SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger: https://t.co/AcNT0egL4i
— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) October 12, 2020
Short Review: 9.5 out of 10
1/3
Short Review (cont): Ellie, a Lipan Apache teenager in a magic-filled US still like our own, has to use her family power to bring back beings as ghosts to try & get justice for her cousin's murder. Strong themes, characters, & wonderfully supportive family make this so good
— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) October 12, 2020
2/3
Elatsoe is the debut novel by Darcie Little Badger, whose work previously has been limited to comics. Darcie Little Badger is a member of the Lipan Apache people, and her work has been known for including other Lipan Apache people as characters within, and Elatsoe is no exception. I don't really read comics, so Elatsoe was my first experience with Little Badger's work, but it was one I was very excited for based upon the reviews of others.
And yes, Elatsoe justified my excitement - it's a YA fantasy novel featuring an alternate urban fantasy version of our modern US, where magical creatures and magic are not uncommon, but the history of the world, and its persecution of the indigenous and its failure to care for the world in general is still the same (if altered in the methods). In this world comes a high school age Lipan Apache girl, Elatsoe, whose family passes down the secret power to bring back dead creatures as ghosts (and who has a ghost of her dog as her pet), and who finds herself on a hunt for justice against the rich white man who murdered her cousin. It's a really well done story, with strong themes of how the powerful have made their lives and wealth on the backs of others, strong characters, and families and friends who are utterly supportive and loving of each other, making them incredibly fun to read. Highly recommended.
Note: I read this as an audiobook, and the audiobook reader is very good, so that format is recommended. The print version is advertised as having illustrations though, so you may be missing out to read the book in this format, I can't obviously tell.
---------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------------
Ellie (full name: Elatsoe) is a normal high school aged Lipan Apache girl living in Texas, with dreams of going to college and perhaps becoming a private investigator. Of course, she's not quite a "normal" girl, given that her family has passed down a secret technique to bring back dead beings as ghosts from generation to generation, and has often done tremendous things with that power - her legendary Sixth Great Grandmother once defeated an entire army and even her own grandmother uses a ghostly mammoth as a pet and mount. But Ellie contents herself with Kirby, her dead Springer Spaniel dog, who now serves as her reliable companion.
Yet when Kirby one day reacts with a cry as if a family member has died, Ellie fears the worst. And those fears are only confirmed when her cousin Trevor comes to her in a dream, saying that he was murdered by a man named Abe Allerton, and begging her to protect his wife and infant son. To do that, Ellie and her family, as well as her best friend Jay, must travel to the house of Trevor's widow and search for the truth behind his death. But what she finds in Abe Allerton, and his mysterious hometown of Willowbee, is a man willing to do anything to further his power and good reputation, a reputation that makes him nearly untouchable.
It will take all of Ellie's smarts and skills, as well as the support of her family and friends as they go into danger, to get justice for Trevor....if that's even possible.
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Elatsoe is a novel that takes place in a world very much like our own, except with the existence of fantasy elements alongside the real world. But those fantasy elements align with the power aspects of our own world, so the dynamics of this world are really not changed - Native peoples may have magical powers, but so do peoples from European-origins, and the White people have used their power to gain the same stature in the Americas as they did in our own world. Creatures like animal people or vampires exist, although how rare they are depends upon the type of person, and simply being such a type of person seems to mainly get one discriminated against...regardless of whether such a person is good or bad.
Into this world steps Ellie/Elatsoe (she goes by "Ellie", so that's how I'll refer to her for the rest of this review). Ellis is a high school girl from a Lipan Apache background, and as such is used to being looked at with disdain by the people around her. But Ellie gets through that thanks to a strong supportive family (more on that later) and the knowledge of her family history and power. Her Sixth-Great Grandmother (also named "Elatsoe") was a legend, one Ellie kind of feels a pressure to live up to, but Ellie is still somewhat content to try and be happy with her friend and Jay and her ghost dog Kirby. But she also has a firm sense of justice, despite all she has to deal with, so when given the task by Trevor in a vision to defend Trevor's widow and son and to get justice for him, Ellie steps immediately towards that task. Ellie's mother, who passed down the knowledge of bringing back the dead, tries to urge caution for Ellie among her support, but Ellie is well, a kid really, and is a bit reckless as a result. And yet, she's always thinking and trying to figure things out, so she's not really any more reckless than you'd expect from a kid. The result is a heroine who has a strong sense of justice even as she learns more about the horrors about the power inequity of the world, who feels both comfortable in her own skin and yet desires to do more, and who just is, well, good. She's an absolute delight and charm to read, and well, she carries this book easily.
