The Sweet Far Thing

The Sweet Far Thing
By Libba Bray (819 pages)
Published by Delacorte Press
Bookish rating: 4

So, remember in my previous post on Rebel Angels, I made a fuss of extending (good) trilogies out, so I can draw out my bookish pleasure? Well, I just didn't make it this time. After Rebel Angels, the second book of the Gemma Doyle trilogy, I simply missed the Gemma Doyle world. The library had an e-copy available of The Sweet Far Thing, the third and final book, and after debating whether I could read 819 pages before it was due back, I downloaded it to my Kindle.

Done in 8 days. Granted, I've been on maternity leave since yesterday--without a baby to show for it--so I've had an unexpected and delightful amount of time to read in the past 36 hours. Time I shall soon long to have back, methinks.

I very much enjoyed this third book, but of the entire trilogy, this one was probably my least favorite. The plot gets a tad confusing, as Gemma must determine what to do with the power of the realms. Like the Harry Potter books, the fantasy element of the Gemma Doyle novels is deeply symbolic, almost religiously so. However, aspects of the realms got confusing and I didn't fully understand the mechanism that required this sacrifice or that one.

But really, no matter. Gemma Doyle is no Harry Potter, but oh, she is a girl! My very favorite thing about Libba Bray's three novels is how incredibly girly they are, but in a way that pushes them to be bold, powerful, brave, and smart, without being annoyingly obvious about it. She continually uses the corset as a metaphor--in an effing brilliant way, such as: "Should. That word, so like a corset, meant to bend us to the proper shape" (p. 562). Or, when observing her classmates preparing for their debuts to society and a cloistered life of weak tea and good behavior, Gemma describes the whole "coming out" process as "squeez[ing] their minds into corsets, lest some errant thought should escape and ruin the smooth illusion they hold of themselves and the world as they like it" (p. 784). Oh, Gemma loves herself a gaudy pink dress with beads and diamonds, but that doesn't mean she wants to be married off to the highest bidder and fill the rest of her days carefully grooming her social status and reputation via balls, teas, and so on.

Bray so obviously LOVES girls, and all three books really celebrate them, in myriad ways, without being cutesy or shallow. At the end of this final novel, Gemma overhears her straightlaced old headmistress generating a laugh that can only be described as a giggle. She says, "It is a giggle full of high spirits and merry mischief, proof that we never lose our girlish selves, no matter what sort of women we become" (p. 813).

I just love that.