Literally Leander discussion

The featured book for February 2019 was Before I Let Go by Marieke Nijkamp. Please be aware that there will be spoilers for the story in this thread!

The discussion questions for this month were written by a staff member. Most of you are aware that you aren't required to answer these; you're not in school, after all! These are just prompts! Otherwise we'd love to for you to post any of your observations, opinions, or any questions you might've come up with while reading.

1. The town of Lost Creek, Alaska is described as a gold rush mining town that has become smaller and smaller since the mines were closed. Why do you think the author chose this town as the setting?

2. Corey’s story is interspersed with letters from Kyra, some of them unsent. Would you say that these letters improve the story?

3. Kyra is diagnosed with bipolar disorder. How would you describe the representation of mental health in this novel?

4. Many of the townspeople shun Kyra after her diagnosis, and later tell Corey that they loved and cared for her, and that she eventually found their place with them. Do you think that the townspeople actually accepted Kyra for who she was?

5. Kyra loved stories, but said that she didn’t believe that the people of Lost Creek deserved to tell the stories of the native people in the area. Why do you think she said this? Would you agree with that statement?

6. Throughout the story, Corey feels guilt over her lack of response to Kyra’s letters, but states that she didn’t feel right writing back when she preferred life at St. James. Is there truth to Corey’s reasons for not writing back, or do you think that there’s another reason she didn’t reply? Do you find keeping long distance friendships to be hard?

7. Why do you think the townspeople were convinced that Kyra’s paintings told the future? Do you think Kyra was actually a prophet and knew what was going to happen?

Unfortunately, I really struggled with this one. I hate to be the first person to kick off discussions when I didn't really have a positive view of the novel, but I want to post my feelings while the book is still (relatively) fresh in my mind. I gave Before I Let Go 1 star, because if I hadn't felt compelled to finish it for this book club, I likely wouldn't have bothered to finish it at all.

I wrote a long review detailing all the issues I had with this book, but I'll sum it up for you: it didn't feel cohesive to me. Now, I haven't read the author's previous book This Is Where It Ends, so this was my first introduction to her writing style, foreshadowing, etc. I couldn't shake the feeling that this book was supposed to be so much more than what it was. I felt like a lot of issues were touched on--Kyra's mental illness, cultural stigmatization, loneliness, sexuality, guilt... I could go on--but none of them were really brought to the forefront of the novel and given the focus that I felt they deserved.

That being said, I'm pretty sure that there's a really positive message underneath all of the... stuff that's going on: you are more than your mental illness. I feel like this is a really important message, and I appreciate that the author brought it up, but it just wasn't enough for me. Especially because Kyra, who is the figurehead for mental illness in the book, is shunned, punished, and abused for issues. I believe that it was meant to show stigmatization at its worst, but since the entire town did a 180 and changed their views of Kyra from pariah to messiah, it didn't really translate for me. And in the end, Kyra never escapes this cruel town; she dies there, still set apart because of her mental health.

I also wasn't a big fan of the magical realism aspect of this novel. As I've stated before in different threads, magical realism has historically been a hit or miss for me, leaning towards the latter. I can't really put my finger on what I think makes magical realism good, but I know that I wasn't a fan of the vagueness in this town. I didn't care for the presentation of any sort of magic that wasn't really delved into or explored by the characters. Corey takes all of the strange happenings in stride and then completely ignores them, which I found to be really frustrating.

But now I feel like I'm ranting, so I'll try to answer some of these questions for lack of something else (or something better) to say.

1. The town of Lost Creek, Alaska is described as a gold rush mining town that has become smaller and smaller since the mines were closed. Why do you think the author chose this town as the setting?
Honestly, for all the issues I had with this book, the author picked a really good setting for this kind of story. There's something inherently creepy about ghost towns, and they begin to inherit that creepiness as dying towns. Lost Creek is very easily a town on its last, trembling legs. People are regularly leaving, people are not usually coming in, and there's nothing to convince people to visit, move there, or even stay.

Aside from the natural uneasiness it exudes, it also serves to isolate both Kyra and Corey. I have never been to Alaska (but I would like to visit!) and so I'm not sure what the reality of the Alaskan landscape is. But in the minds of most people, it's this empty, snowy wasteland, one that's nearly primitive in its rural-ness. Corey has only one way into town, and one way out. She can't run away for a myriad of reasons (weather, predatory animals, the fact that there's very little else in the area, etc.) and so she's essentially stuck there until someone comes to get her. There is a sort of helplessness that I think translated to the reader--without the town for protection, Kyra and Corey had nothing, and the town wasn't particularly nice to them.

2. Corey’s story is interspersed with letters from Kyra, some of them unsent. Would you say that these letters improve the story?
I think this is a pretty popular method of storytelling when the author wants to give another point of view (especially one that's in the past) but doesn't want to actively write from another perspective. The letters and journal entries are Kyra's only voice, other than Corey's view of her in her own memories.

I felt that the letters enhanced the story, because it gave Kyra a way to speak after she'd already passed away. It was a method to give Corey clues to Kyra's last moments.

3. Kyra is diagnosed with bipolar disorder. How would you describe the representation of mental health in this novel?
It's weird because of how much I struggled with the book, but I don't think that the representation was really that bad. The author obviously did some research into bipolar disorder, and talked about both the depressive and manic episodes, and the symptoms that go with them. I particularly felt that the manic episodes were explained well, especially for those who might've still believed the popular yet misconstrued notion that bipolar disorder is just "mood swings."

