Kid nation

From puppy love to cyberpunks, two
ex-Montrealers shake up young adult fiction

by JULIET WATERS

October’s a cruel month for the young adult demographic. The clean slate of back-to-school now has almost two months of crap on it, and the year ahead must be looking mighty long. Fortunately, there’s plenty of nearly school-approved subversive reading. As it turns out, two ex-Montrealers, Cecil Castellucci and Kristyn Dunnion, are trend leaders in this genre.

Castellucci now divides her time between the East Coast and L.A. Two of her novels, Boy Proof and Beige, have made library lists all over North America, and last year she wrote the first graphic novel, The Plain Janes, for the D.C. Comics Minx imprint.

The Plain Janes tells the story of a young girl who, after a terrorist attack, moves from a cool metropolis to a small town. There she meets a tribe of other girls named Jane (and Jayne and Polly Jane). Like a Situationist version of the Spice Girls, they decide to start a mock terrorist group that launches “art attacks” in public spaces (P.L.A.I.N. stands for People Loving Art in Neighborhoods).

The natural demographic for Janes in Love, the second installment of this series, is probably too young to remember Castellucci back in the days when she was known as Cecil Seaskull and Nerdy Girl. But there are winks in this series to her old friends.

Main Jane, the series’ heroine, is named Jane Beckles, after Derrick Beckles, the CBC and Vice TV personality. Though I was deeply disappointed there was no scene where Derrick proposes marriage to his namesake (visit YouTube to see VBS.TV Do’s and Don’ts—episode 1), I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the small town they all live in is named Kent Waters (after my brother, who was also pleasantly surprised).

Janes in Love is a gentle, sincere story of creative subversion mixed with painful high school crushes and a broad range of classic story riffs on teenage low self-esteem. Not so much Big Big Sky by Kristyn Dunnion, a speculative cyberpunk novel that is as full frontal queer hardcore as you can get and still, maybe, make it into a school library.

Some Montrealers may remember Dunnion from her days here as a McGill student, hanging out with the likes of Billy Mavreas and other Montreal underground subgeniuses. Since then, Dunnion has made a name for herself as a Toronto community activist, burlesque MC Miss Kitty Galore and author of Mosh Pit.

There probably won’t be a lot of other YA titles this year dedicated to “the pitbulls of Ontario.” Too bad pitbulls can’t read, because they would really love the first scene, where a gang of young female military assassins slice open the neck of one of the few remaining “manimals” on the planet earth.

Turns out that poverty-stricken, diseased, post-apocalyptic Earth has been invaded by an alien race of ScanMans bent on killing off all remaining human adults. The remaining female orphans have been recruited to an underground training camp, where they become a quick-thinking, Amazonian killing mob. Unfortunately for the ScanMans, teen Amazonian killing mobs aren’t generally known for unquestioning obedience. But more unfortunately for Rustle and Loo, the two heroines, the ScanMans have plans to discontinue their new semi-cyber model.

Pushing the YA envelope about as far as it can go without being an actual mail bomb, Dunnion has put together something like a mix between Mad Max and the new Battlestar Gallactica. From Loo’s first words, “Blaaty whafa, Rustle?!” the novel thrashes along with inventive invective that isn’t quite foul, but obviously is.

Buried in the gore, however, is a novel that is as poignant as any other YA story of deeply felt teen alienation, be it by new authors like Castellucci, or classic ones like S.E. Hinton. That it takes place in an Alien Nation just cranks it up a few notches.

JANES IN LOVE BY CECIL CASTELLUCCI
& JIM RUGG, MINX, PB, 155 PP, $11.99 /
BIG BIG SKY BY KRISTYN DUNNION,
RED DEER PRESS, PB, 250 PP, $14.95