Book Review: Like Mandarin by Kirsten Hubbard

It's hard finding beauty in the badlands of Washokey, Wyoming, but 14-year-old Grace Carpenter knows it's not her mother's pageant obsessions, or the cowboy dances adored by her small-town classmates. True beauty is wild-girl Mandarin Ramey: 17, shameless and utterly carefree. Grace would give anything to be like Mandarin. When they're united for a project, they form an unlikely, explosive friendship, packed with nights spent skinny-dipping in the canal, liberating the town's animal-head trophies, and searching for someplace magic. Grace plays along when Mandarin suggests they run away together. Blame it on the crazy-making wildwinds plaguing their Badlands town. Because all too soon, Grace discovers Mandarin's unique beauty hides a girl who's troubled, broken, and even dangerous. And no matter how hard Grace fights to keep the magic, no friendship can withstand betrayal. (Summary and picture are from goodreads.)

Before Like Mandarin came out, I read its query  and fell in love with the premise. I stalked kept track of the book after that, reading every ARC review and interview, following Kirsten's blog, and counting down until March 8th.

  

Then March 8th came, and I was beginning to save money for my trip to Kazakhstan, and the library didn't have it in stock yet. When the library did get it, there was always another book to read, something else to do, yada yada yada. Finally, I began the book on Tuesday, and finished it yesterday.

 I'm a slow reader, and I enjoy being a slow reader. For me, reading is like taking a vacation in another world, and I want it to last. The last book I read as quickly as I read Like Mandarin was Courtney Summer's Fall For Anything, which is an all-time favourite of mine. In fact, since Like Mandarin was the last book in my pre-Kazakhstan TBR pile, I had to stop myself from reading it in one sitting. I was hooked.

Though Like Mandarin's premise intrigued me, as I read reviews, I wondered if I'd enjoy the book as much as I first thought I would. Not that the reviews were bad--they were fantastic, actually--but they complimented Kirsten on her setting, and mentioned it was an engrossing read despite the lack of romance.

Setting bores me, and romance is my favourite part of any novel. I was a little worried.

But, I had no reason to be. Though the details of setting tends to bore me, I love books set in small towns, and Kirsten captured one perfectly with Washokey. I felt as though I was in the town as I read, and I understood how it affected the characters, how the wildwinds made people go crazy. I didn't skim over the town's physical details, because I wanted to know everything about it. 

As for the lack of romance, the relationships in this book are so real, and thus engaged me as much--if not more--than a romantic relationship would've. Grace's relationships with her sister, mother,  "friends", and Davey--I loved Davey--all fascinated me, and I believed in all of them.


Of course, Grace's relationship with Mandarin is the focus of the book, and oh my gosh, it is perfect. I've been Grace. When I was fifteen, I met a girl who only ever became an acquaintance, but was my Mandarin. Like Grace is with Mandarin, I was infatuated with her. She was beautiful in a way I'd never seen before. She often came to class in the morning, hungover, from a city twenty minutes away, after spending the night with a boy or girl  in their twenties. When she dated someone, she flirted with everyone else. Every conversation I had her with her felt like--and even now, I assume was--a test to see how experienced I was. I'm straight, but she's the one girl who made me question that.


And sometimes she came to class crying, and I realized her life wasn't the one I wanted, after all. I wish this book was around when I was fifteen, as I may have realized that sooner.


Grace and Mandarin are both three-dimensional, real, relatable characters, and it's so refreshing to see an example of how, for lack of a better term, strange a friendship can be in high school, while still seeming normal and necessary to those involved in it.

I haven't even mentioned Kirsten's prose, which is simply too good to ignore. It's gorgeous without being pretentious, poignant, and fills me with writer-envy. Her dialgoue is wonderful, too.


I got this book from the library, but I can't wait to buy my own copy. I want to reccommend it to every teenager I know.

Like Mandarin is on my all-time favourites list, and I can't wait to read the books Kirsten releases in the future.