In other lands

by Sarah Rees Brennan

Other authorsCarolyn Nowak (Cover Artist,)

Paper Book, 2017

Status

Available

Call number

PZ7.B751645 I5 2017

Genres

Collections

Dennis R. Neill Equality Center, Multi-Gender Attracted

Publication

Easthampton, Massachusetts : Big Mouth House, 2017.

Description

Fantasy. Folklore. Young Adult Fiction. HTML:Georgia Peach Award Nominee Florida Teens Read Award Nominee ABC Best Books for Young Readers Bank Street College Best Children's Books of the Year A Junior Library Guild Selection Hugo & Locus award finalist The Borderlands aren't like anywhere else. Don't try to smuggle a phone or any other piece of technology over the wall that marks the Border �?? unless you enjoy a fireworks display in your backpack. (Ballpoint pens are okay.) There are elves, harpies, and �?? best of all as far as Elliot is concerned �?? mermaids. "What's your name?" "Serene." "Serena?" Elliot asked. "Serene," said Serene. "My full name is Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle." Elliot's mouth fell open. "That is badass." Elliot? Who's Elliot? Elliot is thirteen years old. He's smart and just a tiny bit obnoxious. Sometimes more than a tiny bit. When his class goes on a field trip and he can see a wall that no one else can see, he is given the chance to go to school in the Borderlands. It turns out that on the other side of the wall, classes involve a lot more weaponry and fitness training and fewer mermaids than he expected. On the other hand, there's Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle, an elven warrior who is more beautiful than anyone Elliot has ever seen, and then there's her human friend Luke: sunny, blond, and annoyingly likeable. There are lots of interesting books. There's even the chance Elliot might be able to change the world. In Other Lands is the exhilarating new book from beloved and bestselling author Sarah Rees Brennan. It's a novel about surviving four years in the most unusual of schools, about friendship, falling in love, diplomacy, and finding your own place in the world �?? even if it means giving up… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member ronincats

An ARC of this book was provided by the Early Reviewers program; it will be published later this summer.

This could have been about so many things. A boy from our world crosses the borderland to go to school in a fantasy world with elves, dwarves, harpies, mermaids, and trolls. But it's not a school

for magic, as humans can't do magic. It's a school for warriors (battle-training) and councillors (advisors, drawing up treaties, diplomacy) and the pendulum has swung far toward giving all the status to the warriors, while the humans seem to be at war with almost all the other groups. Elliott is an unlikable, emotionally-needy, foul-mouthed teen who doesn't appreciate a world without modern conveniences or the physical condition necessary to, for example, swing a sword, so he spends his time in classes for the councillors and the library. Starved for attention and unwilling to trust anyone, Elliott not only has the hots for the one Elf girl in the warrior class, but also on general principles (personal survival) has the goal of negotiating fair and peace-producing treaties with the other species in spite of the general disrespect toward the councillors. But despite all the trappings, this is basically a coming of age story. Elliott's insecurities and snark and raging hormones drive this--the setting is incidental although interesting. It drags in spots during the four years covered, the pacing is uneven and it's episodic. All that said, I found the concept intriguing, the world interesting, and I liked it better than [The Magicians].

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24 more

LibraryThing member rabid-reader

Warning: This book is NOT your traditional young adult fantasy novel.
It hits you bluntly with the first line: "So far magic school was total rubbish."

Sarah Rees Brennan has written a brilliant book subverting many established fantasy tropes. What if a fantasy story was told from the point of view

of the sidekick, not the hero? What if the isolated teenaged boy who walked through the portal and found himself in magic land was frustrated at the lack of central heating and indoor plumbing, and was not shy about telling others so? What if he said stupid things, and cruel things, and blundered his way about because he was an awkward sex-starved bundle of hormones who didn't really understand this love and friendship thing, whose abusive home upbringing had damaged his soul?

Both hilarious and heartbreaking, this novel throws a completely different spin on Narnia, Hogwarts, Wonderland, Tortall, and a dozen other fictional universes. A breath of fresh air tinged with a little bit of acid.
Watch out for the mermaids.

