All tagged Military

Power & the "Tough Enough" Narrative: Rites of Passage by Joy N. Hensley

Power & the "Tough Enough" Narrative: Rites of Passage by Joy N. Hensley

Sarah Moon
Books

When listening to the audiobook of Joy Hensley's debut YA novel, I kept recalling a huge news story from my youth: Shannon Faulkner's two year-long fight to be granted admission to The Citadel, South Carolina's public military college. When the court finally forced the college to allow her admission to the Corps of Cadets, she lasted only a week, having spent much of her time in the school's infirmary.

Years later, Faulkner revealed that she was subject to intense abuse, and feared for not only her own life but the lives of her family members, thanks to death threats she received while at the school. 

It was a gut-wrenching thing to watch on the news when I was a teenager. I'd been rooting for Faulkner to succeed, to win for every girl who wanted to smash any number of boys-only clubs (institutional or social) that were inaccessible to us girls.

Review: Collateral by Ellen Hopkins

Review: Collateral by Ellen Hopkins

Sarah Moon
Books
[…] Service. Sacrifice.
      The problem with that being,
              everyone attached to those
                    soldiers must sacrifice, too.
So, as some Afghani warlord
might say,
      put that in your 
             pipe and smoke it. Okay, that
                      was actually my grandpa’s saying.
But it works, and what I mean
       is, think long and hard before
              offering your heart to someone
                      who can only accept it part time. 

It’s fitting that Ellen Hopkins’ newest novel-in-verse for adults, Collateral, shared its release day, November 6, with the United States election day. 

It’s both timely in its exploration of the effects at home of the country’s long-time military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq and in that Collateral also touches on a number of other current issues in this country, creating a heavy-handed, though still beautifully written, snapshot of American life that’s intertwined with the modern military.

Written in free verse, Collateral is mostly told from San Diego student Ashely’s point-of-view. She meets and falls in love with a Marine, Cole, a guy from rural Wyoming whom she is shocked to discover isn’t what she thought of as the stereotype of a military man.

You can tell a lot by the way
        a guy kisses. Cole kissed like

summer rain—barely wet,
          the temperature of August
              sky, thunder-punctuated. Delicious. 

Cole writes poetry, he’s smart, he’s funny. Their relationship is intense, and Collateral spans five years and four of Cole’s deployments.

The title of the book—Collateral—demonstrates the main theme of the book: collateral damage.

{Early Review} Something Like Normal by Trish Doller

{Early Review} Something Like Normal by Trish Doller

Sarah Moon
Books


Something Like Normal by Trish Doller

But what has been done can’t be undone. My best friend is dead and I’m never going to be the same Travis Stephenson.

Trish Doller’s remarkable debut, Something Like Normal, is one of those rare books that I recommend to nearly everyone. It’s an important, timely novel—one that’s lingered with me in the months since I read it.  

Well before SLN was published (it’s out on June 19), I found myself on seemingly every social media site insisting the everyone—absolutely everyone—read this novel about 19 year-old Marine Travis Stephenson, who’s home on leave in Florida following a tour-of-duty in Afghanistan where his best friend, Charlie, dies before his eyes. Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (a fact kept hidden from the Marines, as that would torpedo his military career), Travis finds himself feeling like and outsider in his own home and hometown. 

As we head toward the beach I notice the differences in the landscape of the city. New businesses that weren’t there last year. Old businesses that are gone. It’s like a whole chunk of time has just … disappeared. The songs on the radio are different. The faces on the celebrity tabloids at the airport newsstand were people I didn’t recognize. There’s even a new American fucking Idol.