Among Others

by Jo Walton

Raised by a half-mad mother who dabbled in magic, Morwenna Phelps found refuge in two worlds. As a child growing up in Wales, she played among the spirits who made their homes in industrial ruins. But her mind found freedom and promise in the science fiction novels that were her closest companions. Then her mother tried to bend the spirits to dark ends, and Mori was forced to confront her in a magical battle that left her crippled - and her twin sister dead. Fleeing to her father whom she barely knew, Mori was sent to boarding school in England - a place all but devoid of true magic. There, outcast and alone, she tempted fate by doing magic herself, in an attempt to find a circle of like-minded friends. But her magic also drew the attention of her mother, bringing about a reckoning that could no longer be put off...

• ISBN10: 0765331721
• ISBN13: 9780765331724
• Publish Date: 3 January 2012 (first published 18 January 2011)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 6 September 2012
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Tor Books
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 304
• Language: English

Reviews

[Quirky Cat]

I received a copy of Among Others through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Among Others as a novel by Jo Walton originally published back in 2011, but has recently gotten some extra attention thanks to it getting a new print edition. Personally, I'm really excited about that fact. I've loved Jo Walton ever since I was a teenager, and yet I never read this book. Talk about a great chance to dive back into the works of somebody you adore!

Morwenna Phelps, aka Mori, is a girl who lived in two worlds. The real world, and the world created for her through her greatest love: books. Mori is a girl very much in need of an escape. She may have her mother's gift to see magic and fairies, but that has never saved her from the darker things in life. Nor did it ever offer her the escape from reality that she so desperately craved.

“There are some awful things in the world, it's true, but there are also some great books.”

Among Others is an utterly enchanting read. Mori is a fascinating character, and her love of books makes her both approachable and all the more endearing. It opens up her world, and thus her narrative.

This book was everything that I needed it to be. It's ironic, really. Mori's escape was found in books (something we can all sympathize with, I'm sure), and I found an escape in her novel. Her story was not what I expected, but it was brilliant nonetheless.

There was a lot to enjoy about this book, not least of which is the way the story unfolded. There was this constant sense of intrigue, thanks to all of the past that had yet been revealed. It added a sense of tension to the story. Something that worked nicely in balance with the adoration of novels expressed.

Speaking of, Jo Walton did not shy away from talking about books. Mori didn't love imaginary books. She loved real books – books that we all have access to today. That was refreshing. It was so much fun seeing books I loved referenced within these pages. It made Mori's world come to life, which I'm sure was the intention.

Regardless, Among Others was an absolutely delightful read. I'm so incredibly happy that this novel got another print run, because I somehow managed to completely miss it the first time around. I'm glad that my mistake has now been rectified.

Check out more reviews over at Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

[jamiereadthis]

“Bibliotropic,” Hugh said. “Like sunflowers are heliotropic, they naturally turn towards the sun. We naturally turn towards the bookshop.”

Where do I begin? What is this book about? Books, yes. A love of books and of libraries. Books as lifeline and language. It’s about a girl growing up, and witches and fairies and boarding schools and grief and Wales and loneliness even amongst those with whom you might belong. It’s the boundary between the real and unreal, magic and the mundane, what it means to have power and sometimes no power at all.

But what I really love about it is the in-betweenness of it all. It begins where most books would end, after a battle between good and evil which Mori has lost. (Alternately, for this book is full of alternatelys, it’s after Mori is exiled to her estranged father because her mother has gone mad and her sister has died and Mori nearly died herself.) And it ends— not with falling in love, coming of age, or finding where she belongs, but simply filling in another page.

You can see Mori’s full arc — the adult she’ll become because of the child she’s been — but it’s between the lines. She’s still stuck in between. It’s her adolescence, literally. The cusp, the not-there-yet. She meets a boy, and he’s beautiful and reads Heinlein, but he’s a friend, a right-now, not a soulmate or savior. She faces her mother at last, but it’s not redemption so much as an anticlimax. She makes an effort with her father, but it doesn’t solve their relationship. An ad-hoc karass still isn’t where she belongs.

