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A review by dobbsthedog
Pansies by Alexis Hall
5.0
Reread January 2022
CW: all the internalized homophobia. Plus a fair amount of general homophobia.
OMG this book. This whole series, really. It’s all so freaking good. The writing is just beautiful, and not really like anything else Alexis Hall has written. There’s funny bits and geeky/nostalgic bits (because it wouldn’t be an AJH book without those), but on the whole this series is just so beautiful.
So, anyhoo… Pansies is set in South Shields, which is in Northern England, on the Eastern coast. The way the town is described makes it seem like a small town, but it’s really not. I googled it and I’m pretty sure it’s large enough to count as a city. It’s hard for me to pick a favourite in this series, but I think I feel the most connection with this one, I can see myself in Alfie (in general terms, not specifics). The city I grew up in is a similar size to South Shields, very working class, very conservative, and it has that small town feel to it. For a city of 80k people, I was constantly running in to people I knew, before I got married and changed my last name everyone knew who my family was because my grandfather owns a masonry business that has built all but 1 of the major buildings in the city. And from the time I was a teenager all I wanted to do was leave. And I did! And while I don’t think I could ever move back there, I have occasionally felt the pull of being somewhere so familiar, where all of my family is. Also with growing up in a conservative, small-town-feeling city of 80k, there’s also that total submersion in heteronormativity. Like, when Fen asks Alfie why it took him so long to figure out he’s gay, and Alfie tells him it’s because it was never a possibility for him. You just assume you’re the same as everyone else because everyone else assumes that you’re the same as them, and there are so few examples of anything else. There were so many times while I was reading this that I felt so sad for Alfie. That he grew up in a homophobic family, in a homophobic town, that he has so much internalized homophobia, it just kind of broke my heart. Ugh…
When I originally listened to this, there were quite a few things I missed. One of them being how Alfie’s accent gets thicker as the book goes along. I mean, it’s just what happens when you go home and are surrounded with that. I think it also shows how he’s becoming more himself when he’s back in South Shields, not trying to being someone he’s not in London.
I feel like I could go on and on about this book. And I’ve barely even said anything about Fen, who is just lovely.
The Spires series is just so incredibly good. I know they’re still quite a ways off, but I absolutely CANNOT WAIT for books 5 and 6. I need more Spires in my life and heart!
CW: all the internalized homophobia. Plus a fair amount of general homophobia.
OMG this book. This whole series, really. It’s all so freaking good. The writing is just beautiful, and not really like anything else Alexis Hall has written. There’s funny bits and geeky/nostalgic bits (because it wouldn’t be an AJH book without those), but on the whole this series is just so beautiful.
So, anyhoo… Pansies is set in South Shields, which is in Northern England, on the Eastern coast. The way the town is described makes it seem like a small town, but it’s really not. I googled it and I’m pretty sure it’s large enough to count as a city. It’s hard for me to pick a favourite in this series, but I think I feel the most connection with this one, I can see myself in Alfie (in general terms, not specifics). The city I grew up in is a similar size to South Shields, very working class, very conservative, and it has that small town feel to it. For a city of 80k people, I was constantly running in to people I knew, before I got married and changed my last name everyone knew who my family was because my grandfather owns a masonry business that has built all but 1 of the major buildings in the city. And from the time I was a teenager all I wanted to do was leave. And I did! And while I don’t think I could ever move back there, I have occasionally felt the pull of being somewhere so familiar, where all of my family is. Also with growing up in a conservative, small-town-feeling city of 80k, there’s also that total submersion in heteronormativity. Like, when Fen asks Alfie why it took him so long to figure out he’s gay, and Alfie tells him it’s because it was never a possibility for him. You just assume you’re the same as everyone else because everyone else assumes that you’re the same as them, and there are so few examples of anything else. There were so many times while I was reading this that I felt so sad for Alfie. That he grew up in a homophobic family, in a homophobic town, that he has so much internalized homophobia, it just kind of broke my heart. Ugh…
When I originally listened to this, there were quite a few things I missed. One of them being how Alfie’s accent gets thicker as the book goes along. I mean, it’s just what happens when you go home and are surrounded with that. I think it also shows how he’s becoming more himself when he’s back in South Shields, not trying to being someone he’s not in London.
I feel like I could go on and on about this book. And I’ve barely even said anything about Fen, who is just lovely.
The Spires series is just so incredibly good. I know they’re still quite a ways off, but I absolutely CANNOT WAIT for books 5 and 6. I need more Spires in my life and heart!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia and Grief
Moderate: Death of parent