Werewolves and Grimms and Rats, Oh My!

 In the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry receives a present from Hagrid, 'The Monster Book of Monsters.' Beginning a pattern that will repeat throughout the book, Harry at first perceives the present as dangerous, wild, and threatening, only to later learn that it is in fact harmless--if treated with kindness. Harry is forced to restrain the book in order to control it. Only later will it be revealed that the way to handle the book is to pet it, like an animal. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban presents multiple motifs of human vs animal nature, challenging Harry and the reader to question their own beliefs and standards without reaching any definite conclusions. 

This motif, which begins with a seemingly humorous moment, is repeated with increasing depth and seriousness throughout Prisoner of Azkaban. Rowling uses animals and monsters to raise several probing questions about our assumptions and perceptions of others, as well as posing the question of what makes a human human. Is it a body, a soul, a mind, or all three? Are monsters monsters because of their nature, or because of the way they're treated? What matters most--the way we see ourselves, or the way others see us?

Rowling repeats the animal motif and perception vs. reality question so many times in Prisoner of Azkaban that it is impossible to cover them in a single post--from Buckbeak the Hippogriff to the dementors to Crookshanks to Hagrid to Argus Filch to Professors Trelawney and McGonagall. Instead, I decided to focus on the most obvious and most complex example--the four Marauders--and analyze each individually as examples of Rowling's trope.

"His name is Professor R. J. Lupin."

On the surface, Remus Lupin is a mild-mannered, even shy, professor who becomes a mentor for Harry--the first adult to truly show an interest in Harry as a person, and not as a burden, an orphan in need of protecting, or a tool for fighting Voldemort. (The reasons why Dumbledore does not qualify are numerous and probably best addressed in their own post.) As the reader learns, however, Professor Lupin's quiet nature masks a dark alter-ego, a vicious, mindless monster who is violent and cruel. Professor Lupin is a werewolf, and wizarding society has deemed werewolves dangerous and undesirable. Ample evidence suggests that Lupin was living in poverty before coming to Hogwarts. Lupin was the first werewolf to attend Hogwart. It is shown again and again that wizards have a heavy prejudice against werewolves. Like wizards, Rowling seems aware that her readers' initial reaction to a werewolf would be the assumption that it is a monster.

Instead of presenting her readers with a slobbering, blood-lusting beast, Rowling cleverly hides Lupin's true nature until the climax of the Prisoner of Azkaban. By the time Hermione blurts out Lupin's secret, readers have come to see Lupin as the antithesis of a wild beast; with his books, tea, dislike of fuss, love of teaching, and quiet care for Harry and his other students, Lupin is the definition of civilized. At that point in the story, readers have no choice but to support Lupin, to be sympathetic to his plight. As Harry's regard for Lupin grew, so did the readers'; Rowling leaves us no choice but to see Lupin as a human trapped in unfortunate circumstances rather than a monster masquerading as a man.

Numerous essays have been written claiming that Lupin in particular, and werewolves in general, are Rowling's way of critiquing society's view of AIDS patients, homosexuals, racial and religious minorities, women, drug addicts, and criminals. While Rowling may have had one or more of those groups in mind when creating her werewolves--and wizards' reaction to werewolves--I do not believe werewolves are meant to stand for any one type of person, but rather society's reaction to anything it perceives as wrong, different, or deviant. From the Nazis to the KKK to the Red Scare to the current (and awful) Minuteman Project, humans have proved again and again what a poor job we do of accepting those who are different than us, who we believe threaten us in some way because of their beliefs, religion, race, or gender. 

If Rowling is making a statement with Lupin, her wolf in human clothing, it is that labels, perceptions, and generalizations never tell the whole story, never capture the individual. For the majority of Prisoner of Azkaban, the reader sees Lupin as a man. There is no reason for their view of him to change once it is revealed that he is a werewolf, yet wizarding society is willing to reject him on the fact of his nature alone. Even Ron, Harry's best friend, who has been in Lupin's class all year, reacts with horror and disgust upon learning Lupin's nature. ("Get away from me, werewolf!") Lupin is the most in depth form of Rowling's monster motif, and as for the question if he is human despite--or because of--his animal nature, Rowling answers in the affirmative repeatedly, throughout this and the later books.

"Sirius Black killed twelve people, he did." 

Sirius Black is presented as an insane murderer who killed twelve people, including his friend, and is now coming after Harry to gain revenge for Voldemort's death and his own incarceration in Azkaban. When the truth comes out--Sirius did not kill anyone, was protecting the Potters, and broke out from Azkaban to protect Harry--it flies in the face of everything Harry and the reader believe. It is easy for Harry to believe Sirius is a monster because society views him as a monster: he is described as 'vampiric,' with waxy skin and long, matted black hair, and he is guilty of committing the ultimate sin: the betrayal of his best friend. 

