I don't need you to explain to me the concept of a magical land filled with fantastic creatures that only certain special children can enter. I am acquainted with the last several centuries of popular culture. There are books. And cartoons, for the illiterate. 

There are books that I love so, so much that I want to talk about them to everyone I know in great detail, except when I try to put my thoughts and feelings into words all that comes out is incoherent rambling. This is one of those books.

This is my second time reading In Other Lands, and I love it even more now than I did a few years ago. It's perfect, really. It's my favorite reconstruction of "portal fantasy with kids," on part with Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children (I can have two favorites, right?). It's also clearly in big part a response to Harry Potter in some ways, fixing all the things I felt dissatisfied or annoyed with back when I read HP.

The story portrays the effects of growing up in the middle of the war consistently and logically, while also focusing on the things that exist beside or in spite of all the battles going on. It doesn't shy away from letting the teenagers lead typical messy teenage lives: yes, there are school plays and classes and a war to be fought and stopped and treaties to go over and many other things, but that doesn't take the focus of figuring oneself out and getting into romantic messes and having hearts broken and mended. These things all exist at the same time, adding to each other. There are teens being teens, completely self-obsessed even when they're being super generous and heroic, until they start growing up and admitting mistakes and talking their ways through surprisingly logical misunderstandings that shaped their relationships.

There's peculiarly little magic in this magical land, but there are mermaids and elves and harpies, and there's plenty of opportunities to create your own wonders.

There's Elliot, one of the best characters I've ever met: a total bisexual disaster, believing himself to be utterly unloveable, always on the defensive even (especially?) against good things, caring so fiercely about others and hiding it so well sometimes, caring so much about stopping the war even as he's delegated to the role of the sidekick, about changing the world to the better. Messing up so badly time and time again, but then admitting mistakes and striving to make the best choices even when it hurts. I love Elliot. I hope he's very happy in the future that starts as the book ends.

I could ramble for hours and hours; there's so much more I want to say, but I feel it's only going to get even LESS coherent from here. So. Just. I LOVE THIS BOOK. Please read it.

Read for the following September 2020 readathons:
- I Read Sins Not Tragedies: Standalone
- CoffeeReadathon: Sassy/Fiery Charater
- Mythothon3: Serious Squad Goals
- Demonathon: Middle Grade (kinda cheating on my part, since only the first part of the book may qualify as middle grade, and then it goes firmly into YA/coming of age territory, but there's less than a week of September left and I want to feel like I'm making readathon progress :D)