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LibraryThing member midnightbex

Unlike most fantasy book loving children, thirteen year old Elliot Schafer actually gets picked to protect a land which seems to fulfill all his childhood dreams. The Borderlands are full of creatures right out of his favorite stories – elves, trolls, unicorns, harpies, and to Elliot’s lasting

delight, mermaids. The offer to stay and attend school there is everything Elliot could ever wish for. However, he quickly comes to realize that the books all lied – enemies can look like friends, darkness can exist anywhere, and he might have just signed on to attending school in the magic equivalent of Sparta.

With a quick wit and a biting tongue, Elliot has always found it hard to connect with other people. Choosing a pacifist path in his war happy new home doesn’t help matters any. Still, he manages to befriend the fierce elf Serene and through her Luke Sunborn, the school’s golden boy. Together they form a tight knit trio as their friendship grows and they begin to depend on each other.

Throughout In Other Lands Rees Brennan deftly weaves a tale that is both a bitingly funny critique of the YA fantasy genre and a well told story of one boy’s journey through the tribulations of adolescences. At every turn Rees Brennan uses her characters to subvert the expectations of the fantasy genre. Where you would expect a character to fit the usual mold, Rees Brennan keeps the shape but fills it with something entirely unexpected. Elliot embodies the usual fantasy hero role while at the same time undermining everything about it. He’s a genius who alienates people with his quick tongue while being absolutely devoted to pacifism and diplomacy. Serene is from a culture where women are dominate – they’re the warriors and the leaders and they’re extremely sexist towards men. Serene is the best of the best, but she also thinks emotions should be left for the men and though inverted, expresses extremely outdated views towards relationships and homemaking. Luke Sunborn, the gifted and idolized golden child of the prominent Sunborn clan is competent and athletic, but shy, easily embarrassed, and gay. Rees Brennan never lets you get comfortable with your expectations.

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LibraryThing member kmartin802

IN OTHER LANDS is an engaging and different sort of contemporary fantasy. Elliot is offered the opportunity to visit a magical land. But Elliot is not the hero type. He is the abrasive, sarcastic, annoying type. Socially inept and convinced that he is smarter than everyone else. Elliot finds it no

easier to make friends in the Borderlands than he does on Earth. It doesn't help that he is attending a battle school and has absolutely no interest in fighting or weapons. He is on the counselor track which is fading away from lack of use.

He meets and falls immediately in love with Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle who is a elf maiden and who doesn't really understand why they are letting men - the obviously weaker sex - train to be fighters. He also meets Luke Sunborn who is the golden boy who does everything well and is the one everyone wants to be near.

The three of them form a group of their own though Elliot is quick to point out - frequently - that he and Luke are not friends.

This tells the story of four years at the battle camp where they grow into their talents and their relationships change. I loved that this story twists some of the usual fantasy tropes through Elliot's sarcastic viewpoint. I liked his fascination with the other sorts of people who live in this world - elves, dryads, harpies, trolls, and Elliot's favorite mermaids. I liked that Elliot was determined to write the treaties that would keep all these types of people at peace and workin together.

Relationships make up a huge part of this story as does sexual identity. Elliot was abandoned by his mother and ignored by his father which helps explain the reasons why he doesn't know how to relate to other people and chooses to keep them at a distance by hurting them before they can hurt him. It takes great persistence to be Elliot's friend.

I really enjoyed this story.

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LibraryThing member MyriadBooks

If you read Harry Potter and thought Hermione Granger should have been the hero and also that the books needed a hell of a lot more snark and some more pointedly pertinent questions, this is the book for you.

[general sounds of squee to come. busy now. rereading.]

It's like Brennan peered in my head

and wrote a book exactly tailored to my personal tastes. [bored with recent fiction offerings, ya, portal worlds; this is antidote to all that.] I read this alternating between the states of cackling madly (unicorns!), giving monosyllabic grunts to outside stimulus (very difficult to do, on a beach vacation being used as a jungle gym by small children), and reading choice bits aloud to my husband ('this will be extremely dangerous. you can come help.').

