Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman

Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman

Random House, 2018

This is not fair. Not fair at all. Tess of the Road is as close to perfect as a book can be, and yet for some reason that perfection is making it harder, not easier, to write about it. I feel the absolute greatest of responsibilities to this amazing book and it’s amazing heroine, and it’s hard not to write a thousand words of “please read it please read it please read it” instead of putting together some coherent thoughts. Nevertheless, I’m going to try.

Set in the same world as Hartman’s Seraphina and Shadow Scale, a duology about a half-dragon girl (the titular Seraphina) attempting to hide her illegal heritage and avert war while working as a court musician, Tess of the Road brings back the rich social and religious worldbuilding introduced in that series while shifting the focus to Tess Dombegh, Seraphina’s younger, human half-sister.  You don’t have to have read Seraphina’s books to jump into Tess’, but this volume contains spoilers for the ending of that series, and they are also excellent and worth enjoying unspoiled if possible.

Unlike her serious, talented older sister, Tess has been brought up to believe she has no particular talents or positive traits. Chafing under an emotionally abusive mother and a distant father, and constantly compared negatively to her compliant twin Jeanne, Tess is keen for new experiences and adventures. Instead she finds herself falling in with a nasty crowd and “ruining herself” at fifteen, undergoing a series of scarring, traumatic experiences which her environment gives her no tools or support to cope with.

By seventeen, Tess has helped Jeanne secure a good marriage but has no prospect of the same: her twin wants her to come live with her and become governess to her future children, but her parents are more keen to pack her off to a convent. By now desperate to escape by any means possible, Tess is finally given an escape route by Seraphina (who has gone into seclusion after becoming pregnant under what readers of her books will know are slightly complicated personal circumstances), and sets out on the road with only one goal – surviving each day as it comes.

Tess of the Road isn’t an unnecessarily dark read, but that doesn’t mean its not difficult. Tess carries her shame and trauma around with her every moment, and while they don’t affect her irrepressible personality, the audience sees first hand how often her exploitative relationship with an older boy and subsequent pregnancy come into her thoughts, often at rather inopportune moments. Tess’ shame is very much located in her body, with her mother’s strict interpretation of Goredd’s religion instilling utterly inflexible and misogynistic expectations about her purity and worth which allow no room for redemption or moving forward. For much of the first half of the book, Tess is explicitly struggling with suicide ideation, and her inability to find anything in herself to value is hard to read at times for anyone who has been through similar experiences.

Although its always present, however, this isn’t a book about Tess’ past – it’s a book about her journey, both literal and emotional. Like all good adventures of self-discovery, Tess of the Road is packed with a rotating cast of characters who appear at different points of her journey. Tess herself spends most of her time disguised as a boy, taking on several different identities as she believes the situation requires and apparently revelling in the freedom that a male disguise brings her (although we can’t help but notice that her strongest moments tend to happen when she isn’t acting a part, or when a sympathetic character sees through it). Her most constant companion is Pathka, who is a Quigutl: a misunderstood species of four-armed human-sized lizards, related to dragons but with their own highly distinct and alien culture. Tess first met Pathka when she was a child, and can understand and speak to them even though most humans never bother to learn their native language, an early sign that she is a far more generous and capable person than she gives herself credit for. Pathka’s quest to find a mythical world-snake called Anathuthia frames much of Tess’ quest, although there are plenty of sidetracks along the way – this is a book about the journey, not the destination.

While there are a few unpleasant characters on the road, they are by far outweighed by those who wish Tess well, even if they don’t have all the answers or make the right choices themselves. Some of Tess’ most profound moments come from characters – often adult women – who she assumes are going to be hostile or unpleasant to her, but who instead prove sympathetic, insightful, and help her overcome some of the internal prejudices that prevent her from processing what has happened to her. It is through these women, each of whom has had to deal in some way with the misogyny and prejudices which shape their expectations, that Tess realises the choices before her are much greater than her narrow, abusive upbringing gave her cause to believe, and that the traumatic events of her past, while they will never go away, will also never define her. Special mention also has to be given to Tess’ third-act romantic interest Josquin, a disabled man whose sexuality and desirability is presented as a complete non-issue, and whose relationship with Tess develops alongside a very sweet two-way bond of care without ever taking over the narrative.

In the end, there’s no big emotional payoff to Tess of the Road; no clear opportunity to confront the villains of her past or radically shift her family’s thinking so they suddenly learn to value her for who she is. Instead, we follow Tess through the slow, messy, incomplete process of healing and forgiveness, as she grows past her family and finds a new sense of self-worth and belief in her own aspirations. It’s fitting that, in some ways, the plot comes full circle on Tess, giving her an option for a future that in theory she could have always taken. But, of course, it took the experience and maturity Tess earned on her adventures to see that opportunity for what it was and learn to accept it, and herself.

While I can only speak to my own reactions to what I think is quite a personal book (and I should note that my personal experiences don’t include any of the worst elements of Tess’ youth) Tess of the Road completely succeeded for me in every way I think it set out to. I can’t recommend it highly enough. Please read it.

Rating: Ten steps in sturdy new boots out of ten

A Beginner’s Guide to Being Mental: From Anxiety to Zero F**ks Given by Natasha Devon

A Beginner’s Guide to Being Mental: From Anxiety to Zero Fucks Given by Natasha Devon (illustrations by Rubyetc)

Published 2018 by Pan Macmillan

I received A Beginner’s Guide to Being Mental from Pan Macmillan in exchange for an honest review.

