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A review by krish_
Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver
5.0
I must surrender my breath as it is threatening to choke me with all that this book put me through. Lauren Oliver's Liesl and Po is a beautiful, painfully moving declaration of love, loss, yearning, despair and discovery.
It is about a sad and lonely but hopeful and pretty little girl called Liesl who, with the help of her ghost friends boy-or-girl-but-most-likely-boy, Po and cat-or-dog-but-most-likely-dog, Bundle and young-but-poor-and-recently-homeless-former-apprentice, Will, sets out to lay her dearly departed father's dust in peaceful rest at the "pond by the willow tree". There's a lot going on in this book. Its so heart-wrenching - and I don't like using that expression because it is so overused but this book is...There's so much wanting and wishing; some grand, some mischievous and some devastatingly simple. What struck me most was how knowing Oliver is of the human heart and all of its nooks and crannies. Not that its hard to understand ourselves (although it is), but her intent is so clear that it is because I know exactly what the characters want and need that my own heart broke. Liesl wishing her father back, Po finding again what it is like to feel and remember, Will looking for someone, anyone, to think more of him than useless...Mo, ever grieving his long lost sister; the alchemist, hungering for his long overdue glory; the Lady Premiere denying her shameful past...so much running from and racing to, all desperate, lost and determined in their own way.
The writing is exquisite. Oliver's language is soft and poetically abstract. She compels us to live in her world where time and space are both infinite and palpable; where one dies and dissolves back into the universe and becomes part once again of stars and space dust; where one has an Essence, within which one can hold another...a world so vague in its rules and regulations but so lovingly written that we know almost exactly what she's talking about...know what I mean? Like how someone rambles on, trying to describe something and failing at words but it doesn't really matter because you understand completely before they even get there. Reading Delirium, I knew Oliver was a good writer, but Liesl and Po has nearly no faults. There is one particular scene where she opens up a pocket of possibility, narrative but then emotional, and with a single blow dashes it to pieces before your very eyes. No, not dashes, because there's no mess, it leaves no fragments. She simply wills it gone and with it my breath.
The plot is a tangle of journeys; different intentions, good and bad, urging the pages on. There are several story lines playing simultaneously but it is impressively and neatly synchronized. The navigation throughout the interweaving narratives is seamless. We never seem to forget where characters leave off; each resume effortlessly. The book moves like a movie (only in that it is so visual and even) -- which is fitting as the book begins with really cool, movie-like credits. Let me gush about the illustration, just for a moment...they were beautiful! Gorgeous! Who's ever idea it was to open the way this book opens seriously deserves a raise. It isn't exactly brilliant (we should try not to throw that word around so carelessly), but it was very nice, and it certainly put a smile on my face. Its incredible how much disdain and malice an artist can infuse in the slight tilt of a woman's head, or how the smooth flow of a young girl's hair around her ear and down her shoulder can make her so real and endearing...
I'm going to buy a copy of this book. This is one I know I'll be revisiting in the future. Its an easy read; it goes so fast you hardly believe where all the pages have gone. But it really does reach out and hit you in the heart (wink, wink). Liesl and Po is a triumph...well done, Oliver. Well done, indeed. You say this story was your confession...here is your absolution.
Also, Mwark. Is that not the best invented animal sound you've ever come across?
---
Excerpts:
It is about a sad and lonely but hopeful and pretty little girl called Liesl who, with the help of her ghost friends boy-or-girl-but-most-likely-boy, Po and cat-or-dog-but-most-likely-dog, Bundle and young-but-poor-and-recently-homeless-former-apprentice, Will, sets out to lay her dearly departed father's dust in peaceful rest at the "pond by the willow tree". There's a lot going on in this book. Its so heart-wrenching - and I don't like using that expression because it is so overused but this book is...There's so much wanting and wishing; some grand, some mischievous and some devastatingly simple. What struck me most was how knowing Oliver is of the human heart and all of its nooks and crannies. Not that its hard to understand ourselves (although it is), but her intent is so clear that it is because I know exactly what the characters want and need that my own heart broke. Liesl wishing her father back, Po finding again what it is like to feel and remember, Will looking for someone, anyone, to think more of him than useless...Mo, ever grieving his long lost sister; the alchemist, hungering for his long overdue glory; the Lady Premiere denying her shameful past...so much running from and racing to, all desperate, lost and determined in their own way.
The writing is exquisite. Oliver's language is soft and poetically abstract. She compels us to live in her world where time and space are both infinite and palpable; where one dies and dissolves back into the universe and becomes part once again of stars and space dust; where one has an Essence, within which one can hold another...a world so vague in its rules and regulations but so lovingly written that we know almost exactly what she's talking about...know what I mean? Like how someone rambles on, trying to describe something and failing at words but it doesn't really matter because you understand completely before they even get there. Reading Delirium, I knew Oliver was a good writer, but Liesl and Po has nearly no faults. There is one particular scene where she opens up a pocket of possibility, narrative but then emotional, and with a single blow dashes it to pieces before your very eyes. No, not dashes, because there's no mess, it leaves no fragments. She simply wills it gone and with it my breath.
Spoiler
Its the scene when Po and Bundle, for just a sliver of a second, become real...and I thought...oh, but I didn't even have time to hope --The plot is a tangle of journeys; different intentions, good and bad, urging the pages on. There are several story lines playing simultaneously but it is impressively and neatly synchronized. The navigation throughout the interweaving narratives is seamless. We never seem to forget where characters leave off; each resume effortlessly. The book moves like a movie (only in that it is so visual and even) -- which is fitting as the book begins with really cool, movie-like credits. Let me gush about the illustration, just for a moment...they were beautiful! Gorgeous! Who's ever idea it was to open the way this book opens seriously deserves a raise. It isn't exactly brilliant (we should try not to throw that word around so carelessly), but it was very nice, and it certainly put a smile on my face. Its incredible how much disdain and malice an artist can infuse in the slight tilt of a woman's head, or how the smooth flow of a young girl's hair around her ear and down her shoulder can make her so real and endearing...
I'm going to buy a copy of this book. This is one I know I'll be revisiting in the future. Its an easy read; it goes so fast you hardly believe where all the pages have gone. But it really does reach out and hit you in the heart (wink, wink). Liesl and Po is a triumph...well done, Oliver. Well done, indeed. You say this story was your confession...here is your absolution.
Also, Mwark. Is that not the best invented animal sound you've ever come across?
---
Excerpts:
Coincidences; mix-ups; harmless mistakes and switches.
And so a story is born.
-
It was snowing, and late, and already getting dark, and as Will passed by Kevin Donnell's house, he had seen a door flung open. He had seen light and warmth and the big, comforting silhouette of a woman inside of it. He had smelled meat and soap and heard a soft trilling voice saying, Come inside, you must be freezing....And the pain had been so sharp and deep inside of him for a second that he had looked around, thinking he must have walked straight into the point of a knife.
Looking at the girl in the attic window was like looking into Kevin Donnell's house, but without the pain.
-
Po had never seen a ghost cry before. There were no actual tears: just quivering little dark spots, like shadows that pushed apart the atoms of Liesl's father's face, temporarily revealing the starry sky beyond. Ghosts, even the newest ones, just weren't held together very tightly.