In short: This was wonderful. And in the running for the best book I read in 2017. Very highly recommended.

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LibraryThing member foggidawn

When 13-year-old Elliot is taken to the Wall, which apparently is the gateway to a magical land that none of the other kids in his class can see, he's highly skeptical. Did that woman in leather just buy him from his teacher? Are these people perverts or serial killers? Is Elliot going to be forced

to become a child soldier? On the other hand, his dad is not going to miss him, and there are supposedly mermaids in this land, so. Upon arrival in the training camp, he meets an insufferable blond warrior named Luke Sunborn, and a kick-butt female elf named Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle (Serene, to her friends). Over the next several years, Elliot learns the ins and outs of this magical world, and finds it a pretty miserable place. He's in the council training track, while Serene (whom he immediately crushes on) is in warrior training with Luke. The cabins are cold, the beds are hard, and they expect him to write with a quill. Worse, the council training cadets are generally ignored by the warriors, because war is the most important thing. Elliot, a pacifist, knows that he could make a difference with treaties and agreements, if only he were allowed to get anywhere near them. As he watches Luke and Serene grow closer, it becomes obvious to Elliot that, in any fantasy story, he would be doomed to become evil -- but really, he's never been interested in embracing the tropes.

I found this a delightful and engrossing read. It takes a look at a lot of the standard fare of juvenile and YA fantasy, and says, "But why, though?" Elliot starts out as an annoying little squirt, and through incremental character development, written with an extraordinarily light hand, the reader (or at least, this reader) comes to love him. It's like a book written from the perspective of Eustace from The Chronicles of Narnia, except without the drastic events that lead to his change of heart. (Some of the language and situations are much more advanced -- this is definitely a book for teen or adult readers who loved Narnia but maybe haven't yet gotten to The Magicians, not for the innocent 8-year-old looking for a Narnia readalike.) Some of the situations are tragic (Elliot notes how his warrior friends go from being sickened by their first kills, to killing without a hint of remorse), while some are delightfully comic (Elvish society is matriarchal, which leads to some hilarious conversations with Serene). Recommended for fantasy fans, as it turns fantasy tropes on their heads with an affectionate hand, without sacrificing character development and a satisfying plot.

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LibraryThing member jennybeast

Oh my god, this book. This amazing, amazing book. I think it's possibly the funniest thing I've read in years. And powerful. And awkward and perfect. I love it.

I'm going to say all kinds of spoilery things because this was apparently written on a blog first and it also is such a delight to my

heart that I can't even express it.

First: how is Elliott's crazy verbal unpleasantness so funny and so endearing? How do you even write a character that is damaged and weird and yet not an anti-hero? Gah! I kept laughing and coughing and trying not to laugh and then coughing and laughing again. Dude, he is the best, and also, wow, what a jerk.

Second: I'm not sure I can overstate how astonishing the female chauvinist humor is -- Serene says such awful things! And they are so deeply hilarious! And so remarkably disturbing when you think about the commentary on our own culture. Stabby humor is the best humor.

Third: I think this might be the first book I've ever read with a blatantly bisexual main character. Surely that's not true? Wait, but maybe it is, or at least, it's the first one with a bisexual teen character figuring his shit out in it, and I am suddenly getting why seeing your people in print matters in a visceral way -- I've been on board with it intellectually for years, but hey, here's a kid who could be me if I were a guy and whatever, wow, that's even more powerful that I thought it would be.

I think I'm going to buy copies for everyone right now and tell all the librarians. Wow. what a great book.

Edited upon rereading/ listening -- the audio book version is incredibly well done. Elliot's Lo-ser will be in my head forever with fond connotations and a snort of laughter every time. Yep. Still love this.

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LibraryThing member ladycato

I received this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers Program.

