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Borderline The Arcadia Project Mishell Baker Books

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Borderline The Arcadia Project Mishell Baker Books

Millicent Roper, formerly a promising young director of independent films, suffers from a mental illness called borderline personality disorder. Though not as devastating as schizophrenia, Millie’s problem was severe enough to lead to a suicide attempt—a jump from the roof of a seven-story building—that resulted in the amputation of both legs, considerable scarring, and the insertion of metal plates and pins throughout her body to repair her many broken bones.

Living voluntarily in a psychiatric treatment facility after recovering from her fall, Millie is startled when a well-dressed stranger, Caryl Vallo, visits and offers her an ill-defined form of employment if she will leave the facility and move into a residence run by the mysterious Arcadia Project. Millie chances accepting Caryl’s offer and soon learns that the Project’s job is attempting to manage relations between the Fey (as it is spelled here) and the human world, which some of the fairy folk choose to live in for extended periods—in this case, the section of that world that comprises Hollywood. (That would explain a lot about the movie capital.) She also learns that the Project likes to employ mentally ill people as its human agents, so it’s no surprise that the other five dwellers in the residence are as screwed up as she is.
I particularly liked two things about this book. The first was the characters; Millie, Caryl, Teo, and the others are complex, interesting, and appealing. The second was the steady way in which the author fed in a great deal of information about complicated subjects such as the nature of borderline personality disorder (not likely to be as familiar to most readers as, say, bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder), the rules governing the relations between Fey and humans, and the care and operation of prosthetic legs. I can’t judge the accuracy of the information, but it was consistent and “felt right.” The writing was well handled, too. For instance, Millie (who narrates the book) says:

“Most Borderlines are virtually incapable of a sincere apology. Tell a Borderline she has hurt you and she responds with a list of ways you’ve hurt her worse. Why? Because in a ‘split’ world, someone has to wear the black hat, and for a person with suicidal tendencies, avoiding guilt is quite literally a matter of life and death.”

I was glad to see signs that the author is planning further books about the Arcadia Project, and some threads were left dangling in preparation for that, but the story in this book was well wrapped up, which is not always the case when sequels are in the works. I will look forward to reading the sequels when they appear.


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Borderline The Arcadia Project Mishell Baker Books Reviews

I picked up this book due to a glowing recommendation given by a different author whose work I love. I pre-ordered the book for my and then didn't think much about it until about a week ago. I was "reading" a half dozen books at that time and none of them were holding my attention very well. I zipped through BORDERLINE in only a few days. The book meant so much to me that I purchased the paperback as soon as I was able. It was not until I read this book that it struck home how important representation is in fiction. Many, many urban fantasies feature the tough as nails, ass-kicking, name-taking heroine who just so happens to be supernatural and might get beaten down into a bad situation, but they always come back, leather pants all the better for the new scuffs. Millie is nothing like that. She is not neurotypical and she is disabled. Millie is flawed, sarcastic and hanging in the grayest of areas when the story begins. She remains flawed and sarcastic by the end, but she has evolved. My situation in life is nowhere near hers, but I too find myself hanging in a gray area very frequently. Sometimes inspiration comes along in places where you wouldn't expect. Watching Millie pull herself up and along on this particular adventure was inspiring in a way that many urban fantasy heroines' stories are not. This book meant so much to me, personally, that I am not sure that I am trustworthy of giving an honest review.

Please read this book, however. Expand your comfort zone, pick this up and learn something about a completely different type of person than one normally sees in this genre.
“Borderline” is a cleverly named novel. Its title refers to the protagonist, Millicent Roper, being afflicted with Borderline Personality Disorder; to the boundary between our world and the world of the Fey (which in this story has its own mind-boggling effects); and to the line observers draw between viewing others as people or ignoring them as non-persons unworthy of note—this last reference is particularly significant for Millie, who has had her legs amputated and her face scarred, affecting the way others interact (or don’t interact) with her, and even the way she interacts with herself. It’s also a cleverly written novel, full of cunning prose that can convey both sympathy and sarcasm (sometimes simultaneously).

The novel takes place in a contemporary fantasy version of America. Written like an independently produced film, it makes free use of the language of the cinematic world, and frames scenes as though they were part of a movie, giving this story’s decidedly non-epic scale a sense of epical quality nonetheless. It includes a mystery to be solved, with Millicent acting out the role of Sherlock Holmes while rolling in her wheelchair or seeing what’s afoot on her prostheses, and this keeps the plot moving while the author smoothly shares world building information with the reader in a painless fashion.

All the characters in the story behave bizarrely. Some, like Millie, have mental diseases that cause this; some are Fey, and Fey have non-human standards of conduct that appear outré to us; and some are just humans displaying flawed behavior out of insecurity. This makes for interesting exchanges. And since the story is told in the first person, Millie’s mental state makes the reader the first person to sense the unconventional perspective presented in the book. It’s as though we have always been Fey-ked out by the reality we see. But make no mistake; there is nothing fake about how good this book is. It’s comfortably uncomfortable tragic and humorous, gritty and glossy, starkly human and maddeningly glamorous.
Millicent Roper, formerly a promising young director of independent films, suffers from a mental illness called borderline personality disorder. Though not as devastating as schizophrenia, Millie’s problem was severe enough to lead to a suicide attempt—a jump from the roof of a seven-story building—that resulted in the amputation of both legs, considerable scarring, and the insertion of metal plates and pins throughout her body to repair her many broken bones.

Living voluntarily in a psychiatric treatment facility after recovering from her fall, Millie is startled when a well-dressed stranger, Caryl Vallo, visits and offers her an ill-defined form of employment if she will leave the facility and move into a residence run by the mysterious Arcadia Project. Millie chances accepting Caryl’s offer and soon learns that the Project’s job is attempting to manage relations between the Fey (as it is spelled here) and the human world, which some of the fairy folk choose to live in for extended periods—in this case, the section of that world that comprises Hollywood. (That would explain a lot about the movie capital.) She also learns that the Project likes to employ mentally ill people as its human agents, so it’s no surprise that the other five dwellers in the residence are as screwed up as she is.
I particularly liked two things about this book. The first was the characters; Millie, Caryl, Teo, and the others are complex, interesting, and appealing. The second was the steady way in which the author fed in a great deal of information about complicated subjects such as the nature of borderline personality disorder (not likely to be as familiar to most readers as, say, bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder), the rules governing the relations between Fey and humans, and the care and operation of prosthetic legs. I can’t judge the accuracy of the information, but it was consistent and “felt right.” The writing was well handled, too. For instance, Millie (who narrates the book) says

“Most Borderlines are virtually incapable of a sincere apology. Tell a Borderline she has hurt you and she responds with a list of ways you’ve hurt her worse. Why? Because in a ‘split’ world, someone has to wear the black hat, and for a person with suicidal tendencies, avoiding guilt is quite literally a matter of life and death.”

I was glad to see signs that the author is planning further books about the Arcadia Project, and some threads were left dangling in preparation for that, but the story in this book was well wrapped up, which is not always the case when sequels are in the works. I will look forward to reading the sequels when they appear.