Christelle Dabos; Translated by Hildegarde Serle, Here and only here, Text Publishing, October 2023, 228 pp., RRP $22.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781922790545
Young adult novels set in schools are nothing new. In fact, the school story is a fiction genre which has been wildly popular at different times through the past century. Whether it was Greyfriars School or Malory Towers, Sweet Valley High or Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the common experience of attending school has been the setting for students’ adventures, scrapes and ‘growing up’; which every pre-adolescent and young adult reader can relate to, and where they can potentially picture themselves in similar situations.
Here and only here is also a school story; but quite different from those mentioned above. It is told in turn from the perspective of four students, Iris, Pierre, Madeleine, and Guy, as well as by the Substitute Teacher and the unnamed members of the Top-Secret Club. Over the course of a year, each of the students, one in every year level of the middle school, deals with the usual cycle of school events; at the school of Here, these include disappearance, murder, revolution and birth.
Yes…disappearance, murder, revolution, and birth.
French author, Christelle Dabos, best known for the global best-selling fantasy series The Mirror Visitor Quartet, has exorcised her own school experiences in this story of school life that is equal parts fantasy, horror, and realism. In the school of Here there are complex rules and hierarchies; students who are ‘tops’ and others who are ‘bottoms’; and others who are the odd ones out. Tributes are paid to the ‘Prince’, a student who rules the school but who must never be gazed upon directly, and the top-secret club meet regularly, to find a solution to the end of the world and seek a manifestation of the intramural distortion of the field of reality. Students bully others mercilessly and even commit murder, while the majority of teachers look the other way or are frankly afraid to step in. Another student commandeers an unused room to briefly become a prophetess, empowered by a magical white feather, and those students who lose themselves in their desire to blend in sometimes become invisible to all, unable to leave the school grounds.
This book is dark and disturbing. It is an attempt to capture and convey the claustrophobia, fear and anxiety school attendance can generate – and how escape from the world created within its walls can seem impossible. There were elements of this story that reminded me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer – where the school was built on the Hellmouth, and the vampires and demons represented the challenges of adolescence – however in this book the students themselves were the monsters, and the way they treat each other the true horror.
It is difficult to say for whom I would recommend this book. Certainly as an adult reader, I was able to identify the metaphors, and see the allusions to eating disorders, suicidal ideation, queen bee (or ‘prince’ in this case) social structures and feelings of isolation and invisibility. However, even with this knowledge, and as an experienced reader, there were storylines which were confusing and nonsensical. Perhaps this is because I am a mature reader, or perhaps the confusion was the intent of the author, to leave the reader discomfited and on edge, a feeling so common in adolescence.
I would not recommend this book for wide reading; however I believe it may find its audience. The text itself is not complex, and the book is short, making it potentially suitable as a book club selection for a niche group of mature readers (aged 15-18) who may be challenged to discuss their interpretation of the themes. Reader advisory is recommended, as it does have scenes that may trigger some students; pre-reading by teachers is advised.
Reviewed by Kay Oddone