This book was not what I expected it to be. At the start, I was highly engaged at the thought of a new, creative take on a kind of Harry Potter book with a sarcastic, pacifist geeky lead. Then I started to wonder what the actual

plot was, as nothing developed along those lines. Then it became clear that it was really an angst-filled catalog of teenage sexual exploits with some fantasy dressing. There was no real plot beyond the coming-of-age story, though that was certainly rewarding in some regards. I liked Elliott as a lead, though he's an unlikeable person at times--with reason. He's from an abusive family, and the writing along those lines is heart-breaking. He's also bisexual (or more like pan sexual, as he's interested in a variety of species) and it's great to see representation in that way.

The thing is, I wanted more to the book than that. I wanted... a fantasy book. Some romancing and relationships along the way are fine--great! But the sordid teenage melodrama took over the whole book, and everyone slept with everyone. I wanted a bigger plot. Higher stakes. More fantasy, because the fantasy elements were great. I loved the takes on mermaids and harpies and elven feminist culture, and I wanted so much more of that. Instead, it was 90210 in fantasyland.

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LibraryThing member BillieBook

I had this for a long time before I got around to reading it because it's kind of long and I just wasn't up to a 450 page YA. I'm kicking myself for that now. Sarah Rees Brennan has read and loved all the same YA fantasy novels you have, and she has also noticed how ridiculous they can be and

turned her talents to fixing that. Yes, this is still occasionally ridiculous, but deliberately so. It's snarky as hell, but also heartfelt. It has elves and mermaids and trolls and dwarves and even a unicorn, but no wizards because it's not that kind of magical land. Elliot is every human kid from "our" world who finds himself whisked away to a magical world, but he's also kind of a dick. He's a selfish know-it-all who's clueless about friendship and feelings and shit. In the end, this feels like the best fanfic for a (or every) fantasy series you liked okay, but wished the protagonist(s) to be a little more relatable and a lot less preciously perfect. (It's also fiercely feminist, which is really just the icing on a the delicious, delicious cake.)

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LibraryThing member rivkat

Portal fantasy that kind of leans into the tropes and kind of violates them. Elliot is taken to a magical land where he’s schooled to be part of the council—but the council is losing power to the warriors and he’s always outshone by Luke, the golden boy, and Serene, the amazing elf girl.

He’s always generating Buffyesque lines, especially when he’s putting down Luke. Elliot is super-smart, super-mouthy, and super-enlightened, though in a snarky enough way that it is generally forgivable—he consciously rejects the impulse to blame people who don’t love him the way he loves them, for example. There are harpies and mermaids, first loves and later loves that don’t erase or invalidate the first (perhaps the rarest thing about this story), and in general it’s a romp that, for all its poking fun at the tropes, is also a wish-fulfillment fantasy about people being kind and smart (not always at the same time) in a harsh world.

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LibraryThing member acciohaley

Can I just say first that this is one of my favorite books ever? If you're a sucker for the found family trope, like I am, this is the perfect book for you. There actually isn't too heavy a focus on world building because the plot is very character based but I still managed to fall in love with it.

That's not to say there isn't a plot, because oh boy there definitely is, but the story is very focused on characters and I think that's actually a good thing.

The story follows Elliot, a kid who is brash and annoying and headstrong but who has also spent 13 years of his life thinking he was unlovable and being unwanted by everyone, from the age of 13 to the age of 17 and the connection he develops with Luke and Serene. He makes friends, he falls in and out of love and he grows so much. Seriously. So. Much.

It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me aww. It has a way of hooking readers in and not letting them go. I love every aspect of this book and I highly recommend you check it out.

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LibraryThing member mckait

I have now tried three time to get into In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan. I have had no luck at all. There is absolutely nothing to compel me to read this book. I read plenty of YA and fantasy. This book simply has nothing to offer. I don't care a bit about Lucas, or Elliot or anyone else and I

care even less about their training and their families. I will not continue to waste my time on this one. Life is way too short.

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LibraryThing member literary.jess

The blurb for this book spoke so directly to my interests, but I could not get myself fully into the story. I expected YA fantasy, but discovered something else all together. I will pass this on to other readers.