And this is a book with some pretty strong themes throughout the plot. The antagonist from the start is a rich powerful white man, Abe Allerton, who uses his good relations with the police and the local populace to ensure no outsiders like Ellie can even question him. But it's more than that - Abe and his whole town, Willowby, celebrate their own history as special but treat outsiders as utterly strange and unacceptable and well....lesser. They treat people who are poor or nonwhite with even more disdain than others (and how this treatment really looks is revealed over the course of the book), confident that they can get away with it because no one will stop them - and if anyone tries, they'll just move on and keep on doing it in other fashions. The book almost switches up the main antagonist near the end, only to then refocus itself on Abe and his town, and it works really damn well. Things might be a bit predictable at times (I called how Ellie would defeat Abe in the end for about 2 hours before it happened in the audiobook), but it's all set up well and executed in a way you never really mind that.
I should hammer again, what really made this book work for me is just how supportive Ellie's family and friends are in this book. Ellie's parents both worry for her, like any other parent, but they also trust her implicitly - so when Ellie says she has a vision? They don't doubt her. When Ellie unleashes a potentially scary dangerous power without anyone to see? They don't doubt that she did, and they call a Lipan Apache elder to talk with her to ensure that she can act safely. And Ellie's best friend Jay is a true companion, a best friend who has no interest in romance (Ellie is Asexual, which is respected by everyone), who wants to help Ellie for her own sake and Jay's sister Ronnie and her boyfriend are similarly supportive. It's a rarity in such a YA novel for the protagonist to never be doubted and always be supported by her family/friend structure, and for concern to be expressed lovingly in a way that never puts down that character. But it is here, and it makes this a truly wonderful read.
Elatsoe is a novel that takes place in a world very much like our own, except with the existence of fantasy elements alongside the real world. But those fantasy elements align with the power aspects of our own world, so the dynamics of this world are really not changed - Native peoples may have magical powers, but so do peoples from European-origins, and the White people have used their power to gain the same stature in the Americas as they did in our own world. Creatures like animal people or vampires exist, although how rare they are depends upon the type of person, and simply being such a type of person seems to mainly get one discriminated against...regardless of whether such a person is good or bad.
Into this world steps Ellie/Elatsoe (she goes by "Ellie", so that's how I'll refer to her for the rest of this review). Ellis is a high school girl from a Lipan Apache background, and as such is used to being looked at with disdain by the people around her. But Ellie gets through that thanks to a strong supportive family (more on that later) and the knowledge of her family history and power. Her Sixth-Great Grandmother (also named "Elatsoe") was a legend, one Ellie kind of feels a pressure to live up to, but Ellie is still somewhat content to try and be happy with her friend and Jay and her ghost dog Kirby. But she also has a firm sense of justice, despite all she has to deal with, so when given the task by Trevor in a vision to defend Trevor's widow and son and to get justice for him, Ellie steps immediately towards that task. Ellie's mother, who passed down the knowledge of bringing back the dead, tries to urge caution for Ellie among her support, but Ellie is well, a kid really, and is a bit reckless as a result. And yet, she's always thinking and trying to figure things out, so she's not really any more reckless than you'd expect from a kid. The result is a heroine who has a strong sense of justice even as she learns more about the horrors about the power inequity of the world, who feels both comfortable in her own skin and yet desires to do more, and who just is, well, good. She's an absolute delight and charm to read, and well, she carries this book easily.
And this is a book with some pretty strong themes throughout the plot. The antagonist from the start is a rich powerful white man, Abe Allerton, who uses his good relations with the police and the local populace to ensure no outsiders like Ellie can even question him. But it's more than that - Abe and his whole town, Willowby, celebrate their own history as special but treat outsiders as utterly strange and unacceptable and well....lesser. They treat people who are poor or nonwhite with even more disdain than others (and how this treatment really looks is revealed over the course of the book), confident that they can get away with it because no one will stop them - and if anyone tries, they'll just move on and keep on doing it in other fashions. The book almost switches up the main antagonist near the end, only to then refocus itself on Abe and his town, and it works really damn well. Things might be a bit predictable at times (I called how Ellie would defeat Abe in the end for about 2 hours before it happened in the audiobook), but it's all set up well and executed in a way you never really mind that.
I should hammer again, what really made this book work for me is just how supportive Ellie's family and friends are in this book. Ellie's parents both worry for her, like any other parent, but they also trust her implicitly - so when Ellie says she has a vision? They don't doubt her. When Ellie unleashes a potentially scary dangerous power without anyone to see? They don't doubt that she did, and they call a Lipan Apache elder to talk with her to ensure that she can act safely. And Ellie's best friend Jay is a true companion, a best friend who has no interest in romance (Ellie is Asexual, which is respected by everyone), who wants to help Ellie for her own sake and Jay's sister Ronnie and her boyfriend are similarly supportive. It's a rarity in such a YA novel for the protagonist to never be doubted and always be supported by her family/friend structure, and for concern to be expressed lovingly in a way that never puts down that character. But it is here, and it makes this a truly wonderful read.
So yeah, highly recommend this one, it's really great and I loved practically every minute of it - How Little Badger integrates the characters, cleverly uses the characters' powers and the setting to establish the plot and further the look at the themes, and resolves it all is truly great.
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