Book Reviews: My Fine Fellow; Sing Me Forgotten
This week we explore the exciting new subgenre I didn’t know I needed: gender-flipped Young Adult retellings of classic musicals! I swear I am not making this up, though it’s exactly the sort of thing I might have made up. Two of my favorite musicals have recently gotten this treatment, and the trend (if it is a trend; we’ll see if there are more coming) has made for an intriguing reading experience.
My Fine Fellow by Jennieke Cohen (HarperTeen, 2022)
With great imagination and creativity, Jennieke Cohen takes the Pygmalion/My Fair Lady story and moves it to 1833 in an alternate England, where Queen Charlotte rules instead of Queen Victoria. The culinary arts are highly honored, and women have more freedom than their Victorian counterparts—but unfortunately, anti-Semitism, and racism in general, still run rampant. And a poor street vendor named Elijah Little sells pastries that catch the attention of two young Culinarians in training, Helena Higgins and Penelope Pickering.
With that, we’re off to the races (see what I did there?) with a story that pays frequent clever tributes to the original while daring to strike out in its own direction. Elijah seeks to better himself under the guidance of the brilliant but abrasive Helena, all the while keeping secrets from her and Penelope that could derail the whole project. Famously, Pygmalion and My Fair Lady suggest different destinies for their protagonist; My Fine Fellow takes yet another path, one that wouldn’t have worked in the original but is made workable by Cohen’s various changes to the characters. It’s not what I would have done, but I will say she does it believably and well.
It’s targeted at teens, but My Fine Fellow serves as an enjoyable read for adults as well, especially adults familiar with My Fair Lady. And for kids and adults who don’t know the source material, this book is likely to make them want to give it a try!
Sing Me Forgotten by Jessica S. Olson (Inkyard Press, 2021)
Make the Phantom of the Opera a teenage girl named Isda with a gift for seeing into, changing, and stealing other people’s memories, and you have this fascinating Young Adult fantasy novel. Hidden away in an opera house by Cyril Bardin, the man who saved her life when she was a baby, Isda uses her gifts to help him and the company, but she knows she can never reveal herself to the outside world. Then one night she hears a captivating tenor voice … and you know the rest.
Well, not all of the rest. Jessica S. Olson weaves elements of Phantom with her own ideas and inventions into a seamless narrative. (I’m pretty sure she even borrowed a few things from the Arthur Kopit version of Phantom.) Her young heroine, sheltered as she has always been, is no shrinking violet. When Emeric, her new voice student and love interest, begins to shatter Isda’s illusions about her world and her own abilities, she grapples with the temptation to seize undreamed-of power. And she doesn’t always successfully resist temptation.
Olsson has a talent for characterization and for description that make it easy to get caught up in her story. And though we sympathize with Isda’s plight and root for her to find love and freedom, we’re not asked to support all of her choices. In her way she’s as morally ambiguous as the original Phantom, and has to grapple with the consequences of her decisions.
It’s true that at times the prose turns purple and the memory metaphor gets a little strained. But let’s face it, we Phantom fans have never been in it for the emotional restraint! Ultimately, the book’s conclusion is messy and explosive and completely over the top—in other words, it’s just right.
(Cover images copyright Harper Teen and Inkyard Press, respectively)
Correction: I originally misspelled Isda’s name as Isla.
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