Sweet Venom & Sweet Shadows by Tera Lynn Childs

Tera Lynn Childs’ young-adult novel Sweet Venom ends with a huge cliff hanger. For a lover of instant gratification such as myself, that is almost unbearable. Each chapter in this mythology-meets-modern-United-States novel culminates at a point which forbids stopping. I postponed my bedtime page after page, longing to know what will happen. Since I read the book on kindle, I was wholly unprepared when, at the height of suspense, I turned the page and discovered that it was titled About the Author. Frazzled and deep in the world of the novel, I started complaining to my uncle in English and was more than startled when he responded in Hebrew. Fortunately, book two of the trilogy, Sweet Shadows, came out in 2012.

I loved Sweet Venom. Each of the three narrators has a distinct voice and personality. Grace, Gretchen, and Greer discover that they are triplets, descendants of the Gorgon Medusa. It is their destiny to be guardians of the gate between the Abyss, where monsters reign, and our human world. The novel is rife with fighting, danger, secrets, and some romance, and I fell completely under its spell. I was ready to believe the girls are descendants of Medusa and that they hunt monsters in San Francisco. I loved that Gretchen consults the Oracle (who works as a psychic in the city), and that all the gods get “instant messages” when she does. I read on and on, allowing the cliff hangers to carry me through to what turned out to be not at all an end.

I instantly ordered Sweet Shadows, but I found it is not as spellbinding. Throughout the novel, the three girls show polite and overly discrete restraint at sharing information or asking questions. Greer, the sister with second vision, refrains from telling her sisters about visions which pertain to them. Grace, the pleaser, doesn’t ask questions out of consideration for the others’ feelings. Gretchen, even after she sees over and over again that they three should stick together, keeps pushing her sisters away. With the fate of the world resting on their shoulders, it seemed strange to me that three intelligent girls could be so unaware that their reticence is putting spokes in their own wheels. Do they really think all this information is unimportant?

Wishing to enter a novel’s world whole-heartedly, I am always disappointed when the technique a writer employs does not work for me. I didn’t read book two with the same eagerness as I read the first novel. I think, however, that my disappointment arose out of how fascinating I found Sweet Venom and the high expectations which I therefore had for the second. Despite the communication shortcomings, Tera Lynn Childs continues to build the girls’ characters nicely, and there’s some conflicts (such as who the girls’ mother is) that I long to see resolved. I am looking forward to reading book three, Sweet Legacy, when it comes out in 2013.

All Eyes to the Target: Boy Ahead!

I read somewhere that young adult plots tend to concentrate on finding love, while middle grade novels depend on character development. I understand why 9-12 audiences are not interested in romantic endings. I also completely get why young adults would find the process of finding love more fascinating than almost any other subject. Love in YA novels, however, often comes hand in hand with the search for an inner truth and independence, an attempt to understand and find a place in a confusing world.

A friend of mine told me that she decided at eighteen to discover who she is alone before finding out who she was in a relationship. I appreciated what she said. I think it is a good lesson to learn, and I tried to follow it after my divorce. I met my ex husband at nineteen, when I did not have the presence of mine or inner strength yet to insist on what I want in the midst of my desire to please him, my craving for his love, and my fear of being alone. I hope, through my writing, to impart to girls the knowledge that facing these fears and needs and finding the “I” behind is possibly the most important and transforming experience in growing up.

I just finished reading Forgive My Fins by Tera Lynn Childs. Fluid and fabulous, the novel is a great example to YA love trends. The protagonist, Lily, is a mermaid living on land who must bond with a guy (for life) before her eighteenth birthday, or else she will not inherit her father’s throne. Lily has carefully selected a boy for this purpose. But it’s just so hard to tell him who she is and how she feels! Then Lily’s plans fall apart by another boy who she accidentally bonds with, and now she needs to find a way to put everything to rights again.

I had so much fun reading this novel. I loved Lily, her friends, and Quince, the boy next door. I loved the many fish expressions (like “That Blowfish!” and “curl my fins”). Lily had to find out not only who her true love is, but also what she wants from her life, and in Tera Lynn Childs’ novel the two were inexorably tied together. So maybe Lily doesn’t learn any other life lesson in the novel than that love is stronger than anything. But is that really such a bad lesson to learn? Lily learns to welcome the unconditional and rare love she is given not only from where she least expected it, but from her best friend in the sea and best friend in land and from her father -- all of whom are willing to set Lily free so that she can follow her dream.

And what better lesson is there in the world? What more could I want my teenaged child to know than that love conquers all? In my opinion, there is none.