Infandous (Fiction - Young Adult), by Elana K. Arnold
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Infandous (Fiction - Young Adult), by Elana K. Arnold
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Sephora Golding lives in the shadow of her unbelievably beautiful mother. Even though they scrape by in the seedier part of Venice Beach, she's always felt lucky. As a child, she imagined she was a minor but beloved character in her mother's fairy tale. But now, at sixteen, the fairy tale is less Disney and more Grimm. And she wants the story to be her own. Then she meets Felix, and the fairy tale takes a turn she never imagined. Sometimes, a story is just a way to hide the unspeakable in plain sight.
Infandous (Fiction - Young Adult), by Elana K. Arnold - Amazon Sales Rank: #571835 in Books
- Brand: Arnold, Elana K.
- Published on: 2015-03-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.60" h x .90" w x 5.60" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 200 pages
Infandous (Fiction - Young Adult), by Elana K. Arnold From School Library Journal Gr 10 Up—Sixteen-year-old Sephora Golding is the daughter of the incomparable former model Rebecca Golding. Seph lives a less-than-admirable life on the shadier side of Venice Beach, California. Her artwork keeps her grounded, but her meager lifestyle can't compare to the lap of luxury that she could have living with her mother's family across the country. Even with all of the negative aspects, the truly special connection that she has with her mother, one that stretches far beyond the typical mother-daughter relationship, keeps her tied to the place and the life that she has always known. Interspersed with Seph's coming-of-age narrative are snippets of a fantastical fairy tale about a mermaid and a wolf that bear a striking resemblance to the teen's own family drama. The strength of this story lies in the legitimate connections made between modern times and classic myths/fairy tales. Arnold's fresh and exciting plot twist is unexpected, elevated by the lyrical writing style. The story is full of mature content, including language and thinly veiled sexual references. A well-written and evenly paced dramatic tale about finding peace in ones own situation.—Chad Lane, Easton Elementary, Wye Mills, MD
Review "Sephora Golding is the daughter of a beauty, and this mother-daughter relationship has informed most of her life. Throughout Sephora's childhood in Venice Beach, it's been just the two of them, and as she struggles now with the growing pains of new adulthood, a steadily shrinking future, and with a strange dark sexual secret, it is to that relationship that she continues to turn. It's the secret, though, that influences her artwork, an ongoing project she calls Infandous: something so horrible it cannot be expressed aloud. Inspired by various fairy tales, Sephora crafts circles around what is hidden, always shying away from acknowledging the thing itself. Clocking in at just 200 pages, this is a story that packs no less of a punch for its brevity. Sephora's grim reimaginings of fairy tales are the anti-Disney in the extreme (making this best suited for more mature readers). The strands are worked so surely into the narrative that they feel powerful instead of tired. Sephora herself is a narrator who defies convention, and her story, harsh and spare, is unforgettable." starred, Booklist --Booklist"The summer before senior year gives Sephora Golding time to surf, work on her found-object works of art and reflect on the turn her life has taken. Seph shares a low-rent apartment in Venice Beach, California, with her stunningly gorgeous mother, Rebecca, who Seph used to imagine was a mermaid. Left by Seph's father and shunned by Rebecca's family, the two have always been unusually close. Last year, Seph had a brief fling with an older man; now Rebecca's having a summertime romance with a younger one. Seph relates her summer tale of self-discovery in a matter-of-fact, occasionally foulmouthed teen voice. She intersperses her account with hard-hitting yet sumptuous versions of fairy tales and myths, from 'Sleeping Beauty' and 'The Rape of Lucretia' to 'Demeter and Persephone.' From her vantage as narrator and storyteller, she points out that '[t]hings 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.' She calls one of her sculptures Infandous, meaning 'something that's too terrible to be spoken aloud." Hers is a world of raw physicality, underscoring the contrasts between beauty and ugliness, wealth and poverty, light and shadows that play out as secrets unfold. A coming-of-age story consciously reminiscent of Lolita, this multifaceted portrayal of family bonds surprises with its nuanced and sometimes-searing emotional gravity." starred, Kirkus Reviews --Kirkus Reviews
