Book Review: Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma

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This is less a book review and more an author review.

In January, I read The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma. It was amazing. As I said in my review on Goodreads, I never expected to like the book as much as I did. I don’t choose to read books about ballerinas and I’m generally not interested in prison stories. But The Walls Around Us, which is both a ballerina story and a prison story, gripped me from the first page and never let me go. It was Suma’s writing that drew me in. So poetic. So magical. Her method of weaving the different character’s stories together was flawless.

I don’t know how many people I’ve recommended this book to in the last six months. I think I even recommended it to some people twice. (Yes, I see many of you nodding.) I can’t help it. The book stayed with me. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So the day I recommended it to a writer friend and she said, “Yeah, isn’t it good? Although I liked her first book even better,” I did a double take. What? No. Impossible. The idea that the author could have written something better than The Walls Around Us even earlier in her writing career? I couldn’t believe it. I refused to. Then I realized I was being stupid and bought Imaginary Girls. Just, you know, to prove my friend wrong.

Power in Every Sentence

I read the book in four days. The day I opened it, I read over a hundred pages before sleep claimed me. The first thing I did the next morning was pick up where I left off. I feel like I deserve a medal for every chore I accomplished, errand I ran, and meal I ate during those four days. That’s how hard it was to put the book down.

Summary of Imaginary Girls from Goodreads:

Chloe’s older sister, Ruby, is the girl everyone looks to and longs for, who can’t be captured or caged. When a night with Ruby’s friends goes horribly wrong and Chloe discovers the dead body of her classmate London Hayes left floating in the reservoir, Chloe is sent away from town and away from Ruby. But Ruby will do anything to get her sister back, and when Chloe returns to town two years later, deadly surprises await. As Chloe flirts with the truth that Ruby has hidden deeply away, the fragile line between life and death is redrawn by the complex bonds of sisterhood.

Imaginary Girls is a sister story, but it is also so much more. The summary really can’t capture the magic of the book—neither the actual magic threaded through the novel, nor the magic of Suma’s voice and style. There is power in every sentence of her writing. She is a master of moving the story forward with every word, of telling the reader just enough to keep us reading and leaving out the unnecessary bits that we don’t need to know.

Here is one tiny example from page 102:

“They waited for the late hour to do their looking. Tonight I wondered how many of them were here. Maybe they formed a chain from the rocky bottom, locking webbed fingers to slippery wrists, lifting the lightest one to the top, where the water broke open and the air got them gasping and Pete’s car could be made out on the hill.”

This paragraph says so little, but conjures so much, more I think than would have been achieved by adding more description.

I Believe

This book involves casual magic and supernatural powers and underwater towns, and I believed every word of it. At this point, I think Nova Ren Suma could tell me anything and I would believe her. I’m convinced that, like some of her characters, she must have magical powers too. Thankfully, she uses them for good, crafting absolutely stunning prose.

To sum up, I owe my friend a big thanks and a cup of coffee for recommending Imaginary Girls to me. However, I won’t go so far as to say she was RIGHT because I think Imaginary Girls and The Walls Around Us are equally phenomenal. 🙂

At this point, I will read anything Nova Ren Suma writes. If you enjoy magical, poetic, intensely engaging YA novels, you should too. Here’s the link to her books on Amazon. I just ordered 17 & Gone.

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BONUS MATERIAL: Read Nova Ren Suma’s blog post about the writing of The Walls Around Us here.

Adventures In Subbing, Part 4: The End

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Every year when I was teaching seventh grade, our school administrators gave us some sort of inspirational poster or story or memento to keep in our classroom for encouragement throughout the year. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it backfired. I remember distinctly the year the nugget of inspiration came in the form of a very short story about a woman who woke up and only had three hairs on her head. She braided the three hairs and was happy. The next day she woke up and only had two hairs on her head. She parted them in the middle and was happy. The next day she woke up and only had one hair on her head. She wore it in a ponytail and was happy. The next day she woke up and had no hair left on her head. She said to herself, “I don’t have to fix my hair today!” And she was happy.

