Borderline by Mishell Baker
Published by Simon and Schuster
Genres and Categories: Detective Characters, Diverse Representation, Magic Users, Detective Fantasy, Modern Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Disabled and Neurodivergent Authors, Fae/Fey, Mental Health, Mobility Aids, Physical Disabilities, Trauma, Mental Health Representation, OwnVoices Representation, Queer Characters, Various Magic
Series: The Arcadia Project #1
My Rating:
Published on: 1st March 2016
Pages: 400
Disability Representation: Amputee, Anxiety, Borderline Personality Disorder, Incontinence, Mental Health, Panic Attacks, Paranoia, Prosthetic Legs, Self-Harm, Suicide, Suicide Survivor, Trauma
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A cynical, disabled film director with borderline personality disorder gets recruited to join a secret organization that oversees relations between Hollywood and Fairyland in this Nebula Award–nominated and Tiptree Award Honor Book that’s the first novel in a new urban fantasy series from debut author Mishell Baker.

A year ago, Millie lost her legs and her filmmaking career in a failed suicide attempt. Just when she’s sure the credits have rolled on her life story, she gets a second chance with the Arcadia Project: a secret organization that polices the traffic to and from a parallel reality filled with creatures straight out of myth and fairy tales.

For her first assignment, Millie is tasked with tracking down a missing movie star who also happens to be a nobleman of the Seelie Court. To find him, she’ll have to smooth-talk Hollywood power players and uncover the surreal and sometimes terrifying truth behind the glamour of Tinseltown. But stronger forces than just her inner demons are sabotaging her progress, and if she fails to unravel the conspiracy behind the noble’s disappearance, not only will she be out on the streets, but the shattering of a centuries-old peace could spark an all-out war between worlds.

No pressure.

Content Warnings:

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Please note that this review of Borderline discusses mental health and suicide in detail from the very start.

If you are feeling particularly vulnerable right now, then this may not be the best read for you. I say that with love and kindness as someone who has anxiety and depression. I do not want anyone to be triggered because of me <3

Borderline by Mishell Baker came to my attention when it popped up on several lists for books with a disabled protagonist. As a huge urban fantasy fan, I was also drawn in by the fey storyline. An ownvoices book about fey with a synopsis that openly starts by talking about disability and mental health? It sounded perfect for GeekDis! Keep reading to find out if Borderline was as good as it sounded.

Millicent, Millie Roper, is in a psychiatric centre when we first meet her. She has been there for six months after surviving a failed suicide, which resulted in her losing both her legs. That’s where magic first walks into her life, as she tells us, and it is in the form of a stranger who offers her a job. It’s very cloak and dagger, but it’s Millie’s only way out of the centre. At some point, the funding is going to run out, and with no close family or friends, no one else is queuing up to offer her a place to go. The woman is also offering her a chance to break back into the film industry, a career path that Millie thought was forever closed to her. A big selling point is that The Arcadia Project is specifically looking for people who are mentally ill, and Millie fits that bill one hundred perfectly; she has borderline personality disorder (BPD).

Taking the chance, Millie is prepared for disappointment, but what she’s not ready for is to be introduced to the world of magic and to find out that fairies exist. The Arcadia Project is really a secret organisation that polices the traffic to and from a parallel reality filled with creatures straight out of myth and fairy tales; the fey. They help Fey and humans find their Echoes, a platonic soulmate in the opposite reality that completes them and enhances their creative talent. Humans become stars, and fey gain more substance. Without human Echoes, fey drift around as if in a dream.

Given a simple first assignment with her partner, to find a missing sidhe noble, it, of course, turns out to be anything but simple. There’s a terrifying conspiracy going on, one that goes much deeper than anyone at her new place of work realises. All the while, Millie is struggling with her mental health, she’s living with multiple strangers, all of whom are mentally ill as well and in a house that is not accessible.

I was completely blown away by every single aspect of Borderline. Baker herself has BPD, which I suspected from the way Millie has been written, but I didn’t confirm until after I completed the book. It’s something that Baker talks about openly on her blog, and there is a great interview here where she talks about why she chose to write about BPD.

While I’m familiar with mental health, I’m not with BPD, so I appreciated the insight into the condition through Millie. Millie is not a reliable narrator; she sometimes isn’t even a likeable character, with Baker pointing out her casual racism multiple times. There are a lot of flawed characters in Borderline, and Baker excels at showing them in all their imperfect glory. There is one character whom I couldn’t stand, who reminded me of a lot of people I have known in my life, and yet I ended up feeling things for them that I did not expect because Baker showed the other side of them.

Likewise, I cannot comment on the authenticity of the representation of a double amputee and prosthetic user. What I can say is that it was wonderful to see so much detail, to see Millie’s prosthetics, mobility aids and accessibility needs always at the forefront. There is a scene when Millie has an embarrassing accident in public and has to call a relative stranger for help. It was such a raw moment that I know a lot of writers would have shied away from it for many reasons; however, it was an incredibly important one for disability representation. Scenes like that need to be included, not hidden away because no one wants to “see that”. These are our lives, these things do happen, and that authenticity is in every word of this novel.

The world-building is also top-notch, with a wonderful and vibrant new fey mythos and magic systems that I thoroughly enjoyed. Borderline was a great read all around read with authentic representation!

About Mishell Baker

Mishell Baker is a 2009 graduate of the Clarion Fantasy & Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop.  Her urban fantasy trilogy The Arcadia Project, shortlisted for the World Fantasy, Nebula, Tiptree and Mythopoeic awards, was released by Simon & Schuster’s Saga imprint, beginning with Borderline.  The series is narrated by Millicent Roper, a snarky double-amputee and suicide survivor who works with a ragtag collection of society’s least-wanted, keeping the world safe from the chaotic whims of supernatural beasties.

Mishell was part of the writing team for Orphan Black: The Next Chapter, narrated by Tatiana Maslany.  Her short fiction has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Daily Science Fiction, among others.

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Thank you for reading my book review for Borderline by Mishell Baker, the first book of The Arcadia Project Trilogy.  

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