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Avalon High by Meg Cabot
| Avalon High
By Meg Cabot
Release Date:
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Ellie’s parents are professors of medieval studies – which means she knows exactly how much it sucked to live during the Middle Ages. No Disney princess BS for this girl, making her rather unpopular at sleepovers and far too knowledgeable about ancient literature. Well, there wasn’t anything else to read in the house besides Le Morte D’Arthur and Beowulf. And she knows the poem by Tennyson, The Lady of Shallot, backwards and forwards, thanks to her mother and The Lady of Shallot (Elaine) being her namesake.
When her parents take a sabbatical from their college teaching, they move Ellie to Annapolis so they can study medieval texts and swords in nearby Washington D.C., and Ellie finds herself starting school at Avalon High. Everything is going fine–the cutest boy in school is even spending more time with her than he does with his girlfriend. Then the coincidences start building up. How likely would it be that Lance, A. William (the A being for Arthur), and Jennifer (did you know that’s the English version of Guinevere?) would all be friends? And that Jen and Will are dating? But Jen is cheating on him with Lance? That’s just the beginning of things building up at Avalon High, and when Will’s step-brother gets thrown into the mix, well, theories of reincarnation and battles of good and evil don’t seem far behind.
OMG this book was too cute. There’s a reason that I shouldn’t review books immediately after I’ve read them, because all I want to do is gush about how great they are or complain about what a waste of my reading time it was. Well, this book was so good I actually wanted to sit down and review it.
So why did I love this book so much? Well, it combined two of my favorite subject fluff and Arthurian legends. Now, I actually tend to stay away from a lot of modern Arthurian legends–they often change the classics too greatly (Guinevere was a pagan queen? What the hell?????). Or they are so dark and dreary I just can’t get through them. Nothing dark and dreary about this book though–it was all fluff and action, with a little bit of teen drama and high school life thrown into the mix.
Now, the whole reincarnation of Arthur plot is nothing new. It’s an old part of the legend–some say that he is under a hill in England, others that he’s on the island of Avalon, but he will rise again when the world/England/humanity needs him most. As far I’ve heard, there have even been some well done books that deal with Arthur in the modern world (see the further reading section for the titles), but I’ve not gotten around to reading any. Mostly because I tend to shy away from male main characters, and most of the books are starring Arthur. Avalon High is great because it stars a girl, and the girl isn’t even Guinevere. No, she’s Elaine, the Lady of Shalott, one of the most pathetic characters in the Arthurian legends. She’s the one that might get the occasional mention the modern movies–Lancelot’s love whom he leaves for Guinevere. Sometimes his wife, sometimes the mother of his child, she always gets passed over in favor of the queen. Of course, her actual role in this story is a little different and far more interesting, or else we wouldn’t have a story–what if Ellie just killed herself when Lance wouldn’t look her way?
I’ve been wanting review an Arthurian legend for some time, but the closest book that I really like is The Night Dance by Suzzane Weyn, which is sort of on the tail end of the Arthurian time period, with Sir Galahad searching for the Lady of the Lake so that he can return Excalibur. There just aren’t a lot of books in the current YA field that interest me that are also about the Arthurian Legends. I’m more into the actual legends than modern reinterpretations. This is why I was pleasantly surprised by how true the book kept to the original stories without being obnoxious. And a reader who isn’t very familiar with the legends shouldn’t have any problem, as Ellie explains everything you need to know.
And the best part?
Tokyopop has a manga sequel coming out in this month (June 2007)! So right now is the perfect time to pick this book up if you haven’t already, and I will review the manga as soon as I can get my hands on it.
Action 3 1/2 – Physical action was lacking until near the end of the book, but the plot and characters kept up a good pace, and I never felt bored.
Romance 4 – Fluffy and pointless and a little bit cliché (it was love at first sight!), but who cares, it was adorably cute. And I thought that they were well-suited for each other and were better suited for each other than some Meg Cabot couples (I’m looking at you, Mia and Michael). But I did a lot of stupid “OMG, so cute!” giggles while reading, so that automatically bumps it up a few points in my mind. I’d been needing a good giggle.
Characters 3 1/2 – The weakest part of the novel was probably the characters. Ellie and Will are great, but Lance and Jen could use some more development, as could, well, everyone else. Hopefully the manga will continue to flesh out the characters. Right now it relies a little too much on the Arthurian roles that the characters play and not on the individual characteristics of the person. Because this is writen in a first person point of view, we only see characters like Lance and Jen as Ellie sees them, and she doesn’t have much interaction with them. As a result, the two come off as somewhat sterotypical of how you’d imagine Lancelot and Guinevere to be. Still, I really hope they get more fleshing out and focus in the manga, which will lend itself to multiple POVs more than this book did.
