I have been a reader of fantasy, folklore, and fairy tales through childhood into adolescence and even studying these genres as a college student and adult. To this background, I also bring a complicated family—adopted children, step-siblings, divorce, career—and lifestyle changes. As the youngest of a sprawling clan, I was often left to reconcile my vision of family members with the vision of others. Understanding our family of origin is central to who we are, as my main character in Watersmeet discovers as she goes on a quest to find her father, and then must dig deep to understand what he means to her.
From her birth, Abisina has been an outcast—for the color of her eyes and skin, and for her lack of a father. Only her mother’s status as the village healer has kept her safe. But when a mythic leader arrives, Abisina’s life is ripped apart. She escapes alone to try to find the father and the home she has never known. In a world of extremes, from the deepest prejudice to the greatest bonds of duty and loyalty, Abisina must find her own way and decide where her true hope lies.
McKinley’s Beauty is a classic in (at least) two ways. 1) It’s a retelling of the story ofBeauty and the Beast, rather than an adaptation. These classic fairy tales very clearly indicate the problem of choosing your family, full of wicked stepmothers, bumbling fathers, and jealous siblings. The trope that really gets me is typified in Beauty: the father who is willing to sacrifice his daughter for his own safety. Not exactly stellar parenting, but it’s so common in these old stories! 2) McKinely is a master storyteller, who allows you to revisit this well-known story in new ways (and it predates the Disney version—no Mrs. Potts in Beauty).
When the family business collapses, Beauty and her two sisters are forced to leave the city and begin a new life in the countryside. However, when their father accepts hospitality from the elusive and magical Beast, he is forced to make a terrible promise - to send one daughter to the Beast's castle, with no guarantee that she will be seen again. Beauty accepts the challenge, and there begins an extraordinary story of magic and love that overcomes all boundaries. This is another spellbinding and emotional tale embroidered around a fairytale from Robin McKinley, an award-winning American author.
It’s hard for me to imagine recommending fantasy books and not mentioning Narnia, which was my most formative reading as a young person. And Edmund embodies the issue of tough family relationships. Although he is a traitor to Aslan and Narnia, he is Lucy, Peter and Susan’s brother and they love him—even when they don’t like him. My main character can relate as she works out her relationship with a father who is not as he seems. I also adore the world of Narnia—the creatures, the geography, the magic. For this recommendation, I could also have chosen The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, another Narnia tale that features a difficult cousin, Eustace, but Edmund is a favorite of mine because of the power of his transformation.
Lucy steps into the Professor's wardrobe - but steps out again into a snowy forest. She's stumbled upon the magical world of Narnia, land of unicorns, centaurs, fauns... and the wicked White Witch, who terrorises all. Lucy soon realises that Narnia, and in particular Aslan, the great Lion, needs her help if the country's creatures are ever going to be free again...
I reread Fire regularly because I love the heroine, Fire, and her conundrum: how can she love herself when her beauty is so destructive, when it inspires such terrible behavior in the people around her? We think of beauty as an asset, sure that we would be happier, more confident, more liked if we were more beautiful, and Cashore explores the limits of beauty in this novel. She also digs deep into a very problematic father/daughter relationship as Fire deals with the lessons her father, Cansrel, taught her about how to use her beauty for power, and decides to forge her own path. Like so many of these hard family relationships, Fire must reconcile her love for her father and her hatred of what he’s become.
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A must-read title for all fans of Patrick Rothfuss and Trudi Canavan, Fire will have you hooked on its gripping action, political intrigue, and beautiful central relationship.
'The book is REALLY good. Reading it made me very, very happy!' Tamora Pierce
Set in a world of stunningly beautiful, exceptionally dangerous monsters, Fire is one of the most dangerous monsters of all - a human one. Marked out by her vivid red hair, she's more than attractive. Fire is mesmerising.
But with this extraordinary beauty comes influence and power. People who are susceptible to her appeal will do anything for her…
Talk about family issues! In this time-traveling novel, Butler asks her Black protagonist, Dana, to come to face a White ancestor as she is transported from modern-day Los Angeles to this ancestor’s home in the antebellum South. This story held me rapt as I watched Dana’s existence depend on preserving the life of the white man who enslaved her family. She had to save him to save herself—and yet, how could she? Butler’s writing is powerful and compelling as she explores issues of race, gender, and family. Race is one of the most important issues for Americans to consider at this moment in time, and in Kindred, Butler uses her enormous talent to explore the question of race within family.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Parable of the Sower and MacArthur “Genius” Grant, Nebula, and Hugo award winner
The visionary time-travel classic whose Black female hero is pulled through time to face the horrors of American slavery and explores the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy then and now.
“I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm.”
Dana’s torment begins when she suddenly vanishes on her 26th birthday from California, 1976, and is dragged through time to antebellum Maryland to rescue a boy named Rufus, heir to a slaveowner’s plantation. She soon…
I appreciate Jemisin’s treatment of race in The Fifth Season, as her characters are all people of color, but outside of the racial disparities of current America. This is one of the draws I feel toward fantasy: the genre allows us to explore current issues in alternate realities. But The Fifth Season is a dystopian novel, and that’s where “not choosing your family” comes in. Jemisin describes a group of people called orogenes, who can control the energy of the earth. They are reviled and controlled in this alternative Earth, and when an orogene shows up in a family, they are exiled from that family—if they’re lucky. Some of them are killed upon being discovered. So the orogenes make their own families and communities, which offers the reader a positive view of created families—an answer to the conundrum of not being able to choose your family.
At the end of the world, a woman must hide her secret power and find her kidnapped daughter in this "intricate and extraordinary" Hugo Award winning novel of power, oppression, and revolution. (The New York Times)
This is the way the world ends. . .for the last time.
It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester.
As a young doctor, Carl Holman has experienced the horrors of World War I and the death of his lover, a fellow officer. Back home after the War, he befriends a young jazz musician who he hopes will become a companion he can share his life with. But this is Oregon: the Ku Klux Klan is gaining influence, homosexual acts are illegal, and such a relationship will jeopardize Carl’s promising medical career.
Musician Jimmy Harper has his own dreams for the future and his own obstacles to overcome before he will allow himself to accept Carl’s love. More than a gay love story, Acquaintance is a deep dive into gay and lesbian history based on extensive period research of the 1920s.
As a young surgeon, Carl Holman has experienced the horrors of World War I and the loss of his lover, a fellow officer. Back home after the war, he befriends a young jazz musician who he hopes will become a companion he can share his life with. But this is Oregon: the Ku Klux Klan is gaining influence, homosexual acts are illegal, and such a relationship will jeopardize Carl’s promising medical career. Musician Jimmy Harper has his own dreams for the future and his own obstacles to overcome before he will allow himself to accept Carl’s love. Acquaintance is a…
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