March YA reads: love in a time of Famine

I am having a crisis of Irishness and I blame Sarah Crossan’s latest novel, Where the Heart Should Be (Bloomsbury, £14.99). Like most of the former Laureate na nÓg’s previous, often award-winning books, it is a story told in verse, which allows for both a sense of accessibility and for poetic images to haunt the reader. Unlike those other books, however, which include the devastating One (in which conjoined twins undergo a life-threatening operation) or Moonrise (in which a young man visits his death-row inmate brother), it delves into the past: specifically, the Great Famine. Mayo 1846: a scullery maid falls in love even as the people around her “are already withering away” due to starvation prompted by the potato blight and the Westminster’s government redistribution – or theft – of Irish foodstuffs.

The part of me that is romantic and idealistic wants to buy into protagonist Nell’s assertion that “love wins / even in the face of death”, even when the love interest is English Johnny, newly-arrived heir to the Big House and nephew of the landlord whose men set his tenants’ cottages alight when they cannot pay their rent. It’s an optimism that echoes Crossan’s edited poetry anthology, Tomorrow Is Beautiful; it’s a hard-won hope worth clinging to no matter how terrible the world around us is.

But it is difficult to believe this love story, or rather to accept it as historically plausible rather than as a fable told with a particular backdrop. That Nell might be attracted to Johnny seems possible, if ill-advised (which the book freely acknowledges). That he might be attracted to her is less likely; when you are the oppressor, even inadvertently, dehumanising “the other” is necessary for your own comfort and survival.

The use of love-induced loss of appetite (“I can’t even look / at food”) works more on a symbolic level than historical one; when Nell declares “Even if there were plenty of potatoes / in our house I couldn’t eat / a / single / one / without being nauseous” my soul filled with the sort of nationalist rage I did not know lived inside me and am in truth a little embarrassed by. Shouldn’t we be “over” the Famine? Isn’t that maxim to “never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity” perfect for such a situation, rather than the more loaded term of “genocide”?

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And then I wonder about this book if it were Johnny’s voice we heard – his journey from ignorance to knowledge, from comfort to courage. Would that be more narratively satisfying – or still fall down on the grounds that he’s on the “bad” side? What does it mean as a reader and critic when a passionate love of nuance and complexity, of resisting the simplicity of “good” versus “bad”, starts crumbling as soon as the Famine makes an appearance? What within the modern Irish psyche is still so protective of this subject? Bring this one to book clubs and have intense discussions about it, please.

CG Moore, who won the CBI Book of the Year award for a previous verse novel, returns to the form in Trigger (Little Island, £8.99) and gets off to a slightly awkward start with an author’s note that suggests that “consent” is not really talked about (news to both feminist campaigners and the many YA writers who have tackled the topic). What he may mean is that we do not discuss it in the particular context of gay relationships enough, especially when it’s two young men (ie a cohort presumed to be always “up for it”); it’s this specific angle that Moore explores in his new book.

Jay wakes up alone in a park, victim of an assault he can’t remember and doesn’t want to admit. Time splits into before and after; he goes from “living his life” to “struggling to survive”, with white space indicating the gap between the two versions of himself. His journey from anger to acceptance is realistically bumpy, related in accessible poems that convey – though sometimes merely name – the range of emotions Jay goes through.

Triona Campbell’s second book, The Traitor in the Game (Scholastic, £8.99), returns to her near-future world and quickly reminds us of what protagonist Asha has been through: “Parents. Never knew them. Sister murdered. Sister’s girlfriend murdered. Boy I love, presumed dead. If I were my friends, I’d be giving me a wide berth.” As with the previous volume, a sports tournament utilising both virtual and augmented reality forms a large part of the plot, though the stakes continue to rise. Energetic and fast-paced, this book is destined to make readers crave the final instalment immediately.

A quieter take on the near-future occurs in Clare Furniss’s thoughtful The Things We Leave Behind (Simon & Schuster, £8.99), in which Clem reflects on her last good day: her 15th birthday. It was before she knew her stepmother Claudia was at risk of deportation, before bigoted businessman Toby Knight won the election and became British prime minister. “I couldn’t explain now that, as terrible as it was, we still thought everything would be okay ... we just carried on. What else could we do?”

With the UK fragmenting around them, Clem’s family finds a way for her to escape and to bring her younger sister Billie with her. After her arrival in a newly-independent Scotland, she relates her tale to a sympathetic counsellor. Clem is “good at stories”, after all: “Stories build cities and grow forests and make people appear from empty air. They’re a good place to hide.”

Astute readers may guess the secret Clem can’t admit just yet, but it doesn’t make this novel any less heart-wrenching or skilful. The insightful characterisation, and the thin veil between our reality and the alternate one Furniss describes, make this an exquisite, devastating read.

On the lighter side of life, Christen Randall’s debut, The No-Girlfriend Rule (Pushkin, £9.99), immerses itself in role-playing games and the particular brand of nerdish misogyny that can thrive in such spaces. Hollis starts gaming so she can understand her boyfriend a bit better, but the all-girls group she joins ends up helping her find herself – and a far worthier love interest in the form of Aini, for whom she is “good enough ... as she was, extra and all”. Sweet and uplifting.

YA queen of queer romcoms Sophie Gonzales also delves into intense fandom in her latest book, though the focus here is fan fiction. In The Perfect Guy Doesn’t Exist (Hodder, £8.99), Ivy wakes up to discover Weston, the TV character she’s obsessed with, has come to life, and is acting out the stories she’s written about him. With the help of her best friend, Henry, similarly obsessed with the superhero show, and Mack, the girl-next-door who was once her best friend (and serious secret crush), Ivy sets out to return Weston to wherever he came from, before her parents return from their vacation. The seemingly silly premise allows for sly commentary on familiar romance tropes – Weston engaging with these in real life mostly annoys or scares Ivy – and it’s also a pleasing device that allows Ivy sort out her relationship with Mack. Delightfully escapist.