Review: Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire
Across the Green Grass Fields follows Regan, a young girl with a happy home life who is trying to navigate the complex social world of being the popular mean girl's best friend. After her social situation changes drastically, Regan runs away from school and ends up going through a door in the forest marked 'be sure.' Through that door is a world of unicorns and centaurs and various other fantasy creatures caught up in corrupt government waiting for the next human there to be a hero.
The beginning of this book delves deeply into the all-consuming nature of toxic school female friendships. How easy it is to continue the status quo, how those closest to the abuse of power are both complicit and victimized. The book talks about social capital and how conforming to gender roles are enforced in children's social circles incredibly strictly. The book shows how ostracization from that group hurts and how the threat of being next serves to keep girls in line.
I love the way that McGuire starts all these conversations very much in the human world, then transitions to addressing these topics, and others, lightly obfuscated by the fantasy world they are set within. I truly think that this was incredibly well done and am dying to read more books about toxic female friendships and political power being enforced by keeping people in compliance with the status quo.
I have more thoughts about this book that I shall be back to write about.
I gave this book five stars
