The Star That Always Stays

Oh, Norvia. 

I really got sucked into this book and finished the whole thing in one day, constantly going back to it instead of picking up one of my other genres, which is unusual for me. 

This is a semi-fiction historical story set in 1914 with flashbacks to a few years earlier. The characters are the author's ancestors, though I'm not sure how much of what happened is real and how much is fiction. I had no idea this was partially based on real people until the end of the book and then I was incensed because she doesn't tell you what happened to anyone! WTF. Rude. I wanna know. 

So Norvia's mother's side of the family is all French and Native American mixed. Some were even Acadian. Norvia's dad is this Swedish dick who used to be rich and constantly does shit like gamble and take risky jobs on boats to make money, always trying to regain his former wealth but he never will. He's pretty racist, so I have no idea how he ever hooked up with Norvia's mom. He seemed to really love her once, but then his attitude towards his children of "Why do you need school? You're Indian. You'll never get a good job." makes zero sense. He and the mom end up divorcing for good reason. 

Now this is 1914. Divorce was really looked down upon by all these asshole women in town who apparently think it's better to be unhappy and abused than to be divorced. So Norvia's mom not only carries the divorce stigma, but then she gets remarried and it spreads to everyone in the family. 

Norvia is still dealing with the death of her beloved grandfather and her family moving from her home on Beaver Island to a city that I can't remember the damn name of but I'm too lazy to go get the book. So now her mother springs this marriage on the family. They've never met the guy and they haven't been seeing each other long at all, but they're getting married in a couple weeks. The kids are predictably not thrilled. 

Everyone ends up moving into the guy's big house, where he lives with his 13-year-old son, who is too sickly to attend school but very intelligent. The guy also has two older daughters. One lives elsewhere and is never in the book. The other is awesome. 

Mr. Ward and Vernon, Norvia's new stepfather and stepbrother, are actually excellent. Mr. Ward is right off the bat, though it takes Norvia a while to warm to him. Vernon takes longer, just like Norvia does, but he's a pretty cool character. 

So Norvia's family doesn't have to worry about money anymore and she can have books! Mr. Ward gives her all these books to read, like Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, What Katy Did, etc. They play a fairly prominent role in the story, as Norvia is determined to be a heroine like her favorite characters. 

The descriptions of this book make it seem like hiding her heritage and pretending to be white is the primary focus of the plot. It isn't. Norvia isn't happy she has to hide who she is, but it's the divorce she actually hopes to hide from the two boys in her life, because that is what's causing her to be a pariah at school. The real focus of the book is simply that Norvia has to navigate what comes with changes in life and figure out how to be her true self. Changes with family, friends, meeting boys, dealing with her estranged father, an unwelcome surprise from her oldest brother, her new stepsister is pregnant, etc. 

Norvia feels like a classic character. Like Anne or one of the other girls she reads about. She isn't perfect. There were times when I was pretty annoyed by her. But she's loveable. Her characterization is excellent and I loved pretty much everyone else in the book, too. 

What I didn't love is how the divorce played such a huge role in Norvia's life, yet her mother never once sits down with her and goes over all the issues that came about because of the divorce and remarriage. Her stepdad loses a position at church and it's just zoomed right over. Norvia's abandoned by her once best friend and that's never dealt with. All these problems arise but aren't often fully addressed and resolved. 

I wasn't a fan of the flashback chapters. They were interesting but also tended to pop up in the middle of the action and I'd be annoyed by their presence because I wanted to know what was going to happen in the present time. 

Norvia ends up being an excellent character and I loved her and her family. She managed to get a lot of character development, but really could have used some actual focus on the resolution or at least recognition of issues. It's a good book despite that, but it would have been an amazing book if the author had gone that one step further.

Anne

What if Anne Shirley lived in modern times and liked Diana instead of Gilbert?

I loved how this was done. Every bit of it is sheer gold. 

Matthew was my favorite. I loved updated Matthew. Marilla was pretty cool, too. 

Anne has been in fifteen foster homes and is picked up by Matthew, despite he and Marilla actually wanting a younger child. Anne has already charmed Matthew and she's quickly working her magic on Marilla, too. 

The Cuthberts live in the Avon-Lea apartment building, also home to Rachel Lynde, the Barrys, Ruby Gillis, and Josie Pye. 

I just love this to pieces. I can't even find words to praise it properly, as you know frequently happens when I really love something. I'm going to have to check out the same author's adaptation of Little Women. (Called Jo, of course. It's always Jo. But this time, she's gay.) 

Twelfth Grade Night

Twelfth Grade Night is a graphic novel that basically takes the plot of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and adds in elements of other plays, too. 

I've never read Twelfth Night but from the summary I skimmed, it seems like a love triangle and a twin thing, which is exactly what this is. 

Vi(ola) is new at school and prefers to be called Vi, thus making me annoyed with anyone who calls her Viola. She's toured around by an upper class fairy...yes, fairy. There are fairies and satyrs and maybe ghosts in this school. (Not sure what else the entirely light blue people are.) With zero context aside from there's a fairy woods behind the school. Puck is in this. (Obe)Ron is one of the two popular fairies, as is Tanya (Titania). You just have to roll with it. 

So Vi is a twin, as she is in Twelfth Night. Her brother Sebastian decided to stay at the boarding school Vi used to also attend. She got tired of the uniforms and didn't want to be forced to wear a skirt anymore. She prefers more full-coverage, comfortable clothes. She does feel abandoned because Sebastian split off from her and she's never been on her own before. But she still lives at home, so at least she's got Mom. Their dad passed away a couple years before. 

Vi meets Orsino, the cute emo boy on the cover there, and they bond over both being writers. Vi is also a musician, so they're collaborating on a song. 

Vi naturally falls for Orsino, but he's got his eye on Olivia, the cute blonde up there. She's the most wanted girl in the school. Olivia seems 100% into girls though and she ends up crushing on Vi. 

Orsino asks Vi for help in wooing Olivia. Vi painfully goes along with it, but Olivia says she likes Vi. There's a whole mistaken identity thing when Olivia asks Vi to the dance, but actually DMs Sebastian, as he and Vi have Instagram names that are a single letter off. Feeling bad for neglecting Vi, Sebastian goes to the dance with Olivia, who doesn't realize he's not Vi. Orsino also thinks Sebastian is Vi and is furious. 

But all's well that ends well. Vi confesses she likes Orsino. Orsino realizes that he also likes Vi. What was holding him back was that he assumed she liked girls. (He admits he was wrong to assume that.) 

There's a whole subplot with secondary characters. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this. Some snob in the Amazon reviews bitched about it being a Shakespeare mashup that ended up confusing. Well, I've never read Twelfth Night OR Midsummer Night's Dream and it didn't affect the story for me at all. I enjoyed it without giving a single fuck what it was based on. I swear, anyone who refers to Shakespeare as "the bard" is automatically pretentious and their opinions aren't worth anything. 

The characters are in your face with their queerness. Everyone seems pretty comfortable. I'm sure I've said this before, but it's so nice to read things like this and have queerness just be treated like it's an everyday thing. We've come a long way. And this cute story with lovely art is another example of that. 

Next up in this series: King Cheer. Yep, it's King Lear with cheerleaders.