A Fistful of Sky & Fall of Light — (2002,2009) Publisher: Gypsum LaZelle is the middle child in a gifted family of witches and warlocks. But unlike her siblings, she has no gift to call her own. Until she wakes from a fever—and discovers that she possesses a strange and frightening power.
  
 A Fistful of Sky
A Fistful of Sky is the story of Gypsum LaZelle, who comes from a magical family. Each child goes through transition in their early teens and receives the ability to do magic. However, Gypsum doesn’t go through transition. After several years of adjusting to her life as the mundane member of her family, she unexpectedly goes through transition, and receives the power of cursing. The only magic she can do is to perform curses, and if she doesn’t use her power regularly, it turns inward and attacks her own body.
A Fistful of Sky is an interesting story. The siblings, parents, and assorted relatives of the LaZelle clan form a cast of colorful characters that form a web of conflicting allegiances around Gypsum as she struggles to learn how to cope with her new powers. The relationship between Gypsum and her mother was a source of tension throughout the novel, and irritatingly, there wasn’t a resolution to the sustained conflict between the two characters. There was also a mystical encounter with a presence in the ocean that was never explained or linked to the plot in a meaningful way. The lack of resolution to these two elements left the ending of the book feeling incomplete.
Another problem is that the novel suffers from a lack of identity. The material in the book is too mature for it to be considered a YA novel, but the characterization lacks the depth and maturity for it to be an adult fantasy. This uneasy dualism also undermines the main character. She is supposed to be in her early twenties, but talks and acts like she is in her mid-teens. Her ongoing angst about her new power left the pace of the book feeling a little slow.
A Fistful of Sky was an intriguing novel because I was always interested in what Gypsum would do with her power. But the problems with the characterization and tone left me feeling detached from the characters and action. —Ruth Arnell
 Fall of Light
(Note: Fall of Light is a "sideways sequel" to A Fistful of Sky. It refers back to some of the things that happened in A Fistful of Sky, but you could read Fall of Light on its own without any problem.)
Opal LaZelle (sister to Gypsum LaZelle of A Fistful of Sky) is a Hollywood makeup artist who specializes in making monsters for horror movies. What no one else realizes is that she can also do magic, and uses her talent to help in her work. On one movie however, the Dark God mask she makes for the leading actor, who she has fallen in love with, actually comes with a surprise: the Dark God himself possesses the actor. Now it’s up to Opal to figure out how to save the movie, and the man she loves, from this unwelcome guest.
Nina Kiriki Hoffman is a talented writer. She manages to create intriguing characters who the reader can empathize with. She deftly handles serious issues, especially the effect of dysfunctional parenting on children. Hoffman also has a gift for descriptive writing. I could easily see all the scenes in my mind as I was reading.
Unfortunately, the problem with writing a book that takes place in a cheesy horror movie is that your book reads like a cheesy horror movie. Opal knows the actor is possessed by an unknown power that has shown he is capable of hurting and manipulating people, yet she decides to sleep with him anyway. I felt like yelling, “Don’t go into the basement alone!” All the stupid things that people do in bad horror movies showed up here.
Another source of irritation was the excessive amount of extraneous background detail; it felt like Hoffman was trying to prove that she had done her research rather than creating a believable world. In addition, the pace was awkward. After the big showdown at the end of the book, I felt like echoing one of the main characters: “That’s it?” The menacing presence Opal had imbued into her Dark God throughout the entire book wasn’t found in the climax and, along with a major plot line not being resolved, makes me wonder if there is supposed to be a sequel to Fall of Light.
Readers who enjoy sexy dark god characters and quasi-vampire relationships may enjoy Fall of Light more than I did, but I would not recommend this book to a general audience. I felt like I was watching a bad Sci-Fi Channel original movie. —Ruth Arnell
|
Magic Next Door — (2010-2011) Young adult. Publisher: Maya's family has just moved from Idaho to Spores Ferry, Oregon. She's nervous about starting middle school and making new friends, but soon that's the last thing on her mind. First, a fairy flies into her room. Then it turns out that the kids in the apartment building next door do magic, and their basement is full of portals to other worlds. She's bursting with new experiences and delight... and secrets, because she can't breathe a word to herfamily, not even when she winds up taking care of an alien!
Imagine the family in Ingrid Law's Savvy seen through the eyes of a young Ray Bradbury. Cross the Threshold!
 
Thresholds
In Thresholds, by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, we meet Maya. Maya’s best friend Stephanie died of cancer during the school year, so her parents, both school teachers, accept new jobs in a new state to give her a new start. Then, the night before the school year starts, a fairy flies in through her bedroom window and decides that Maya makes an excellent pillow. Maya wakes in the morning to find a pile of fairy dust. Though most people don’t notice anything different about her, the strange kids from the weird apartment building next door, Janus House, adopt her as their own, and a strange boy no one has seen before grabs her after school and pushes what looks to be an egg against her arm, pleading with her to save the creature from dying. Confused about what is going on, Maya is about to refuse when the egg burrows its way painfully into her arm, and fuses with her skin. And that’s when things really start to get strange.
From the brilliant cover art forward, Thresholds envelopes the reader in a world that is both familiar and foreign. Maya is a sympathetic main character, mourning the loss of her best friend, feeling burdened by guilt for uprooting her siblings from their school and friends, aware of the way her parents watch her every reaction for signs as to her emotional wellbeing. Her uneasy friendship with the Janus House kids strikes the right tone of tentative gestures and second-guessing by Maya, who feels like every step forward is a betrayal of her friendship with Stephanie. The emotional war playing out within her is an accurate depiction of the loss of a friend at a young age, and resonates through the story with a melancholy tone.
The other children in the story are also well depicted. Though the friendship with Travis, the bad boy in school, seems a little too convenient, her developing relationships with the children from Janus House seem realistic. The Janus House families are depicted in a way that brings to mind a noisy gypsy clan, with the foreign clothing, language and foods adding to the feeling of difference. One criticism I have is that the adults in this story seem to be entirely peripheral to the action. It always bugs me when parents seem to be so uninvolved in the lives of their children. The Janus House parents know of the danger that Maya has gotten into, and seem to be content to let her work her way out of it. Maya’s parents don’t notice that anything strange is going on with their daughter, even though she suddenly starts eating like a lumberjack. I understand that adults are rarely main characters in YA fiction, but these just seem like unrealistic relationships.
I have a sort of a love-hate relationship with Nina Kiriki Hoffman. I’ve always been able to see the potential in her stories, but haven’t always loved the execution. In this story, however, Hoffman finally starts to live up to all the praise that she has received. My biggest complaint with the story is that it is too short. I literally turned the last page thinking there had to be at least a few more chapters to the tale. Hoffman started a few new plot lines in the last few pages, and then ended without any real conclusion. It was like she got to a happy moment, and ended the book. I’m not sure if it was because of publisher stipulations about story length, or if this was just the story’s natural place to pause, but it was thoroughly irritating to be cruising along with an intriguing story and just have it hit a wall. I actually dropped my rating of the book by half a star because the ending was so abrupt. (Also, and I realize this is nitpicky, just because someone grew up in Northern Idaho doesn’t mean they are going to know French.)
I would recommend Thresholds for all YA readers. Though it probably lacks the emotional heft for most adult readers, I think this is a read worth recommending for middle school aged readers. I will be looking forward to the sequel that must be in the works judging by the inconclusive ending. —Ruth Arnell |
links. Or donate.
