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A review by farmerkristyn
You Must Not Miss by Katrina Leno
3.0
Told with wit and perception that shows Leno’s deep resonance with the disturbed nature of a traumatized teenage mind, You Must Not Miss unfortunately misses the mark for me, despite its gripping prose that underlines the raw tragedy of Magpie’s reality.
For all my praise of Leno’s beautifully crafted writing, I have just as much criticism for the faults of the story’s characters and its hopeless and dreary plot.
Witnessing Magpie’s downward spiral was far from the rewarding tale of a young girl’s healing journey through the proxy of an imaginary world, which of course becomes very uncomfortably real. Rather, I was met with a disturbing blend of Carrie and Narnia.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I knew I was signing up for a revenge tale. But in many revenge tales (think Sweeney Todd, Mean Girls, Kill Bill) there is an underlying moral at the end. Our hero has learned something. It’s normally a cautionary tale. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, etc etc.
But Magpie seemingly learns nothing. She kills her enemies and floats away forever in a never-ending pool, no different than she was at the peak of her trauma. One could speculate that the return of Mr.
James and her father symbolizes how her time at “sea” (time which, as we know, passes very differently from the real world. Seven months of real time could very well be decades in Near) has changed her perspective on the events of her life and trauma, and caused her to forgive the people that have wronged her in turn.
But this speculation is far too flimsy for my liking, and I would have much preferred a more solid change in Magpie that we actually see, instead of merely infer through second-hand sources, and through the eyes of Allison, of all people.
I’m all for having unlikeable heroes and heroines. I personally did not like Magpie. But when those heroes and heroines have zero redeeming qualities and don’t eventually learn from their mistakes or have any sort of moral eureka? It becomes unsatisfying.
For these reasons alone, I would leave this review with one star. But I tacked on two more, simply for the beautiful writing. To me, Magpie was unlikeable because she was written well, not in spite of it. Her pain, her listlessness, her depression, her emptiness... they were all so palpable. So real. It was uncomfortable to witness. And that’s what made it good writing. Plus, I really loved the tenuous rules of Near, and the creepiness and vast emptiness of it. Any normal person would have been set on edge at such a world. But for Magpie to have been so drawn in, so enamored.... That’s truly what first caused me to become wary of Magpie. That’s what clued me in. Something had broken inside Magpie seven months ago, and it had grown to a crescendo of shattering glass inside her, a poetic destruction so eloquently detailed by Leno. Truly my hat goes off to her for such haunting prose.
Three stars, in the end. Despite my issues, it was worth the read.
For all my praise of Leno’s beautifully crafted writing, I have just as much criticism for the faults of the story’s characters and its hopeless and dreary plot.
Witnessing Magpie’s downward spiral was far from the rewarding tale of a young girl’s healing journey through the proxy of an imaginary world, which of course becomes very uncomfortably real. Rather, I was met with a disturbing blend of Carrie and Narnia.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I knew I was signing up for a revenge tale. But in many revenge tales (think Sweeney Todd, Mean Girls, Kill Bill) there is an underlying moral at the end. Our hero has learned something. It’s normally a cautionary tale. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, etc etc.
But Magpie seemingly learns nothing. She kills her enemies and floats away forever in a never-ending pool, no different than she was at the peak of her trauma. One could speculate that the return of Mr.
James and her father symbolizes how her time at “sea” (time which, as we know, passes very differently from the real world. Seven months of real time could very well be decades in Near) has changed her perspective on the events of her life and trauma, and caused her to forgive the people that have wronged her in turn.
But this speculation is far too flimsy for my liking, and I would have much preferred a more solid change in Magpie that we actually see, instead of merely infer through second-hand sources, and through the eyes of Allison, of all people.
I’m all for having unlikeable heroes and heroines. I personally did not like Magpie. But when those heroes and heroines have zero redeeming qualities and don’t eventually learn from their mistakes or have any sort of moral eureka? It becomes unsatisfying.
For these reasons alone, I would leave this review with one star. But I tacked on two more, simply for the beautiful writing. To me, Magpie was unlikeable because she was written well, not in spite of it. Her pain, her listlessness, her depression, her emptiness... they were all so palpable. So real. It was uncomfortable to witness. And that’s what made it good writing. Plus, I really loved the tenuous rules of Near, and the creepiness and vast emptiness of it. Any normal person would have been set on edge at such a world. But for Magpie to have been so drawn in, so enamored.... That’s truly what first caused me to become wary of Magpie. That’s what clued me in. Something had broken inside Magpie seven months ago, and it had grown to a crescendo of shattering glass inside her, a poetic destruction so eloquently detailed by Leno. Truly my hat goes off to her for such haunting prose.
Three stars, in the end. Despite my issues, it was worth the read.