DNF @ 55%

This just wasn't holding my attention.

Inhalt:

Davids älterer Bruder John kommt gewaltsam ums Leben, weil er das Richtige tun will. Das traumatisiert nicht nur David, der seinen Bruder verehrt hat, sondern zerstört den Zusammenhalt seiner Familie. Vorher hat sie ihr tiefer Glaube geeint und gestützt, jetzt kann nicht mal mehr dieser die Scherben kitten. Sein Vater trinkt, seine Mutter verschließt davor die Augen. David reagiert mit ohnmächtigen Zorn auf das Leben, das Schicksal, und besonders auf Gott. "Warum, Gott, warum?" sprüht er als Graffiti an die Wand einer Kirche - aber ausgerechnet das führt dazu, dass er seinen Glauben wiederfindet.

 

Unbeabsichtigt lenkt er allerdings die Aufmerksamkeit seiner Eltern auf eine charismatische Predigerin, die ihren Anhängern verspricht, dass am 11. Mail der Tag der "Entrückung" komme. Alle wahren Gläubigen würden an diesem Tag direkt in den Himmel auffahren, und danach solle sieben Jahre lang die Hölle auf Erden für die restlichen Menschen herrschen, bevor das Jüngste Gericht das Ende aller Zeiten einläute.

 

Während Davids Eltern sich freudig auf den Weltuntergang vorbereiten, hat er berechtigte Zweifel... Er kann sich nicht vorstellen, dass Gott wirklich von ihm verlangt, alles zurück zu lassen - auch seine Freundin Bailey. Aber am Morgen des 12. Mai sind seine Eltern spurlos verschwunden...

 

Meine Meinung:

 

Das Thema fand ich hochinteressant und spannend! Und das völlig ungeachtet dessen, ob man als Leser selber gläubig ist oder nicht, denn das Buch ist weder christliche noch anti-christliche Propaganda, sondern eine emotionale Geschichte über Glauben als persönliche Entscheidung. Das liest sich in meinen Augen nicht nur mitreißend, sondern auch intelligent geschrieben und originell.

 

Allerdings habe ich mich öfter bei dem Gedanken ertappt, dass deutsche Jugendliche vielleicht ein bisschen befremdet reagieren könnten auf die Schilderungen der christlich-fundamentalen und evangelikalen Glaubensrichtungen, die in den USA gar nicht so ungewöhnlich sind. Jugendliche, die Keuschheitsgelübde ablegen, sogar vor einem Snack ein Tischgebet sprechen und viele Stunden freiwillig in der Kirche und Gemeinde arbeiten? Ganz zu schweigen von Eltern, die es für Teufelszeug halten, wenn in der Schule über Evolution gesprochen wird. Leider ist das nur zu realistisch, und daher könnte ich mir vorstellen, dass das Buch nach einer kurzen Einführung in das Thema eine hervorragende Schullektüre wäre!

 

Jedem interessierten Leser, jugendlich oder erwachsen, würde ich eine kurze Recherche in das Thema empfehlen. (Oder zumindest eine kurze Stippvisite bei Wikipedia.)

 

David, der Held der Geschichte, war mir direkt sehr sympathisch. Er hat es nicht leicht mit seiner kaputten Familie, seiner Trauer um John, seinem Hadern mit Gott... Und das alles zusätzlich zu dem Gefühlswirrwarr, mit dem man sich als Teenager sowieso rumschlägt.

 

Was mit an ihm besonders gut gefallen hat: ich fand seine persönliche Entwicklung unendlich berührend und glaubhaft. Der Tod seines Bruders reißt ihn aus seinem Kinderglauben, der nichts hinterfragt, sondern einfach nur glaubt, weil die Eltern glauben. Und das macht ihn wütend, weil es ihm den Halt raubt, den ihm der Glaube immer gegeben hat. Aber er ist ein intelligenter Junge, der damit beginnt, sich eingehend mit den Grundlagen seines Glaubens zu beschäftigen.

 

Die Autorin hätte es sich jetzt einfach machen und ihren Lesern eine Meinung vorgeben können: ja, es gibt einen Gott, an den man glaube sollte, oder nein, es gibt keinen Gott und Glaube ist sinnlos. Stattdessen lässt sie David wüten, hadern, hinterfragen und zuletzt zu seinen ganz eigenen Schlüssen kommen.

 

Auch, wenn man mit dem Thema Glauben nicht so viel am Hut hat, ist es meiner Meinung nach trotzdem ein schönes, spannendes Buch, das eine süße Liebesgeschichte enthält. Davids Angebetete, Bailey, ist eigentlich sein genaues Gegenteil: wenn sie an etwas glaubt, dann an die Wissenschaft. Ihre Helden sind Darwin, Einstein und Madame Curie. Und so müssen die beiden entscheiden, ob sie zu einer Toleranz der Werte des anderen kommen können oder nicht.