Overall 4 1/2 – I genuinely enjoyed this book. It was fun, quick, and didn’t fail to stay entertaining. It’s not a deep book, but it’s a great one to help recover from finals.
Extras:
Where to begin? I suppose the author, Meg Cabot, is a good starting point, because once we get into Arthurian links and books, we’ll be there a long time.
Meg Cabot has written many YA and adult books. Some are good, some are mediocre, and all are fluffy. Personally, besides Avalon High, I really liked All-American Girl and its sequel, Ready or Not. Her adult series of the Heather Wells mysteries are enjoyable too: Size 12 is Not Fat and Size 14 is Not Fat Either. Her website has a full list of her books, including the ones under other names. It also has other information about the author, excerpts, her blog, and … preview pages of the Avalon High manga. ^_^ Though I must say that if Ellie’s body proportions are correct on the panel where she’s floating in the pool, running has got to be killing her back. -_- Bad manga, bad.
So what about books that bring King Arthur to our modern day world? One that’s always been on my shelf to read is Knight Life by Peter David. It deals with Arthur having literally been asleep all these years, waking up, and being brought to New York City by Merlin (in full armor, no less). There is also Camelot 3000, a twelve issue mini-series about Arthur and his knights in the year 3000, fighting Morgan Le Fay’s alien hordes.
If you’re interested in the classic tales, then the books that need to be on your shelf are: Le Morte D’Arthur, by Sir Thomas Mallory; The Once and Future King, by T. H. White; The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights, by John Steinbeck; and a good encyclopedia/reference book for the legends (mine is the Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Arthurian Legends by Ronan Coghlan, and it’s very pretty and thorough). Those first two books are held as basic source material for the legends, containing what makes up the “cannon” of Arthurian lore. But you have to keep in mind, we really have no idea what happened or didn’t happen. The Arthurian legends are a mishmash of British, Irish, and Celtic myths that often don’t actually involve Arthur or his Knights in their earlier versions. Really, authors have a lot of leeway when writing about the legends, but there are some accepted norms.Online, you’ll find plenty of places with information about the Arthurian legends, but just keep in mind, there is no definite text to the legends. Britannia online has a pretty good looking resource about Arthur though, as does Arthurian-legend.com.
Oh, and I can’t go without mentioning The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley, another must read for Arthurian fans. Granted, it’s a big book, but most female fans swear by it. For a list of more Arthurian books than you can read in this lifetime (especially if you want to get to the foreign ones), check out Wikipedia.
And if you’re ever in England, visit Glastonbury Abbey. The area has ties to many different legends, including the Arthurian ones, and that’s where they supposedly found the graves of Arthur and Guinevere, in addition to possibly being Avalon. Of course, they happened to find the graves right when the Abbey needed money in the 1600s. Still, it’s beautiful and a great spiritual experience, whatever your faith or beliefs. It’s also one of the places that Joseph of Arimathea visited, and there is a Holy Thorn tree, grown up from his staff.
Now, on to media adaptations! I love the six hour Merlin mini-series, starring Sam Neil. It’s simply charming and fun, with some romance thrown in. Personally, this will always be my favorite Arthurian adaptation, even though I can go down a long list of ways they deviated heavily from the traditional interpretations. Still, it’s fun. Just don’t ever see the sequel. It could have been okay, if they weren’t trying to pretend that it was a sequel. The plot was kind of interesting, but all the ties to the first mini-series were completely contrived and disregared the ending of the original. Another great movie is Tristan + Isolde. That’s one of those legends that wasn’t originally part of the Arthurian tales, but got woven in later. The movie doesn’t actually deal with Arthur, but it’s still a very beautiful movie. The sets and costumes are gorgeous and worth watching just for them. I won’t comment on the most recent movie, King Arthur, because I haven’t watched it yet. I’m intrigued by the ideas behind it, but afraid that I won’t like the execution. Plus I’ve heard a lot of mixed reviews, especially that the concept is interesting but that the movie is rather slow.
13+ There is some kissing, references to others making out, a reference to the Mordred character getting high, but nothing serious or even really shown. The coming manga has a 13+ rating, and I’ll agree with that.
Sounds like a good one^^ Definately going to be looking for it.
is avalon high going to be a movie? im lyk soooooo dying to know!!!
ITS A TOTALLY RAD BOOK. a must read. I NEED TO SEE THE AVALON HIGH MOVIE!!!!