The genuine difficulty of the moral dilemma is one of my favorite things about this--most authors signpost it so clearly when the "right answer" is going to be extending a hand to the villain, but Cooney not only doesn't do that, she doesn't even give you any guarantee that it turns out okay. And it's hard to know whether or not it will, as you said! Lannie has feelings, and she's been given a horribly raw deal in life by being so unloved, but she's also explicitly cruel and unscrupulous, and she enjoys people's terror. She kills a dog! She off-screen freezes some girl in the background who, as far as we know, never gets unfrozen! She's not even funny or larger-than-life evil, she's low-key repugnant to everyone! That all that's true and Meghan makes the choice to save her anyway gives it a lot more weight.
And it's the kind of moral complexity that I tend to associate with Cooney, which is really nice. (And also why I felt SO BETRAYED by the much-later Milk Carton sequel. I can't believe I found a sanitary pad in the library copy of that I read and that still wasn't my least favorite thing about that experience.) Ditto little bits like the scenes with Meghan's mom, where the humanity and nuance of these YA parents who have been--as is typical with YA parents--mostly in the background suddenly becomes clear.
I totally vote for Lannie becoming Meghan's semi-feral murder girlfriend.
The horror in this book is also extremely effective. Lannie making West sit in the car next to frozen Jason, the snow falling in frozen Meghan's open eyes, the image of Lannie stuck in the truck while the Trevors all sit inside smiling ... it's all really well-done.
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Date: 2023-02-13 07:26 pm (UTC)The genuine difficulty of the moral dilemma is one of my favorite things about this--most authors signpost it so clearly when the "right answer" is going to be extending a hand to the villain, but Cooney not only doesn't do that, she doesn't even give you any guarantee that it turns out okay. And it's hard to know whether or not it will, as you said! Lannie has feelings, and she's been given a horribly raw deal in life by being so unloved, but she's also explicitly cruel and unscrupulous, and she enjoys people's terror. She kills a dog! She off-screen freezes some girl in the background who, as far as we know, never gets unfrozen! She's not even funny or larger-than-life evil, she's low-key repugnant to everyone! That all that's true and Meghan makes the choice to save her anyway gives it a lot more weight.
And it's the kind of moral complexity that I tend to associate with Cooney, which is really nice. (And also why I felt SO BETRAYED by the much-later Milk Carton sequel. I can't believe I found a sanitary pad in the library copy of that I read and that still wasn't my least favorite thing about that experience.) Ditto little bits like the scenes with Meghan's mom, where the humanity and nuance of these YA parents who have been--as is typical with YA parents--mostly in the background suddenly becomes clear.
I totally vote for Lannie becoming Meghan's semi-feral murder girlfriend.
The horror in this book is also extremely effective. Lannie making West sit in the car next to frozen Jason, the snow falling in frozen Meghan's open eyes, the image of Lannie stuck in the truck while the Trevors all sit inside smiling ... it's all really well-done.