6. Throughout the story, Corey feels guilt over her lack of response to Kyra’s letters, but states that she didn’t feel right writing back when she preferred life at St. James. Is there truth to Corey’s reasons for not writing back, or do you think that there’s another reason she didn’t reply? Do you find keeping long distance friendships to be hard?
Keeping up friendships and other relationships are hard. It's actually crazy that you can spend literally years considering someone your best friend, and realize later on in life that you've grown apart and have nothing in common anymore. I think that this tends to happen particularly quickly in long-distance relationships (platonic or romantic.) Honestly, part of a relationship is built on proximity; if you're apart, it's hard to be included in someone else's daily life. It's hard to cement your place when there are dozens of people who are more physically able to be there.

I, like many other children, had friends that moved away over the years. We almost always promised to write, and usually managed a few letters back and forth, before one of us set a letter aside thinking that we'd get back to them later, only we never did.

Even in today's day and age, where "friendships" can be represented by a single connection on Facebook, keeping up friendships is hard. Looking back, I almost never talk to people I was friends with in high school; we've all gone our own ways with our own goals, and most of us have found new friends. That's not to say that long-distance relationships can't be held up. But I think they take a lot more work than a friendship of proximity.

7. Why do you think the townspeople were convinced that Kyra’s paintings told the future? Do you think Kyra was actually a prophet and knew what was going to happen?
This is probably one of the things that I struggled with most in the book. I didn't like that sort of vague feeling towards whether Kyra was really a prophet or if it was wishful thinking on the part of the townspeople.

Most non-realistic novels require a sense of suspended belief. You have to be willing to learn the laws of a new world, ones that you will never personally experience. Magical realism is in that weird gray area where your world has different laws that you know exist. And, sometimes, I can accept them if given enough background info to feel like it's a possibility.

I am hardly the type of person that you'd call a skeptic; I actually sort of have a soft spot for stories with psychics. But I didn't feel that some sense of completeness with this story; everything felt like secondhand information. Kyra had never painted anything prophetic before Corey moved away. Kyra's paintings that showed a happy LGBT couple could've been something that she thought would be positive if the boys had been interested in each other; her mural of the town in its heyday could've been a representation of the past, and not a vision of the future; and lastly her painting of herself, drowned under ice, could've been more of a call for help or an ideation of suicide, one that the townspeople were perfectly happy to step back and watch happen.

But weirdly, I think this would make for a decent movie? I'm not a huge horror fan, but I've seen enough to know that the weird doesn't have to make sense for it to be enjoyable on the big screen. So a creepy, dying, cult town could totally believe that a girl's prophetic ability is disguised as mental illness, and I'd probably be okay with it, in a "this is sort of disturbing" kind of way.

I read this book back in August when it was first announced as a chosen book club book. I was also excited about reading this book because that it had asexual representation. While I generally want to see more LGBT+ representation in YA literature, I find books with asexual and aromantic themes to be particularly lacking. I was frustrated by the asexual representation in the book. Marieke Nijkamp conflated asexuality and aromanticism. One reviewer I follow on GoodReads thought this was done to explain asexuality to readers unfamiliar with it, but I do not understand how confusing the two concepts helps readers understand asexuality better. What did y'all think about the LGBT+ representation in the novel?

I've been to Alaska, but I still have not gotten to experience the rural Alaskan landscape described in this book. I spent the week in Anchorage. In mid-May, the sun set around 11 pm and we saw moose near the airport, but it felt like the city. For adult book club, we read The Great Alone, which was another novel about rural Alaska. The characters in Kristin Hannah's novel felt isolated but they seemed isolated together (if that makes any sense). Lost Creek seems like the type of place that you could be surrounded by people and still be lonely because of the town's culture. While I did not love this book, I did enjoy the novel's setting, like Kristen did. I love reading books set in Alaska. Does anyone have any book recommendations for novels set in Alaska? Besides Before I Let Go and The Great Alone, I read Not If I Save You First but would not recommend it.

Throughout the story, Corey feels guilt over her lack of response to Kyra’s letters, but states that she didn’t feel right writing back when she preferred life at St. James. Is there truth to Corey’s reasons for not writing back, or do you think that there’s another reason she didn’t reply? Do you find keeping long distance friendships to be hard?
Yes, even in the age of social media, I find keeping long distance friendships to be hard. I have this friend who I was close with when we went to school together. Even after she finished school and moved to Colorado, we continued to maintain semi-close friends. I even flew up to Colorado to stay with her for a few days. But we have not communicated in a while. Part of the reason is that I know that she wants to catch up for hours on the phone and that sounds exhausting to me. But part of the reason, probably a larger part, is that she is not in my daily life. I like how Kristen stated it: "Honestly, part of a relationship is built on proximity; if you're apart, it's hard to be included in someone else's daily life. It's hard to cement your place when there are dozens of people who are more physically able to be there." Corey's answer honestly doesn't make sense to me. She does not write back because she prefers where she lives now. Corey can enjoy St. James without shunning Lost Creek.

Christine wrote: " What did y'all think about the LGBT+ representation in the novel?"

Honestly, I didn't much care for it at all. This book also wasn't marketed as LGBTQ+ (at least from what I've seen) and that certainly speaks to its execution in the novel. I personally felt like it was added on in the name of diversity. Many of the characters that identified as LGBTQ+ came off feeling like token characters; either they didn't expressly affect the storyline in any great manner, or their sexuality was mentioned but not touched upon. Personally, I don't see LGBTQ+ as a topic that absolutely needs to be an "Issue" in the story, but there's a difference between folding that into multi-faceted characters and presenting it as a factor that exists explicitly for Brownie Points. I can't claim to know the author's reasoning, but for me it felt like the latter. It seemed Corey had some issues in understanding herself, but it was ultimately glossed over.

I also agree that there wasn't a lot of difference offered between asexual and aromantic, though I suppose maybe it's because Corey's not really sure where she stands on (forgive me if I'm wrong on this point, it's been a while since I read the book.)