Harry does not want to see Sirius as anything but a murderer because to do so disrupts Harry's black and white view of the world: his parents were good, Voldemort was evil, Sirius Black betrayed his best friends and deserves to die. Harry's view of the world is understandable; he is a thirteen-year-old orphan who lost his parents violently at a young age. Acknowledging that Sirius may not be a cold-blooded murderer but an innocent man who made mistakes out of love is tricky and troublesome for Harry. 

In Prisoner of Azkaban, we see Harry pulled between his two best friends and their opposing view-points: Hermione is always willing to give a second chance and values logic over emotion, while Ron has a firm and unshakeable view of the world and follows his gut rather than his head. Throughout the book, Harry is searching for answers and for balance: he knows Hagrid is innocent and Buckbeak was just acting on instinct, but also blindly accepts Crookshanks's guilt in Scabbers's disappearance. It is only when he learns the story of the Marauders and what they did for Lupin that he comes to find a peace and a balance within himself: he refuses to accept someone's guilt based only on hearsay, but he also seeks justice for those who have wronged others. 

Harry learns to not accept stories as fact and that perceptions can differ wildly from reality. In Sirius, who Harry views as a monster for most of Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry finds a guardian, a mentor, a godfather, and a man whose loyalty to his friends strongly reflects Harry's own. Sirius serves as a lesson to Harry and to the reader: a person's worth is more than skin deep, and each individual's worth should be judged by their actions rather than the outside world's perceptions. 

"Poor Pettigrew. Always running after Black, Potter, and their little gang." 

Peter Pettigrew is quite literally a man within an animal. After arranging the murder of one friend and the imprisonment of another, he spends the next twelve years as a rat. His main crime is the sort that only a human could commit: betrayal. Pettigrew is a man who uses an animal to hide his human nature, which is truly monstrous. In the case of Pettigrew, it is the man, not the beast, who is a monster.

In Prisoner of Azkaban, not only do we get a villain who turns out to not be a villain at all, but the true antagonist is not  a terrifying, all-powerful wizard, but someone who's evil is frighteningly, recognizably, human. Peter Pettigrew's crime is betrayal, but it's betrayal born not of malice, but cowardice. As Homer says, to have a great man for an intimate friend seems pleasant to those who have never tried it; those who have, fear it. Peter's three closest friends are all men who are unusually courageous--James faced certain death against Voldemort to give his family time to escape, Sirius willingly risked torture and death to protect his friends, Lupin acted as a spy against Voldemort and has endured being a werewolf. 

With Peter Pettigrew, Rowling for the first time introduced a villain who her readers could relate to--perhaps even more than they could relate to James, Sirius, and Lupin. Prisoner of Azkaban contains a depth and maturity--a human monster--that the other Harry Potter books approach, but never quite reach. Voldemort is humanized in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, but compared to Pettigrew he is a distant evil, driven by lofty goals of purity and power. Peter Pettigrew is a traitor, but his betrayal was driven by fear rather than cruelty.

Like Lupin, Pettigrew is outwardly harmless, both as a rat and as a man. He protests that he spent three years sleeping next to Harry without ever harming Harry. Pettigrew is not dangerous as an animal, however, but as a human who is fallible and weak and frightened. Unlike Sirius, Pettigrew allowed others to determine his self-worth, relying first on the Marauders' approval and then later on Voldemort's. Because he lacks a core strength and sense of self, Pettigrew was easily swayed to Voldemort's side. Peter Pettigrew is an example of how monstrous humans can be--and how those who commit terrible acts are often weak rather than evil. 

"You look just like your father, Harry. Just like him."

The fourth ambiguous nature is one that will not be fully revealed or explored until Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but a few hints are given in Prisoner of Azkaban about the--if not dark then certainly gray--nature of James Potter. Before Prisoner of Azkaban, Snape's reasons for hating James, and, by extension, Harry, are ambiguous. In Prisoner of Azkaban, we learn that James and his friends likely bullied Snape. The Marauder's Map responds with insults when Snape attempts to speak to it, insults that seem tailored for Snape specifically. Snape's immediate reaction is to contact Lupin, confirming both that Snape has heard these words before and that Lupin and the other Marauders used the words. Later, when Sirius's true nature is revealed, he speaks about Snape with casual contempt--not as if Snape is a rival, but as if Snape is beneath him. Finally, from Snape we learn that Sirius once attempted to murder Snape sending him to meet Lupin in werewolf form. Although James saved Snape's life, later evidence gives credence to Snape's claim that James did so more to protect Sirius and Lupin than Snape.

Before, during, and after Prisoner of Azkaban, James Potter is presented as a saint. He was a loving father and husband. He was a talented wizard and loyal friend. He gave his life protecting his wife and son. Although he was apparently a trickster, such episodes are treated with amusement and nostalgia rather than disapproval. Until Harry enters Snape's memory in Order of the Phoenix, he has no reason to doubt this rose-tinted picture of his father. Readers, however, may begin to sense the disconnect between the myth and reality in Prisoner of Azkaban. In a book about concealed nature and the dangers of misconception, the astute reader should realize that the portrait we are given of James Potter up until that point is not entirely accurate.