About the Author Elana K. Arnold
is the author of several books for young readers. She lives in Huntington Beach, California, with her husband, two children, and a menagerie of animals.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. This is the stunning tale of Sephora, a girl living in a fairly tale world ... By Deb Beautiful women were “trained to be looked at” and Rebecca was one of those women. Society had used her up and spit her out. They only thing she had left in her life was her daughter, Sephora. They were closer than close and lived in the not-so-fairy-tale-like place of Venice. It was once a place patterned after the real Venice, but somehow turned into a place where people smoked pot, surfed, and lived dingy dreams. Seph lived for her art she created in an overly small studio. Life seemed to be topsy-turvy at times. Seph’s mother was getting it on with Jordan, the kid downstairs, and Seph with a guy in his mid-thirties. Being with Felix felt good, but was it?What didn’t feel good was having to go to summer school because she’d failed geometry. Couch Crandall was the kind of teacher who wore out a gal’s brain. Begrudgingly she’d be putting a bit of cash in her pocket because Jordan was going to get her a job at Riley Wilson Boards where he worked. Seph was known as “Annie” to Felix and a stranger named Joaquin had fallen in love with her art, her baby pie. No one really knew who she was, perhaps not even her mother. Rebecca had been shunned by the family, but Seph got a taste of how the rich live when she visited her Aunt Naomi’s family every year.Seph thought that “more doors open to those who have the keys,” but she wasn’t one of them. She even had to make poor man’s lemonade instead of having a real drink like her friend Marissa, but it was a life. Seph had her art and was trying to create something that would cast an illusionary shadow. She wasn’t the real thing to Felix because she was pretending to be something she wasn’t, someone older. Seph was his shadow image, but how could she really know? Everything about her life was infandous, something that’s too terrible to be spoken aloud.” If it was, her imagined fairy tale dream life would come to an end. Was her life really a dream?This is the stunning tale of Sephora, a girl living in a fairly tale world. We are drawn into Seph’s mind as we read graphic tales interspersed throughout the book. Her life is totally drawn up into her mother’s own misguided life, a woman Seph feels can save her. I found the tale to be perfectly crafted around a secret that no one knows about, including the reader. A single page blew me away with the implications of the long-held secret, Seph’s anagnorisis, that the introductory pages hinted at when we hear that “we’ve all been lied to by Disney.” All those dreams really don’t come true for Seph, or do they? This is a book that deserves a close read, a thoughtful one. The perfectly crafted book that’s definitely worth reading, perhaps twice.This book courtesy of the publisher.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. 3.5 stars By Liviania INFANDOUS is frustrating to me because it is almost a great book. It has a terrific narrator, Sephora Golding, who is unaware of just how unreliable she is. She's preoccupied with fairytales and myths, stories of women and sexuality and the terrible things that can happen. She's preoccupied with her mother's sexuality. She claims to be totally cool with her mom being gorgeous and desired and dating, but she's uncomfortable with her mom's newest beau, who is only twenty five and closer to Sephora's age.Part of her preoccupation is something that happened not long ago. This is revealed early in the book, but you may want to skip it if you hate knowing any details. Sephora was picked up on the beach by a fortysomething man named Felix. She told him she was nineteen and in college and she thought he was amazing in bed, better than anyone else she'd ever slept with. But there's a reason for statutory rape laws. Sephora isn't really sure how she feels about what happened. She's only sixteen in reality, and Felix keeps calling even though she's never answered in months. It's a complex, thorny situation that Sephora can only think about indirectly. And then there is a ludicrous soap opera reveal that Sephora never really reacts to with any strong emotion.But INFANDOUS isn't all sex. There's also Sephora's art, mostly sculptures she makes out of found objects and then photographs with interesting shadows. There's her relationship with Jeremy, her mom's boyfriend, who gets her a job and is pretty supportive, all things being said. There's also a detour with her richer aunt and cousins. (Sephora calls her and her mother broke and poor, but it's fairly obvious that they're just lower middle class.)I liked the tales Elana K. Arnold retold between chapters of INFANDOUS. I like how the different strands of the story wove together, all held together by the things Sephora doesn't say and how she's too young to know that she's got a big blindspot about her own insight. But I felt like the story just got goofy and ended. I think it needed to cook a little longer.