Review: "Nora & Kettle" by Lauren Nicolle Taylor 4/5 Stars

Part fairy tale re-telling, part historical fiction, Lauren Nicolle Taylor's Nora and Kettle takes the idea of Peter Pan and acts it out in post-World War II America in the late 1940's just after the Japanese-American internment camps have been closed. The concept of Peter Pan's "lost boys" is translated to the "lost children" who became orphaned after their parents died in the internment camps. Kettle is like the Peter Pan of the streets, scooping up these lost children and doing his best to care for them, even though he, himself, is a lost child. Nora plays a wealthy Wendy to Kettle's impoverished Peter, though her life is anything but idyllic. She suffers some of the most brutal physical violence I have ever read at the hands of her father - a man who is simultaneously working to get equal rights and compensation for the Japanese-Americans who suffered from the internment camps.

I really enjoyed this book. I didn't realize it was a Peter Pan re-telling at first, but once we met Kettle and his "boys" I could definitely pick up the strong vibe of Peter Pan. (There's even a Tiger Lily - a half-starved feral kitten.) Nora and Kettle both suffered through such unimaginable lives, but their hearts and thoughts remained warm and hopeful, despite all odds.

The domestic violence was very tough to read, and it gets quite graphic (the book does contain a warning at the beginning about the nature of this topic). I appreciated the fact that Nora's father wasn't just this two-dimensional villain, though it was still very easy to hate him. I think those who've never suffered from an abusive relationship can't understand why the abused would ever stay with their abuser. Through Nora's eyes, we see her struggling with this same question. She has a younger, partially-deaf, sister for whom she feels responsible, which acts as an anchor for a large part of the story, keeping her in her father's house. She longs to understand how a man who beats her and her mother constantly can seem so tender and good to the outside world and how he can care so much for Japanese-American children when he seems to loathe her very existence.

Kettle is not much more than a boy, himself, but he carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. Unlike the Peter Pan we know - who refuses to grow up - Kettle hasn't had any choice BUT to grow up. We see him constantly trying to maintain the bubble of innocence around his "boys", though, even while he faces constant threats around every corner from law enforcement, starvation, and violent racist attacks.

The writing style was gentle and accessible, and did veer to the whimsical and almost poetic at times.

"I look up and watch the bad parts of me shrinking to dots in the wide blue."

There were moments I was reminded of Tahereh Mafi's style in Shatter Me, though it never got as flowery as Mafi's writing, which is a good thing in my book. Think of this more like the occasional pocket of wild flowers, instead of standing in the center of a flower shop.

We get glimpses of both Nora and Kettle's past through "flashbacks", but I had a problem with Kettle's flashbacks. Overall, I felt this was more Nora's story, and the time spent in Kettle's past seemed to be taking too long, and pulling me further from the real story I cared about. After about 1/2-way through the book, I just skimmed over Kettle's flashbacks.

If you don't want spoilers, don't read beyond this point. I would recommend this book, and there's a good chance I'll re-read it at some point. The only reason it's not a 5-star for me has to do with the way it ended -- which is SPOILERY!

**********SPOILER WARNING************

**********SPOILERS BELOW FOR THE END OF THE BOOK*********

***STOP  READING IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED FOR THE END OF THE BOOK***

The ending felt unfinished to me. Nora's sister is taken away from her, and I was expecting that to be resolved by the end of the book. It wasn't. She's still missing, and after being such a huge motivator for everything Nora did in the earlier part of the book, I felt cheated when we didn't get to find out what happened. Though when Nora finally stands up to her father, I was cheering!

A note about the sub-title "Paper Stars #1". If you look it up, the next book Breaker and the Sun (release date: May 8, 2017) might lead you to believe it is the sequel to Nora and Kettle. I got excited and thought maybe that would be the story of how Nora found her sister. After reading the synopsis, however, it sounds like Breaker and the Sun is more of a companion novel and won't be continuing this story, which is a shame.

To read my other reviews on Goodreads, click here.

Review: "The One Hundred Nights of Hero" by Isabel Greenberg - 4/5 Stars

"The One Hundred Nights of Hero" is a re-imagined take on the classic "The Arabian Nights".
Author and illustrator, Isabel Greenberg, weaves an enchanting tale about storytellers. I love reading books about books, and that goes double for stories about storytellers. If you're unfamiliar with "Arabian Nights", or any of the other re-tellings that have surfaced, the general plot is of a ruler who takes a different wife every night, presumably because after the wedding night, the wife is killed. The story follows the current wife who cleverly comes up with stories that end on such a cliffhanger, the ruler decides not to kill her for another day because he wants to keep hearing the rest of the story. Eventually, he falls in love with her.

Probably the biggest flip this story does, is the wife, Cherry, is not the one telling the stories. It's her maid and lover, Hero, who tells the stories to a would-be suitor who is determined to steal the Cherry's virtue. If he is successful, the Cherry's husband will kill her when he returns from a business trip. There is a lot at stake, here, and by agreeing to stay and try to help, Hero has cosigned herself to whatever fate befalls Cherry if they are discovered. Ironically, in a society where women aren't allowed to read or write or have any respect, Hero's stories are all about strong, powerful women challenging the social standards around them; and the would-be suitor (and guards, for that matter) are eating it up! Cherry and Hero's love is touching and so moving it brought me to tears a couple of times. You can't help but start rooting for them, even though the odds are stacked against these two ever finding their own happily-ever-after. If you enjoy stories of star-crossed, forbidden love, this is for you.

"Hero...we should have run away. We should have done it before I married him. We should have risked it. Now his guards watch us all day. And it's too late."

The illustrations are mostly black and white with some gold and blue tones thrown in occasionally. Currently, this book is only available in hardcover or on Kindle, but I highly recommend splurging for the hardcover. Some of the full page, and two-page spreads are filled with intricate details and subtle clues that I believe wouldn't translate well to an e-reader. The art style is sketchy, or reminiscent of cave drawings, which lends a sense of antiquity to the story. I felt like I was sitting around a campfire with a bunch of women exchanging stories.