Sexualized Saturdays: Criticizing Masculinity through Magic in Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies

Young adult fantasy is such a female dominated space that when I picked up Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies by Lindsay Ribar, I was surprised to discover that it had a male protagonist. Aspen Quick, our main character, comes from a family that can steal things from people. I don’t mean physical possessions; rather, they can reach into a person and take more nebulous things like good eyesight, a mole, or romantic feelings just by touching something with a connection to that person.

It’s an interesting power, but I wondered at first at the decision to make the protagonist male. However, I discovered that his maleness was essential to the development of the storyline, because the magical system in Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies is perfectly set up to discuss consent and critique male entitlement.

Spoilers for the story below!

Throwback Thursdays: Tithe by Holly Black

It seems that I’m forever rereading fairy stories for my Throwback Thursdays, but today is not going to be an exception. The only really surprising thing about my topic for this post is that Lady Geek Girl didn’t get to it first.

Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale by Holly Black came out in 2002 and was the formative YA novel of my teenage years. I think I may even say without overstepping that it was the formative novel of my entire friend group. What about it left such an impression?

Slight spoilers after the jump.