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PLA #4 - Ink Exchange
Apr. 1st, 2008 02:01 pmInk Exchange blew me away. It was extremely sensuous, the dark fey types were described really well, the ethical dilemmas struck me as both well-drawn and poignant, and the resolution irritated me and soothed me at the same time, which I think is what a sad-but-not-too-sad ending should do.
I think it's a really hard trick to write a dark fantasy for teenage readers that manages to be really, deeply dark while not crossing the various lines about what can happen "onstage" that the YA genre sets. Ink Exchange did a number on those lines - it's one of those stories where, if you have enough experience to fill in the details, what is happening is mind-bogglingly dark. There are some extremely broken people in this book, and their love for each other is full of the sharp, jagged edges that broken people bring to love.
This was one of those books where I couldn't take my personal-experience glasses off at all as I was reading. I have no idea if it will hit other people as hard as it hit me. But I thought it captured the interior emotional life of damaged adolescence really well. The sensuality of giving into things in order to make the pain stop; the tension of never knowing if the adults around you are there to hurt you or to help you; the alienation of keeping secrets from your closest friends and the shame of having those friends find out anyway. It even captured the bittersweet way in which you begin to acknowledge that the friendships that helped you realize the problems in your life are not necessarily the friendships that will help you do something about those problems.
In the nicest way possible, I have to say: this book gave me nightmares. I think that's a good thing, in this case. I am very pleased. I am particularly pleased by that tricky resolution - it inverted some of the typical attitude towards the fairy realm in fiction. A lot of adult and YA novels make the fairy realm somewhere that people escape into or escape from, while this book, for this character, made the fairy realm somewhere that you traveled through, in a very psychological way. Probably a really good recommendation for fans of Speak who also read fantasy.
I think it's a really hard trick to write a dark fantasy for teenage readers that manages to be really, deeply dark while not crossing the various lines about what can happen "onstage" that the YA genre sets. Ink Exchange did a number on those lines - it's one of those stories where, if you have enough experience to fill in the details, what is happening is mind-bogglingly dark. There are some extremely broken people in this book, and their love for each other is full of the sharp, jagged edges that broken people bring to love.
This was one of those books where I couldn't take my personal-experience glasses off at all as I was reading. I have no idea if it will hit other people as hard as it hit me. But I thought it captured the interior emotional life of damaged adolescence really well. The sensuality of giving into things in order to make the pain stop; the tension of never knowing if the adults around you are there to hurt you or to help you; the alienation of keeping secrets from your closest friends and the shame of having those friends find out anyway. It even captured the bittersweet way in which you begin to acknowledge that the friendships that helped you realize the problems in your life are not necessarily the friendships that will help you do something about those problems.
In the nicest way possible, I have to say: this book gave me nightmares. I think that's a good thing, in this case. I am very pleased. I am particularly pleased by that tricky resolution - it inverted some of the typical attitude towards the fairy realm in fiction. A lot of adult and YA novels make the fairy realm somewhere that people escape into or escape from, while this book, for this character, made the fairy realm somewhere that you traveled through, in a very psychological way. Probably a really good recommendation for fans of Speak who also read fantasy.
