shed on a second read. It really ought to stand on its own, they’re different enough stories.)

I’ll start off by saying, I did not like it as much as the first. I don’t know why. I think in a lot of ways it’s actually a more complex, mature look at some of the themes that were only lightly touched in Grasshopper. I guess the sticking point for me is that it feels like it has a lot to say, but not necessarily that it says it well. Structurally, there’s some work that needed to be done. BUT, and this is why I say I’m not qualified until I’ve read it at least twice, Andrew Smith has a very particular writing style. In his wikipedia page it’s described as “random,” and all I can say about that is, if you think it’s random, you only read it once. At least that was my experience with Grasshopper Jungle. I feel though that I will have a very similar experience with Exile. He doesn’t necessarily hold your hand through things. That’s not to say that his books are inaccessible, but the finer points I think get lost when you’re still caught up in what’s going to happen next. You’re not looking at individual brush strokes when you’re taking in a whole painting for the first time. 

And Smith is a writer who is choosing his strokes, even if it may not seem that way at a glance. Organized chaos. I love it. Though I’ll be the first to admit, it doesn’t always make for the most pleasant reading experience.

Overall, what did it for me was the ending. It felt so… anticlimactic? The ending of Grasshopper was very similar, but it felt better. I don’t know how to put it. It just felt… not good. It’s not that it was an emotionally bad ending (made me sad etc) it's that it wasn’t an emotionally resonant ending. It left me wanting more in the worst way. Like I was served half a meal. I think it really could have used one more chapter. Even a couple more pages, really. I don’t see a third book coming and there were so many things that I was invested in that SEEMED like they were going to get the attention they deserved that just didn’t. 

So, as a whole, I think it suffers. It gets bogged down in places and doesn’t stick the landing. On a page to page basis though… I mean fuck. It’s still great. There was a line that was like not even a quarter of the way through that had me crying in bed. Just because he knows how to hit me where it hurts. There’re so many killer lines, there're so many things that I just know will mean more to me a second time. If you liked Grasshopper, you’ve gotta read this. You just have to. And if you’re a freak who LOVED Grasshopper as much as I do, you’re legally required to read this. 

First off, I don’t care for fantasy. I tend to have little patience for made up words (yes, I know all words are made up, you know what I mean) and hyper detailed world building. I enjoy the fantastical, but fantasy as a genre generally bores me to tears. I don’t want to read about fake cultures when I could be learning about real ones. That’s personal taste, whatever. Taylor however, writes it almost exactly the way I want to read it. She dips occasionally into exposition dumps, but I find it nowhere near as tiresome as the typical Tolkienesque approach. Even then, I’m interested. She’s created such a wonderful world that I want to know whatever she’s going to give me, and uncovering some new detail feels like a treat, not a slog. My eyes still glaze over at all the made up words and politics, but everything else makes up for it.

What keeps this book interesting to me is definitely not the plot though. I have no major issues with it, it’s fine, whatever. But it falls into the category of legendary fantasy tale that generally I have no interest in. Hero’s journey and all that. I find it boring. Again, personal taste, whatever. I tend to enjoy character driven more than plot driven anyway, and this book is absolutely character driven. The story itself is so simple I might even go so far as to call it formulaic, but the people who carry it are something else. When their hearts break, so does yours. I won’t lie, she does go for some easy gut punches, but they do still feel earned and in their place. She’s not afraid to let you dislike her heroes. Except maybe Lazlo, I’ll talk more about him later (though I feel like the sequel may challenge him more). Most of the people that we grow to like are complicated. They’ve done terrible things, or harbor toxic beliefs, but they’re also justified to a certain extent. And to what extent that is, is left up to you.

She does kind of beat you over the head with her themes, but I mean, this is technically YA. It’s not terribly clumsy, you just find yourself wanting to go, “OK I get it! Move on!” every once in a while. But that’s a hard line to toe as a writer, and as far as shortcomings go, it’s really not that big of a deal. I’m willing to forgive it, anyway. Sometimes you can feel when the “correct” answer is coming through, usually because Lazlo is taking a hard line moral stance, but it never felt so overwhelming to me that it seemed like right and wrong were being truly dictated. It’s not perfect, and writers are allowed to have opinions, so eh.

