Infandous

Book Details
Author: Elana K Arnold
Published: March 1st 2015
Pages: 200 (Hardcover)
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

"Things don't really turn out the way they do in fairy tales. I'm telling you that right up front, so you're not disappointed later."

Infandous is an obsolete word that means a thing too terrible to be named or mentioned. Sephora is sixteen and has an odd, changing, relationship with her mother. To Sephora, she is a minor character in the fantastic life of her beautiful mother. A plot device to move her mother forward.

But this isn't just how Sephora sees herself, but how she views the world around her. The book is peppered with myths and fairy tales centered around young women who have little say in their own happy endings. If the endings are happy at all.

Thoughts
Trigger Warning for Sexual Assault.

I picked this book up randomly, the year it was published (it had only been out for five months when I stumbled across it), at the library and read it all in one sitting.

This is not your typical young adult novel. It definitely deals with a lot of what, the collective, we consider very adult topics. Like sexual assault. Like slowly having a mental breakdown.

I loved this book though. Fairy Tales were never meant for children, if you read them. Myths are just as disturbing. Women have little to no agency or ability to determine their own fates within these stories. Sexism and misogyny is rampant in these types of stories. And it was rampant in this as well. However, Sephora, though an unreliable narrator, is the perfect person to tell these stories and create her own agency. And really, are there any truly reliable narrators?

I loved this story for not shrinking away from what it is. For daring to call itself "Infandous." For daring to explore agency in a teenage girl who is only just learning about her sexuality while experiencing sexual assault and living in her beautiful mother's shadows.

Rating
On Goodreads I gave this book a 5 out of 5.

I give it a 9 out of 10 for ableist language and some romanticized sexual assault.

It deserves an R rating for sexual assault, potentially triggering content, adult language and adult situations.

This book is not for people who are expecting the typical YA novel, people who don't like fairy tales or mythology, mermaids or people who don't like YA novels in general.

If you can handle the content of the story, I would definitely suggest this book. It was beautifully written and completely engrossing.