I've followed Melissa Albert's work since her debut novel, The Hazel Wood was released. I remember the book was being promoted everywhere and I pre-ordered my copy ahead of time. The impression that book left on me took a long time to wear off and it made me a fan for life. So when I saw that Albert was releasing a new book called The Children, I knew I needed to add that book to my shelves. While reading this, I had to take time to let it sit in my head, to let it grow and take shape and show me all the things I needed to see that I was missing while reading. There is so much done in this book that I feel like I could read it again and see more things I didn't catch the first time around. On the one hand, this book is beautiful and on the other it is devastating. It's a toss-up every time I think about it. Overall though, I LOVED this book. It made me do research into other children's book muses and their fates and it made me cuddle my littles a bit closer. If a book can do that, it's an impressive piece of work.
The Children focuses on Guinevere Sharpe, the daughter of the late beloved children's book author, Edith Sharpe, well-known for her Ninth City books that used Guin and her brother Ennis as inspiration. Guinevere spent her childhood running around unsupervised, dirty, sometimes starving, and even neglected. In the books her mother wrote, she was the girl everyone wanted to be and wanted to know. The series was left unfinished when Guinevere and Ennis ended up orphaned by a horrible fire at their childhood home. Twenty years later, the siblings are estranged. Ennis is a well-respected artist and Guinevere has taken up the mantle of promoting her mother's books while also getting ready to launch her own memoir. When Ennis decides to open a new show called Mother at the same time as the release for the memoir, it forces Guinevere to reconsider what she remembers about her childhood. Is it truly the idyllic story she's told in her book and how did it all come crashing down in that fiery end?
The first thing this book made me think of was all those Acknowledgements pages I read at the end of every book I pick up. The ones where the author thanks their partner for doing the majority of the work keeping the house running and taking on the bulk of time spent with their kids. And then there's sometimes a line for said kids being thanked for understanding how much it meant that they let the author do their writing and understanding that they needed to let said author/parent do their work alone. After which, I promptly put my phone down, climbed into the playpen and started a game with my kids. Because yeah, this book made me very conscious of how much time I spend with my kids alongside trying to do some writing. As is, this review is being written after midnight when my kids are asleep so I don't feel guilty about not focusing on them. I don't want to ever come close to being the parents in this book, that's for sure. There is a work/life balance and Edith Sharpe definitely did NOT have that nor really a true parenting bone in her body and the examination of that that and the effect it had on her kids is what drives the book. How much is TOO MUCH to sacrifice for your dreams and who else has to sacrifice with you to get you there?
The second thing this book made me do is research the kids I could think of who inspired some of the classic stories that had children going on grand adventures. I'm happy to report that most of them went on to live long happy lives but this book definitely made me feel heartache for Guinevere and Ennis and the effect the Ninth City books had on their existence. The ideas presented in this story were chilling and it has cemented in my head that I will NEVER use my kids as inspiration. I know I'm talking about them now but there will never be any specifics about them mentioned anwhere in my writing. The fact that there are so many scholarly articles devoted to the research of understanding who inspired what and how and why is enough to make my skin crawl and I would hate for that kind of speculation to be turned on my family. Which is where a lot of the focus of THIS book went to with Guin and Ennis. I only cared about these kids and saving them and Albert deserves so much credit for making them feel so real and heartbreaking.
In terms of characters, the book focuses mainly on Guin, her recollections of her childhood and the spiraling effect her brother's new art exhibit is having on the life she has created for herself. I loved child Guinevere but I wasn't sure where I stood with adult Guin until the end of the book. I could understand why she was how she was but a lot of what she did throughout the book made me question her on everything. That ending though, just wow. It made me sit up and want to applaud and it was all because of Guin. Suffice to say, that is one character that packs a punch. I'm glad she got to where she needed to go, anything else said will ruin the effect of that ending so that is where I will leave it.
If you've read Melissa Albert before, this book fits right in with the rest of her work. At first, I thought this was going to be a story focused more on the effects of a neglectful childhood. Then there was a line, an almost throwaway type of thing with Guinevere waving at her mom and then a few sentences later a revelation and it made me sit up and think AHA, there it is, THAT is exactly what I was expecting from Albert's writing. It starts off subtle and then builds, putting more things in that need a second look at, ideas and images that build until they all come together to give you this overarching image of something terrible and wonderful for these characters and their story. The back and forth of the timelines helps with the rhythm, revealing suspenseful tidbits that the reader takes in knowing how Guinevere's childhood ends and then placing that story opposite the journey Guin is taking to finally coming face to face with her brother again after decades apart. It's all masterfully done, with each secret revealed at just the right time in the past and in the present. I loved the tension it created and the effect it had on me.
One last parting thought, I hope Albert seriosuly considers writing a Ninth City book. I've seen it happen before, after all, Albert did write Tales from The Hinterland that was meant to be a book seen in The Hazel Wood. I'm just saying, if Albert is getting ready to give readers The Ninth City, I will gladly read it.
Rating on my scale? 10 STARS. This book made me re-examine a lot of things, favorite childhood stories, their inspirations and their creators. It's everything I thought it was going to be and then just that much more because of the place it left me with that ending. I'll read this again when I receive my hardcover for my shelves. Read this book if you have ever wondered about the other side of the characters you knew as kids and who they'd be if they could grow up.
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