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Across the Page: Books to fit any mood

This month’s Across The Page features three books to fit any mood: Jodi Picoult‘s Sing You Home; Malena WatrousIf You Follow Me; and Malinda Lo‘s Huntress.

Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult (Atria Books)

Bestselling author Jodi Picoult does not shy away from controversy. She has published 18 novels — the last four of which hit the top of the New York Times bestseller list — and is known for taking on challenging subjects, such as the intersection between science and law, the ethics of medicine, and the impact and cause of violence in schools.

In Picoult’s newest novel, Sing You Home, she takes on gay rights through the lens of three characters: Zoe, a music therapist who we meet as her hopes for a child and her marriage both come crashing down hard; Max, who after his divorce from Zoe is encouraged by his family to join the Eternal Glory Church and becomes born again; and then there’s Vanessa, a lesbian who Zoe soon finds herself falling in love with.

All of these characters and the tension that exists within Zoe and Max’s late-life transitions seem like enough to explore in a story. But Picoult takes it one step further by adding in the complication of Zoe’s desire to have Vanessa carry one of the embryos left over from Zoe and Max’s previous fertility procedures. Max, who is upset and confused by his ex-wife’s new romantic relationship with a woman, gets advice from the pastor at Eternal Glory and decides that he wants ownership of the embryos. He plans to donate the embryos to his sister-in-law, who is also struggling with infertility issues, and takes Zoe to court.

The trial between Zoe and Vanessa against Max (and, essentially, Eternal Glory) highlights both the extremely passionate and divergent views people hold on same-sex parenting and the vague laws that surround reproductive science. It is clear that Zoe and Vanessa are in the right here (duh!), but one of the book’s strengths is how Picoult treats Max and Eternal Glory with empathy and respect. They have a voice here and a well-researched perspective.

Sing You Home is a compelling story by a writer capable of influencing peoples’ opinions on this important subject.

If You Follow Me by Malena Watrous (Harper Perennial)

Malena Watrous’ debut novel If You Follow Me is a funny, moving and smart novel about a woman named Marina who moves with her girlfriend, Carolyn, to a small rural town in Japan to teach English for a year.

Marina is inspired to go to Japan after, among other things, the suicide of her father. Her expectations are that she’ll be able to process her loss and begin moving forward in her life. But from the very beginning, Marina struggles to fit in. She tries but mostly fails to figure out the tricky gomi rules of throwing away the garage in her neighborhood. She takes the order not to drive as a suggestion and pays for it. Her “japlish” is often misunderstood. And then there is her relationship with Carolyn, a closeted relationship that is jeopardized by Marina’s attraction to her supervisor, a man, at the school where she teaches.

Narrated from Marina’s point of view, the voice is engaging in part because Marina is so incapable of following the rules. If You Follow Me is a book about manners – especially about breaking manners. As Marina settles into the school and her neighborhood, she can’t seem to do anything right.

Watrous captures Marina’s journey to fit in and to figure out her feelings for Carolyn and her supervisor against the more complex backdrop of her father’s death and the guilt and grief connected to his suicide. All of this is filtered through Marina’s cultural assimilation and the alternatively meaningful and hilarious interactions that she has with her students.

If You Follow Me won the Michener-Copernicus Award. Highly recommended.

Huntress by Malinda Lo (Little, Brown)

Malinda Lo‘s first novel, Ash, added a new voice and perspective to LGBT YA literature. Widely acclaimed for its original take on the story of Cinderella, Ash takes place in a very specific world and time. Lo’s new novel, Huntress, is the prequel to Ash. Inspired by the famous Chinese text the I Ching, the book is packed with suspense and romance.

Huntress opens with plenty at stake. The sun refuses to provide light. There is no food. Creatures are lurking. People are dying. To help solve this problem, seventeen-year-olds Kaede and Taisin are chosen to visit Taninli, the city of the Fairy Queen. Though they are of different natures – Kaede “of the earth” and Kaede magical – the two girls begin to fall in love with each other as they journey toward Taninli.

Lo captures the growing attraction between Kaede and Taisin in lyrical and sharp prose: “The ground where she stood was frozen white, but twenty feet away, cold blue ocean lapped at the jagged shore. Someone there was climbing into a rowboat, and she knew that she loved this person. She was certain of it in the same way that one is instantly aware of the taste of sweetness in a drop of honey.”

However, the problem isn’t only fending off attacks along this dangerous and important journey, but also the girls’ understanding that only one huntress is needed to save the kingdom.

Huntress is a beautiful, gripping, original story. Read it. Trust me!

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