Team Human and How to Ditch Your Fairy: Two Book Reviews for the Price of One

[attackfish]

I had two exams at the library the day before yesterday, and then I had to go for an oral surgery consult (My wisdom teeth are impacted) so as a treat to myself, I took two books out of the library that I’ve been meaning to read for a while: How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier and Team Human by Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan.

Team Human:

Mel has never liked vampires.  Lucky for her, even though she lives in New Whitby, the famous vampire town, she hasn’t had to have much to do with them.  They stay on their side of town, and she stays on hers.  But vampires have always held a fascination for her best friend Cathy.  When a vampire who was turned as a teenager back in the eighteen hundreds decides to start taking classes at the local high school, it’s Mel’s job to figure out what he’s doing there and chase him off before Cathy finds herself drained of her blood and joining the ranks of the undead herself.

How to Ditch Your Fairy:

Charlie hates her fairy.  Fairies are supernatural good luck talismans, which means they’re supposed to be helpful right?  Her best friend has a clothes shopping fairy and it’s awesome.  Charlie meanwhile has a parking fairy, and at fourteen years old, this means everybody wants her to ride in their car.  After an unfortunate kidnapping incedent, she wants her fairy gone, and she will do anything to make that happen.

Okay, so you don’t get a cut because this will be short.  I decided to review these two books together because I have pretty much the same thing to say about both of them.  I liked them.  They’re clever, fun, charming, and witty.  I didn’t love them, I’m not overly attached to the characters, the settings were interesting, but the books didn’t explore the bits of them that most intrigued me, and I’m not devastated that they’re finished, nor do I want to reread them.  They are light, fun, happy books, and the perfect thing to read after final exams.  They made me feel better about getting my wisdom teeth out, and the fact that my car wouldn’t start, at night in the rain.  If you want something pleasant and diverting, don’t hesitate to pick them up.

Justine Larbalestier has a website at justinelarbalestier.com/ and tweets under the name JustineLavaworm.  Sarah Rees Brennan can be found all over the internet, as sarahtales on livehournal, on tumblr at sarahreesbrennan.tumblr.com, and on her own website, sarahreesbrennan.com.

Comments

[ljlee.livejournal.com]

Love your fanfic idea. I've been thinking for a while of one where Korra and her friends watch a motion picture which is LoK Book 1 and grow furious at the distortions and propaganda.

LOL, kudos to you and your mom for giving a perfect definition of what fandom is. I think I have a thirst for this kind of stuff because I've never been taught to read literature critically, unless you count solving multiple-choice questions about poems and novel excerpts. *shudder* Maybe that's the case for a lot of other fandom nerds, too. President Obama in a past State of the Union address seemed to think South Korean education was the bee's knees, but I worry that entire generations have been taught the skills for being obedient worker drones and nothing more.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I got a pretty good literary analysis education, but in high school, I had it made very clear to me that A) my analysis of a work better be the same as my teachers' and B) we were going to read a whole bunch of works that I hated, and my well reasoned, articulate responses to why I though they stunk were just an example of how I "didn't appreciate great literature." Fandom taught me that I could apply those literary criticism tools to something other than Lord of the Flies and that there was no one right way to look at something.

What kills me is that in the US we know how to teach. We have fantastic schools... for the rich. So we don't need to look at the school systems of other nations to figure out how to fix our broken system (though getting ideas and incorporating them is of course fine, I'm not arguing for some sort of pure American schools thing) we need to fix our education inequality. If we do that, those precious test scores will go sky high, and more importantly, more of the kids in this country will actually have a good education. Unfortunately, that would cost a lot of money, and make education a federal instead of local operating concern. And also, we can't really educate our poor kids. Why, they might become doctors, and scientists and lawyers and be better at it than our little Johny and Suzy.

In another universe, Book 1 is the Ember Island Players version of Korra.