To be clear:  James Potter is not a bad man, nor does Rowling think that James Potter is a bad man. He is a good wizard, father, husband, and friend. He gave his life protecting his family and fighting Voldemort. But that does not mean he was an untarnished paragon of virtue. He was arrogant, self-centered, and a bully. If Harry learns anything in Prisoner of Azkaban, it is that things are not always what they seem, and just because the majority declares an opinion about a person, that does not mean the majority is right. The last scene with Lupin is a perfect example: although Harry knows Lupin is a good, kind, even honorable man, Lupin is forced out of Hogwarts because many parents believe he is dangerous.

 In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Rowling forces Harry to grow up. He learns that the world is not black and white--this is the first book where the villain, and the right course of action, are not clean cut--and that adults can be petty and cruel. He learns that sometimes things do not work out the way they should, and that sometimes friends betray you. Rowling is preparing Harry for the even harsher truths he encounters in Order of the Phoenix: the loss of his perfect view of his parents, and his own weakness inadvertently causing the deaths of people he loves.

30 Things I Learned From Buffy the Vampire Slayer...And 30 Things I Learned From Twilight

Note: I originally wrote this piece (and posted it to facebook) when I was 18. I was going to modify it and post it here, but after reading it over I decided to post it as I originally wrote it. Even though some of the writing makes me wince, I think it's an interesting window into the mindset of a teenager who had watched Buffy and read Twilight. I first saw Buffy when I was 13, and I finished it when I was 17. I read all four Twilight books when I was 18. Here, completely unedited (*wince*) is a teenage girl's perspective on Buffy and Twilight. 

Right. So I read all four Twilight books. I even enjoyed them, more or less. And mostly I think they're harmless, if shallow. But recently I started re-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I remembered what a real heroine is supposed to look and act like. I know I'm going to tick some people off, but...well, it's me. You should be expecting it. If you disagree with any/all of the points on either list, I challenge to come up with a negative list for Buffy and a positive one for Twilight. Go for it. Just remember: Buffy would slay Edward Cullen in two seconds, after she told him how stupid his hair looked.

What I Learned From Buffy the Vampire Slayer:

1. It’s possible to be functional AND fashionable.

2. You can’t control whom you fall in love with, but you can control whether or not you let that love consume you.

3. Friends and family should be the two most important things in your world, and often they’re the same people.

4. Nothing is set in stone.

5. Never use the phrase ‘you can’t do X, you haven’t got the balls.’ You will inevitably have your balls sliced, diced, and julienned by a very pissed off Slayer.

6. Girls can kick ass, and guys can cook, clean, and talk about their feelings.

7. There is definitely such an entity as too much of a good thing.

8. Respect your parents and the lessons they taught you—even if that means knocking them out and locking them in a closet. 

9. Lies will always come back to haunt you. Sometimes literally.

10. Whenever you think you’ve run out of choices, there’s always another option. Always.

11. Humans can be monstrous, and monsters can be humane.

12. Never judge on appearance. This can get you killed.

13. Wear the right shoes.

14. When you hear creepy music playing, it’s not a good idea to walk towards it.

15. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

16. Know the rules, so you know how to break them.

17. You really, really don’t want to know what your parents were like when they were your age.

18. The hardest part of being in this world is living in it. Still, it’s better than the alternative.

19. Come up with some snappy lines about your adversary’s hair and fashion choices. When your life is in danger you can throw these quips at them and confound them so you can escape or regroup.

20. Don’t mess with lesbians. They WILL kick your ass.

21. There’s no such thing as good or bad voices, so sing no matter how silly you think you sound.

22. It is possible for a girl—or guy—to fall in love with people of both genders. It’s not wrong, and she wasn’t lying to herself the entire time. It’s called bisexuality. Look it up.

23. Don’t be afraid to speak up when someone’s hurting you—otherwise people you love might end up getting hurt too.

24. There is a huge difference between martyrdom and suicide. And it isn’t press coverage.

25. It’s always the quiet ones. Always.

26. Don’t trust doctors. Or anyone who calls his or herself ‘doctor’. In fact, if you see someone coming down the street who looks like they might be a doctor, it’s probably best to run the other way.

27. That being said, basic emergency response skills can come in handy.

28. Being a superhero is not as easy or glamorous as the Wonder Twins made it look.

29. Sometimes it works to play by the rules, and sometimes you need to grab the chessboard and throw it on the floor.

30. People deserve to be treated with respect regardless of age, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, or fashion choices.

  

What I Learned From Twilight:

1. It’s noble to do something that makes you miserable to help another person, even when the other person doesn’t want you to.

