Episode 91: A Song of Wraiths and Ruin (And Once Forgotten Books)

(Music fades in)

So, story time, when I was a senior in high school, I was a Teacher’s Assistant for my favorite English teacher. Because the alternative was to leave school early, but my mom couldn’t afford to buy me a car, so you know… I was very limited in what I could do with that time is what I mean. And TAing was a nice gig. Especially for that teacher who always encouraged me to write and treated me somewhat like a grown up. Not in the creepy sense. But like the, “How can I reach these kids and get them to like reading” sort of sense. She would ask that question in my general direction a lot, and sure, that wasn’t really all that grown up. But she was somewhat exasperated, so I felt grown up. 

But to her credit, even if she did not realize it, she had a pretty good track record of getting her students into reading. Mostly because she did not just stick to the (quote) “standard American school system reading list.” You might know what I’m talking about. I mean, all those books that give Sparknotes frequent online traffic. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. This teacher, who has to remain unnamed for the sake of my privacy, incorporated contemporary and young adult literature into her curriculum but also--and this is the important part here--choice. Students got to choose what to read from a carefully curated list and/or vague guidance because this teacher had assignments that were fairly open ended. Ues, there were books the class read as a group, but this was the good stuff and not the stuff you get told is good.

Really, when she was directing that question in my general direction, what she was asking for was my help in finding books that the students, who were only a year or two younger than me, would like. Students just need that one gateway read, after all. And they spend so much of their school days reading books that they don’t really like and don’t really speak to them and to their experiences. With prose they might not understand in a context where… Well, the answers matter, but you may not get the help you need. 

Basically, a lot of the failures of the education system start to show along that crack, even if we mostly think of these fault lines in the context of science and math, usually. But once again, that’s another fault line. This one being that the humanities just aren’t worth worrying about when the figurative building is burning. All the while, though, teacher was doing the absolute best she could. And as the Teacher’s Assistant who really didn’t have much to do otherwise, I somewhat joined in that endeavor and started reading, pretty much everything. 

And ironically, I still somehow missed the growing field of Young Adult literature because of course I did.

(Music fades out)

Hi. It’s M. Welcome to Episode 91.

(Music fades in)

And I promise that story is relevant. As is this little chapter two. But basically, you might not understand my perspective without it, and--true to every discussion on this feed--my perspective is foundational for these comments. 

I found Young Adult literature in college. These coming of age and coming into yourself stories completely engrossed me. They were absolutely fascinating. And I had to have more of them in my life. So I read and read and read, and all of that reading led to me devoting my senior thesis to it. Or more specifically, I devoted my senior thesis to young adult dystopian literature and the connection between it and the social contract tradition. Also, shout out to all the recruiters or employers who decided to get my hopes up when I was looking for a job by calling me for what they called an interview but really just an excuse to ask me about my thesis. You all suck. 

Anyway, the underlying premise of my thesis--or one of them--was that the various series within that field hit enough of the same beats and/or themes that I could make such a sweeping characterization. After all, I wasn’t dealing with the details or the individual messages or methods. I was dealing with notions of personal dignity and recognition: things that are staples of modern YA. Or so I argued. It was this whole part of a thesis that was potentially needlessly long. Like nobody gave us a page limit, and I’m pretty sure the administration regrets that now. Like, that’s my college legacy.

At the time, I thought it was a somewhat brilliant observation: that YA lit was just not taken seriously, and I was leading that push for seriousness because I was demonstrating a connection that academics were reluctant to admit was there. And why were they reluctant? Either they didn’t know and/or they were too pretentious to try and learn. Or maybe… like I found out… And hear me out when I say this because I don’t mean this to be mean or critical only factual. (Music cuts) All of that reading was outright exhausting.

(Music fades in)

Here’s the thing. If you want to replicate my experience just watch the same three or four season show on Netflix nonstop for about a year. 85% of my reading during my senior year in college was Young Adult dystopian literature and another 10% was my assigned readings for school. In that 10%, you can also include the political theory books I was reading for that same thesis. Basically, because I was arguing that the nature of this genre heavily influenced every book series released under that umbrella and made it possible for me to frame this argument around the phenomenon and not around individual series, I had to read every young adult dystopian book that was out there. And this was at the height of their popularity, so I also had to contend with release schedules. 

