maple_dusk's reviews
270 reviews

The Castle School (for Troubled Girls) by Alyssa Sheinmel

emotional hopeful mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

When I first began reading The Castle School, I really loved it for its representation of often mischaracterized and stigmatized mental illnesses like eating disorders.

But here comes the biggest qualm with this book. To me, this book kind of explained away and dismissed the genuine issues Moira and the other characters had with their parents and adults like the Dr. Princes, because they were "just scared for them out of care." Even if that were true (I don't believe it to be entirely), none of that justifies the way Moira's mother frequently yelled at Moira throughout her life. That shit scarred Moira, and it's shown more than once in this book. I feel like the fault of the adults' treatments of these teenagers gets swept under the rug by the end of this novel.
This was directly addressed in the book, and it's mainly answered with, "Forgiveness can be one way to repair relationships" or something like that. And that's true, but I can't help but feel this book glossed over some important things, like legitimate criticisms of medical institutions for people with mental illnesses.

Favorite Excerpts:

But he doesn't know I'm here. He'll never know anything ever again. When he died, he was frozen in time with whatever knowledge he'd built up by then, whatever personality he'd grown into by the age of seventeen.
I'll never know what he might have grown up to say.
I take a sip of water from the glass beside my bed.

What a beautiful and sad way to describe death. I love it.

I know what it feels like to truly miss someone. It's a constant ache, a hum inside my rib cage. In ninth-grade biology, we learned about a condition called a heart murmur, and I think missing Nathan is like a metaphorical heart murmur. A tiny disruption in my heartbeat, a nearly imperceptible buzz distorting the whole system.

"And why only girls?"
Dr. Prince smiles. "It can get complicated when you have girls and boys running around together."
I roll my eyes but stop myself from lecturing him about being so gender normative. Cass and Virginia are a couple. Daniel's gay. And what about gender-nonconforming kids? Do the Princes admit nonbinary students?

"Carol tells me that in your group session this morning, she spoke about the ways finding closeness with one person can distance us from others."
[...]
"There's nothing wrong with being close with another person."
"Not at all."
"There's nothing wrong with having a best friend."
"Indeed. But Nathan was not merely your best friend, Moira. It seems he was also your only friend."
I shrug. "Maybe once you find someone you can be that close to, you don't need anyone else."
"I know it may feel that way, but it also leaves you quite susceptible to loneliness."

"Saying what if never helped anyone. You can't undo the bad things that have happened. Pain cannot be avoided, but it can be accepted."
"So I should just be in pain forever--about Nathan, about Eleanor?"
"Of course not. But some psychologists believe that resisting pain is what drives the majority of our suffering. When something terrible happens, it's natural to fight it: This shouldn't have happened! I wish I could go back in time, undo what I did. But resisting that pain doesn't make it go away. We can't go back in time. We are better served by accepting what happened, allowing it to change us, and working with what is left.
"This is called radical acceptance. You cannot change the fact that Nathan got sick and died."

"Well, if that's how you feel, then are you saying you don't think Eleanor can be helped? That she's destined to be sick and hurt herself forever? Is that what your ex-wife was talking about when she said you weren't going to fight to keep the schools open? Are you just radically accepting Eleanor's parents' lawsuit?"
[...]
Dr. Prince shakes his head. "Some circumstances can be changed with the right tools. The world is full of injustices that we must fight to change. And I'll be honest with you, Moira: I don't know if keeping the school open is the right thing to do after all that's happened. But to accept things is not to say they're okay. It is to say: This is what is."
[...]
"I didn't say it is what it is," he corrects gently. "I said, this is what is."
"What's the difference?"
"You're worried about your roommate. Allow yourself to feel that worry. You're grieving your best friend. Allow yourself to feel that grief. Trying to resist what has happened leads to further suffering. It doesn't mean that you're okay with the fact that Nathan is gone any more than denial means you forgot he died. But this is what is, what will be, no matter how hard you try to fight it."

"This is what is," I echo. "It's not as simple as it sounds."
[...]
"So radical acceptance is really difficult, even for an expert like you?"
"Yes."
"But I should try anyway?"
"Yes."

Here goes:
Nathan is dead.
Eleanor is in the hospital.
Randy is moving to New York.
The Castle Schools--both of them--might be closed.
My mother and I are very different people.
This is what is.
The hurt, the grief, the anger, the fear, the excitement, the joy.
They are all what is.
Accepting that is probably the most radical thing I could do.

Content Warnings

The Castle School (for Troubled Girls) by Alyssa Sheinmel

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 21%.