2. You won’t be happy unless you’re ‘mated for life.’

3. Sex before marriage is a big no-no

4. Let the menfolk do the fishin’ and huntin,’ and the womenfolk do the cookin’ and the cleanin.’

5. If a woman is outgoing, opinionated, and unafraid to stand up for herself, she’s a cold-hearted bitch.

6. Don’t spend time worrying needlessly about the evil vampires coming to kill you. A Deux ex Machina will descend from the sky in a cloud of fluffy bunnies and save the day at the last minute.

7. When a guy kidnaps you, keeps you hostage in his house, and forbids you seeing your friends it isn’t a clear indicator of emotional abuse. He just wants what’s best for you.

8. There’s no such thing as being overprotective. He’s the guy, he knows best.

9. It is possible to have hours and hours of conversation about nothing except how beautiful you and your boyfriend are.

10. When a guy tells you he’s been hanging out in your room watching you, the proper response is to smile and feel all gooey inside.

11. Romeo and Juliet are good role models.

12. When someone you love dies, you, too, should die. There’s no point in living anyways.

13. Once you fall for a guy, nothing is more important than him. Nothing. Not your family, not your friends, and certainly not your personal safety and self-respect.

14. You should totally reassure him that’s it’s okay when he hurts you.

15. Women are obsessed with babies. They all want them.

16. Calling all your friends and family together and asking them to die to save one person’s life isn’t selfish, it’s…strategic.

17. There’s no such thing as platonic love—the only true love is the love a man feels for a woman. Hmm, that means no homosexuals either.

18. You should become so attached to a guy you sink into a state of catatonia when he leaves you, because, as has already been pointed out, he is THE ONLY ONE THAT MATTERS.

19. Men like to do things like practice medicine, fight in the army, and hunt wild animals. Women like to do things like draw, pick out nice outfits for everyone, and obsess over babies.

20. If there’s one woman doing a job usually reserved for men, she should be treated like an outsider and regarded as a freak. It builds character. Really.

21. Love at first sight isn’t only possible, it’s inevitable. Getting to know a person doesn’t matter at all.

22. It’s okay to string two men (or women) along and tell them you love them both, as long as they understand you don’t want to hurt them.

23. “I fell down the stairs” is always a good excuse. It works in all sorts of situations.

24. When a boy tells you he doesn’t love you, he’s lying. Keep waiting, he’ll come back. I promise.

25. A girl can do anything she wants to do—as long as her boyfriend approves.

26. Keep secrets. Lots of secrets. In fact, make your entire life a lie. This won’t hurt anyone and will make you a better person.

27. If a guy forces you to do something you don’t want to do, don’t tell your parents. They’ll probably just laugh and side with the guy.

28. Don’t try to stop the evil, murderous government. Just worry about saving your boy/girlfriend. I’m sure those innocent men, women, and children will be fine.

29. If you feel different, alone, unique, and isolated from your peers, it’s because you really are that special. It has nothing to do with the fact that you’re a teenager.

30. It’s much better to get married and murdered at 18 than to spend a few years exploring the world and discovering who you are. After all, nothing matters more than outward beauty. Inward beauty is meaningless.

Bottom line: Buffy saved the world by creating an army of super-powered girls and kicking some demon a**. Bella saved…well, some people, by….making a big bubble. Who are you going to pick as your role model? 

Proceed With Caution: A Review of Blink and Caution

When I started Tim Wynne-Jones's Blink and Caution, I was wary because I'd heard so many people praise the YA novel--especially for its 2nd person narrator. For the first half of the story, I was convinced that everyone was dead wrong, and that Blink and Caution was far from a success--it was a slow, rambling, often disjointed story that overindulged in a kind of Francesca Lia Block-type wordplay. It was only once the main characters met up and their stories intertwined that the novel really picked up, and even managed to change my mind by the end--not only could I see why Blink and Caution had been lauded with so much praise by children's librarians and organizations such as Horn Book, but I actually enjoyed the story.

Despite my enjoyment of Blink and Caution, I couldn't stop thinking about it from a writer's perspective, and under that lens the book was something of a hot mess--but from a reader's perspective it completely succeeds. Here's my completely biased attempt to work through my feelings about Blink and Caution--what worked, what didn't, and why. Spoilers. Obviously.

A quick summary: Blink and Caution is a YA novel about two teenagers living on the streets of Toronto, alternating between Blink's 2nd person narration and Caution (Kitty's) 3rd person narration. The first half of the novel sets up why each character is on the streets (Blink because of an abusive stepfather, Caution because she believes herself to be a murderer) without going too far into the details, which are revealed through flashbacks throughout the novel. As the story opens, Blink accidentally witnesses a CEO of an energy corporation faking his own kidnapping. After Blink acquires the CEO's phone, he becomes drawn into the mystery, with the realization that he is the only one who knows what really happened. Meanwhile, Caution decides to run away from her abusive, cheating, thirty-something drug dealer boyfriend--after stealing about $6,000 from him. Caution avoids Merlin (the BF) with the help of her cousin, and Blink connects with the daughter of the missing CEO, until the two meet on a train and their stories intertwine.

