Thursday, June 4, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Riverland by Fran Wilde





Riverland is a 2019 Middle Grade/YA Portal Fantasy novel by author Fran Wilde, who previously one the Norton Award - the Nebula Award for best YA SF/F novel - for her novel "Updraft", and has been a Hugo/Nebula nominee for multiple other works.  Riverland itself wound up winning this year's Norton Award for best YA/Middle-Grade Fantasy novel and is nominated as well for the Lodestar Award, the equivalent award in the Hugos.  In short, Wilde is critically acclaimed in the field, especially in writing for YA audiences, and while I haven't always loved her works as much as some, they've always been interesting, and so Riverland was the first book I decided to read from the now released Hugo Voters Packet.

And Riverland is worth the praise....but it's an utterly brutal one, and I absolutely wish it wasn't necessary.  This is a tale of parental abuse, and while the abuse basically never gets physical, it's no less brutal for it, and Riverland pulls absolutely no punches.  it is not a long book, but it took me longer than a book nearly twice its size to finish because it is the type of content that is that rough to read.  And yet, while the fantasy elements are probably not the strongest, Riverland is a terrifyingly believable story of abuse that will absolutely be useful for the many many kids who grow up in such a household, and god, I wish that wasn't the case.

Trigger Warnings: Emotional Parental Abuse, if you couldn't tell from above.

-------------------------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------------------
The "Magic" doesn't work if you don't follow the rules.  That's what Eleanor tells herself and more importantly, tells her younger sister Mike.  For when they don't follow the rules, their parents get upset - in their own ways - and things in the house start breaking or disappearing.  No matter how insignificant the rules are.  But if they do follow the rules, their mother's "House Magic" makes sure everything stays intact, or even becomes better.

Eleanor has grown up in this house, unable to tell anyone else about it (because that would break another rule), and has tried to comfort her sister at night, hiding under Eleanor's bed, by telling stories of magic to her sister - stories of a Troll Father, a Magic Mother, and of real parents rescuing kids from monsters.  But when a family heirloom is broken by their father after one day, Eleanor and Mike find themselves swept away through a river that appears under the bed, into a fantasy world of dreams and nightmares.

But this is not a happy fantasy world - it's one that's breaking and in need of repair.  But when every time Eleanor tries to fix anything - in real life or in fantasy - it goes wrong, and if she can't tell anyone of the problem, then how can she possibly manage to put things right?
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Riverland is a rough book to read, as I've mentioned above, because it is a tale of parental abuse.  Eleanor and Mike's father is a control freak, who reacts to any small thing out of his desires with rage, yelling, and destruction (of property for most of the book).  Their mother reacts to their father's reactions by blaming the pair of them, as if they were the only ones in the wrong.  And not all of their parents reactions are even due to actions by Eleanor and Mike - their father is invested in real estate, including their house, and it isn't going well, and his reactions to that carry over to their domestic life.  It's a terrifying atmosphere to read for me, an adult in his 30s, and this is a book for Middle-Grade audiences!  But there are unfortunately too many in that audience who are living in such an atmosphere, and that's who this book is really aimed at.

Eleanor and Mike's reactions toward this abuse - not that they understand enough being in middle and elementary school respectively - are honestly as painfully real as the descriptions of the abusive behavior themselves.  Mike acts out in school, sometimes with violence, other times with actions designed to fix things based upon the white lies Eleanor has told her.  And poor Eleanor lives in desperate fear of breaking the rules to the point of being desperately scared to try and prevent anyone from finding out about them for fear of what will happen - an act of holding things in that constantly threatens to ruin her one significant friendship and has ruined friendships from the past.  Her best friend, a girl named Pendra who comes from a more loving family, just wants to be closer to Eleanor and to share secrets, and Eleanor is too terrified to say otherwise.  And mind you, Eleanor is not a simple or dumb girl, she's clearly very smart as seen in the book - but her environment forces her inside herself, so that she will not under any circumstances get in trouble.

This attitude of course carries over to the portal fantasy world as well, where Eleanor is afraid to trust others with truths, afraid to make promises, and doesn't feel like anything she can do will go right.  And really, that's the lesson this book is going for throughout - that Eleanor (and Mike eventually) needs to figure out their own self worth, to assert themselves for who they are, and do what they need to do, not their parents.  That they need to be able to admit the truth to themselves and to others at times, and well, that's hard.  It's a rough journey and this book makes it work - ending in a situation where Eleanor has thankfully been able to do that.  It's not all better, but it's better, thank god.

I should point out that this book has some flaws - you'll note I barely mention the fantasy world in this review: that's deliberate, as it's probably the weakest part of the book: it's both utterly strange and unusual in ways and absolutely generic in others, with its dreams/nightmares/villains setup and a crab repairmen sequence that feels almost out of a Disney movie.  The book is powerful enough in the real world parts - which take up nearly all of the book mind you - that this doesn't matter, and the fantasy world does serve as a significant part in Eleanor's emotional journey, so it works out in the long run.  I also kind of disliked an aspect of the ending which suggests a very different end for several characters, who absolutely deserved that end, only to chicken out at the last moment.  I honestly wonder if that was a last minute switch because of the Middle Grade nature of this novel.

Spoiler in ROT13: Va gur svany frdhrapr, nf n uheevpnar ornef qbja ba gur gbja, Ryrnabe'f cneragf, yrq ol ure pbagebyyvat sngure, ershfr gb yrnir gurve ubhfr qrfcvgr gur rinphngvba beqre, naq Ryrnabe naq Zvxr yrnir jvgubhg gurz (snagnfl fghss unccraf nf jryy va guvf).  Vg jbhyq xvaq bs znxr frafr sbe gur cneragf gb qvr nf n erfhyg, be ng yrnfg fhssre frirer unez, ohg nyy gung unccraf va gur raq vf Ryrnabe naq Zvxr jvaqvat hc yvivat jvgu gurve tenaqzn juvyr gurve cneragf erohvyq, frrzvatyl ab jbefr sbe jrne.  Vg'f n ynpx bs pbafrdhraprf sbe gurz gung qbrfa'g ernyyl znxr frafr tvira rirelguvat ryfr.

But overall, Riverland is a terrifyingly powerful novel, and one which i fear is all too needed for the Middle-Grade audience.  It's the best and worst thing of Wilde's I've ever read as a result, and it deserves the awards it earns for sure.



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1 comment:

  1. LauraJune 5, 2020 at 10:43 AM

    This was one of my nominees for the Lodestar, and I was pleased to see it win the Norton. I remember starting to wonder if there was going to be a speculate element when I first started reading it. Thankfully I was never in this sort of situation growing up, but it seemed like Wilde conveyed the tension of it extremely well.

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