I’m back with Part 2 of my 2012 Year in Reading review. In my last post, I discussed some of the YA I loved most in 2012, and naturally I forgot to mention one of the best YA fantasies of the year: Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone.
Such a great story! Though not a perfect novel, it’s engaging and heartfelt and filled with warring angels and demons. It’s set (vividly) in Prague, but it’s also a portal fantasy. That’s a win-win, if you ask me. Daughter of Smoke and Bone is about a young artist, but the novel actually says less about art than it does about the futility and cruelty of war.
For a novel addressing the role that art plays in shaping identity, see Elizabeth Hand’s Radiant Days, a time-travel narrative about a 1970’s street artist and the poet Arthur Rimbaud. Hand’s use of time travel didn’t make much sense to me, but her treatment of what it means to be an artist is stunning.
Radiant Days is unique among the YA fantasies I read in 2012. Reading novels like Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles story Cinder (in which the half-cyborg mechanic fights evil and wins the heart of the prince), and Rae Carson’s The Girl of Fire and Thorns (in which a princess fights evil and discovers her identity as The Chosen One), I sensed a huge gulf between what these talented authors are doing and what Hand is attempting.
In Radiant Days, Hand describes two characters (both gay) who are mostly focused on the conflict involved in creating art, which isn’t the same as defeating evil, finding love, or leading an army into battle. The struggle to be an artist is a much more internalized kind of conflict, one that’s hard for most writers to convey to readers with the urgency that Hand achieves in Radiant Days.
I think that mostly sums up my YA reading for 2012, except that I finally finished all of Lemony Snicket, which ended so strangely, so beautifully. I also read Lisa Mantchev’s Eyes Like Stars, a fantasy involving a magical Shakespeare troupe whose members are fated by their roles in The Book. A fun story, which went very well with my compulsive viewing of Slings and Arrows on Netflix. Ah, Shakespeare!
In 2012, I did actually read a few novels written for adults. Chuck Palahniuk’s Diary, for one, set on a messed-up island off the coast of Maine. Purportedly the diary of a failed artist with a husband in a coma, Diary was really about betrayal and sacrifice and perception. Twisted and immediate and compelling.
Of course, sometimes you don’t want compelling fiction. Sometimes you just want the comforting and familiar equivalent of a whole plate of chocolate chip cookies. Which is why on Nov. 6th 2012 (in order to endure the suspense of the U.S. Presidential election), I read not one but two Georgette Heyer novels: The Convenient Marriage, and Devil’s Cub. Not works of genius, by any means, but they got me through the day.
One of my favorite books for adults in 2012, G. Willow Wilson’s Alif the Unseen is about hackers and djinn and the power of language, set in the Arab Spring. Alif the Unseen reads like a loving homage to Snow Crash, minus Stephenson’s long speeches about linguistics, of course. I loved it.
ETA: I promised to mention comics, didn’t I? This was the year I finally got around to reading Neil Gaiman’s The Books of Magic and Garth Ennis’ Hellblazer, Dangerous Habits. Both more wonderful than I have time to describe.
This probably sounds very corny, but I want to say how grateful I am for all the novels and short stories I enjoyed in 2012. I love having lots of books to read, both old and new. What could be better?