In general, I’m a big fan of her writing style. I get the feeling the novelty would wear thin if I read all of her books back to back, so I won’t lmao, but from the one I’ve read I love it. She has issues with repetition to the point where it crosses from emphasis to unnecessary and redundant pretty often, but god I am a simp for flowery prose, so I will forgive it. If I had to describe the way she writes to someone who is deciding whether or not to read it, I’d say that she writes like those verbose, rich paragraphs you find on tumblr. You know, where someone has had a few nice sentences flow into their head, but they aren’t going to expand on it so they post it as is, without the context that might make it anything more than pretty words. (No shade, but... look they’re not exactly high art, ok?) Except that she’s actually written the book. And I find it a very pleasurable experience. Like I said, I am a simp for all things purple. If you’re not, you’ll probably hate it.

It can, at times, absolutely feel indulgent, but in a way the whole book is. I mean the fantastical elements of this story really go hard. She’s not really attempting realism here. Grounded (enough), sure, but definitely not realistic. And it’s fine by me. I’m willing to give a story a lot of passes if I feel like the writer has earned them in other ways. I don’t care if every little detail is what would really happen. Not at all, actually. If I wanted realism I’d go outside. I’m reading a book, not a newspaper.

One example is what I saw described as the “insta-love” between Lazlo and Sarai. Personally, I had no issues with it. It felt earned and in place in the context of the story. It makes sense for the two characters, both of whom are young and have felt painfully isolated for their entire lives. And then in walks someone with a mutual attraction, who can interact with them and appreciate them in a way no one else ever has. Yeah of course they fall in love. Even if the relationship wouldn’t have worked out long term, it makes total sense that one would have started. And as for how quickly it happened, eh. They literally met in a dream, what do you want?

There are plenty of other crimes that I’m sure I would defend, but here’s one I won’t. Thyon Nero. He is so criminally underutilized in this story, I question his place in it at all. Which is a goddamn shame because I love me a petty bitch like Thyon. It feels like he’s all wasted potential. In a sea of interesting, well drawn characters, he’s flat as Saskatchewan. Unforgivable. If it had been another character, fine. But Thyon? Come on! We spend enough time with him that he should feel more interesting, but he just doesn’t. There’s an attempt to give him a tragic backstory and whatever, but it’s so cliche (rich pretty boy with an abusive family behind the scenes controlling him and making him feel like a pawn in their game. Snarky on the outside, hurting on the inside, blah blah you’ve heard it a million times.) that I need more! You can’t just give me a scene of him getting whipped by his shitty dad, toss off a sentence about him wanting to free from his family’s exploitation, and then dust your hands and call it a day. UGH. He honestly serves as little more than an occasionally funny, almost interesting character foil for Lazlo. He exists to show you what a good boy Lazlo is. And that’s it. They aren’t even proper enemies. How much they dislike each other in any given scene is directly inverse to how much the plot needs them to get along in that moment. Before they’ve even reached the city Thyon is little more than a mild inconvenience. So why set him up as this scary antagonist??? I’m really hoping the second expands on him. I need more. You cannot dangle a funny bitch like him in front of my face and then do nothing with him! RUDE.

Ok, now Lazlo, I said I’d talk about him. Here we are. Lazlo Lazlo Lazlo. First of all, hate his name. That’s a nothing issue, I just had to say it. Second, he’s kinda lame, huh? I wouldn’t say that he’s underdeveloped, I feel like I have a much better idea of who he is than I do Thyon, it’s just that his development isn’t that interesting. He very much feels like a protagonistTM. He’s passionate and funny, driven and like... always in the right on moral issues. He’s the immediately accepted outsider who’s also able to bring a new, but more importantly, morally correct perspective on their issues. He’s charming, but humble, shy but not enough to actually impede social interaction. I don’t hate him, I’d probably hang out with him if I was on that journey (assuming I wasn’t following Thyon around like the simp I am). He’s just that kind of perfectly imperfect character. His flaws only make him more likeable, he’s never outright wrong about anything. I’ll say it, Lazlo is a Mary Sue.

Lazlo is a Mary Sue and Thyon was wasted on his basic ass. And that’s that on that.