Thursday, April 28, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Ballad & Dagger by Daniel José Older

 



 Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on May 3, 2022 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

Ballad & Dagger is the first in a duology by SF/F author Daniel José Older, as part of the Rick Riordan Presents imprint.  The RRP imprint is an imprint of books in which, like Riordan's Percy Jackson series is for Greek Mythology, authors from various backgrounds (Indian, Korean, Mexican, etc. etc.) write books using the myths of their cultures for middle grade audiences.  Ballad & Dagger is a first for the imprint, in that it's aimed at young adult readers (although I think middle grade readers would be totally fine with it), and features a world and plot based upon the traditions Older grew up with: a half Sephardic Jew and half Cuban heritage.  

The result is a story that is highly enjoyable in how it creates a fictional island settled by Pirates, Sephardim (Jews), and Santeros, whose combined traditions created a new fictional culture that has elements of all, with their own special saints and more, until the Island sank and its people relocated to a part of Brooklyn to try and keep their culture alive.  And the story's main character, as well as its themes of colonization, empire, destruction/creation, and the importance of recognizing rather than hiding the sins of one's past are very well done.  I just wish that the story was a bit more stretched out, as certain plot elements and character developments seem abrupt and sudden and don't quite work as well as they should as a result.  But this is still a very solid YA story and one I'll be back for when it comes back for its conclusion.  

--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------------
The Island of San Madrigal was once a unique wonder in the world - settled by Pirates, Sephardim, and Santeros in a bizarre melding of cultures, the island legendarily never was conquered or colonized by a foreign power, never engaged in the slave trade, and simply thrived.....until 15 years ago, the Island mysteriously sank, with its residents all escaping to a small community in Brooklyn.

High School junior Mateo Matisse never knew San Madrigal - it disappeared just after he was born - and really has never felt like a real part of his diaspora community, thanks to his parents caring more about science and traveling than staying around and taking him with them, until a while back they left him home with his spiritual Tía Lucia and his ghost Aunt Miriam.  Mateo has always wanted to escape, to take after his musical idol Gerval and to use his incredible piano playing to share his soul with the world.  And so when a Grand Fete, an annual party that is meant to announce the succession to leadership of the Pirate Leadership of San Madrigal, draws Gerval back to the community, Mateo is eager to attend and possibly get a chance to meet his idol and to perform for him.  

But the Grand Fete goes far differently than Mateo could have expected, and reveals to him - and the whole community - that he is tied to the three legendary spirits of the Island....and possibly to a prophecy that could bring the Island back.  Soon, along with a girl with destructive powers he can't quite take his eyes off of, Mateo will have to figure out what to do with his newfound power....because the future of his people, and his Island, will depend upon it......
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Ballad & Dagger is told entirely from the perspective of Mateo, a boy with ordinary wishes for his life, even if his own life is certainly far from ordinary, and somewhat of an outsider in his community.  This allows for the story to showcase the very fascinating community and people of San/Little Madrigal from the perspective of a character who has learned all about it and kind of lived it...but also still feels somewhat separate from it, allowing the explanations and explorations of it to land with full force.  It helps that Mateo is highly intelligent and understanding about how things are and how things really work - for example, as he notes that despite the claims that San Madrigal was free from the prejudices of the outside world, there certainly seems to be colorism underlying who has power in their society.  

And it's a society that is fascinating  in how it presents itself, in how it combines real world elements into a single/separate culture(s), and what is hidden underneath.  Here you have Sephardic Judaism, complete with the Ladino language, as an underlying part of the community, even if the book doesn't go too deeply into Jewish religious customs (Bar/Bat Mitzvahs are mentioned, and some other stuff as well, but the book is not that interested in going heavy duty into Jewish customs).  You have pirates - as they reconceptualize in the modern world as smugglers of various items and information.  You have Santeros, as they worship and center themselves around the Orisha and spirits that were originally taken from Africa and became their own things in the Carribean.  And you have this culture that tries to keep everything of all three cultures, even where contradictory, even where it has clearly caused conflict in the past, and combines it with a separate culture of three magical saints - a healer, a creator, and a destroyer - who created their Island, and helped them over generations supposedly stay out of the evils of the real world such as colonization, empire, and more.  

Of course that "supposedly" is doing a lot of work, and a large theme of this book - as it features a plot dealing with characters blessed with the powers of magical saints (healing, destruction (murdering), creation) as well as monsters from various cultures (such as Golems from Jewish lore) - is the characters discovering how much of that is not true and how their ancestors either covered up the truths of their past or were willfully blind about what was going on behind the scenes.   The antagonists by contrast want to either hide it while, all the while keeping the spirit of those activities going on in the modern world, and are willing to seize power by force when that becomes impossible....because the community doesn't want to keep hiding it once it's revealed, but instead wants to come together to make things better.  

You may note that this review isn't really structured how my usual reviews are - which usually talk about the characters first and what I enjoyed about them before diving into themes.  That's because the characters are solid, but their development and relationship development often feels truncated by the shortness of this novel.  So like our main character Mateo, his best friend Tams (a girl who likes flirting with everyone, including two twins - a NB character and another girl), his Tía Lucia and his Aunt Miriam are all very solid if unexceptional.  But his relationship with Chela, which is romantic, is hamstrung by there just being odd jumps in the relationship - Mateo is first uncomfortable with her because her first act is to seemingly murder a guy...and then the next day everyone notices he has a Crush on her which was seemingly never there before?  Or after a moment in which the plot does the classic trope of him looking like he's betrayed her, and the plot doesn't give this a moment to breathe before he acts in a way to make it clear he didn't.  

There's a lot to like here - again the setting is fantastic, especially the melding of cultures into something really interesting and real, the plot is well done, etc. - so I don't really mind how rushed the character relationships feel....I just wish this book had another 60 pages (this seems to be a common complaint of me with the RRP books actually).  So I can definitely recommend this one, and I will be back for the duology's conclusion.  

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