Free Chocolate, by Amber
Royer (Angry Robot Books)
Ah, chocolate. It must be one of Earth’s finest natural
creations, right? That’s the premise underlying this charming YA novel in which
First Contact with all those alien worlds out there is not for the purpose of
cultural exchange, mathematical enlightenment, military domination, or any of
the hundreds of rationales. It’s to raid Earth of its chocolate! Well, and a
few other things, too, like coffee and vanilla beans.
Within a short time, humans and alien races are mixing
freely, some combinations with more success than others, and chocolate
production is rigidly controlled by a huge corporation, HGB – Hershey, Godiva,
and Bissinger -- which “sprouted in the wake of the First contact War. They
quietly made proprietary trade agreements with other planets…making it the most
powerful organization ofn the planet.” Bodacious Benitez is living her life as
a student, dating a gorgeous guy from Krom (whose irises change color depending
on his emotions), when she’s catapulted into an interplanetary scheme to
liberate chocolate. Her mother hosts an immensely popular cooking show,
bolstering the HGB image.
The most charming aspect of the book, however, is its use of
language. It’s told in first person, as is much YA today. Bo is fluent in
several languages, notably English, Spanish (her birth language), and
Portuguese. This makes sense when you think about it because most cacao-growing
regions are Spanish or Portuguese speaking. Bo liberally strews her English
with words in Spanish and teen-speak:
I need a hot shower and un poco alone time with Love Hurts, my favorite flufferiffic soap opera – a guilty pleasure Brill knows nada about.
Icy certainty settles in my stomach. I am muerto. Pero, I keep fighting the womborg [a wombat cyborg] anyway.
“Mamá, I only tell the celebarazzi things like how unfair it is that the chocolatiers have to work and extra hour…”
On the down side, the deliciousness of the language forced
me to read more slowly than usual. Although most of the meanings can be deduced
from context, I kept consulting my Kindle dictionary to get an added bit of
certainty. This, combined with the length of the book, had the effect of flattening
the dramatic intensity. There’s plenty of action in the story, but it takes
place over such a stretched-out length that the overall shape of rising tension
and climax, etc., is diminished. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the hours spent with
Bodacious, Brill, and their friends.
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