 

Der Schreibstil ist locker und gibt glaubhaft die Gedanken eines Jugendlichen wieder, der einerseits ein typischer Teenager ist, andererseits aber mit einem sehr strengen Glaubenssystem aufgewachsen ist. David beschäftigt sich mit den großen Fragen des Lebens - und damit, ob seine Freundin wohl findet, dass er ein schlechter Küsser ist.^

 

Fazit:
Ein unterhaltsames, spannendes Jugendbuch über den Glauben als persönliche Entscheidung? Ja, das geht. David muss sich nicht nur mit den typischen Teenagerproblemen herumschlagen, sondern auch mit dem Tod seines Bruders - und der Tatsache, dass seine Eltern glauben, dass die Welt in etwas mehr als 40 Tagen untergehen wird.

 

Die Autorin überlässt dem Leser, an was er glauben will - sie erhebt nicht den moralischen Zeigefinger, sondern zeigt vorurteilsfrei verschiedene Glaubensvorstellungen.

This is going in my #LGBT tag because there is at least the Malinda Lo story, but unfortunately its 99% hetero shit. Basically the majority of my thoughts on this anthology was "it could have been gayer, also there was an opportunity for a gay trans man and you missed it." Here are my thoughts now that I've finished this:

The Key by Rachel Hawkins: Honestly very boring and forgettable. I didn't even remember reading this by the time I finished the anthology.

Figment by Jeri Smith-Ready: This was okay I guess, not very memorable or engaging, but it felt extremely out-of-place with the rest of the stories.

[vvv these three are my favs! vvv]

The Twelfth Girl by Malinda Lo: I LOVED this story. It has some Girl/Girl fraught romance going on and its great. Malinda Lo is an author I want to like, but whose novels are always impossibly boring to read and never end in a satisfying way (why can't gay couples just be together and be happy?) But for some reason this short story was the best thing by Lo I've ever read, which is a little sad because the writing is still pretty boring. But not NEARLY as boring as her full-length novels. The characters were actually engaging and felt like their own people, the interaction between them was fun, the imagery was repetitive but interesting.

The Raven Princess by Jon Skovron: I've literally never heard of this author before this short story but I think it's one of my favorite stories. The twist that the princess actually prefers to be a raven and the hunter decides joining her in ravenhood is preferable to a life where he would be forced to kill something, that's perfect. I need more stories where shedding humanity and leaving human society is a positive thing. Also of course, the most excellent part of the story: adorable gay giant couple and their tiny human child. I wish we got to see more of them, I would read an entire novel about giant husbands and their baby raising adventures.

Thinner Than Water by Saundra Mitchell: This is a story about parent-child incest. There is a lot I have to say about this short story, and a lot I have said on my personal blog which will never be linked here. What I will say: it is extremely, extremely important to have media that shows anger and violent, vengeful thoughts are an extremely common and normal part of the thought process of a sexual abuse survivor. To see it written out so clearly, with no judgment, so incredibly relatable as if my own thoughts were taken and put into words by a stranger, was amazing in ways I can't properly put into words. Basically every thought the main character had is one I had. And the same thing happened- the total dismissal that there is anything wrong going on even when it is found out. The blame and disgust being directed at me, a child, instead of the guardian who had all the power in the situation. Such an accurately written account of rape culture. It would have been interesting if the story explored how survivors are treated when their violent urges borne out of self-defense are judged more negatively than anything their abuser did too, but the ending with the father being sent to the torture chambers is more than I've ever gotten before so I'll take it.

[^^^ these three are my favs! ^^^]

Before the Rose Bloomed by Ellen Hopkins: I actually don't like Hopkins' poetry so I skipped this after a few pages.

Beast/Beast by Tessa Gratton: While the writing in this story is LOVELY, heterosexual Beauty and the Beast retellings are a dime a dozen. This isn't even a very different retelling, there wasn't anything new. I just pretended Beauty was a boy and mentally replaced all mentions of 'girl' in my mind to get any enjoyment out of the story.

The Brothers Piggett by Julie Kagawa: I appreciate the message this story sends but I don't think I had fun reading it. I would have younger boys read this though, for the message.

Untethered by Sonia Gensler: Didn't leave much of an impression.

Better by Shaun David Hutchinson: This story started out interesting but then it got to a completely and utterly unnecessary rape scene that was so badly written and then totally ignored for the rest of the story. Fuck this author.

