Title: In Other Lands
Author: Sarah Rees Brennan
Publisher: Big Mouth House
Genre: Fantasy, YA
Stars: ★★★★★
TWs/CWs: Fantasy typical violence and war, neglectful parents, toxic relationships
“Elliot was trying to teach himself trollish via a two-hundred-year-old book by a man who’d had a traumatic break-up with a troll. This meant a lot of commentary along the lines of “This is how trolls say I love you. FOOTNOTE: BUT THEY DON’T MEAN IT!”
Where do I even start with this book?
It’s beautiful, it’s possibly the funniest book I’ve ever read, it’s heart-wrenchingly raw and real in places, and I couldn’t love it more. In Other Lands is a deconstruction of the “Earth teen gets transported to another world” genre, and it’s so well done. Elliot never stops questioning the new world, the customs and the society, which gets him constantly into trouble. But he’s also operating from his knowledge of literary tropes, which help him analyze the world around him and manipulate it for it’s own good. But he’s also fully aware that “someone like him” could never be the hero of a story, and feels relegated to the role of a sidekick in his own life.
Elliot as a protagonist is incredible. He’s a little weasely gremlin and he often treats people unfairly, and he’s hiding behind a facade of being better and smarter than everyone. He’s not exactly the greatest person to be around and he drives others away because really, you can’t get hurt by them if you never let them close.
And that’s the crux of the problem. This book spans across several years of his life, and as we see him grow up and develop, we get a glimpse into the deep well of loneliness inside him, and past hurts he hasn’t been able to deal with in any kind of healthy way. He’s messy, and complicated, a bit of a tit, doesn’t know how to treat people right because he doesn’t have any kind of blueprint for it. He’s so lost when it comes to social interaction and love. And he hates himself for it. But you know what? He consistently works on it, and it’s not easy but he perseveres, because the people around him are worth it. And frankly, I couldn’t love him more for it.
It’s always validating to see messy, kind of broken characters, who do get better without completely changing, who do find people who will love them and learn to love them back. There’s an Elliot in all of us, and he needs to be loved and cherished.
I also love the way the book tackles teenage sexuality. Elliot is unabashedly horny and he does what I think a lot of us would do in his situation: he wants to make out with as many species as he can. He gets humans, yes, but he also kisses a mermaid or a harpy and delights in it. The portrayal of his bisexuality is also frank, in the way of a person first coming into their own queer identity. I also liked how realistic his fears of being slutshamed for it were.
The secondary characters were wonderful too, and I loved the theme of found family with Serene, Luke. Elliot’s relationship with them has always been complicated, and at times even tense and kind of horrible, but they persevered and created life-long friendships and love. Since the book takes place over several years, we get to see all three of them grow up into their true selves, and since they’re given so much time and space, they get to mature gradually in a realistic manner.
I just. I just really, really loved this book. I inhaled 17 hours of this audiobook in less than two days, and I was working one of them. I adore the characters, and the story itself, and the love stories, and the creatures inhabiting the Borderlands. But what I love most is Elliot’s character development and his journey to self love, summarized by this quote:
“And he did not want to be loved as a second choice, as a surrender. He had spent his whole life not being loved at all, and he had thought being loved enough would satisfy him. It would not. He did not want to be loved enough. He wanted to be loved overwhelmingly… He had never been chosen, so he has never had a chance to know this about himself before now: he wanted to be chosen first.”
Book me up! 