What Didn't Work: 

The First Half of the Story.
If the set-up I just described sounds like Strangers on a Train, that's because it is: Blink and Caution meet on a train, begin sharing some of their problems, and plan to help each other come up with a solution. The problem is, imagine if Strangers on a Train had about 90 minutes of film before Guy and Bruce actually meet, going into depth about their backstories, revealing information that ultimately had no connection to the movie's main plot. Blink and Caution could easily have started when the two meet on the train; instead, the reader is treated to about 250 pages (on iBooks, anyways) of details about Blink and Caution's lives that ultimately have little to do with the second half of the story. The set up dragged the novel down, and it almost felt as if I was reading two different books: one about two characters living (separately) on the mean streets of Toronto, struggling to survive, and the other about two teens who decide to solve a mystery and end up on a road trip where they learn more about themselves, grow as people, etc., etc., etc. As a writer, I wanted to scream, "WHERE WAS YOUR EDITOR?!?" This book was a huge violation of Kurt Vonnegut's rule about writing: 'Start as close to the end as possible.' This book felt like going to a crab fest, only to be served pasta, steak, and potatoes before the crabs and Old Bay show up.

Disappearing Plot Points.
This is a HUGE pet peeve of mine when I'm reading, so I'm probably harping on it more than necessary, but this book had so many little plots that were raised and then never resolved or even mentioned again that it made me want to take a red pen and cross out massive chunks of text. (This would have been an especially bad idea because I was reading it on my ipad : ) On the very first page, we learn that Blink is sneaking into a hotel to steal food off of a room service tray. Several times it is mentioned that he is so hungry he is dizzy, on the verge of collapse, struggling to concentrate, etc., but then he proceeds to NOT eat for the next forty pages/several hours, despite several opportunities to do so. At one point he is alone in a hotel room, with a full breakfast, and instead he decides to contemplate a picture he finds in the room, and then leaves without eating anything! He then acquires a few hundred dollars, and STILL wanders around for a while before buying anything to eat. I wouldn't have carried if the author hadn't harped on it so much, but the first thing I learned about this character was that he was basically starving, and then he kept not eating despite ample opportunity.

The eating, however, pales in comparison to a much, much bigger dropped plot point: one of the reasons Caution leaves Merlin (abusive BF) is because she realizes that he has made and sold a sex tape of the two of them. To be clear: Caution is 16. This is child pornography. She realizes this is child pornography. She also realizes that some of Merlin's associates have seen the film. But other than destroying the hard copy in Merlin's apartment, we never hear about the film again, even when Merlin and the previously mentioned associates are out hunting for Caution. Aside from the horror of the film's mere existence, why wasn't Caution concerned that all of the members of this drug cartel know what she looks like? Well, that brings me to the biggest dropped plot point of all: Once Caution meets up with Blink, Merlin and the others apparently just stop looking for her and decide they don't care about the disappearance of $6,000. The whole reason Caution is on the train is to avoid Merlin, but after solving the mystery of the CEO, they head back to Toronto, unconcerned about the drug cartel, who, sure enough, never make another appearance in the novel. It's even mentioned that the $6,000 is put in a college fund for Caution, at which point I think I actually laughed at the ridiculousness of the whole thing.

The Disney Ending.
Here's the thing: I love happy endings. I hate downer endings. And this ending was too happy for even me. Blink moves in with his grandmother, who is thrilled to have him, and basically takes him in as soon as he shows up on her doorstep without a single question (such as: why didn't your mother report you missing?) and Caution is reunited with her family, who all love her, are thrilled to have her back, etc. (Later I'll address Caution's growth as a character in more detail, because it was probably the best part of the novel.) The problem with Caution's happy, loving family is it makes her guilt over the 'murder' seem overblown. The worst part, though, was that Blink and Caution are apparently dating, even though there was zero hint of a romantic bond between them before the epilogue. In fairness, they do kiss once, but it's more of a 'thank god we're alive/we just shared a deep emotional experience' type kiss than a romantic one. I thought Wynne-Jones had established that Caution viewed Blink like a kid brother who needed looking after, which was a neat piece of literary symmetry given that Caution lost her older brother, who always looked out for her, but then at the last moment they are apparently dating, because the whole ending wasn't convenient enough already.

