$17.99
ISBN: 9781101994580
Availability: Hard to Find
Published: Dutton Books for Young Readers - March 15th, 2016
Of all Shakespeare's plays to get a YA adaptation, I gotta admit I wasn't expecting The Winter's Tale to be one. It's a great play, and popular—the title of this novel is one of the stage directions in Act III (probably the most famous one Shakespeare ever wrote)—but it's a little odd: a sprawling, cross-country story that's ultimately about remaking a family after a king's irrational jealousy nearly destroys it. In EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR, E.K. Johnston recenters the story on Hermione, the wronged queen of The Winter's Tale, moving the setting from Renaissance Sicily and Bohemia to modern-day Canada, and casting our Hermione as the head cheerleader of a small-town team. She's an athlete, a leader, a good friend and a great cheerleader.
She also gets raped at the end of the first act of the book.
I don't want to sugarcoat it, or pretend like this isn't a book that deals with a traumatic assault. I don't want to try and be nice about it, because, well, it's not—but this book handles trauma and support and recovery better than any book I've read on it, for teens or for adults. This is Hermione's book. It's not about the assault, about her rapist, or about revenge—it's about one teenage girl, reclaiming her agency and her life after someone's selfish act of violence tries to take it away. In the author's note, Johnston says she was in a very angry place when she wrote the book (due to a particular politician, apparently, who goes unnamed), and I think Johnston's rage shows in a very powerful way in the text: through the boundless compassion Hermione experiences from her family, her teammates, and her town.
That, to me, after living through endless twenty-four-hour news cycles about slut-shaming and victim-blaming, was the real gift of this book. Compassion. Everyone in Hermione's life, from her coach to her priest to her therapist, is incredibly kind and compassionate, and that kindness allows Hermione to heal. She is a phenomenal protagonist. She pushes herself to get better, she doesn't settle for anything but the full life she deserves, but since she's surrounded by people to support and help her, she's allowed to have panic attacks and experience her trauma and be afraid, because she is undeniably a person in Johnston's hands. The dimension, the power, and the strength Johnston gives Hermione make it clear that this adaptation surpasses its source. (Sorry, but not sorry, Bill.)
