Tamar, by Mal Peet

[rachelmanija]

A Carnegie medal-winning YA. In one strand, two SOE operatives code-named Tamar and Dart (both male) are parachuted into Nazi-occupied Holland; in the other, 15-year-old Tamar (female), who was named by her grandfather, learns about his past after his death.

The parts of the book that are about the war, the resistance, and life under Nazism are excellent. Unfortunately, there is not one but TWO other plots. One is Tamar's story, which is fine but not outstanding until it goes off the rails on a truly ill-conceived romance. The other is a love triangle taking place between dude!Tamar, Dart, and Marijke, a young Dutch woman. I HATED that story and unfortunately it takes over the second half of the book.



So Tamar (dude) had a prior relationship with Marijke as this is his second mission in the same area. He decides not to tell Dart about this for literally no reason, so he and Marijke are sneaking around pretending not to be involved. Meanwhile, Dart falls for her, and then is RAAAAGEY when he discovers that she's fucking Tamar. Fueled partly by the benzedrine tablets he was given as stay-awakes, he concocts an elaborate plot to frame Tamar for snitching on the resistance, causing a resistance fighter to murder him. Dart then flees back to England with Marijke, who he later marries as she believes he rescued her.

Meanwhile, Tamar (15-year-old girl) enlists the aid of her Dutch cousin Yoyo (male) who is 20 and aggressively flirts with her to help her unravel her grandfather's past. It's supposed to be sweet and life-affirming but to me it came across as inappropriate and creepy, especially as Tamar seems immature even for 15. The end is Tamar (girl) pregnant by and married to Yoyo, planning to name their baby Marijke. Happy ending!

BARF.



I feel like fighting Nazis was sufficiently dramatic. The loooooooove story didn't come across as the deep statement on passion, love, and the darkness in men's souls that it clearly meant to be, but as eyerolly melodrama. IMO, anyway.

Tamar: A Novel of Espionage, Passion, and Betrayal

Comments

[sholio]

Re: the spoilers - what.

[rachelmanija]

I knoooooow.

[rachelmanija]

I thought I'd be reading about courage, sacrifice, and community in dark times! Not... that.

[edenfalling]

*boggles*

[osprey_archer]

I read this book ages ago and I had exactly the same reaction re: the love triangle: why don't Tamar and Marijke tell Dart about their relationship? Why does Dart get Tamar killed, and why does the book think that we will want anything for him but his death after he does something so egregiously awful? Except then he behaves even MORE egregiously awfully by marrying Marijke, who doesn't know that he got the man she actually loved killed! And Dart lived to be a grandfather, I can't even, the injustice, even if girl!Tamar and Yoyo had murdered Dart in cold blood that couldn't have begun to make up for what he did to Marijke.

I had forgotten about girl!Tamar and Yoyo's marriage, possibly because I was too appalled by everything else. I still don't understand why this book won awards.

[rachelmanija]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who had that reaction!

And then the book kind of pushes in the direction of Dart's son and granddaughter ought to forgive him because ~war is terrible~ but what Dart did had literally nothing to do with the war other than the method of murder. In terms of motive, it was a totally straightforward murder of an innocent man to get access to the woman who loved him. UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH.

[osprey_archer]

Right? I'm sure Dart has talked himself into seeing it as just one of those terrible things that happen in war, but the rest of the family ought to see through it! And quit speaking to him! And possibly murder him and feed him to the local carp.

[sholio]

That would actually make a pretty good plot for a country-house murder mystery. Nice old WWII vet murdered and fed to carp! Detective investigates, dark secrets come out, entire family had various motives to murder him, O NO.

[osprey_archer]

Detective figures it all out, pretends he didn't because it turns out the nice old WWII vet Had It Coming.

[sholio]

EXACTLY.

[copperfyre]

I want to say that there is a Midsomer Murders episode that is basically this plot (I think it turns out the WWII vet granddad was directly responsible for getting the soldiers he was commanding killed by selling them out to Nazi soldiers, but survives and is lauded by the village for heroics, and a grandchild of one of those soldiers ends up murdering him) but now I think about it I’m not even sure it’s a Midsomer episode, because I’m pretty sure they do decide to let the grandchild get away with it, and usually that doesn’t happen in Midsomer.

[sovay]

Fueled partly by the benzedrine tablets he was given as stay-awakes, he concocts an elaborate plot to frame Tamar for snitching on the resistance, causing a resistance fighter to murder him. Dart then flees back to England with Marijke, who he later marries as she believes he rescued her.

That's awful.

[rachelmanija]

SO GROSS.

[naomikritzer]

Have you read Code Name Verity?

[rachelmanija]

Yes! Loved it.

[copperfyre]

I read this book as a teenager and had basically the exact same reaction! Except I’d managed to forget about Tamar and Yoyo getting married, presumably because I was so annoyed about it.

And it starts off so promisingly, too, I’m a sucker for people unraveling their family history, and that is still a plot that works if that family history turns out to be terrible, but it doesn’t work if we’re supposed to go “this dude wasn’t a terrible person even after murdering his friend to get the girl and then not telling her about it ever”. Argh!

[nenya_kanadka]

The only reason I'm not muttering "mediocre white men" here is that I don't know if the author is white, though I feel like there's a greater than even chance that they're male. :P

Who thinks these kinds of things are a good idea?? *facepalm*