Flora Segunda, by Ysabeau S. Wilce, is one of the best books I have read in a long time. Flora and Udo are characters as brilliant as Mosca and Saracen the Homicidal Goose of Fly By Night. The overall aesthetic of Flora's fantasy world is reminiscent both of Mosca's universe and of Valente's Fairyland in Catherynne M. Valente's The Girl who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. But Flora Segunda addresses a slightly older audience than the above - the narrator is about to turn 14, which in her society is the age at which she must chose her future career, and cease to be a child. This places the book on the edge of the Young Adult category, where it shares space with various novels trying to capture the experience of transition from childish innocence to the experience of reality (pick any book by John Green, for example) as well as Twilight, The Mortal Instruments, and a variety of other supernatural-themed manuals of how not to live your life if you want to be a balanced and happy adult.
The premise of Flora Segunda is not unusual - Girl of Spirit gets lost in her own vast mansion, meets a Mysterious Character (in this case the house's magical butler, banished by her mother for some unknown reason) and has great adventures as a result. It ticks all the boxes of children's/ young adult literature: the heroine is misunderstood and pressured by her parents; she decides to rebel as a result; her rebellion gets her into all sorts of trouble which could be solved pretty quickly if she would just come clean to her parents; when the situation gets dire enough for her resolve to waver, she no longer can get help from her parents, and has to sort things out herself. In the end, Flora discovers that her parents are flawed and human, but that they still love her dearly, though that doesn't mean they can solve life's problems for her. A typical coming-of-age narrative.
There were two things I absolutely loved about the book.
1) Wilce's sense of humour.
The characters are all vibrant technicolor extravagazas seen through the eyes of Flora, who is probably an unreliable narrator, given that she is a bit of a teenage drama queen. The use of language was also simply hilarious. The characters speak a sort of dialect of English with some words substituted for others which may sound daft, but actually really works. Flora and Udo, her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, argue often and call each other 'snapperheads'. Flora also spouts the wisdom of Nini Mo, a Ranger (aka secret agent) and heroine of a series of pulp fiction books referred to as 'yellowbacks', who she wants to be like when she grows up - there’s no way out but through and a ranger is made, not born. Udo favours The Dainty Pirate, who is a real pirate but also has a dedicated series of yellowbacks written about him. The names of the books are unfailingly hilarious, as are the names of the rooms in Crackpot Hall and Bilskinir House. For example, Poppy (Flora's dad) spends all his time in his Eyerie, which is reached by the Stairs of Exuberance, and Udo and Flora run from Paimon, the Butler of Bilskinir House ending up in The Cloakroom of the Abyss. Finally, Flora accuses Lord Axacaya of 'being all boo-spooky', which I found hilarious.
2) The negotiation of gender issues is truly great.
Wilce creates a convincing world in which men and women are equal without being too direct or preachy about it. Flora lives in a very female-dominated world, as her role models are her mother who is the General, her sister who is a soldier, and Nini Mo, the fictionalised Ranger. Her father is an alchoholic for most of the book, so his input is minimal, but her relationship with him is also significant - she cares for him, and it turns out in the end that he has been trying to help her. But Wilce doesn't try to disrupt the patriarchy by replacing it with a matriarchy that operates in the same way - the Warlord, Flora's mother's boss, is a man, as are many of her colleagues. What is significant is that gender is not the first element of a character's identity to be presented - within the military which plays a significant role in the narrative, characters are referred to as 'sir' regardless of gender, while everyone seems to wear kilts.
Similarly, Flora's relationship with Udo is a relationship of equals. They bicker and pout and call each other names, but also care for each other deeply, and rescue each other on several different occasions. When set against other boy-girl relationships in young adult fiction, this is unusual. In all the Twilight-type novels out there, the girl is rescued by the boy who is in turn saved by her love. Wilce does not fetishize teenage heterosexual attraction and present it as the guiding principle of adult identity. This is a Very Good Thing. Flora's journey of discovery has to do with her relationship with her parents and her understanding of them as independent humans who had lives and experiences before she was born which affect their attitudes towards her, and their behaviour in the present. It also has to do with her gaining the ability to articulate her desires for her own future and place these within the context of her family and the nation she lives in - she learns to ask for what she wants, but to do so with an understanding of what she can realistically have.
The novels that Flora and Udo read have a significant function in the negotiation of their expectations and realities. Flora wants to be a ranger like Nini Mo, and Udo wants to be a pirate like the Dainty Pirate. Flora’s desire to be a ranger is a manifestation of her desire to articulate an identity that is independent of both her parents and her family history. This desire expresses itself within the narrative in the form of Flora trying to live by the wisdom of Nini Mo as expressed in the yellowback novels she has devoured. Flora takes this very seriously, but is critical of Udo’s desire to become a pirate, as his desire is motivated by the Dainty Pirate’s reported dress sense. Flora’s stance is hypocritical, given that her desired career is as based on trashy novels as Udo’s. Her many little hypocrisies are exploited by Valefor, the banished Butler of Crackpot Hall, who manipulates her into trying to help him escape.
Yet the trashy-novel inspirations for Flora and Udo’s ambitions have another narrative function which contributes to the creation of a sense of gender equality: Flora idolises Nini Mo, and tries to model her life on her books, in which Nini Mo has a sidekick, Boy Hangsen. Udo idolises Boy Hangsen, making the Nini Mo books a sort of doppelgänger of Flora’s narrative in Flora Segunda. At the same time, Udo’s agency is recognised through his fixation with the Dainty Pirate - his obsession with the Dainty Pirate novels, which Flora does not share, suggests that he is the narrator of his own personal story to which the readers of Flora Segunda are not privy. Udo’s agency is also apparent when he argues with Flora and abuses his power in situations where he gets the opportunity. This set in contrast to Flora’s first person narrative presents the two characters as independent individuals with agency who are trying to learn how to communicate with each other and the rest of society in order to achieve the things each of them considers important. Flora's frustration at her inability to control Udo is matched by his frustration when she does things that he considers silly, but ultimately both recognise that friendship, and human relationships in general, are not about asserting dominance. Their friendship is strengthened when they agree on the importance of certain things and work together to achieve them. They do not swoon into each other’s arms while the world around them fades to black, which, frankly, is refreshing.
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