Switched to the hardcover version

Bungo Stray Dogs, Vol. 2 (Light Novel): Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era by Kafka Asagiri, Sango Harukawa

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mysterious slow-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Othello by William Shakespeare

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Othello is a Shakespearean tragedy surrounding the military general Othello, a man whose insecurities and irrational jealousy become his downfall.

I...enjoyed Othello, more than I thought I would. I needed to read the eBook alongside an audiobook to stay engaged and immersed, but the combination of both made a really interesting reading experience I've never had before.

Historical literary works aren't really my thing, so this isn't one of my favorites, but I don't consider it bad either. The main characters are well-written (except Iago, he feels too 2d to me). I like the exploration of and intentional ambiguity of story elements, such as the extent of Othello's jealousy. Additionally, while I didn't catch most of them, the hidden themes, motifs, and symbolism are all intriguing and reveal neat parts of the story once you learn about them.

Content Warnings

Othello by William Shakespeare

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Othello is a Shakespearan tragedy surrounding Othello, whose insecurities and jealousy become his downfall.

I...enjoyed Othello more than I thought I would.

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Frankenstein: The 1818 Text by Mary Shelley

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Content Warnings

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan

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challenging emotional hopeful mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Please read the content warnings. This book deals with some pretty heavy topics. If you need to wait before reading, please do so.

The Astonishing Color of After follows the journey of a biracial girl named Leigh Chen Sanders (she/her), who, after her mother commits suicide, heads to Taiwan to visit her maternal grandparents and gradually discovers the secrets and truth behind her family.

There was so much I love about this book. First of all, the depiction of mental health. This book delves into depression, the stigma surrounding it, how it affects its victims and their loved ones, and more. Depression is very heavily misunderstood, and I'm not confident I understand it much myself, but I am confident this book got some things right. For example, The Astonishing Color of After addresses the misconception of love "curing" depression multiple times. Spoiler alert: It doesn't.

In the author's note, the author explicitly says they intentionally wrote Leigh's mother's depression in a way so there was no specific cause to it. The mother was simply sick, just like so many others worldwide.

While it's not the main focus of the book, the issue of racism is brought a few times as well. How it manifests in grade school, societal norms, etc. As a Chinese-American, the depictions felt all too realistic for me.

Speaking of race, Leigh's feelings surrounding her identity as a biracial teenager are also explored, and very well too. Treated as an "exotic" zoo animal by some peers back in the United States, and feeling out of place in Taiwan, Leigh struggles to feel like she belongs outside her family and friends. Again, her experiences with struggling to speak Mandarin Chinese, to communicate with non-English speaking relatives, and fitting in with places of one's heritage are also things I can relate to personally.

And oh my goodness, the arguments with parents (except in Leigh's case, it's just with her father) about pursuing art as a career ARE JUST SO PAINFULLY ACCURATE. Saying art is not a reliable or stable path to a career, STEM pathways are more "practical," I could go on and on.

The prose is beautiful and inspiring. The metaphors and figurative language are amazing.

A nice four star read. Thank you for the wonderful book Emily X.R. Pan.

Favorite Quotes:

During sex ed, our teachers always made it sound like the guys were the horny ones. But right there on that couch I was certain that some crucial detail about the female body, or at least my body, had been left out.

Memories strung up just so, like holiday lights, casting the perfect glow in the perfect tones. But that picking and choosing what to look at, what to put on display--that's not the true nature of remembering.
Memory is a mean thing, slicing at you from the harshest angles, dipping your consciousness into the wrong colors again and again. A moment of humiliation, or devastation, or absolute rage, to be rewound and replayed, spinning a thread that wraps around the brain, knotting itself into something of a noose. It won't exactly kill you, but it makes you feel the squeeze of every horrible moment. How do you stop it? How do you work the mind free?
I wish I could command my brain, say to it: Here. Go ahead. Unspool, and let the memories go. Let them be gone.

She wonders how they are able to afford all this food. Lucky for Ping that his birthday coincides with the biggest holiday. Only once a year do they eat like people who deserve to survive.

There's still a mother-shaped hole inside me. It'll always be there. But maybe it doesn't have to be a deep, dark pit, waiting for me to trip and fall.
Maybe it can be a vessel. Something to hold memories and colors, and to hold space for Dad and Waipo and Waigong.

"She said that it was one of the best decisions she ever made. The bravest thing she'd ever done. She said she hoped that I would have that kind of opportunity in my life. I remember her words: 'Once you figure out what matters, you'll figure out how to be brave.'

Memories that tell a story, if you look hard enough. Because the purpose of memory, I would argue, is to remind us how to live.

"I just wish--" He stops and presses his lips together, swallowing the words.
I get it. There's no point in wishing. We can't change anything about the past. We can only remember. We can only move forward.

Content Warnings