Now, obviously I didn’t incorporate every book that existed into the thesis itself. That would not have been practical. And neither was reading YA lit until and beyond my burn out point. But I did do that bit.

Because once the thesis was done and turned in, I pretty much never picked up a young adult book again. Now there were some exceptions but usually for writers I had some sort of prior, established relationship with. But that was it. And yeah, I kind of missed it. I mean, there was a reason I got into YA in the first place. I think of young adult literature as the sort of story that’s about coming into yourself, a self-discovery against the odds sort of thing. It’s a type of growth yes, but it is a very specific kind of growth. And it’s the sort of theme that--while important to me--is undoubtedly important to a lot of people, particularly young people who are finding their way for the first time.

So with that in mind, I can’t really say that I fell out of love with YA. I just couldn’t continue that relationship in the same way.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

And now we get to the point in the story that is actually relevant. Because today I want to talk about A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown, a book that you wouldn’t think I’d ever pick up considering it’s a young adult book and young adult literature is like the high school--or in this case--college flame that I drifted further away from after an intense year of romance.  And hey, far enough, I was sceptical too when I saw that the book was sorted in the Young Adult category, though at this point I could not know for sure.

But you know it, for one, has an absolutely beautiful cover and two, it had a premise that matched. That premise read--in part, “the first in a gripping fantasy duology inspired by West African folklore in which a grieving crown princess and a desperate refugee find themselves on a collision course to murder each other despite their growing attraction.” Another website had the more fun and more concise line “what if Aladdin and Jasmine had to kill each other.” And with those things in mind, there was no going back. I had to read that book. 

And apparently, I wasn’t the only one. Because I found the celebratory tweet from the author Roseanne Brown when her book hit the bestsellers list, and that’s how this all started from my side of things. And sure enough, that made the book somewhat hard to get, and I didn’t want to resort to getting it from the place that should not be named because… Well, I don’t know. I just don’t want to. But anyway, my local bookstore was able to get me a couple in what was the fifth order I’ve made during this pandemic….

I’m working on a research project, I promise. And yet this is still technically a problem. Anyway...

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

Once I picked A Song of Wraiths and Ruin up, once it caught its momentum, I could not put it down again. And the world building carried it when the action lagged a bit because this is an entirely reimagined fantasy world from the one I know and the one I typically read. And this is partially because it’s based in a folklore tradition I’m not familiar with, but as a lover of folklore and good books, I quickly stopped caring. 

And, just a fun warning because maybe you have a similar problem that I do, the second book in this duology is not out yet, and while I understand that--you know--instant gratification is not fair, I tend to like accumulating a book series and waiting for the last one before I get reading. And that level of impatience is a very obvious character flaw, and I accept that. But acceptance alone isn’t going to magically fix things. That will take time. Also, this book was incredibly gripping and the ending just tightened a grip it clearly had on me that I wasn’t aware of but you know how that goes.

So honestly, I’m going to end up reread this book pretty much nonstop until I can recite the first few chapters verbatim as if it were a neat party trick. I mean that’s what I normally do anyway, but FYI, that is not a neat party trick, and you will be embarrassed if you actually bust it out at parties.

Oh who am I kidding, not too many parties happening right now. Or for a while. Also I don’t go to parties. I don’t get invited, and I think you know why. But moving on.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

That was the overview aspect of this discussion. A Song of Wraiths and Ruin is a great book, and you should definitely pick it up, and if you don’t like the sound of my voice… Well, you’ve already listened to it a while, but yeah, that’s the point of this review, so you can, you know, move on with your day. 

But if you are wondering how this links back to the stories I subjected you to earlier, well I’m getting to that.

