Stray by Elissa Sussman

I admit that I first picked up Stray by Elissa Sussman based on the cover art alone. The illustration on the front is beautiful and haunting, and the small decorative touches throughout the text are tasteful and elegant. The design choices appealed to me so strongly that I purchased the book without considering any online reviews and without taking into account that its genre of young adult fantasy isn't one that appeals to me much these days. It was a foolhardy decision, to be sure, but in this case, it all worked out for the best. Stray is as compelling on the inside as it is on the outside.

The story is set in the realm of the Four Kingdoms, which are helpfully divided up into Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western segments. In this land, women are born with the ability to use magic and men are not. Instead of magic being an accepted part of everyday life, women are strictly managed and told to suppress their powers. All the lore of the Four Kingdoms focuses on the dangers of magic, and how it is an expression of the wickedness inside a woman's heart. Women of noble status within the kingdoms are sent away to boarding schools upon their first "occurrence" (an accidental release of magic usually happening in their early teenage years) and taught to stick rigidly to a path of obedience and self-denial. They must play the part of the delicate maiden to perfection, never, under any circumstances allow any of their magic to slip out, and follow the orders of their male advisor, who controls everything from their appearance and clothing to their choices for a future spouse. It is this universe, with its restrictive rules and rigid gender roles, that is undoubtedly the high point of the novel.

The protagonist of the story is a young princess named Aislynn, who loses her royal status at the beginning of the novel when her magical powers accidentally slip out in a moment of extreme emotional distress. Her punishment is to be "redirected," a process which involved stripping her of her title as princess and sending her far away to a different school to serve as a fairy godmother (i.e. servant) to another princess. Aislynn's failure to stay on her path of unwavering obedience to societal rules means that she now must serve as a cautionary example to another young royal. Fairy godmothers in this universe help princesses, as you'd expect, but they also serve to warn their charges of what will happen to them if they stray from what is expected.

Aislynn is assigned to Princess Linnea, a young girl with close familial ties to a wicked queen that most of the Four Kingdoms is afraid of. Linnea's relation to Queen Josetta makes her an outcast among the rest of the princesses at her school, so she develops a close relationship with Aislynn, who comes to care for her more and more each day despite the pain she feels for her own situation.

As time moves forward, Aislynn begins to learn more about with the Four Kingdoms are really like. Without the shield of royal status to protect her, she begins to notice things. Mysterious disappearances and questionable occurrences tempt her to stray from her new fairy godmother path, and when a real danger reveals itself one night, she is set upon a new course that will change her life forever. 

I was not expecting an exploration of gender roles and sexism when I began reading this novel, and I was blown away when I realized that was what I was experiencing. The male characters in this universe have constructed a narrative that paints females as evil and dangerous, and this story is accepted without question by almost everyone. Women are forced to conceal a power that is literally straining to burst out of them in order to be considered as marriageable. They have to learn to be quiet, to deny themselves, and to follow orders to succeed. The levels of symbolism are astounding. I was reminded strongly of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, and that's something that I did not expect to say about a princess novel. I loved the questions that this raised while I was reading, and I loved that it was so applicable to the issues young girls still face today in our society.

Unfortunately, Stray falls down a bit in other areas. These interesting questions about gender and sexism are underdeveloped, and Aislynn is only just beginning to grapple with them by the end of the novel. The story is left unfinished, to leave room for sequels I assume, so Aislynn's growth arc is woefully incomplete by the novel's final pages. There's also a cute, but tiresome, romance thrown in the mix because this is a young adult fantasy novel starring a princess. I wish that Sussman had hit the societal inequality harder.

However, despite its shortcomings, I give Stray credit for what it is hinting towards. This is a different sort of young adult fantasy, and I sincerely hope that future novels in the series delve deeper into the gender issues presented here. Right now there is a companion novel out, Burn, but it follows a different character and could be read standalone, from what I understand. I would actually be interested in reading a direct sequel, so I hope that one shows up eventually. Young readers need more books like this - that allow them to question the narratives and roles set out for us. Both girls and boys would benefit from dismantling gender expectations that make no sense and make so many people unhappy and afraid to be themselves. Stray is a step in the right direction, and an example of how literature has the power to help us examine our world through the guise of a fictional one.