What a seriously impressive and original young adult fantasy novel. The name alone, Flora Segunda of Crackpot Hall, promises a whimsical adventure. But it’s hard to describe just how quickly Ysabeau Wilce pulls the rug from beneath the reader, removing any possibility of normality and dragging us into a fantastic world where anything can happen—but that doesn’t mean it will.Flora’s world is one where magic is real and a part of daily life, but it’s rather unfashionable. She lives in a house—Crackpot Hall—made of magic. Its rooms rearrange themselves, and indeed, seem to go on without end. This alone is a cool enough concept around which to base an entire book, so it surprised me that Wilce actually ignores this for the majority of the book and sends Flora off on adventures that take her all around the city (and even a little beyond it). But before we get to that, let’s talk about Crackpot Hall.I love Doctor Who, and one of my favourite things about the show is the TARDIS and its limitless potential. Imagine stepping through those police box doors and discovering that vast world to explore—let alone all of the places the TARDIS can travel! Crackpot Hall is kind of like that. It’s a house of limitless potential—albeit much reduced and rundown since Flora’s mother abrogated the house’s ghostly butler, who is responsible for maintaining the house in all senses.So Flora, who is a bit of a rebel, decides one day to use the Elevator to retrieve an overdue book in her rush to school. Instead she emerges on an unfamiliar floor, stumbles into a massive library, and meets the banished butler, Valefor. Gradually he persuades her to help restore him—and hence the grandeur of Crackpot Hall. It’s an idea that thirteen-going-on-fourteen-year-old Flora, steeped in adventure stories of the late Ranger Nini Mo, can’t resist. She’s tired of feeling like her family has been reduced to second-rate hasbeens. And she doesn’t want to go to the Barracks like every Fryrdraaca before her.What ensues can essentially be characterized as “Flora makes things more complicated.” She gets into a boundless, fluid adventure—with her best friend Udo as her sidekick. At every turn, she comes up with brilliant plans. Amazingly, they seldom work.Yeah, this is a young adult book where the protagonist regularly and spectacularly fails.Flora’s plans often work partially, then backfire, and as she comes up with a new and intricate Ranger-inspired idea, events conspire to sweep her up and force her to reconsider yet again. I love this. I love that Wilce walks us through Flora’s thought process even as she makes Flora’s adventures more difficult and—despite the magical setting—more realistic. For example, at one point Flora and Udo determine they need to rescue the Dainty Pirate—an actual criminal who is nevertheless a very romantic inspiration to Udo. They hatch and begin to implement a daring plan to free the Dainty Pirate prior to his execution. This is two thirteen-year-olds posing as soldiers, with a forged transfer order for a prisoner, in order to rescue a pirate. Wilce couches the adventure in the vocabulary and polish expected for a whimsical children’s tale, but it’s actually quite a serious experience … and it all goes pear-shaped. Because, you know, rescuing a pirate prisoner is actually quite difficult, and Flora and Udo just don’t manage to pull it off very well.I loved the character of Flora. She is adventurous and brave but also thoughtful and obvious interested in reading and learning. Alas, her parents have not been the best to her: her father mopes around in his den, suffering from intense PTSD, and her mother is a workaholic. Speaking of which, Flora Segunda does gender right: Califan society appears to have fantastic gender equity. Flora’s mother is a general in the Califan army, in command of a regiment, and consumed by her job. No one ever questions her ability to command or fight because she’s a woman; no one looks askance at the idea that Flora would, as a Fyrdraaca, naturally be joining the Barracks after she turns fourteen. Oh, and Califan fashion is for everyone—men and women—to wear kilts.So Flora Segunda is a story of how the titular character realizes that life is not, in fact, a Ranger adventure novel with her as the protagonist. And in fact, towards the end, the book suddenly takes on a much darker, Coraline-esque tone. Because during all of Flora’s adventuring and mucking about with magic, she has actually managed to place herself in grave existential danger. And her only recourse is an enemy of her mother’s. When she seeks him out, he upbraids her rather harshly—but it’s totally deserved. Flora has been running amok, behind her mother’s back, shirking her duties and responsibilities in order to learn forbidden magic and spring a pirate. That’s not to say that this is a book that condemns fun. But it certainly puts such adventures in a neat perspective.It’s a rollicking and wonderful adventure that nevertheless has a sense of responsibility at its core. Although it’s pitched for a much younger audience than I normally read—younger, I suspect, than the targets of, say, The Hunger Games—I still enjoy how … earnest it is. The protagonist is slightly plump, not jaw-droppingly pretty. She doesn’t have two men—supernatural or otherwise—chasing after her. She isn’t fighting back against the government (even though, by all accounts, it doesn’t seem to be a very good one).I guess I’m trying to say that it’s just so nice to read a book for children that is entertaining, well-written, and full of positive depictions of people, professions, and even pirates. Moreover, Wilce genuinely manages to surprise and delight in the way in which she develops the plot, enough to keep me guessing and make me want to learn more.If children’s literature is your fare, then by all means, dare. I highly recommend it.