I’m pretty sure the point of the fable was to find the silver lining in everything and stay positive, but as the year wore on, I decided what it really meant was that teaching makes your hair fall out.

I share this memory as an explanation for why I subbed so much in May. Despite working more hours than usual at my library clerk job, completing a freelance project, and keeping up with my own writing, I still made time to substitute teach eight times at seven different middle schools. Why? Because I know what May is like for teachers. At this time of year, they’re lucky if they have any hair left at all and they need a break. I know that all of those half days, sick days, personal days, and I-just-can’t-today days are well-deserved. I’m happy to step in and help.

The end of my year of subbing was just as interesting as the beginning. I watched Inside Out three times, The Lost World twice, and Scared Shrekless once. (That one was awesome.) One day I arrived to my classroom to find a bag of raw chicken on my desk. (It turned out there was a reasonable explanation for it that had nothing to do with Satanic rituals or mean pranks.) One day when some seventh grade science students playing a card game suddenly erupted into loud yells, I went over to investigate, only to have a boy calmly explain, “Sorry. I got AIDS.” (The card game was called “Defend Yourself” and was from their unit on the immune system.) And during the last half hour of my very last sub job, an eighth grade girl asked me, “Can I go ride my unicycle in the courtyard for Ms. Smith?”

Sometimes I think I’ve been asked everything in my teaching career, but that was a new one.

I think the best way to demonstrate what subbing at the end of the school year looks like and close out my Adventures in Subbing series is with a photo documentary. Here is a look back at my last six weeks of subbing, in pictures.

 

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Creepy mural on the wall of an art classroom

 

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Semi-creepy box-creature in a social skills classroom

 

Sometimes subbing looks like this... during STAAR testing, I spent four hours monitoring the boys' bathroom (one boy at a time, no talking in line). I was able to read an entire issue of Writer's Digest during my shift. It was awesome.
Sometimes subbing looks like this… during STAAR testing, I spent four hours monitoring the boys’ bathroom (one boy at a time, no talking in line). I was able to read an entire issue of Writer’s Digest during my shift. It was awesome.

 

Scare tactics-- cheesy when I was a kid, still cheesy today.
Scare tactics– cheesy when I was a kid, still cheesy today.

 

One school where I worked had goats and sunflowers. :) I like that school.
One school where I worked had goats and sunflowers. 🙂 I like that school.

 

Angry note taped to the door of the faculty restroom. The person who wrote this has zero hairs left.
Angry note taped to the door of the faculty restroom. The person who wrote this has zero hairs left.

 

I subbed in the classroom with this friendly creature on May the 4th, otherwise known as Star Wars Day. Two teachers at the school were in Star Wars cosplay. Later, in my class, a group of boys gave their science activity a Star Wars theme. I asked them if they’d seen the teachers in costume. One boy said, “Yeah, I was psyched that I knew Ms. X was a Twi’lek.” Another boy said, “Yeah, but Ms. Y was dressed as Obi-Wan, but she had a Kylo Ren light saber and that pissed me off.” There’s just no pleasing seventh grade geeks.
I subbed in the classroom with this friendly creature on May the 4th, otherwise known as Star Wars Day. Two teachers at the school were in Star Wars cosplay. Later, in my class, a group of boys gave their science activity a Star Wars theme. I asked them if they’d seen the teachers in costume. One boy said, “Yeah, I was psyched that I knew Ms. X was a Twi’lek.” Another boy said, “Yeah, but Ms. Y was dressed as Obi-Wan, but she had a Kylo Ren light saber and that pissed me off.” There’s just no pleasing seventh grade geeks.

 

Happy last week of school, teachers! We appreciate you! May there be a large margarita in your future.

Book Review: Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made

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NOTE #1: This is an old book review. I read this book at the beginning of 2013 and wrote the review on Goodreads shortly after. However, I just discovered that the review had been accidentally deleted at some point, so I reposted it and am sharing it here too.