Blink's ADHD/Panic Disorder/Schizophrenia/Whatever 
This could have gone under the tag of dropped plot points, but it was so annoying I thought it deserved its own section. From the beginning, it's very clear there is something wrong with Blink: he freezes up, forgets what he's doing/saying, struggles to keep a grip on what's going on around him, and has a mental companion he calls Captain Panic who comes out and yells at him whenever things are going wrong. It doesn't seem like Blink thinks Captain Panic is an actual person speaking to him, which means it's probably not schizophrenia, but there is something wrong with Blink--until suddenly there isn't any more. Even if it's just crippling anxiety (at one point he finds himself struggling to speak during a phone conversation, forcing each word out past the panic/confusion) it should still have been addressed, especially since it's implied that this is part of the reason Blink's stepfather abused him and his mother ignored him. At one point Blink mentally shoves down Captain Panic and seems to triumph over him, but other than that one moment his illness is never addressed and, like the drug cartel, simply disappears at the end. If the author hadn't gone to such lengths to make it clear that Blink had some kind of mental illness this probably wouldn't be bothering me so much, but he did, and then just dropped it, to which I can only say: ugh.

What Did Work 

Showing Not Telling 
In general, Tim Wynne-Jones is very good at showing instead of telling, letting the audience come to natural conclusions about how Blink and Caution feel at significant turning points in the story instead of laying it out for the reader. Two moments in particular come to mind: after speaking to the CEO's daughter, Alison, Blink has to decide whether to call her back and explain what he saw or to stay uninvolved. He works up the courage to reach out to her instead of waiting for her to call, which is the first proactive action we see him take. We understand what a big deal it is for him to come out of his shell and reach out to another person without Tim Wynne-Jones hitting us over the head with it. The other moment comes when Caution discovers that Merlin has been cheating on her and makes the decision to leave him. Her battle to open the metal horse and access his money requires forethought and physical strength, and it quickly becomes clear that this is the first thing she has fought for in a long time. Although the wordplay becomes overdone at times, this story is an excellent example of letting characters' actions and words speak for them instead of the author explaining each emotional note s/he is trying to hit.

The Character Development  
Despite the Disney ending and the tacked on romance, Blink and Caution contains excellent character development, running the main characters on first parallel and then intersecting journeys to discover their own self worth and ultimately decide to reach out and trust others. Aside from living on the streets, Blink and Caution are ordinary teenagers--they want to be accepted but fear appearing vulnerable, they distrust adults and dislike being belittled, and they use attitude and sarcasm to cover their fear and uncertainty. During the story Blink and Caution grow from teenagers into adults, at least on an emotional level. Each becomes confident in who they are, but at the same time they aren't afraid to trust and reach out for others. The biggest change between the first and second half of the story is that Blink and Caution go from reactive to proactive. Both understanding that actions have consequences, but perhaps the biggest lesson for both is that those consequences should be faced head on instead of avoided, and each has the right to make decisions about who they are and how they deserve to be treated.

Caution's MOA (Moment of Awesome)
The best part of Blink and Caution, the part that tips this book from the trash heap to the recommend pile, is the moment when Caution not only faces down her demons, but seizes control and makes them work for her. The reason she ran away from home, the reason she hooked up with and stayed with an abusive drug dealer, is because she feels the need to punish herself for accidentally shooting and killing her brother. Spencer was Caution's world, and in addition to looking out for her and being her best friend, he also taught her to shoot. At the climax of the novel, Blink is locked in a cabin with a man (Tank) who wants to torture and possibly murder him. Caution uses her knowledge of the woods (also taught by her brother) to effectively block Tank from chasing them or communicating with his friends. And then she grabs a shotgun and threatens Tank until he lets Blink go. Not only does she grab a shotgun, but she demonstrates her skills as a shooter, terrifying Tank into obeying her every command. The entire time, Caution wants to drop the gun and run screaming from the situation, but she maintains her cool and rescues herself and Blink, only to completely melt down after they escape. I wanted to stand up and cheer when Tank said she didn't have the guts to pull the trigger and she blew away the lamp next to his head. From that moment, Caution finally releases all the pain and anger she's kept inside and allows herself to feel, and, by extension, return to her family. The brilliance of the writing cannot be overstated here: the reader feels every ounce of Caution's fear and panic at holding a shotgun, and every ounce of her courage and determination to save her friend. The Strange Familiar said it best: "Courage is when you've lost your way but you find your strength anyways."

That's my thoughts in a nutshell. Again, I would recommend reading Blink and Caution, especially if you enjoy strong writing, but I'd also say that skimming a bit in the first half wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. And if you do pick it up, give yourself at least 30-40 pages before you put it down--Blink's 2nd person narration, coupled with his mental struggles, make the book VERY confusing and difficult to read, until you get used to his way of thinking and seeing the world. Ultimately though, I think it's worth it. Best book ever? Nah. Worth a read? Definitely.

--Cates

P.S One final thing I decided to not include in the actual review: I appreciated that Tim Wynne-Jones did not use Caution's story as a way to preach about the evils of firearms. Personal opinions aside, it just wouldn't have belonged and would have taken away from Caution's character development. In the Afterwords, Wynne-Jones reveals that his best friend was shot and killed by his younger brother in a freak accident, and the emotional fall-out for everyone involved was his initial inspiration to write Blink and Caution. I thought it was a great decision to focus on the characters and to keep politics out.

