Sharp Words

6 out of 10

Madapple is the first novel by Christina Meldrum, and I’ve reviewed it as part of its Blog Stop Book Tour. There were parts that I found intriguing and evocative and well-written, and other parts that just didn’t work for me, but on the whole, it was an interesting read and since it’s a young adult novel, one I’d recommend particularly for girls in their mid-to-late teens.

It’s the story of Aslaug, a teenage girl who’s grown up in rural Maine with just her sickly mother for company, learning about science and nature, particularly the uses of plants. Aslaug is an innocent - she’s never even really seen her face in a mirror, let alone been exposed to what we would consider ‘normal’ life - and Madapple is her coming-of-age story.

It begins with a pregnant 15 year old, newly arrived in America from Denmark, begging her also-pregnant older sister to come to the USA too. Move forward nearly twenty years, and we’re in a courtroom as Aslaug is questioned on the witness stand, charged with murder and attempted murder. The story moves between the courtroom in 2007 (reported just in dialogue) and Aslaug’s life from 2003 onwards (from her point of view) as we view her past and present - the death of her mother, how she finds her aunt and cousins and goes to live with them, and what happens after… and eventually, we find out just why she’s on trial.

Christina Meldrum writes in the foreword and on her website that she hoped to have ’somehow captured that in-between space where religion and science meet’. Aslaug knows science - and botany in particular, including how to create poisons, a vital plot point - but her understand of religion is very personal. Her mother claimed that Aslaug was a virgin birth and that Aslaug’s only father is God, and this has obviously coloured what Aslaug has come to believe. Her Aunt Sara was once a strict Lutheran and now preaches in her own church; she and Aslaug’s two cousins have their own beliefs about Aslaug herself, and this leads to the ultimate tragedies which take place.

I think the novel did raise some interesting questions about faith and belief and their roles in both religion and scientific study, but I feel there was room for further development of these themes. And although I really liked the time-jumps back and forth between the trial and Aslaug’s own story, these did actually derail the more mystical elements of the story - but then again, I suppose they also served as a contrast.

The story itself was fairly well-written in my opinion - Aslaug, with her mixture of certainties and confusion and naivety, was a sympathetic character. But other characters were less developed, and some of what happens to Aslaug seems a bit perfunctory and often far-fetched. Unfortunately, a large plot point has been echoed recently in real life events, which made my attempt at a re-read a bit strange. In fact, I haven’t yet managed to re-read Madapple, though I want to; it’s partly because it’s one of those books which needs to be left aside for a while, and partly because I haven’t had time!

It’s a brave first novel, anyway, in terms of its subject matter and its attempt to explore the connections between science and religion. I almost forgot to mention the way the chapters are named after different plants, which was something I liked a lot; each one has attributes which tie into the events of the chapter. Anyway, it was a good read for me, and it’s something I’ll keep on my shelves for a while yet.