Meaning, that this is the book that is bringing me back to young adult literature. And it could also bring a young person into the magical world of reading for the first time or the seventh time if that development turns out to be a little less than linear. And I imagine that it would be for some people. Life is complicated, multi-faceted, and the potential adventures each person could go on is limitless. In other words, this book is fairly powerful, I would say.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

Look, my clear issue with the number of books I’m ordering and the strain that’s putting on my mail carrier aside, books convey information and alternative views in a way that can be--though not always is--more filtered and credible than what the YouTube algorithm brings you, just as an example. A more innocent example would be those life hack videos featuring a bunch of things that don’t exactly work and are super impractical. 

That being said, though,reading can be difficult. It’s a skill you have to learn and you could also learn a lot of negative or positive associations with the action. And in the case of negative associations, working through them or overcoming them are things that take a great bit of time and effort, and there might be any variety of reasons why exerting or offering up that effort just isn’t something someone can do right now. Fair enough to all of that. 

But making it to that other side is worthwhile. Sometimes you just need training wheels or a goal or a motivation or something external to help you move forward. And when you do move forward, you get to reap the benefits of all those resources and opportunities. Not that I have to justify that so much.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

The issue isn’t that someone should find their gateway book. The issue is how or what that gateway book is. And yet, that question is surprisingly easy to answer if you look at the sorts of books that don’t work: the same twelve stories written decades if not hundreds of years ago taught the same way, a way that’s bland and dry way that was approved by a school board that’s often out of touch and disinterested in the details of students’ lives. Books where--often--the protagonist does not in any way resemble the student and/or builds off of a cultural consciousness that isn’t kind but is also consistently around them.

And then you have the issue of assignments, things that have the potential to dictate the outcome of your entire life and maybe you don’t have the same quality teachers that I was blessed with. In English, anyway. I got a taste of horrible teachers in other subjects, and I still feel those burns a bit.

So what you would need to find if you want to reverse that is an interesting and fresh book that feels relatable if not outright relatable, that an audience can develop their own relationship with. It has to be entertaining and engrossing. And it has to have enough twists or potential twists to reward you for paying attention. Beautiful prose will also help with that. And that’s what you have here. A Song of Wraiths and Ruin checks off all of these boxes. I’ll say it more directly, by being such a subversion of the other books young people are often forced to read, A Song of Wraiths and Ruin can help someone talk that step from never wanting to read to seeing all the potentials within books.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

One way in particular that it does this is through the strengths of its characters. This particular avenue feels extra relevant because it’s a ball that school assigned books often drop but, as of right now, is definitely a part of larger discussions. And it’s not just that these characters are relatable in a basic sense. You have Malik, a refuge who’s trying to build a life in a relatively safe desert city far away from his war-stricken home. He loves his sisters, he looks after them, and their well-being is a major motivation for him going forward. All the same, though, he’s still got a warm and somewhat soft heart. He’s sweet and loving. He just has to kill the Crown Princess, you know. Not because he wants to, but because he does not have a choice. There’s no such thing as a choice when it comes to his family. 

And that same crown princess, Karina, is a strong female protagonist who is limited by expectations. Both that of the person she wants to be and the person everyone is expecting her to become. And despite her strength, there’s part of her that still wants her mom. Like any of us might if we are both scared and had a functional relationship with our mother to fall back on. 

Some books feel like objects or books… That is to say, they feel like distant stories of other people that I might be able to muster some sense of sympathy for but don’t actually feel any sort of connection to. Towards the end of my senior year in college, just as the senior thesis was about to be turned in, this very impersonal relationship with YA lit was basically where I was at. For my own sake, I had to approach every book with a sterile and detached outlook because I was drowning in books I needed to read and the sheer boredom of such a limited book pool. Also senior thesis stress, but that’s something I should definitely unpack with a therapist first. And that’s not exactly a joke.

But I can say that this book did help me address some of that impulse. It’s part of my slow return to a part of the literary world that I loved once upon a time and have since admired from afar. 

That doesn’t justify memorizing the first few chapters, though, so I really should not do that. But I might, who know?

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

This has been a production of Miscellany Media Studios with music licensed from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. Thanks for listening! Find more information about our shows at miscellanymedia.online or follow us on Twitter @miscellanymedia for updates on current and future projects.

(Music fades out)