NOTE #2: While I gave the book 4 out of 5 stars, I would give the movie the book is about 15 out of 5 stars. No, I don’t want to hear your objections regarding math. It gets 15 out of 5 stars. The end.

NOTE #3: I just found out that the movie this book is about, as well as a new documentary about the movie, is coming to theaters this summer. (!!!) I’ve already bought my tickets to see it again. Find the city closest to you and go buy yours NOW. You can thank me later. Go to this website for info. Seriously, buy the tickets BEFORE you finish reading this post. I don’t mind.

NOTE #4: It is a complete coincidence that I found out about the movie showings exactly thirteen years to the day after I saw the movie the first time. When I realized that, it kind of gave me goosebumps.

13538819.jpgRaiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made by Alan Eisenstock, Chris Strompolos, and Eric Zala

May 30, 2003.

It was exactly seven years before my wedding day, though of course I didn’t know that at the time. It was also the last day of school of my fourth year of teaching, followed by the annual end-of-school teacher boat party. My current boyfriend (not future husband) had bought tickets for us to see this weird movie at the Alamo Drafthouse. It was a remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark done by kids and it was showing at midnight. Oh and the kids who made the movie, grown up now, were going to be there. I thought it sounded pretty cool, and I still had the stamina of a girl in her twenties, so I agreed.

That Friday, I got up at 6:30AM, herded hyperactive middle schoolers through the talent shows and yearbook signings and award ceremonies of the last day of school, went to the teacher luncheon and end-of-year meetings, partied on Large Marge the Party Barge with a bunch of other summer-crazed teachers, grabbed a shower and a Starbucks chai, and met my boyfriend at the Alamo Drafthouse to see this crazy movie. When we arrived, there was a long line outside the theater. We joined it.

I was excited that summer vacation had finally arrived, excited to be free and out on a date, excited (sort of) to see the movie. But I was also really, really tired. The line grew longer. The wait seemed endless. The movie, it was obvious, was going to start a little late. By the time we got to our seats and ordered food (one of the many beauties of the Alamo Drafthouse) I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep my eyes open for the whole thing.

Then this guy came on stage and started telling us what an amazing treat we were in for. He explained that these boys in Mississippi in the 1980s fell in love with Indiana Jones and decided they wanted to remake Raiders of the Lost Ark. And they did. Shot for shot. And it took them eight years to do it.

He had my attention.

I was still skeptical though. Even when he told us that they really did set their basement on fire for the bar scene, even when he revealed that they actually got a submarine to use for their shoot, even when he promised that this was, in fact, the greatest fan film ever made, I still thought I was going to be seeing some little kids playing “movie” in their mommy’s living room. Cheesy.

And then the movie started. And I was blown away.

The movie itself was incredible and then afterwards listening to Eric Zala and Chris Strompolos talk about it brought tears to my eyes. It was just so apparent that I was witnessing something magical, not just on film, but in front of me in the lifelong friendship of the creators. I didn’t get home until after 3:00AM that night, but it was all worth it.

You can ask anyone– my husband, my friends, my family– I have been talking about this thing ever since I saw it. So when I found out that this book was coming out, I couldn’t wait to read it. This book is awesome. Rarely will you find a story as endearing as this one. No, it’s not the best literature in the world. But after ten years of wondering how they made the boulder and who did their special effects and what kept them going for so long, I finally held the answers. Their story is as amazing as their movie. However, I’m not sure it would be for someone who hasn’t seen the film. So what you need to do, right now, is find out if there is going to be a screening anywhere within 200 miles of where you are. And then go see it. And then read this book. And then see the movie again and let your jaw drop appreciatively in honor of what these kids accomplished. And then wonder, as I did, how they managed not to kill themselves in the process.

The only complaint I have about the book is that it lacked images. I wanted pictures of the kids, the house, the basement, the mess, the beautiful storyboards that Eric drew for each shot. Maybe they’re saving those for the next book. If so, I’ll buy that one too.

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