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A review by liralen
About a Girl by Sarah McCarry
4.0
I am considered precocious, for good reason. Some people might say insufferable, but I do not truck with fools. (6)
McCarry's books seem to be hit-or-miss for readers on GR, but I remain solidly in the 'hit' category. For all that this is the least standalone of the three Metamorphoses books, I loved it. Combining mythology and astronomy and Shakespeare? Come on now. We get casual, matter-of-fact diversity (in terms of gender and sexuality and race); a heroine who is sure of herself and sure of her intelligence and confident in her 'unconventional' family; a dreamy, suspension-of-disbelief plot and general feel to the book. Tally is kind of irritating in the beginning, but in a she-is-supposed-to-be-that-way manner, and she's pushed to grow up quite a bit over the course of the book; she stops thinking and starts feeling.
My biggest complaint has nothing to do with the writing and everything to do with the cover, which I liked just fine until I read the book. What's up with the whitewashing? According to the text, Tally's hair 'falls down my back in a waterfall of coal' (10); her skin 'is quite smooth and a pleasing shade of brown, but not even a white person ever got cast as the lead of a romantic comedy because they had nice skin' (11). There are numerous other mentions of 'white people' and Tally not being white (e.g., 'Additionally, white people are not subject to the regular and exhausting lines of enquiry my skin and vaguely ethnic features occasion ("What are you? No, I mean where are you from? No, I mean where are you really from? No, I mean where are your parents from?")', p. 11). Meanwhile, Maddy is described, in part, as such: '...her knuckles were streaked with dirt; and her bare forearms were alive with black tattoos...and crisscrossed with pale scars that stood out sharply against her dark skin. A tangle of black-dyed hair rioted down her back in a serpentine mass.' (87)
The girl on the left of the cover looks like neither of these descriptions. The girl on the right could be maaaaaybe stretched out to one of them, except I really don't think either Tally or Maddy is the type for hoop earrings and nail polish. (Perhaps added to make it clear that both cover models are female?)
Makes me very cranky about publishing, but doesn't change my feelings about the writing, which I loved.
McCarry's books seem to be hit-or-miss for readers on GR, but I remain solidly in the 'hit' category. For all that this is the least standalone of the three Metamorphoses books, I loved it. Combining mythology and astronomy and Shakespeare? Come on now. We get casual, matter-of-fact diversity (in terms of gender and sexuality and race); a heroine who is sure of herself and sure of her intelligence and confident in her 'unconventional' family; a dreamy, suspension-of-disbelief plot and general feel to the book. Tally is kind of irritating in the beginning, but in a she-is-supposed-to-be-that-way manner, and she's pushed to grow up quite a bit over the course of the book; she stops thinking and starts feeling.
My biggest complaint has nothing to do with the writing and everything to do with the cover, which I liked just fine until I read the book. What's up with the whitewashing? According to the text, Tally's hair 'falls down my back in a waterfall of coal' (10); her skin 'is quite smooth and a pleasing shade of brown, but not even a white person ever got cast as the lead of a romantic comedy because they had nice skin' (11). There are numerous other mentions of 'white people' and Tally not being white (e.g., 'Additionally, white people are not subject to the regular and exhausting lines of enquiry my skin and vaguely ethnic features occasion ("What are you? No, I mean where are you from? No, I mean where are you really from? No, I mean where are your parents from?")', p. 11). Meanwhile, Maddy is described, in part, as such: '...her knuckles were streaked with dirt; and her bare forearms were alive with black tattoos...and crisscrossed with pale scars that stood out sharply against her dark skin. A tangle of black-dyed hair rioted down her back in a serpentine mass.' (87)
The girl on the left of the cover looks like neither of these descriptions. The girl on the right could be maaaaaybe stretched out to one of them, except I really don't think either Tally or Maddy is the type for hoop earrings and nail polish. (Perhaps added to make it clear that both cover models are female?)
Makes me very cranky about publishing, but doesn't change my feelings about the writing, which I loved.