Welcome to the Speculative Chic Book Club! Each month, we invite you to join us in reading a book that is voted on by YOU, our readers. Following a short review, please feel free to discuss the book in the comments!
Among Others (2011)
Author: Jo Walton
Pages: 304 (Trade Paperback)
Publisher: Tor
Why I nominated this for book club: It’s back-to-school month in Texas and I wanted to feature books that happened at school, magical or otherwise.
Premise:
Raised by a half-mad mother who dabbled in magic, Morwenna Phelps found refuge in two worlds. As a child growing up in Wales, she played among the spirits who made their homes in industrial ruins. But her mind found freedom and promise in the science fiction novels that were her closest companions. Then her mother tried to bend the spirits to dark ends, and Mori was forced to confront her in a magical battle that left her crippled — and her twin sister dead.
Fleeing to her father whom she barely knew, Mori was sent to boarding school in England-a place all but devoid of true magic. There, outcast and alone, she tempted fate by doing magic herself, in an attempt to find a circle of like-minded friends. But her magic also drew the attention of her mother, bringing about a reckoning that could no longer be put off…
Obvious spoiler warning for a post where we discuss a book we should have all read.
Discussion: Among Others makes the bold decision to focus its entire story on what happens after the big battle, and I can tell you that I really wasn’t prepared for everything mentioned on the back of the book to have already happened when I started reading the book. Even then, the action that came before is only meted out in bits and pieces for the reader to construct themselves based on clues. I found out her mother was trying to gain control of the fairies from Wikipedia, because that’s how much it just wasn’t mentioned in the text.
This somewhat unreliable narration is based entirely upon the construction of the novel itself: journal entries of the 15-year-old protagonist, Mori. Throughout the book, she hides information both from herself and from the reader. It’s hinted at and then confirmed most of the way through the book that even her own name is a lie.
I don’t mind unreliable narration, or stories told through journal entries, but I feel like the outside of the book sold a bill of goods that I was more interested in. That’s not the author’s fault, I know, but I couldn’t help but leave the final page pretty disappointed. The “reckoning” mentioned in the premise was just a quick confrontation with her mother that ended in a few paragraphs and wasn’t the epic showdown that a “reckoning” implies.
I did like some things. All of the references to ’60s and ’70s science fiction were fun. Imagine reading Anne McCaffrey when Dragonsinger was a new novel, for instance. I liked the struggles Mori had with her magic, and how her decisions might affect other people and their free will. I was amused at how bad she was at maintaining friendships, but how she seemed to understand what the mechanics of friendships were.
And for all that I wish it hadn’t been the focus of the book, getting a look at Mori’s grieving process was beautiful and heartbreaking at times. This is a bit I highlighted toward the beginning:
If you looked at an elm tree you’d never think it was part of all the others. You’d see an elm tree. Same when people look at me now: they see a person, not half a set of twins (Page 37).
In conclusion: I didn’t dislike it, but I didn’t really like it either. I wish I’d gotten to read the story I thought I was going to be reading.
I didn’t really read the premise before I started the book. I purchased the ebook several years ago, probably during a sale, so when I pulled it up to start reading, I was able to just plunge in. Had no idea what I was getting into, really. I ended up really enjoying the book. The slow teasing-out of what had happened to Mori’s twin, and what her mother was really capable of (and whether it had actually happened that way) just worked for me as a highly character-driven story. That said, I can see where your disappointment came from, as I went back and actually read the premise. I’d love to see the story behind the story, as it were.
Yeah, the story that happened before all of this navel gazing and recovery time just seemed more interesting to me. I feel like I was sold something I didn’t get.
Good lord, I had a lot to say about this book when I read it in 2011…. I’ll link to my LJ entry, and but the sum of it is that I’m more in Merrin’s camp. I’ve enjoyed other things Walton has written (her Farthing books are amazing), but this one lingers in my memory as a miss.
https://calico-reaction.livejournal.com/325851.html
I really like this book a lot. That said, my experience is that there is a pretty divided opinion on it, with lots of people loving it and lots of other people not quite understanding what all the fuss is about.
For me, I really resonate with the description of the nerdy teenage girl. It certainly helps that I’m only about five years younger than Jo Walton and recognize many of the books that Mori is reading, though I did not get through quite as many books as Mori when I was a teenager.
I thought this was an interesting take on fairies and magic.
Did you folks catch that our narrator is actually Morganna, and Morwenna is the twin that died? Mori took Morwenna’s name as her own as part of her own grieving, presumably. You can tell because when she makes the pledge to never use magic unless strictly necessary, she signs it with the name Morganna. I totally did not catch that when I first read the book, and it took Jo Walton saying something on her blog for me to notice.
I did catch that bit about Mori taking her twin’s name!
I really felt for this girl. I wish that I could hand a copy of this book to the teenage version of myself. I think I would have found a lot of comfort.
It really is an interesting take on fairies. I’ve never read anything quite like it.
Yeah, it’s definitely not like anything else I’ve read! I didn’t love it but I didn’t hate it either.
I think she actually came out and said she was Morganna at some point, but I’d begun suspecting it after something she said early in the book.