I suspect many people like myself, who have had to confront mental health issues at some stage in our lives, will recognise the way in which tackling our problems can force us to develop a broader understanding of how human thoughts, feelings, physical needs and interpersonal relationships function, and what it means when things go wrong. A Beginner’s Guide to Being Mental takes that basic package of insight, adds a ton of expertise from author Natasha Devon’s career as a mental health educator, mixes in additional knowledge from mental health professionals and people with lived experience, and packages it into a concise, accessible read. The result, while not a traditional self-help tool (or, obviously, a substitute for medical support), is an invaluable collection of wisdom and demystification on a subject where straightforward information can still be hard to come by.

As one should expect from the title, A Beginner’s Guide to Being Mental organises its material in an A to Z format, with one topic per letter. This is a cute tactic, although it leads to a couple of contrived chapter names, including the very unfortunate choice to name the self-harm chapter “Just Attention Seeking” and cross reference it using this stereotyped phrase in several other chapters. While the J chapter itself addresses the misconceptions of this phrase straight away, I still found it uncomfortable to have it peppered throughout the book, especially when so much care seems to have been taken elsewhere to avoid unnecessarily harmful language and content.

Devon covers a lot of ground within her twenty-six chapters, addressing common illnesses and symptoms, the influence of external factors like youth and gender, and the kinds of treatment available (including both medical services like drugs and therapy as well as different forms of self-care). She also covers some UK specific ground about accessing mental health services, and is open about the inadequacies and gaps in the current NHS system, and her experiences as a government advisor on mental health. I apparently missed all coverage of her eleven months in the post while I was abroad, but this might not be news to everyone – and it probably won’t be news to most of my readers that the Conservative government were less than excellent about using Devon’s considerable expertise to genuinely improve the system.

One side effect of the A to Z format is that it frontloads Devon’s personal experiences with mental illness (anxiety and eating disorders), strengthening the feeling that this book is from someone who “gets it” from multiple angles. The chatty, informal style also helps, and makes this a readable and at times very funny book. At the same time, A Beginner’s Guide to Being Mental feels carefully written (“J” chapter name aside) and it’s clear that a lot of thought has gone into the content. Personal experiences are recounted where it may overcome taboo or help a reader to feel less alone, but the text avoids anecdotes that could be voyeuristic or, in the case of self-harm behaviours and eating disorders, contribute to “competitiveness” among those who struggle with these conditions. There is one section in an early chapter with some unpleasant medical details, and potentially triggering content about Devon’s experiences with bulimia, which is given a clear content warning; otherwise, this book should be accessible to anyone not in a state of immediate crisis.

Seriously.

To further sweeten the deal, A Beginner’s Guide to Being Mental is illustrated by Rubyetc, who I believe is literally the most relateable artist ever (certainly the most relateable artist on my Twitter feed in 2018). I am strongly considering buying a physical copy of this book when it is released on the strength of the illustrations alone – and, of course, because I think this is a very important and timely book that I would like to be able to pass on to other people in my life.

Rating: Nine acts of radical self-care out of ten

Non-fiction: Sexism Ed by Kelly J. Baker

 

Hello lovely readers, from a jetlagged Adri who is back in the UK after 36 hours of ridiculous travel adventures. I have a couple of shorter non-fiction reviews lined up over the next few days while I recover, but I expect to be back on the fiction analysis very soon! In the meantime, please enjoy:

(Yet another book I can’t find a large cover image for…!)

 

Sexism Ed: Essays on Gender and Labour in Academia

2018, Blue Crow Publishing

I received Sexism Ed through the LibraryThing Advanced Reviewer Programme in exchange for Opinions.

This is a strong collection of essays with a varied set of themes, largely drawing on Baker’s personal experiences both as a fledgling academic trying and failing to get onto the tenure track. Baker later left academia to become a full-time writer, including becoming the editor of Women in Higher Education, and the material in this book was created over a series of years.

The material is divided into three sections. The first tackles sexist bias in academia from multiple angles, concentrating on the hostile environment which universities often create for women who do not fit our stereotypical white-man ideal of what an academic should be. This is all interesting, if depressing, stuff, and I was struck by how well the material flowed despite the fact that even though these were separately written essays – I don’t know whether this was a happy accident, or the result of careful and highly successful editing, but it’s worthy of note either way.

The second, contains essays about the working environment in academia generally, and the way in which the system has become increasingly exploitative and difficult to navigate especially for younger workers, women, people of colour, and other marginalised groups. This section was the least relateable, as I’m not in academia and have no experience with the US schooling system, so I only have a weak grasp of what the tenure system entails and how widely the model is used elsewhere, and I did get close to skipping a couple of these. However, it’s all still well written and passionately argued and it ended up holding my attention to the end.

It was the third, sadly shortest, section which contained my favourite material. The essays here are mostly longer and tackle personal elements of Baker’s career and life, including her struggle to accept her high-pitched, accented, feminine voice (I can relate), getting to a stage in one’s career where you wonder where your ambition has gone (…yeah), and the struggle of being an expert on white supremacist movements in 2017 when your expertise becomes depressingly relevant and likely to make you a target for online hate (thankfully not in my range of personal experience, but powerfully written nonetheless). All of Sexism Ed feels personal in some way, but this was the section where I fell like Baker was able to cash in on all the more objective ground covered in parts one and two and really bring home what it feels like to navigate a career path in an industry that, on a fundamental level, wishes you weren’t so… you.

All in all, I was surprised and impressed by the ground which this collection covered, and how well the material in Sexism Ed cohered together despite its origins as separate essays over a period of years. I’ll definitely be looking out for more non-fiction work from Kelly J. Baker in future.

Rating: Nine elusive tenure-track positions out of ten