I love this book so much--it's got a quirky, interesting main character, a unique style, great alternate history, and Wilce knows how to end a book with a zinger that's half cliffhanger and half electric shock.The Republic of Califa, Flora's home, recently lost a war with the Huitzil Empire--officially they're a "client state," but their independence is a fragile thing--in which Flora's father was captured, convicted of war crimes, and tortured into madness. It's Flora's job to watch over him, despite her being not-quite-fourteen, because her mother and her older sister are both in the military and away from home most of the time. Flora's mother is, in fact, the commanding general of the army of Califa (sexual equality is an accepted reality in this series, and it goes both ways--men wear kilts and makeup just as women do) and Flora is pretty much unsupervised. Wilce is smart enough to realize that kids don't love this as much as you'd think. Flora also has to deal with all the cleaning and cooking and the preparations for her Catorcena celebration, which marks her becoming an adult.The story gets interesting when she tracks down her House's Denizen--and both those capitalized words are too complicated to explain fully. The short version is that Flora's family is important enough to have a denizen, a magical creature bound to the family and home, that ought to maintain the house and do all the tedious chores Flora is stuck with. For unexplained reasons, Flora's mother banished their denizen, Valefor, when Flora was just a baby. When Flora discovers him, he's a shadow (literally) of his former self and incapable of doing anything but drift around. Out of compassion, Flora shares some of her Anima (personal magic and willpower) with him, making him stronger--but it's not enough; she'll have to find his focus to restore him fully. Flora and her best friend Udo, in trying to do this, get tangled up in several other seemingly unrelated plots and ultimately end up solving some far more important problems.Flora is an interesting, non-standard fantasy heroine: not slender but not obsessed with her weight, not beautiful but almost completely indifferent to that fact, clever but fallible, and such a great mix of competence and fallibility that it was impossible not to like her. Because she's the first-person narrator, her inner voice is what shapes the story, and Flora Segunda becomes a unique mix of old-world California and late-Victorian attitude with the fashion sense of District One from The Hunger Games. At the heart of all this is the idea "what if Spain had established a Californian colony and then the Aztecs had conquered it?" but that's not what the novel is about; the Huitzil overlords have no influence over daily life in Califa, and Flora and Udo encounter their presence only when they get involved in darker, secret things. One of the things I love about the book is how casually the alternate-reality stuff is integrated, like the fact that Flora has classes in school specifically intended to help her prepare for this Catorcena ritual.One big problem with this book is that it's hard to tell what the story's about until maybe halfway through. It starts with the whole Valefor thing, but then Flora overhears her mother the General talking about an execution order that relates to something she and Udo talked about earlier, and they go haring off on that quest, and then there are complications from her relationship with Valefor...by the end of the book, it's clear that everything that seemed to be tangential is part of the plot resolution, but the first time I read it, it was the intriguing world and characters that kept me going, not the story. If you're willing to stick with it, I think Flora Segunda is worth the effort.
Do You like book Flora Segunda (2007)?
