Leah Bobet: Above

[bibliogramma]

Deep under the city, there's a place called Safe. A place for Freaks, Sicks. Beasts. But it's built on a lie, and it will be torn down by the lie and the person the lie was told about. And eventually it will be rebuilt by the truth, and the one who learns that you can't save everyone, sometimes not even yourself - but you can tell your own truths, and listen to the truths of others.

Matthew was born in Safe. His parents are dead, and he is being raised by Atticus, one of the founders of Safe, to be the community's new Teller - the communal memory, the person who learns and remembers and recites the tales of all the other members. The only tale he does not know is the tale of Corner, the other founder, who was exiled from the community and is now feared as an enemy who may return. Oh, he knows what Atticus has said about Corner, but he does not ubderstand intil the end that what he has been told is a lie. When Corner's Shadows invade and destroy Safe, Matthew and other survivors flee to seek refuge with helpers - so-called normal people who know about Safe but who live Above. Matthew, as Teller and as the apparent heir to Atticus, feels it is his responsibility to find and protect the other survivors, especially a very damaged young woman named Ariel, and to rebuild Safe.

It might be a coming of age YA novel, but then again, it might be a lot more than that

This might be a parable, about what happens to The Other - the one who isn't normal enough to be part of the world Above, who is pushed into the darkness because of issues of colour, or gender, or disability, or mental illness, or - because this is science fiction - mutancy. And about how the Other comes to see and interact with the world that casts them into darkness. And how the cycles of causing pain, and learning fear and hate, that bind both the Other and the ones who cast the Other out can be - no, not broken, it's never that easy - cracked a little by finding and telling and sharing truths about each other.

It's certainly a very complex book that looks at many difficult issues. As Brit Mandelo says in her review of the novel for tor.com:

Above is a book with sharp edges. Bobet casts a critical and incisive eye on her characters’ fears, failings, wants, needs—and what they are capable of, for better or worse. Above also deals intimately and wrenchingly with mental illness, the ways that we treat people who we deem Other in our society, the complexities of truth-telling, and what makes right or wrong. Issues of gender, race, abuse, and sexuality are also prevalent in this world of outcasts, both literally and metaphorically. (http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/04/telling-tales-above-by-leah-bobet)

I enjoyed this book very much, and am looking forward to more from Bobet.



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