I read Mark's first book, Anger Is A Gift back in 2018 and I was hooked and added him to my if he writes it I am there list of authors, it doesn't matter the content, I am all in.
My son and I went to LeakyCon in October 2019, the 10th Anniversary (I was on staff at the very first one in 2009, and his first con). We got to meet Mark and I was even more hooked. He is warm and welcoming and just amazing. And at the OpenMic event hosted by Wizards In Space (please support them) Mark read from this book and my son made Mark laugh so hard he was crying!! So we are basically life long friends now LOL.
Just the other day the manager of the Barnes & Noble where I am so honored to be a bookseller came up to me with an ARC that had just arrived. And she handed it to me and said as soon as she read the note with it she knew it was a Wendy Book. I looked down and in my hands was Each of Us a Desert and I literally squealed!! I told her how I had been looking forward to this since October and how I heard him read from it.
So now I have finished it and I am so excited to tell you what I thought.
This book is a lot!! It is poetry. It is fantasy. It is a mystery. It is a coming of age and finding yourself story. It is really left me feeling like I had been reading Mark's diary. It is beautiful and it is strange and it is full of love and pain and confusion and life and death.
"I would rather make another terrible decision than live knowing I hadn't tried." I loved this line and it really is a theme that threads itself into the story.
It took me a little while to get into the grove of the storytelling style Mark was using here. It is a really change from Anger. That isn't a bad thing, not even close. The language is beautiful. If like me you don't speak Spanish don't worry, context makes it pretty clear what is being said and after awhile I found my footing. I did look up some of the words because I really wanted to know the exact translations but it didn't impede my love of the book in anyway. And the language is beautiful. It felt more impactful, had more punch if you will, felt more authentic to the story and no author owes it to anyone to not use languages other than English.
The story is fascinating. I think it is an allegory. If I am reading too much into it that is all on me and not the fault of the author at all, but I really feel like I am correct.
The story is told by Xochitl to Solís, a god figure. She is a young girl who has a power she didn't ask for and realizes she doesn't want. She takes people's stories, confessions actually. They are relived of what ever guilt or bad feelings are plaguing them and Xochitl goes out into the desert and regurgitates the stories, giving them to Solís and retaining no memory of the story. Until she doesn't give a story up..she keeps it. And once she has kept it she can't stop taking the stories but because she needs the first one she kept (I won't tell you why, you have to read the book to find out) she can't give those up either. This makes her realize something...people are dumping their stories into her, reliving themselves of the burden but they aren't learning anything or changing bad behaviors. And since she doesn't remember the stories once she gives them to Solís there is no accountability and no need for anyone to change. This is the catalyst that sets her journey in motion.
The fantasy )or maybe even a little SciFy) piece of this work is: Who is this Solís, why have They destroyed the world and started over, why must people like Xochitl take stories, who is in charge of the mysterious Solado and what happened there, who is leaving poems hidden in the desert...
But the story really feels like it is about trying to figure out who you really are even as the world dumps its expectations of who you should be into your soul, loving who you are even if you aren't 100% sure who that is, and finding your own path and that it is ok to stumble and make mistakes along the way. It feels like a story about it being ok to question authority and belief systems and making your mind up for yourself about what you believe or don't. It's about love and loss and healing. It's about it being OK TO BE YOU!! And for kids of color and queer kids this is so important.
Thank you Mark for sharing this story with the world!!
(Finished August 27, 2020)
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