132
2021
NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
MAKE YOUR OWN KIND OF HAPPILY EVER AFTER a review by Savannah Paige Murray Sophie Gonzales. Only Mostly Devastated. Wednesday Books, 2020. Mary Cecilia Jackson. Sparrow: A Novel. Tor Teen, 2020.
SAVANNAH PAIGE MURRAY is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Writing Studies at Appalachian State University. She holds a PhD in Rhetoric and Writing from Virginia Tech. Her writing has appeared in Appalachian Journal, The Journal of Appalachian Studies, among others, and she is a regular reviewer for NCLR. A native of Asheville, NC, she writes about Appalachian literature, the French Broad River, and the Blue Ridge Mountains. SOPHIE GONZALES writes YA queer romantic comedies. Her other novels are The Law of Inertia (Amberjack Publishing, 2018) and Perfect on Paper (Wednesday Books, 2021). Also a psychologist, she lives in Melbourne, Australia. MARY CECILIA JACKSON has worked as a middle school teacher, an adjunct instructor of college freshmen, a technical writer and editor, a speechwriter, a museum docent, and a development officer for central Virginia’s PBS and NPR stations. She lives with her husband in Western North Carolina and Hawaii. Sparrow is an honor recipient of the SCBWI Sue Alexander Award and a YA finalist in the Writers’ League of Texas manuscript contest.
As a younger reader, I often steered clear of novels labeled as coming of age or Young Adult (YA). I mistakenly thought I didn’t have much to learn from these stories and instead opted to read “classics” like Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, and Crime and Punishment. Ironically, now that I can no longer be mistaken for a “young adult” myself, I’ve embraced this valuable genre. YA novels offer so much more than a trite rendition of the loss of innocence trope. Instead, the YA genre, when done right, offers readers a glimpse into the complicated, traumatic, hilarious, beautiful lives of others, sparking curiosity and empathy, like all good “adult” novels do. The recent releases Sparrow by Mary Cecilia Jackson and Only Mostly Devastated by Sophie Gonzales are excellent examples of what YA fiction can be, offering spectacular character development, fast-moving and dramatic plots, and above all, a way in to identifying with characters different from many readers. In Jackson’s Sparrow, readers meet Savannah Darcy Rose, who goes by the nickname Sparrow, an ambitious, dedicated ballerina, who spends more time in tights and pointe shoes than wondering about the boys at her high school – that is until she quite literally bumps into Tristan King. In her initial courtship with Tristan, it seems that he is a god among young men, but his shining armor starts to crack, and it becomes quickly clear that he is not Sparrow’s prince. Similar to Sparrow’s disenchantment with Tristan, in Gonzales’s Only Most Devastated, we meet Ollie, a witty, endearing, and incredibly charming high school
upperclassman, who after having a splendid summer fling with Will, is shocked and disappointed when Will refuses to acknowledge his presence, much less their relationship when the summer ends and another year of high school commences. In both Sparrow and Only Mostly Devastated readers are plunged into the less-than-perfect world of a modern high school student, a life that is often a far cry from a fairy tale. Both Sparrow and Only Mostly Devastated are guided by the promise of a happily ever after, which seems to be lurking just out of reach. Sparrow thinks her happy ending involves Tristan, a devilishly handsome young man whom she has long admired and who finally begins to notice her and her talent as a ballet dancer. During this time, Sparrow is cast in the coveted role of Odette, the Swan Queen, in her ballet conservatory’s upcoming performance of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. Finally, Sparrow’s life seems to be improving, after a mysterious and unfortunate upbringing with her difficult, but now deceased, mother. However, as her romance with Tristan turns from touching to turbulent, her happily ever after quickly falls apart, robbing her of romance and her favorite creative outlet. As Sparrow’s life starts to unravel, so does her sense of self and her rationality, as we see her torn between Odetta, the white swan, and Odile, the black swan and the primary antagonist in Swan Lake. As someone who spent countless hours as a young person in the ballet studio, I delighted in the clever merging of life and art in Jackson’s novel as the lines between reality and ballet