A Fan's Playground

Recently I read a bunch of books by Brigid Kemmerer and now I have started reading yet another.

The first of these was a book I read back in February (and then I read half a dozen other books). But the last four books are ones I’ve read in the last fortnight.

I had not managed to make much progress with the previous book I’d borrowed before my loan had expired. It was a romantic fantasy sequel by an author I quite like, so I really wasn’t expecting to keep putting the book down to reread bits of other books or to check the news or to scroll through social media. Especially as I’ve been doing a lot less of the latter ever since I put an app timer on my phone to limit how long I can spend on That Addictive Algorithm App (aka TikTok).

So I was looking through a list I’d made on Libby for a book that might hold my attention. Way way down in the list was a book I’d added back in 2020, a contemporary young adult fiction novel by Kemmerer. It was available and I finished it within a few hours.

This set me to thinking about the appeal that contemporary young adult fiction still has for me, despite the ever increasing years since I was a teenager in high school. Part of it is that it’s an inherently hopeful genre – protagonists’ circumstances are often guaranteed to change, and moreover, change in ways that grant them greater autonomy and independence, because that’s what happens when one grows up.

Part of it is that there are often lots of big emotions in YA. Maybe that’s because the genre prioritises that sort of storytelling, rather than because teenagers themselves significantly are more emotional, but if I think back on some of the things I felt very strongly about, I’m aware that some of my emotional reactions these days are more muted, tempered by experience and by perspective and by the fact that I now have greater autonomy over my life. There are also genres about adult protagonists that prioritise big emotions but the themes and tone of those narratives can be very different from YA. Because although it’s not hard, per se, to put an adult protagonist in a situation that limits their autonomy and sparks believably big emotions, I think those circumstances are often messier, or even darker, and consequently not so easy to realistically resolve with positive changes. Emphasis on realistically. (Or maybe emphasis on not so easy.)

Another part of the appeal of contemporary YA is that it can focus quickly in on the emotional heart of the story because it doesn’t have to use a lot of words to establish worldbuilding – it can assume that the readers are familiar with the concept of high school and go from there. Sometimes I like worldbuilding, obviously, but sometimes I don’t have the headspace for it.

And I can often relate to the rhythms of daily life of a high schooler – even though this hasn’t been my life for many, many years, that’s still something I have personally experienced, which I can’t always say that about the daily lives of characters who are closer in age to me. I’ve been rewatching some of Set It Up and my sister was commenting on how unpleasant she would find the main characters’ jobs, and I commenting on how different their jobs are from any workplace experience I’ve ever had. (I guess the closest I’ve come to that sort of city, corporate world was catching the same train as a lot of presumably-city corporate people when I was commuting to uni.)

… I did not intend to ramble on so much.

---

Here’s the review that I wrote over a month ago of Brigid Kemmerer’s non-YA book:

• Warrior Princess Assassin: Earlier this year I was checking my library’s catalogue to see if I could put a hold on the sequel to Kemmerer’s Carving Shadows into Gold yet – I couldn’t, so instead I put a hold on this (unrelated) adult romantasy.

I went into this knowing almost nothing about it – I had an inkling about the tone and direction of the romance, based on a comment I’d seen online, but I knew absolutely nothing else. It turns out that the title doesn’t refer to one person but rather to three. The story begins with the princess, Jory, whose father and older brother have just arranged a marriage alliance for her with the king of a neighbouring country – without consulting her. The warrior is Maddox Kyronan, the king of said neighbouring country, and the assassin is Asher, Jory’s childhood best friend, the son of one of the late queen’s ladies-in-waiting.

I really enjoyed reading this! ( I like how Kemmerer writes conflict between her characters. )

---

And now, for the contemporary YA:

• Letters to the Lost: This is about an anonymous correspondence between two grieving teenagers. Juliet leaves letters on her mother’s grave, not expecting anyone to actually read them. Declan, who does grounds maintenance at the cemetery as his court-mandated community service, adds a comment of his own to one of Juliet’s letters, not expecting anyone to read it.