LibraryThing member ejmam

I read the base of the story online, but in this polished and completed version it's even better. Elliot is a very real boy, damaged by his home life but determined to live a decent life, and his friendships and misunderstandings in the Borderlands reflect real emotions. It's also hilarious, from

the gender-swapped elves to the stoic trolls to the normal obliviousness of teenagers.

Highly recommended.

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LibraryThing member bookandsword

Sometimes it's not the kid you expect who falls through to magic land, sometimes it's . . . Elliott. He's grumpy, nerdy, and appalled by both the dearth of technology and the levels of fitness involved in swinging swords around. He's a little enchanted by the elves and mermaids. Despite his

aversion to war, work, and most people (human or otherwise) he finds that two unlikely ideas, friendship and world peace, may actually be possible.

That is the blurb of this book, and I must say that it's very misleading. I was expecting a fantasy book – full of adventures, mermaids, elves, dwarves, maybe even some dragons – you know, the usual stuff. That was not what I got. Granted there were elves and mermaids, and some other mythical creatures – it just wasn’t fantasy. It had fantasy elements, but that’s it.
Also the praise for this book keeps calling it gothic, I didn't see or feel anything gothic about it at all (just fyi).

5 shining stars for concept and ideas. 2 very bleak stars for the execution of those ideas.
The topics and issues this book was exploring were fantastic! Racial, cultural, sexual, political – you name it – this book has it! But the way the book was going about them – desired better.

To be honest, I felt like this book didn’t quite know what it wanted to be. It started out as a middle grade fantasy, then it became young adult fiction, then it turned contemporary, then lgbt, then finally I realized that this was more of a coming-of-age novel than anything else.
‘In Other Lands’ has absolutely no plot. This book is 433 pages and is full of so many different things, yet somehow – nothing really happens. Nothing too important, nothing too shocking, nothing too big and life changing. Example: Elliot’s friends go to war. They fight. He sits at camp and worries. They come back unhurt and all is good. Later on only one of his friends goes to fight again. Two others sit and worry. Friend comes back unhurt and all is good. Where is the tragedy? Where is purpose? Where is the plot?

Mind me, some important things do happen, is just the main character is so indifferent to most of them that it made me indifferent too (there are reasons for his indifference, but they were presented quite late in the book). Things would happen and he would have the most mild reaction, so instead of gasping and being shocked I would think ‘Well if HE doesn’t care, why should I?’

Protagonist of this story is Elliot (as we learned from the blurb), and he acquires two friend-sidekicks (so to say), Luke and Serene (why does it always have to be two sidekicks? Why is it always a trio?). Anyway, Elliot and Luke are human, and Serene is an elf.
Elliot is the most annoying, bratty and insufferable main character ever. For the first 100 or so pages, all he does is complain, says how he is better than everybody else and calls people ‘loser’. He must have said ‘loser’ more than 50 times through the whole book. All I wanted to do was grab Elliot by his little fictional throat and squeeze..! Yes, the premise warns us that Elliot is grumpy, and not hero-like, but at times he was so spiteful for no good reason, that it just felt overdone. Because of this, I never grew to feel any strong compassion towards Elliot, no matter how sad the events that happened to him were. He was ruined to the point of no return for me, and when the time came to feel for him – I just didn’t care that much (I did still care a little though). Elliot is as pacifist as you can get. He feels very strongly about war and fighting. He HATES it, he DESPISES it. He finds it completely useless (which I agree with and applaud him for it). But, in my opinion, he goes on about being pacifist very wrong. He constantly tells other people how stupid war is, how stupid they all are for fighting (although his friends risk their lives protecting him, because he refuses to learn even the basic defenses and prefers to hide behind their strong warrior backs. Later on he even asks his friends to protect and fight for him, so that, in my opinion, negated the whole pacifism thing a little).
At first I thought that a pacifist-character was new and different from all other fantasy-adventure novels out there (a main character who doesn’t fight to survive, doesn’t kill, doesn’t have tons of weapons on him at all times – what??!). But there were so many snide remarks and little comments that it actually got me thinking – maybe instead of just being different this book makes fun of all dystopian, fantasy young adult books out there? Makes fun of the idea of children and teenagers having to fight, and survive, while adults stand by? Or it is just making a point?

