Readers United Book Reviews | Popular and Midwinterblood

Sabrina Hsu '20 reviews Popular and Midwinterblood

Popular by Maya Van Wagenen 

“Popularity is more than looks. It’s not clothes, hair, or even possessions. When we let go of these labels, we see how flimsy and relative they actually are. Real popularity is kindness and acceptance. It is about who you are, and how you treat others.”

The real-life results are painful, funny, and include a wonderful and unexpected surprise —meeting and befriending Betty Cornell herself. Told with humor and grace, Maya’s journey offers readers of all ages a thoroughly contemporary example of kindness and self-confidence.”

Maya Van Wagenen (left) practicing tummy-slimming exercises listed in a 50s guide (right).

My thoughts:

If this book were a movie, it would be a typical motivational feel-good low-budget comedy, complete with tropes and hypocritically uplifting messages. Despite the moral of the tale being beauty is irrelevant to social status, the author records the triumphant climax of her experiment as a Cinderella moment, with her unable to recognize the lovely vision in the mirror while preparing for prom. Maya invites all the school pariahs to said prom to supposedly create an inclusive atmosphere, a move that appears more like a superficial bid for popularity among a group of outcasts than a sincere gesture of friendship.

Self-contradictory aspects aside, the tone of the book is heavily sugarcoated, edited to appear unrealistically sweet and positive. This renders it difficult to believe or relate to as a fellow teenager. Divided into nine sections based on the months in a school year, Maya strives to follow the outdated advice of a 50s popularity guide one section per month. She commences by addressing her “figure problems”, then moving on to hair, skin & makeup, and so on. Facing each new challenge with a degree of gusto disproportionate to the amount of, if any, beneficial results produced, her voice (marketed as “refreshing” and “honest”) fails to connect on a profound level.

Strewn with anecdotes regarding border life, her family members, and school going-ons, Popularis padded with the mundane events characteristic of an eighth-grade girl’s diary, adding a distinctively lackluster finish to the book. Attempts to render the story more moving can be discerned from subordinate narrative threads such as the episode involving the death of a favorite teacher; however, they appeared rather unrelated to the author’s main storyline. Ultimately, several facets of Maya’s memoir made it seem fabricated: the bubbly tone, the strategic photographs, the school’s rigid social hierarchy, the prom ending, and the social outcasts’ outpouring of gratitude all suggest a cheesy high school movie-like concoction.

Verdict: Overall, I do not recommend this book. The author’s social experiment doesn’t seem authentic and her voice is too gung-ho to be genuine.

Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick 

Reviewed by Sabrina Hsu ’20

“He wonders about them all, all the many lives that have been, and that will be, and wonders why they are not all the same, why they are what they are. It cannot be, he thinks, that when our life is run, we are done. There must be more to man than that, surely?

In Marcus Sedgwick’s award-winning novel, seven short stories weave together a poignant tale of love and sacrifice. Proceeding backwards chronologically, the stories stretch from the near future to the distant past, with a revolving cast of characters that encounter each other in the forms of Vikings, vampires, and high priests.

Eric Seven, a young journalist, is sent by his editor to interview the inhabitants of the reclusive Blessed Island, where rumor has it that an elixir of youth has been successfully brewed from the Island’s unique orchid species. He meets and develops an instant attraction to the beautiful Merle, and despite his eerie sense of déjà vu, they bond and fall in love. However, as events take a grim turn, Eric is unwittingly swept up in a tragic saga set in motion more than a thousand years ago. 

Starting with “Midsummer Sun” set in June 2073, the plot travels back in time via the intricately intertwined tales. Connecting details are scattered throughout, and readers begin to glimpse the big picture approximately after reaching the third story. Inspired by the painting Midvinterblot(Swedish for midwinter sacrifice), Marcus Sedgwick writes of a love that transcends space and time, of Eric and Merle’s doomed attempts to find one another in each life.

Midvinterblot by Swedish painter Carl Larsson

As the plot moves back in time, Eric and Merle become Erika and Merle then eventually Eirikr and Melle; Blessed Island is returned to the archaic Blest Isle. The Island, as the constant backdrop of the entire book, almost feels like a solid character in its own right. The mysteries entombed (literally!) on the Island from the orchids to secrets in Viking burial mounds form an interconnected web that tantalizes the reader. 

Sedgwick’s prose is haunting and lyrical, and the novel is unsettling without toeing the line into horror. Masterfully constructed, the seven sections cover distinct genres ranging from a ghost story to a World War Two narrative. An aspect that I particularly enjoyed is the variety among the stories in both thematic content and characterization; Eric and Merle do not make up the typical star-struck couple that changes little from one lifetime to the next. In some incarnations they are lovers, in others they are friends, or siblings, or complete strangers that don’t meet at all. It is a continuous thread of love and self-sacrifice that binds them throughout the centuries.

Verdict: Complex and beautiful, Midwinterblood is a novel that I highly recommend for those who enjoy darker fantasy, as well as anyone seeking an imaginative romance devoid of overused cliché elements.