If You Are a Non-Conformist, Copy and Paste This Into Your Profile

The first time I saw Alice Dorset, she was thumping her way across the music room of our school, lugging a saxophone case bigger than she was, wearing her (knee-length) kilt hemmed so long it fell almost to her ankles, and muttering fluently to herself in what I later learned was Arabic.  Insecure little middle-schooler that I was, I was naturally terrified out of my mind.  Here was someone of my own age group that was so aggressively quirky that she didn’t even have an L.L. Bean backpack.  Not only that, but there was not a scrap of North Face anywhere on her person.  As I rapidly learned, these were sins unforgivable to a certain select group of girls in our class, which made a point of ignoring her or teasing her; the rest of the grade just tried not to get involved, in case she really did bite like the rumors said. 

 I’d love to say that my best friend and I fell in platonic love at first sight and hit it off from the start, that we discovered we had a great deal in common in our first conversation and that night we became blood brothers.  Not so.  I only sought out Alice and tried to become her friend specifically because I had declared private war on that one particular select group of girls, and I figured that this was a soldier I could easily convert to my cause.  To my frustration and annoyance, the quiet submissive weird Alice refused to be dominated by me, and utterly refused to become like me.  I am relieved and happy to say that through nearly continuous exposure to her over the seven years of middle and high school and as many visits as we can swing while in college, I have become something like her. 

By far the single most important thing that Alice taught me was how to love being young, how to love being alive, and how to love being a part of our own generation.  At the time when we met, I was a snarky, rebellious little seventh grader with an artistically ripped-up uniform and Sharpie-colored nails, heavy eyeliner and a loud mouth, illegal black-spiked jewelry and an ugly attitude, my half-inch of hair gelled into aggressive spikes that sent my message to the world: Don’t touch me.  Don’t come near me.  I scorned popular bands as cheap and passé, I dismissed activists as sob-story moralizers, I whined loudly and often about the utter injustice of having to attend school, having to go to class, having to listen to the evil propaganda passed down by the administration to try and make us into automatons.  I made it a personal point of pride to lambast High School Musical in every conversation I ever had—never mind that I’d never even seen the film and therefore had no grounds to comment on it at all.  I hated everything so loudly and vehemently that I forgot to like things as well.  I read classical books that bored me to tears so that I could loftily dismiss people’s questions about popular literature with the excuse that I was reading real material and had little time for such things as Clique or Pride and Prejudice.  I sloughed though Stephen King novels that disgusted and horrified me just so that I could shock people by carrying them around.  I must have been quite a sight, a tiny four-foot six-inch twelve-year-old with ballpoint tattoos and a cinderblock-sized copy of Christine tucked under one arm.   

Well, I think you know where this story is going.  Because Miss Giant Saxophone and Schizophrenic Muttering didn’t give a crap about any of that.  I had all the show and glam of being a nonconformist, but Alice Dorset was the genuine article.  She listened to bands I’d never heard of—and accompanied them with the soundtrack to Rent.  She wore pink because (heaven forbid) she liked the color, not because it was what a person was supposed to wear—or not.  She was familiar with a lot of the popular trends in our class, and chose to reject them or conform to them by turns, depending on what she herself thought.  Not what anyone else was supposed to think of her; it was entirely possible for her to love both Gossip Girl and Twin Peaks, all at once.  She taught me how to stop being afraid to love things, how to listen to music and read books that would earn me scorn or approval and how to take both in equal measure.  It was Stravinsky and Britney Spears, Ernest Hemingway and Jodi Piccoult, and it was perfect. 

I knew I was way, way too cool in our class to hang around with the likes of her, but the truth was that she was far too cool for the likes of me.  It’s because she loved being in our generation.  She was a terrible influence on my individualism, to say the least.  By the time we were powering through tenth grade together, I had let my hair go dirty-blond and curly, I didn’t bother with make-up because it was easier without, and I wildly, joyfully read the books that were popular, saw the films that Hollywood prepackaged, and listened to music that had nothing to do with deep inner pain or raging against the fascist regime.  Worst of all, I admitted that I genuinely liked reading and writing in English and American History class and doing experiments in Biology and even (heaven forbid) learning new concepts in Trigonometry. 