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Didn't Live Up to Arnold's Other Books By Maggie I have read all of Elana K. Arnold's other books (including her first middle grade book, A Question of Miracles, which came out earlier this year and I still need to review) and I really have loved all of them. I think she's a unique voice in YA, not only in her writing style, but also in the stories she creates. If you're a YA reader who hasn't read Burning yet I highly recommend it and if you're a middle grade reader or know a child of middle grade age I would encourage you pick up A Question of Miracles.Sadly I can't quite say the same about Infandous. Pretty much from the moment I started reading the story I didn't think it was bad, it's certainly not, but it lacked the uniqueness of Arnold's other stories. That other (many other) authors have done the troubled girl with a terrible secret isn't Arnold's fault, but still, it has been done and it certainly colored my impression of Infandous. The fairytales that Arnold included made the story slightly unique, but it still wasn't enough to make this book stand out from the rest of the troubled girl with secrets YA stories out there.But it's also not a bad book and I'm not here to talk anyone out of reading it. In fact, if you're not tired of the troubled girl with a secret trope I would certainly recommend picking this up. The story centers around Sephora, a recently finished high school junior, who lives in Venice Beach with her single mother. Seph's mother is beautiful and Seph has very much lived in her shadow her entire life. Partly because of her mother's beauty Seph tries to play down her own looks and adopts a very tough girl persona. Even though there is this huge secret that Seph is living with the story is much more of a character driven story that follows Seph around through Venice Beach with her friends, to summer school, to her art studio, to visit her mom's sister in Georgia, and to her job at the surf shop.And that was kind of it. If you're into character driven stories then I would imagine you would really enjoy this one. Seph's voice is stands out and she's very entertaining. Her observations about the world and people around her are sharp and funny, even if they sometimes felt too mature for someone her age and in her situation. Most of the story takes place in Seph's head and there isn't a terrible amount of action. There are also four or five fairytales included in the story they tangentially have to do with the what's the come in the story.Then there's the secret. Clearly I'm not going to ruin it for you, but I can hands down say that I did not expect that and that at this point I can't think of a more disturbing secret I've come across in a YA (and maybe adult) book. (I should say that my rating isn't influenced at all by my horror, I was going to give this book 3 stars from pretty much the moment I started reading it.) The way Arnold chose to reveal the secret was spot on. You know it has something to do with the guy Felix that Seph had hooked up with a few months before, but you slowly see how their interactions unfolded and you're kind of left wondering what went wrong because it all seemed ok (despite their difference in age). And then you find out and it's just mind blowing. Like total horror, heartbeat racing kind of disgust. Which was brilliant in its own way because that's the way it happened for Sephora, too. My problem with the secret is that it just was revealed and that was it. It was such a huge thing I wish it could have been explored more. I guess that's another experience that mirrors Sephora's, but it was still a difficult thing for me.Bottom Line: Even though Infandous didn't live up to Elana K. Arnold's other books for me, it's still a solid story from her. The secret Seph is harboring is certainly unique, but the story of a troubled girl has been done, at least for me, enough in YA literature. Infandous is a solid entry in the category, but it wasn't enough for me. Sephora's voice was great, but the besides the secret the story didn't stand out enough for me to call it special or one of my favorites.I received an electronic review copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss (thank you!). All opinions are my own.
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