#FridayReads: Boxers & Saints by Gene Luen Yang

Oh, weekend. You creep up on me and surprise me with a beautiful Friday off to enjoy some light graphic novel reading. Well, let me rephrase that.. Maybe I didn't choose the lightest graphic novel duology that I could think of, but it's been actually rather educational, to say the least.

"Boxers & Saints" volumes 1 & 2 by Gene Luen Yang

Published September 2013

This graphic novel duo tells a fantastical version of China's Boxer Rebellion, the "violent anti-foreign and anti-Christian uprising which took place in China ... between 1899-1901" (source: Wikipedia). To be totally honest with you guys, I honestly don't remember much about the Boxer Rebellion from school except the name, so I was actually pretty shocked that I decided to rent these from my local library. But I felt as if they were receiving a lot of good reviews and hype as of late, so I decided, what the heck?

Boxers follows a boy named Little Bao who has grown up in a small Chinese village. One day, a Christian man comes into Little Bao's town and causes absolute chaos. As a result, Little Bao and other member of his village decide that they will not put up with Christians destroying their culture, both in essence and in actual physical objects, and Little Bao begins to grow an army trained in Kung Fu to combat Christians, both foreign and Chinese alike.

Saints is the story of an unwanted fourth daughter who finds comfort and support in Christianity. Before her realization of faith, she is simply called Four-Girl, but she later comes to be known as Vibiana. As the Rebellion that Little Bao is fighting creeps farther throughout China, Vibiana must choose if her faith in Christianity or her country will win her support.

I'm not at all a history buff, but something about Yang's writing style and imagery really has me hooked in the first volume. He really mixes the historical event of the Boxer Rebellion with the fantastical idea of beautifully portrayed Chinese gods and goddesses to pull in the reader. I'm excited to see how these turn out and bring you guys a thorough review later down the line!

Review: In Real Life by Cory Doctorow & Jen Wang

In Real Life by Cory Doctorow & Jen Wang (illustrator)

Graphic Novel, Published October 2014

Plot Overview

Teenage girl gamer, Anda, is offered the opportunity for a free trial membership to a guild in the MMORPG Coarsegold Online. IRL, Anda is a slightly chubby girl, but in-game she can be the warrior princess she wants to be. Almost immediately, Anda discovers that users are illegally harvesting in-game currency to sell to n00bs for real-life money. She gets quickly swept up into the market of eliminating this players, also for real-life money. It's not long before she comes across a player that tells her the truth of 'gold mining.'

My Review

To be completely honest, this book seems a bit more suited to the sociology section of a book store. Before the novel even begins, Doctorow introduces it as a demonstration of economic and social organization. As I came to understand this idea, 'organization' is the ability humans evolved in order to either organize or participate in organized events or jobs. This book was pitched to me as a girl-gamer-friendly look into the MMORPG world, with a bit of realism thrown in with the darker side of gold-minding (or farming in-game items for real-life currency), so I have to admit I was a bit bogged down with this introduction. While I do agree that this is an interesting topic to research, I wish it hadn't been attached to seemed to be to be a teen-friendly graphic novel.

But for the actual content and illustrations, this book is beautiful and well-crafted. I loved the style of the illustrations and the playful, soft edges to everything. It seemed like the kind of image that was at times imperfect but still easy to identify, making it a lot easier to relate to the characters. I liked that Anda, a slightly chubby high school student, was not featured as being the chubby gamer girl but instead the focus was more on the game and her enjoyment of it. At the same time, I also felt connected to her experience in trying to have a safe time on the internet (i.e. her Mom is overprotective about her not talking to strange, older men online).

I think this is a great story, but not necessarily suited for teens. It dives into the more corrupt aspects of online gaming where people break the rules and lie about it to get more people to help them out. In addition, Anda comes to know a boy who is basically working in a modern day gaming sweatshop... Which, personally, I found really out of place for what this graphic novel was set up to be. Maybe it's just my own personal expectations for this one, but again, Doctorow's introduction really threw me for a loop and made me experience this book a lot differently than if I'd just read it bare without the socio-economic influences.

My Rating: 3/5 stars

Review: The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

Originally Published: September 2002

Plot Overview

The World: In a time when illegal drug production is the most structurally sound economic system, the country of Opium is prosperous. Opium is a strip of land that covers the border between the United States of America and what was once Mexico, now called Aztlán. The king of this drug empire: El Patrón, an ancient man who craves for the way of life he knew as a child, over 100 years ago. Opium is thriving because of its product: poppy plants. The expansive fields of poppy are farmed by eejits, almost literally mindless workers that must be commanded to remember their most basic of functions such as rest, drink water, work.

The Boy: Our main character is Matt, or Matteo Alacrán, a pre-adolescent clone of El Patrón. Matt has been kept a secret from El Patrón's descendants who currently reside on the poppy farm. Matt does not know what it means to be a clone or why everyone thinks he is no better than an animal, a beast, a mistake. Matt is extremely intelligent and precocious. He seeks out answers, he is willful and outspoken; he is much more like the powerful El Patrón than any of the family would like to admit.

The Problem: El Patrón is creeping on 150 years old. Through medical procedures that Matt cannot begin to fathom, El Patrón has plateaued into a state of mental decay, while his physical health appears to wax and wane. El Patrón may favor and care for Matt's studies and well-being, but the weaker the old man becomes, the closer Matt realizes he is to danger of being dismissed, killed, or worse by the Alacrán estate. They loathe him for being a 'filthy' clone whose very existence is unnatural, so if his benefactor, the very man whose DNA he shares, passes away... what will become of the filthy beast?

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My Review

Wow. Just... wow. Do you ever have a book on your shelf that you bought years ago, but you really can't remember what it is supposed to be about or why you originally wanted to read it? The House of the Scorpion is that book for me on so many levels. I asked for this book several years ago as a Christmas present, but something about the semi-lackluster cover just threw me off. I knew very little about the plot and even less about the author, but as part of my 2016 bookish goals to read more from my old TBR lists, I picked up this book about a week ago and never looked back.

I had no idea to expect a science fiction novel from what the excerpt led me to believe was a relatively realistic book. Without spoiling too much of the midway-point plot, cloning is almost one of the least scientifically advanced projects that is present in this novel. Nancy Farmer has created a very scary world within a more old-school Mexico story. Because El Patrón is so stuck in his old childhood, it is not surprising that he limits the residence of his family to such a technology deprived way of life. Some of the undertones of the overall plot included: clone rights, classism, socialism, and even basic human rights.

The reason I loved this book? It was not at all what I expected. I'm a huge fan of dystopian novels and general science fiction, but mixed in with family drama and a morally suspicious drug farm: incalculably entertaining. At times, I felt like I was watching a telenovela (or for those of you out there not into your daytime television, a Spanish soap opera) with no short of disapproving father figures and outbursts of rage or excitement. Don't let that description fool you, for although this is a book about Matt's family 'drama,' it is also an infuriating mash up of the ways in which a 'subhuman' clone can be disrespected and shoved around. It really made me think about what it means to be a person, or more specifically an individual. Matt is quite literally not an individual, and struggles with the fact that he is a clone of a feared drug lord daily. He is afraid for his life, for the lives of the few individuals in the estate that actually care for him as a human being, and Nancy Farmer has created an easy to bond with character in this book. This is by far the most connected I've felt with a main character in a while, not to mention it was a boy almost half my age!

This was an exciting book I will be holding onto for a long time to come. I'm not 100% sure if I will read the sequel (that came out over a decade after the original), but you guys will be the first to know if I do!

My Rating: 4.5/5 stars