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A review by sistermagpie
Vassa in the Night by Sarah Porter
2.0
So this is a retelling of Vassilissa the Beautiful and Baba Yaga, transplanted to Brooklyn where Baba Yaga (Babs) runs a chain of stores. (Amazingly, long after I'd made that connection I still didn't get that the name of the chain, BY's, is her initials.) Shoplifters, or those tricked into shoplifting by disembodied hands that work for Babs, are beheaded and their heads put on spike around the store. Naturally Vassa winds up at the store with her talking doll and decides to free the bit of night trapped there.
The main thing that kept me from ever being interested in the story was that Vassa has what seems to be the standard personality for a YA heroine. On one hand, she doesn't show a realistic level of fear at the predicament she's in. She's jokey and snarky about having a very good reason to think she's going to be beheaded like some kids in her school already have been. So it's hard to ever really feel like any of this is really happening.
On the other hand, what she does feel is an inflated sense of responsibility for things that happen to other people. While she never holds it against her half-sister for encouraging her to go shopping for light bulbs (Vassa goes out of spite, hoping her stepsister will be sorry if she gets killed), or the stepsister who tries to drag her out of the store and thus nearly turns her into a swan, she is constantly holding herself responsible for everyone who dies or is under Babs' power. She's always describing herself as "letting people down" even when describing somebody dying of natural causes when she was a child. But when she meets a bit of night enslaved by Babs she's immediately determined to save them (and berate herself for letting them down if she can't).
I just can't relate to this personality type. I guess it's supposed to relate to a teenager's sense of being a screw up or not good enough? But it just a bit annoying listening to somebody talking about how not good enough they are when they're obviously acting like a standard hero and saving everybody.
The main thing that kept me from ever being interested in the story was that Vassa has what seems to be the standard personality for a YA heroine. On one hand, she doesn't show a realistic level of fear at the predicament she's in. She's jokey and snarky about having a very good reason to think she's going to be beheaded like some kids in her school already have been. So it's hard to ever really feel like any of this is really happening.
On the other hand, what she does feel is an inflated sense of responsibility for things that happen to other people. While she never holds it against her half-sister for encouraging her to go shopping for light bulbs (Vassa goes out of spite, hoping her stepsister will be sorry if she gets killed), or the stepsister who tries to drag her out of the store and thus nearly turns her into a swan, she is constantly holding herself responsible for everyone who dies or is under Babs' power. She's always describing herself as "letting people down" even when describing somebody dying of natural causes when she was a child. But when she meets a bit of night enslaved by Babs she's immediately determined to save them (and berate herself for letting them down if she can't).
I just can't relate to this personality type. I guess it's supposed to relate to a teenager's sense of being a screw up or not good enough? But it just a bit annoying listening to somebody talking about how not good enough they are when they're obviously acting like a standard hero and saving everybody.