This is shades of You’ve Got Mail, which is one of my favourite films. Juliet and Declan both attend the same high school and keep crossing paths in person, and I briefly wondered if it was going to become frustrating, or even unbelievable, that they don’t draw the dots. However, I actually really liked how the story handled it – in context, their reactions to their suspicions and revelations were understandable. Possibly even more so than You’ve Got Mail, given the protagonists’ youth and everything else’ they’re dealing with ( This was a perfect cure for a reading slump. ) Declan and Rev’s very close, very supportive friendship is one of the most interesting relationships in this book – Kemmerer definitely has a knack for writing relationships that I feel very invested in – so I liked getting to see more of their interactions, and I liked how the sequel provides some insight into how things are progressing for Declan (albeit just from Rev’s perspective). There’s also small glimpses of Juliet too.


• More Than We Can Tell: This is about two teenagers who are both receiving unwanted messages and don’t want to talk to their parents about it. Rev has recently begun receiving emails from his abusive father, whom Rev hasn’t seen in over a decade ago. He doesn’t want to (and arguably does not know how to) explain to his adoptive parents how he feels about this contact with his biological father. Emma keeps receiving abusive messages from a fellow player of an online game that Emma built. She doesn’t think telling her parents will help – she expects her gamer father to say that this is just part of the gaming industry that Emma has to deal with, while her mother will use the situation to insist that Emma stop gaming altogether.

I found this very compelling. I had no trouble focusing, either – instead, what I did have trouble with was putting the book down (it was after midnight and I had to work in the morning)! ( Continuing my theme of talking about these characters like they’re real people… )


• Call It What You Want: This isn’t connected to Kemmerer’s previous contemporary YA in any way that I could see, but I could see themes and variations.

It’s about two teenagers who are assigned to work together on a project for Calculus. Rob has been socially ostracised ever since it came to light that his father had committed fraud and mismanaged investments, resulting in lots of Rob’s classmates’ parents losing money, and Maegan has faced social backlash ever since she was caught trying to cheat on the SATs, resulting in lots of her classmates having to resit the exam alongside her. (I kept expecting that bit of backstory to be unpacked more – maybe it would have made more sense if I understood how the SATs work?)

Both of them have challenges on the homefront, too. Rob’s father requires round-the-clock nursing care after a debilitating brain injury. Maegan’s older sister has come home from college unexpectedly and Maegan’s parents have ordered Maegan not to tell anyone that Sam is pregnant, and Sam has ordered Maegan not to tell anyone, not even their parents, who the father is.

It has occurred to me how much I like the way Kemmerer writes dual POV. I often prefer single POV, especially in romantic stories, but in Kemmerer’s stories, having more than one POV is absolutely an asset and I really enjoy seeing things from different perspectives. ( I became invested in Rob’s friendships and I like how Maegan’s relationship with her sister is such an interesting and important part of this story. )


I have now read all of Kemmerer’s contemporary YA and am a little bit disappointed. I can’t remember the last time I read this many contemporary YA books that I liked this much.

I was looking on Kemmerer’s website and I really like the illustrated covers for Letters to the Lost and More Than We Can Tell, and how they capture the characters. (No people on the covers for the editions I read.) I also noted her FAQ says:

Do you plan to write any more contemporary YA novels? I get this question a lot, and I’m so touched that readers love my contemporary YA. My best answer at this point is … not right now. I absolutely love contemporary YA, but right now it’s a tough sell (both to publishers and to readers)

Interesting, and I guess not really surprising, that contemporary YA isn’t the current hot trend. But I also don’t feel like I necessarily have a good grasp of what is the current trend in publishing, compared to the days when I regularly wandered in and out of bookshops, and I certainly pay much less attention to what is happening in YA land than I once did.

---

Having run out of contemporary YA by Kemmerer to read, I looked at what other books of Kemmerer’s were available on Libby:

• Defy the Night: This is YA fantasy, set in a world plagued by an illness that can be avoided by taking medicine daily. Our heroine is Tessa, an apothecary's assistant, who spends her nights as a masked outlaw, stealing ingredients, concocting the medicine and distributing it to those who cannot afford it. Our hero is Corrick, the king’s younger brother, who is responsible for meting out justice and who has deliberately crafted a reputation for cruelty in order to protect his brother and to maintain stability in the kingdom.

Compared to Kemmerer’s contemporary YA, it took me much longer to become engrossed in the story – not until a particular plot development nearly a third of the way through. ( After that, I was hooked. ) I did come away feeling less invested in the characters and their relationships, probably because this book had to develop political as well as personal tensions and also because the story isn’t over.

But I was less invested, not uninvested. I’d have embarked immediately on the sequel but someone else had borrowed it so I had to wait. I have started it now. So far it’s more palace intrigue than masked outlaw shenanigans and I’m not hooked – yet.