Luke was very bland for the most part of the book. However, I liked his character a lot! He was reserved, old-fashioned and a prude (which was funny and refreshing at the same time, for you don’t often get to see a prude male character).

Serene was a girl of the trio, and an elf. Oh, how I enjoyed Serene in the beginning. Her thoughts and humor were so stoic, it was delightful. Also Serene is a feminist! Or so I thought. To understand why I went from liking Serene to basically despising her, you have to know that the elf community in the book was basically a backwards-human-community, in terms of how their sexes worked. For elves, the woman was a warrior, a provider and a ‘macho’. Which at first I thought was incredibly cool and feminist – to portray women so incredibly equal to men. But then it was shown how elven women treat their men (as feeble, helpless, gentler-sex made only to care for children and cook, and do needle-work while women were on the battlefield) and I thought ‘wait a minute, all this does is just flips stereotypes without changing a thing’. I was really looking for equality all around, and it just wasn’t there.

If you expect 'In Other Lands' to be a fantasy-adventure book - you will be very disappointed.
This is a coming-of-age story, with a character who just wants to feel loved, but doesn't know how. It is Elliot's journey of finding himself (even if his journey takes him on a kissing and sleeping with every girl, boy and other species spree).

This book talks about so many important issues - bullying, abandonment, fitting in, sexuality, racial and sexual stereotypes, pains of growing up and politics - it is truly a gem. But it is a well hidden gem. I am afraid that many readers will feel that the way this book is presented is not engaging enough to actually get to those hidden gems.

I would like to thank LibraryThing and Big Mouse House publishing, as well as the author, for providing me with an arc of this book. I always feel honored to be able to read novels before they hit the market.

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LibraryThing member macthekat82

I freaking loved this book. It was so funny and I just had all the feels, I giggled and I cried. The book explores the tropes of portal fantasy in a snarky and intelligent way. There is great romance subplots as well as lots of other plots. It's a book about friendship and love, but also a book of

war and violence. For those of us who love portal fantasy and boarding school fantasy, it has all the things we love and it questions all of them. There are so much snark and the characters are amazing. Now go read it!

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LibraryThing member yoyogod

This book had some very funny spots, but I found the main character so annoying that I just had really hard time getting into the story.

LibraryThing member renbedell

A story of a boy being transported to a military fantasy world were common tropes are subverted and involves themes like friendship, gender roles, and sexuality. I liked the message sent throughout the book. I feel it hit topics young adults are often hidden from, and this book does it in a good

way. Other than that, I didn't enjoy this book. I found the main character to be very annoying and mean without reason. I was not interested in the world and it more felt like the fantasy elements were there to just subvert tropes, but could easily be removed and it would not change the story at all. It also has nothing to do with mermaids and I have no idea why they are on the cover.

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LibraryThing member elenaj

Delightful through and through, although I was a little disappointed that it didn't have polyamory as an endgame, because that would have been great.

LibraryThing member semjaza

Not what I expected at all, but completely charming. A character-driven fantasy, with an interesting setting and snappy dialogue. Definitely worth a read.

LibraryThing member WinterFox

When I first heard this book was being published, I was super excited. I had read the previous web version of the book, Turn of the Story, and I loved it; generally I love Brennan's work in general, so getting to read a cleaned up take of this with a new version of the ending and all? I was

STOKED.

And like. This book did not disappoint in the least. Here is the story on Elliot Schafer, the author-described Grouchiest Boy in Fantasyland. Elliot comes over to the Borderlands from England, and he's already a package when he gets there - snarky and pushy and stubborn and questioning everything. He asks right after he gets there about whether the border camp that he and his young compatriots just crossing the wall into the Borderlands whether they're being made into child soldiers. And as he grows, his insistence on questioning how things are done in order to help make the world better stays strong. I love this cranky boy.