If you can get past some of the cutesy language (like "choco sandwies" and other things that end in -ie that eventually I got sick of encountering) you'll find a fun adventure with a little (well, rather plump actually) girl who's on her way to finding her place in the world. Flora Segunda (a "replacement" daughter, as the first Flora in the family was lost in the War) is getting ready for her Catorcena--and not doing a great job of it, what with having to do all the chores and look after crazy ol' Poppy while Mamma (Juliet Buchanan "Buck" Fyrdraaca ov Fyrdraaca) deals with state business, being the General of the Warlord's armies and a very busy and important person in their homeland of Califa. One day she stumbles upon their banished Butler, the house denizen who used to keep Crackpot Hall in spit spot shape before being imprisoned in the library by prim, practical Buck. His troublemaker tendencies, his desire to be made whole again, and Flora's increasing exasperation with herself and the rest of her family's sorry, shabby state set events rolling towards a grim, possibly abysmal end. Wilce's fantastical imagined world is wonderfully egalitarian as it is socially stratified--men and women both enjoy high ranks of power and command, but grave importance is placed on tricky political situations, rank, and the elaborate social etiquette everyone must observe. Cultural references from our own world are mish-mashed together: Spanish phrases, Scots-like kilts (worn by everyone), Aztec-like mythology, and a setting both Wild-Westerny and medieval at the same time. Oh, and I didn't even mention magick yet.I really loved the descriptions of the rooms of Crackpot Hall and the fancy names for everything (some crucial scenes take place in the fun, corpse-packed Cloakroom of the Abyss), Flora's dream of becoming a ranger instead of adhering to the Fyrdraaca duty of becoming a soldier, and her descriptions of the life and times of the legendary Head Ranger Nini Mo. I also adore Poppy, though he is kinda crazy.The story can get a bit dark at times, and conservative parents may worry about the portrayals of drunks, and fourteen year-olds with guns (though unloaded), and feisty magic words rendered in WingDings. (I'm just saying, there are people who worry about that kind of thing, but I also suspect they have a hard time telling the difference between fiction and non-fiction) Wilce balances the gloom with a hefty dose of humor, delicious snacks (or snackys), and the occasional fluffy towel. For a taste, check your "horoscope" in the Alta Califa. I think mine says "Running water could ruin your relatives rapidly."I can't wait for the next installment!
—Alethea A
Originally posted at Paperback Wonderland.I've re-read this book (and the others in this series) so many times my paperbacks are starting to look pitiful. Honestly, I don't understand how this book isn't topping all bestseller's lists, is it lack of promotion? I really don't know and it bothers me because the universe Ysabeau S. Wilce created is so amazing, so flawless, so addictive... Her characters are just perfect, her plots -- look I'm a picky bitch and I cannot find a fault! For the love of whatever you hold sacred, go read these books! It breaks my heart to see mediocrity topping charts while jewels like these are ignored.
—Isa Lavinia
I really loved the world-building here, but it took me a while to warm to the characters. In fact, I appreciate Flora in this book more as the starting point of a series heroine than as the protagonist of this book alone; I had the first and second books in hand together and read them back-to-back, which definitely helped the first book.A couple of nice points:* I do love fantasy worlds which actually have gender equality in careers.* Women wear stays instead of bras! And nobody at all wears pants or any type of leggings, as far as I could tell.* Magic buzzes and has all sorts of non-standard descriptions.* There's public transportation by horse-drawn bus.I wonder a great deal about the history of Califa, its immigration patterns, and what relation it had to Huitzil (the Aztec nation) before being conquered in the previous generation. There are only a handful of Huitzil people in the city, apparently, all with diplomatic ties to Huitzil and all some level of physically altered (skin flayed off for religion, human/animal hybrid servents, and [spoiler redacted:]), and all of the non-Huitzil people have blond or red hair and green or blue eyes. Language-wise, I think the non-English terms are a mix of Spanish, French, and what may be Icelandic, Old English, and/or Dutch (I really want to get some of my linguist friends to read this book and explain it to me, actually -- where does one get a name like "Cyrenacia Sidonia Brakespeare ov Haðraaða"?!). At one point in the second book -- this isn't a spoiler -- there are several mythological beasts seen, all of them traditionally European. Also in the second book -- and this is a mild spoiler, so I'll be vague -- at least one power of vodoun bokors is attributed (pop-culturally) to Huitzil priests, so the Caribbean alternate history must also have had interesting twists!This book is, as the second book shows, clearly the launch of a series -- it's marked as a trilogy, but any world that already has additional short stories seems destined for more than three books -- and I'm definitely interested in reading more.
—Cait