Light It Up by Kimberly Derting: AMAZING retelling of Hansel and Gretel. The imagery and atmosphere is very good. The characters definitely sounded like young siblings, though I wish the word 'bitch' didn't need to be thrown around so much to drive that point home. I'm really confused how a giant barbecue grill was in the wooden cabin or how the villain got missing person posters for the random hikers he ate, but am willing suspend disbelief.

Sharper Than A etc by Christine Johnson: Uninterested, skipped.

A Real Boy by Claudia Gray: This was basically the same as every other "boy-shaped robot becomes too human, falls in love girl" story. Why does it always have to be a binary gendered robot? Why can't it be a genderless robot? Think outside the box here people.

Skin Trade by Myra McEntire: Skipped the fuck out of this. If something reads exactly like a PUA fantasy from the get-go with no clear criticism of that thought process, it is not worth the time to read.

Beauty and the Chad by Sarah Rees Brennan: Okay, this was cute, but also I am soooooooooooo sick and fucking tired of these "girl crossdresses as boy, boy falls in love thinking she's a boy, thinks he's ~gay~ but she reveals she's a girl so its okay happily ever after" HOW FUCKING STRAIGHT CAN YOU GET! Oh my god. Just write two dudes falling in love, its okay to write about two guys in love, 99.99999% of media is straight as shit. Throw us a bone. Or hey, you know who has even less media representation? Gay trans men. (Like me, hi!) No, I've literally never ever seen gay trans men in any published work of fiction. The one time is in a German film no one who isn't trans cares about. But these girls-crossdress-make-straight-guys-question-sexuality stories are everywhere and I hate it I hate it I hate it. Cishet default is the worst default.

The Pink by Amanda Hocking: At this point I was totally worn out and done with how aggressively heterosexual and cis these stories were so I have no positive thoughts to this one. It was more normative straight romance and was badly paced and had multiple plot holes, the end.

Sell Out by Jackson Pearce: Boring internal monologue and then he kisses a dead girl. What an anticlimatic end to the anthology.

This Side of Salvation had a lot going for it. Sports, school, religion and romance — all things that are important to a sixteen-year-old. David had a bright future ahead of him in baseball. He trained just as hard for it off-season as he did during his seasons. College scouts were on the look-out for him and his high school coach had taught David all he could.

 

Homeschooling put David and his sister Mara ahead of their peers, so they attended courses at their community college. Romance-wise, David had Bailey's attention, so on the whole, David's life was going great. Except, he had lost his brother John, which cast a huge blanket of grief on his family. David lashed out at God, questioning why John had to die. His parents on the other hand, became more zealous.

 

Their zeal landed them in the midst of a group of people who claimed that the Rush was imminent. They refused to refer to it as the rapture because so many ministers had predicted the date and failed. This time was going to be different, they believed. Except, David believed the words of the Bible and that was that the end of the world couldn't be predicted. Mara didn't even believe at all.

 

At the core of This Side of Salvation lay the search for and the grappling with faith and beliefs. Faith tore David's family apart, yet faith was what kept them going as individuals. I liked the exploration of differing beliefs within their family. It was interesting to read how David and Mara dealt with their parents and how religion could have such a strong effect on their lives.

 

Despite my interest in the religious aspects of This Side of Salvation, it took me quite some time to read the book. The alternating settings between "now" and the past that led up to the Rush were cumbersome to read. I prefer linear time frames. It was even worse when the "now" was riddled with David's reveries. Personally, I don't think the alternating settings anything to the story. It only hampered my reading.

 

Things got worse for me towards the end. You would think that a book that was such a slow reading would have an equally long-drawn resolution. That was not the case at all. This Side of Salvation ended extremely abruptly. For all the 368 pages, less than 30 pages offered up any form of explanation for the events that had been laid out in extensive detail beforehand. It left such a damper for me at the end, my very last sentiment was annoyance. Pity, for This Side of Salvation dealt with very well with the representation of a cult versus the church.

Quick thoughts: For some reason I took a little over a week to read this book. That's not very long but definitely longer than normal when I've a whole pile of books to get to from the library. I think what slowed me down was the alternating settings between "now" and the past, i.e. the lead-up to the Rush. I prefer linear time frames to alternating once, so I wasn't a fan of that.

Nonetheless, I thought the premise was intriguing, so I stuck it out. Then I got to the end. The end made me a tinge agitated. In proportion to the rest of the story, the resolution was so abrupt, I didn't even know what hit me. For such a long-drawn lead-up to the core event of This Side of Salvation, I didn't expect everything to become so disjointed.