It’s the experience of being fifteen. The power you may or may not have; the responsibility of it. The untrustworthy world, which seems to both hang on your actions and operate without you at all. It’s remarkably clever, this book, where the magic is simply the natural order of things. A bus on time or not; anything that can be denied.

And I’m still describing it poorly because this is Jo Walton. It’s not a kid’s book, or a coming of age. It’s not even the science fiction or fantasy that Mori adores. It’s a story, a good one, and it plays with the concept of story itself. Books are Mori’s language. It’s how she communicates, and you see her just dying for someone to listen and then speak the same language. When they do, even imperfectly, it’s on the scale of another book’s grand revelation.

I love her odd little heart. I understand the way her mind works; it’s not unlike my own. I still feel the craving for people who speak the same language, and there’s hope they exist. This is one of those books you can read all kinds of ways because you participate in the story. There are layers and layers. It gives you what you bring to it. And it’s like Mori says, if you love a book enough, the book will love you back.

[ross91]

I wanted to love this book but it just wasn't for me. I think it's well written and fast to read, but at the same time the story was thin and a lot of pages were about nothing at all, like all the genealogy regarding the main protagonist's family... so boring, I skipped all of that without regret.
I love books that have many references, especially if those are about SFF and geek culture, but I couldn't get into the ones in this book... they were almost always about 70/80s stuff and, while I'm a huge SFF reader, I really don't like the ones published in those years (with very few exceptions).

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

After tragically losing her sister, Mori has to learn to deal with this great loss. She fled to her estranged father who then put her into a well-respected all-girls boarding school. Mori is left alone trying to deal with grief, a new school and her own teenage angst. Among Others is written in a series of diary entries exploring Mori’s coming of age.

While I found it extremely difficult to give a plot overview of this book, it might be easier to just say this is a book about book with a fantasy element to it. The tragic loss of a twin sister would be a difficult subject to write about and Jo Walton has combined some auto-biographical elements within the novel. Mori feels lost and she turns to books to bring her comfort and escapism, she is a fan of science fiction novels and slowly she begins to find the therapeutic value to reading.

Being set in 1979 allows the book to explore the older science fiction novels that I love without going into some of the modern stuff. What I loved about sci-fi novels of the 60s and 70s is there were strong psychological and sociological themes throughout the narratives. I found great joy when books like The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The Man in the High Castle and Slaughterhouse-Five were mentioned. There was something about reading a fantasy novel about reading science fiction that really tickled my fancy.

The fantasy elements were only a very small fragment of the book and I began to question if this really was a fantasy novel. I would call this book magical realism but the mention of fairies, elves, etc. probably does make it a fantasy novel. These fantastical elements played an interesting part in the book, and I began to question that this world actually existed. However for Mori, it existed and it was her way to hold onto her sister and deal with her death. She treated this world almost like a secret that was for her only and it allowed her to deal with her loss. When she held on to this world too tightly she feels whole again but she also can see how damaging it will become.

This was a fascinating look at grief and since it was a book about the joys of books and reading, I was hooked. It was a bit of a slow burn but I enjoyed the slow pacing and journey. About half way through, I felt myself losing a little interest but then Mori joined a book club and I was right back in. Among Others is a quiet and tender book about life, loss and most importantly books which makes it well worth reading.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2015/02/03/among-others-by-jo-walton/

[arronkau]

Whimsical and beautifully written.

[empressbrooke]

I keep going back and forth between 2 and 3 stars. I should have really loved this book, but I found myself more annoyed than charmed. Although it appears we're supposed to take the main character's story at face value and believe that the magic and fairies and her evil mother are real, I found myself writing it all off as her way of coping with a more mundane unstable mother and car accident. I think what pushed me over the edge into disbelief was the scene with the aunts and the earrings. I mean, what was that except some belligerent child who's playing make believe and throwing a tantrum? And we're supposed to believe she's 15! And as much as I love books, read and eat and breathe books, I wanted her to get her head out of them and be in the real world for a bit and have conversations that were real. There's something to say for being a well-rounded person with multiple interests. I realize I sound awfully harsh regarding a fictional girl whose twin just died; maybe it was the over-use of the word "brill" to describe everything she liked. You'd think someone who read so much would have a larger vocabulary!