Teenaged Elatsoe has never been a stranger to ghosts, descended from a long line of Apache women who can summon the spirits of dead animals,
anything from a deceased pet to extinct denizens of Earth's prehistory. She plans to go to college and become a paranormal investigator, perhaps
with her friend Jay and Kirby, the ghost of her beloved spaniel. But when a relative dies after a tragic car accident, plans get derailed -
particularly when Trevor contacts Elatsoe via dream, on the brink of death, to tell her that he was murdered. The girl is determined to live up
to her promise to the ghost and bring a killer to justice, but dabbling with life and death is not to be done lightly, and there are many
dangers that her mother and the old stories have not prepared her to face.
Review
Elatsoe has been winning awards and praise for some time, so I finally decided to give it a go. The tale plays out in a world much
like our own, but where powers and magics (and curses, and monsters) are known things; the boyfriend of Jay's older sister has the curse of
vampirism, and Jay himself is a descendant of the faerie king Oberon, though the attendant powers have been much diluted. Elatsoe thinks she
understands the gravity of the knowledge she has inherited and the lessons of her legendary (if forgotten by white history) sixth grandmother,
a monster hunter and ghost summoner who shared her name, but has never really faced any dangers before; the biggest challenge was learning to
summon the ghost of Kirby. She is, at least, smart enough not to blindly trust dreams or expect others to do likewise; she knows dreams are
unreliable messengers, and that she needs proof before she can go to authority. Fortunately, she's surrounded by people who believe her. This
is not one of those young adult stories where her parents are skeptical or overprotective obstacles; they help where they can, but Elatsoe and
Jay are the driving forces behind the investigation, which grows much bigger than they could have imagined. Along the way, they confront issues
of racism and colonialism and whitewashed history, and an enemy who does not understand how their actions can be perceived as monstrous by
their victims. It's a nicely different perspective on fantasy and history, and I enjoyed it start to finish.
When Nina was a young girl, her great-great-grandmother Rosita told her many stories of the old Lipan ways, from the times before the white
people came and even before the two worlds - our own Earth and the Reflecting World of the spirits and shapeshifting animal people and old
magic - were separated, but one has haunted her more than any other: the last tale she told, while lying in a hospital bed, speaking the lost
language of their tribe. Nina is sure there's a hidden truth in that story, one tied to the Texas land where Grandma now lives (and which the
old woman seems strangely reluctant to leave, even as drought and increasingly poor weather threaten the place). The land never seemed special
beyond her family, though, until a new nosy neighbor turns up. By unraveling the story's secrets, maybe Nina can save the land, and her
grandmother.
In the Reflecting World, the cottonmouth boy Oli has just been turned out from his mother's home, as all young cottonmouths are, to find his
own way in the world - but he's having a very rough time of it. He even lost the last gift his mother gave him, a blanket woven with his family's
special design. After stumbling upon the elusive path to anywhere-you-please (a path that may only appear once in a long lifetime), he finally
manages to find a place to make his home, and even some new friends: a hawk, a pair of boisterous coyotes, and a small blue-throated toad who
never speaks or takes a false human form, but is nevertheless a steadfast companion. When the toad falls ill, Oli determines to find the cause
and hopefully a cure, even if it means traveling to the world of humans.
Nina and Oli live in literally separate worlds, but their paths are destined to cross. When they do, many questions may be answered... or
everything could go terribly wrong...
Review
I really enjoyed Elatsoe by the same author, so I figured I'd try this one. Like Elatsoe, A Snake Falls to Earth
takes place in a modern Earth one step to the side of our own, an Earth where the reality of the Reflecting World and its former connection to
our own is an accepted reality. People know of the existence of the animal people, but it's generally believed they haven't visited our world
for many generations. The tale is also steeped in Native American lore and storytelling traditions. Nina aspires to be a storyteller like her
favorite online celebrities, but thus far has never had the courage to share tales with the world, instead recording them in a private video
diary. The puzzle of her great-great-grandmother's last story (and other oddities, such as her family's odd longevity and the strangely powerful
pull of the ancestral land) drives her to dig deeper into Lipan lore and culture, which has sadly faded through the generations. Meanwhile, Oli
makes his perilous way from childhood to adulthood in the Reflecting World, a place of both wonders and dangers, powerful originator spirits and
dark monsters... but also with traces of modern Earth, in a market of smuggled real world goods (which do not last long in the reflected world,
but which inspire various innovations such as the specatcles nearsighted Oli wears in his false human form, and contraptions like automobiles
and steam-powered houseboats that a few animal people tinker with). He might have lived his life complacently beside his favorite basking rock
and the bottomless lake, with no friends but the silent toad, but finds himself pulled into the antics of the coyotes, not to mention having to
deal with fallout from his early fumbling efforts to find his own way (during which he made an enemy who has not forgotten him). The arcs of Nina
and Oli are largely independent through a fair chunk of the book, only later crossing ways when Oli and his friends make the perilous crossing to
our world. They manage to help each other, but their stories remain their own; neither is helpless without the other. There's humor and emotion
and distinctive characters in both of their worlds, and nobody is particularly stupid for the sake of being stupid/drawing out the tale (though
they sometimes need a bit of a push to get moving). Something about it felt a little incomplete by the end, though the book itself mentions how
tales rarely have a simple, clean arc and ending, trailing off into other tales, much as life itself is more than a simple thread with a clearly
defined point. Overall, I enjoyed the characters and the distinct Native American flavor, even if I didn't find myself enjoying it quite as much
as Elatsoe.
