“But easier, she reminded herself, was not the same as better.”

- Frances Hardinge

This week’s discussion post is for Frances Hardinge, author of The Lie Tree, Cuckoo Song, andA Skinful of Shadows.

grammarpedant:

i owe Frances Hardinge my life

she’s out here delivering those Angry Girl protagonists directly into my gaping soul and singlehandedly saving me from depression. i love me those unapologetically unacceptable girls who aren’t afraid to call the world out on its bullshit and get their hands dirty to give it what for.

as one can see i’m writing this post b/c i just finished her most recent book A Skinful of Shadows. mm, doesn’t that title already taste just evocatively horrifying in the mouth, Hardinge is SO GOOD with metaphors and word-painting. 

main character has got a bear ghost housed in her and sometimes she gets to use bear strength to fuck up people who’re trying to force her into submission, but mostly it’s just her trying to outwit more privileged enemies, and succeeding despite the HUGE odds. and Frances Hardinge really makes the odds feel heavy and real; she draws on real biases and circumstances in history and present life even when it’s dressed up with a little supernatural stuff. but even then it’s never too much, just like her prose is never too much- it’s never too edgy; even as the story and the character grapple with how awful and unfair the world is, it’s never in despair but always with a will to survive and do good in spite of it.

i just… love how Frances Hardinge’s characters are all so self-centered in the best way- centered on their own selves, they know who they are and what their values are and won’t be put off, at least not permanently, by terrible circumstances. (something i’ve lost touch of; i needed the reminder.) they each live fiercely like they only get one life to live, one opportunity to be true to what they believe in- ‘cause they can never trust that they’re gonna get another. anger is the opposite of apathy, determination to live the opposite of depression- that’s what I’m taking out of Hardinge’s works. she’s not literally curing my depression here but by god she’s inspiring me to help myself out of it and that’s already more than i could ever ask for