What I realized along the way is that I love being young, I love being stupid (Or is it that I love being smart?), and I love finding things to love.  It didn’t matter that Linkin Park was a bunch of whiny white boys—their instrumental harmonies kicked ass.  Maybe cartoons were for babies—but if that was true than our brilliantly artistic baby shows trump our overdone melodramatic adult shows any day.  I read every single Harry Potter book and cheered for Team Ginny the entire way.  I actually watched High School Musical—and discovered I still hated it.  I dared to admit to myself that I actually liked music by Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson.  I even tried watching American Idol—and hated that too, and so dropped it because I could.  It may be stupid of me, but I love my own generation dearly.  Someday I want to say to my kids, I was a Potter Girl.  I was a Little Monster.  I was an otaku.  I was a Twi-tard, God damn it, and I was proud of that fact no matter how many people tried to tell me I should be ashamed of myself for wanting to enjoy a popular series of novels. 

That is one thing that I think this generation could use a little less of: disapproval.  You can’t mention Mahatma Gandhi’s groundbreaking peaceful revolution without someone piping up that he refused his wife painkillers for religious reasons.  It was with vindictive joy that the world found out that Mother Teresa occasionally doubted God just like every single other human being on the planet.  Every single American president, every folk hero, every great writer or artist or any person that ever achieved the tiniest measure of fame has a whole laundry list of grievances that the world holds against them, and these are what we hear when their names come up.  No one talks about how President Clinton raised the standard of living for the entire two-hundred-million-person nation, but “Monika Lewinski” is a household name.  You can’t compliment Pope John Paul for giving over half of the money of the entire Catholic Church to humanitarian aid while essentially ending homophobia for the single largest centrally organized religion in the entire world without someone digging out the fact that eight centuries ago one of his predecessors approved the killing of “infidels.” 

So what if Stephenie Meyer can’t write as well as, say, J.K. Rowling?   Does that mean that we should start yelling at ten-year-old kids when they admit to liking her books?  Maybe Bill Gates lives in a mansion and pollutes the atmosphere, but anyone who hasn’t given three billion dollars to AIDS relief can just shut the hell up about him.  Lady Gaga is a sell-out of the highest order—but then so is every single artist ever to make it onto an MP3 player.  And she teaches young girls that they can be freaks if they so desire, while cheerfully conforming to or rejecting the standards of Madonna and Freddy Mercury.  That’s what Alice is as well, because she didn’t stand against anything, because she was too busy standing for gay rights and free market ideals, pro-life laws and anti-death-penalty ones as well.  I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer long after vampires were so last year, and Avatar the Last Airbender when I was a full decade above the target audience’s age. 

If you’re wondering who those rabid fan girls are who scream themselves hoarse at rock concerts and weird conventions, you’re looking at one of them.  The door to my room has a “Hipster and proud!” bumper sticker because I love the paradox.  I own tee-shirts declaring my love for Fight Club, for The Hunger Games, for The Who and Guns ‘N Roses, for The Bridger Chronicles and Death Note.  For the past four years I’ve attended the largest anime and manga convention on the entire east coast; last year I even participated in a fan panel on Axis Powers Hetalia.  I attracted stares walking around downtown Baltimore dressed all in black with two broadswords strapped across my back, a hand-drawn blue and white demon mask on my head, and an enormous red and brown flame painted across most of the left side of my face, but I loved every moment of it. 

Perhaps our generation has its standards set too high.  We are the children of the flower children, the reaction decade of the reaction decade of the reaction decade of the 1960s.  From our aging-hippie parents we learned to hope for a perfect world filled with perfect people, and to scorn anything short of that.  We learned from middle-aged white-collar suburbanites who were married-with-kids never to trust anyone over thirty, that there was no need to live in organized society, that monogamy was a restriction on true love, that contraceptives would save the world, that being your own person was the most important thing.  Best of all, we get to watch Vietnam happen all over again in Afghanistan, as people scream at each other on the news and reveal that still not enough has changed when it comes to women and minorities and gays and the poor, because it’s all still happening.  Is it any wonder that we grew up cynical, in the wreckage and ruin and tattoo regret and lingering drug addictions that came from the joyously rebellious sixties?  I conformed to that attitude for two long, and then I found out that life is too short not to love something about everything. 

Either way, Alice was there to quash my inner rebel, to teach me how to let my eyes adjust rather than curse the damn dark.  I was a forty-something in the body of a twelve-year-old; nowadays, I’m a twelve-year-old that just happens to look nineteen.  She taught me frivolity, and carelessness.  She taught me to channel my inner genius towards fan fiction and cosplay rather than just Charles Dickens and world domination.  She taught me to ignore the bad and look for the good; maybe the world isn’t perfect, but that’s why we protest about it.  Maybe people shouldn’t do the things they do, in which case we should all stop bitching and start throwing flowers instead.  Here’s to you, Alice Dorset, for making me nothing like you, and nothing like anyone else either.    

Kyoya Ootori said it best: “You’re an idiot if you think that a little capriciousness ever harmed a truly serious man.  I wouldn’t be who I was if I didn’t know a few incredible pointless people.”  And to think.  I wouldn’t even know who Kyoya Ootori was if not for Alice. 

Note: Alice’s real name has been slightly altered for the purpose of this blog post.