But then, I really love everything about this story. Luke forms tight bonds with Luke Sunborn, the golden-haired golden child of a storied human Borderlands warrior family (and his sister and mom are quite something) who can't understand why Elliot doesn't see him the way everyone else does; and Serene, an elven fighter from a matriarchal culture where the gleeful upending of gendered stereotypes never fails to delight. And that's without getting into the rich and varied cast of secondary characters. The world of the Borderlands feels alive, playing on tropes of fantasy characters in a knowing and unique way.

I could blather on a long time about this, but the book is laugh-out-loud funny, thoughtful about violence vs. diplomacy and what cultures value, concerned with how people grow in their own right and in their relationships, both friendly and romantic... it does so much right. I loved it to bits, and the only reason I'm not sure it's my favourite read of the year is because I more or less had read it before. But it is amazing. If you like fantasy, then you should read this. Hands (and wings and fins) down.

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LibraryThing member Stevil2001

In Other Lands starts out funny, with a snotty kid moving into a fantasy land. Like T. Kingfisher's Summer in Orcus, the book consciously riffs on the genre's conventions, with the main character one who has read portal fantasies and thus having some ideas of what he's in for, only he doesn't want

to be a "child soldier" or to solve conflicts with battle; he wants to be a diplomat. Elliot, age 13, falls in love with a beautiful elf woman from a matriarchal society, and also ends up falling in with Luke, who Elliot thinks of as a jock; Luke is the scion of a noble family in the Borderlands, and basically the coolest kid in school, the antithesis to everything Elliot stands for, but Elliot needs his help to woo Serene. All three of them are students at a training camp dedicated to defending the Borderlands from real-world incursion, where students can train as soldiers or diplomats, who are in theory of equal status, but really it's all about the soldiers. There are a lot of jokes (an early sequence where Serene can't understand why humans find topless women scandalous is a particular highlight). The book also critiques many of the conventions of the YA fantasy genre, through Elliot's determination to find another way. At one point, he also self-identifies with Eustace in Narnia, which of course won him over to me. But it's also deeply emotional, especially in a sequence about halfway through. The book covers five years, with a different over-arching issue each year; in one, the Borderlands actually go to war! One summer, Elliot is at a party at Luke's family's house, and the emotions are painfully real depictions of what it's like to be fifteen and lonely and uncertain about your place in the world. As soon as I read that bit, I knew the book would be excellent as long as it stuck the landing. It did. The whole novel is apparently a prequel to a short story in Kelly Link's anthology Monstrous Affections (I was telling my wife about the book and she went, "This all sounds familiar!"), so I'll have to seek that out.

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LibraryThing member livingtech

Three. That is the number of nights I stayed up past two am to finish this book. It’s super good. It’s definitely about being a certain kind of person, adolescence required, probably, who doesn’t feel like they fit in anywhere, and thinks they may not ever. Maybe also about feeling smarter

than everyone else.

Maybe also about being bisexual.

Anyway, it’s super good.

Did I mention it’s good? Super good.

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LibraryThing member dreamweaversunited

A fun romp to tear through in a few days, though not much of substance.

LibraryThing member Citizenjoyce

I would have absolutely loved this book if there weren't so much will he or won't he, does she or doesn't she romance. Ugh. Other than that, it's great. I love the complete sexism of the elves. Women have to go through the blood and pain of childbirth so of course, they are the stronger sex and

best prepared for war. Men are more delicate (they don't have the opportunity of shedding their dark thoughts every month through blood as women do, so they are prone to being touchy during those days of the month.) Since women go through the brave mechanism of giving birth, it is only natural that men devote themselves to raising the children and caring for them and for their brave spouses. All of that is fun. I love the variety of species and Elliot's complete acceptance of, and fascination with, variety. Parental devotion and lack of devotion is shown. The training is interesting. Really, everything about this fantasy grabs the imagination, she just needed to weed out 3/4 of the romance.

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