A slightly weak four, mostly for maintaining the "You" as the name to which Juniper's sister addressed letters. His, or maybe her, identity had to remA slightly weak four, mostly for maintaining the "You" as the name to which Juniper's sister addressed letters. His, or maybe her, identity had to remain a mystery in order to drive the plot, but it was annoying rather than mysterious, given that she was a present-day high school senior instead of a young Victorian woman. There was a lot that worked well, though, and it's a good portrait of someone finding ways to celebrate the person they loved as well as mourning their loss. ...more
2.5, with half a star as acknowledgement that the utter tedium of this was exacerbated by listening on audiobook.
There'll be no praise earned for havi2.5, with half a star as acknowledgement that the utter tedium of this was exacerbated by listening on audiobook.
There'll be no praise earned for having listened to all (Every. Blessed. Minute) of this (okay, I went to 1.25 speed when my brain started bleeding from boredom and occasionally 1.5), but I was afraid I might not have another book this year for the fairy-tale retelling category in the Better World Books challenge, so I stuck it out, thinking at least there'd be some satisfaction in the redemption of Beast and the love story. Had I but known...*
The thing is, in theory, there was a lot to like about this. I've always liked Beauty and the Beast better when the sisters are nice too, and these were. (Anyone else get strong echoes of Mercy from The Witch of Blackbird Pond in the sister who was in love with Solmir?) (All spellings guesswork, because - audio!) I quite liked the way other stories or elements from stories were incorporated, and Yeva telling Beast the stories she learned from her father.
That's it! I've got nothing else positive to say! The sections from the Beast's POV - or POVs, as he called himself 'we' which was equally irritating and senseless - were dire. There was this Message running through, about how everyone has more than one nature, but honestly, it was used as suited and mostly seemed to be just a long 'There must be more than this provincial toooooooowwwnnn' chorus. In other words; Yeva is SPECIAL. Beast is either a Murderer who must be killed for sweet, sweet revenge or SPECIAL. At the end the whole central element of the fairy tale of Beast's punishment and eventual redemption was lost in a mess of both Yeva and pre-Beast dude wanting more (than this etc.) It left their HEA feeling less hard-won than as if they were celebrities who were finally together and were going to flit around doing whatever the f--k they felt like just because they're special.
Before that, we had a lot of nonsense about her staying in the castle to get revenge, despite that being a pretty selfish motivation, given she'd left her family thinking both she and her father were dead. And after a big deal being made about one of the two dogs being totally unsuited to the harsh winters out in the forest, the dog ended up doing better than fine. In the snow, for days and days, alone. Also she survived (view spoiler)[a broken leg, which wasn't cared for at all, after she was carried back to the castle (hide spoiler)] and the worst name in canine history, Doe Eyes. But she's a good dog (Brent). Actually Doe Eyes provided the single moment of suspense I felt for the whole 900 hours of listening.
This is one of those books that makes me wish for a survey-type rating system, with marks for different categories, though that would probably end up This is one of those books that makes me wish for a survey-type rating system, with marks for different categories, though that would probably end up being even more annoying. Still, as a book with a character with social anxiety, 4.5 stars. A love song to fandom, also about 4.5. A realistic - anything? More like 2. And so on.
The thing is, I *love* YA. I love it because there's so much that's just great story. I love it for the often far more universal than it appears look at adolescence, when that's considered to be growth, rather than just being a teenager. I love it because it's one of the most fluid of genres these days, without as much of the division between speculative fiction and 'chick lit' and (heaven help us) 'literary fiction' and romance that typically holds in adult fiction. My favourites, of contemporaries, at least, tend to be ones where the author manages to have adults who are also capable of being 'adolescent' in the positive sense, rather than just supportive or more typically not, to the teen characters. Usually I'm fine with being 'on the side of' the teen protagonist, while knowing they may sometimes be mistaken about their parent(s), or that the text will come back and challenge their criticism or understanding of the parent(s), so I'm not reading looking to find them being bratty teens or anything. (This will become relevant in a paragraph or two.)
So, I started off really liking this one, even though I wasn't sure that the Monstrous Sea webcomic Eliza writes is that well integrated into the book. (Could just be me not being very well-versed in webcomics.) I did find it hard to go along with the likelihood of the biggest Monstrous Sea fanfic writer just happening to end up in Eliza's school, and in fact sitting beside Eliza in homeroom. And being the perfect kind of - different (view spoiler)[ traumatised, as we later find out so he mostly writes instead of talking (hide spoiler)] - to enable Eliza to relate to him in a way she wouldn't with anyone more verbal. I also found it ridiculously convenient that Eliza's parents had packed her off to their tax advisor when she started making money on the comic so they had no idea just how much money she was actually making. (Which is a lot. A LOT. It had to be that way, for later plot, but -- yeah.)
When the big drama hits and Eliza is outed as the writer of Monstrous Sea there were two things that I really didn't like. One was the reconciliation between Wallace (who was being a jerk) and Eliza (who knew she should have told him who she was sooner but still doesn't deserve the way he treats her), because reconciliation by (view spoiler)[suicide attempt? No. (hide spoiler)] The other was the way there was a kind of swing between Eliza's parents being clueless in dealing with her as the person she actually was (not social/sporty/outgoing), and them being to Blame for All. I have a problem with someone not telling others a truth about themselves (not just not disclosing, actually keeping secret intentionally) and then blaming those others for acting out of the ignorance in which they've been kept. But aside from that personal peeve, I've seen one quote repeated a bit, approvingly.
If I have my phone out talking to my online friends, they think I’m ignoring them, or being disrespectful and it’s like, no, I’m in the middle of a conversation. If you saw two people talking to each other face-to-face, you wouldn’t interrupt them and call it disrespectful, would you?�
. Here's where I go back to the ramble about how I read YA, because I got what was being said about online friends being 'real-life' too, and got that her parents didn't understand her internet life, and didn't make a huge attempt to, but then I started thinking - where was Eliza doing that 'talking to online friends' that her parents interrupted? And the only answer I could come up with was that she was doing it in family time. A small amount of that was enforced, like on holidays and when she's made go to her brothers' sporting events, and the rest seems to be when she leaves her room to eat the meals her mother and/or father have made for her. Which puts a very different perspective on it, and makes the real analogy her bringing a friend in to eat a meal (her parents have again cooked and served) while talking exclusively to that friend. And the parents would be rude for interrupting?
The fact that her two younger brothers turn out to be big fans of Eliza's who've been following the webcomic all along, without ever telling their friends she's writing it, didn't quite sit right with me either, given that they tear into the parents over what they did without any real acknowledgment that Eliza hasn't been any kind of supportive sister to them. It's fine not to share their interest in sports, of course, but everyone (except her culpable parents) shares hers, and applauds her mega-success wholeheartedly. This could be seen as a kind of corrective for the more usual approval of the athletes, but given that Eliza isn't just someone with friends and followers online, but 'a phenomenon', I'm not sure it justifies the lack of expectation on her to be even a small bit giving to her family.
I did like a lot about this, honestly, and think it's wonderful to have books about fandom and social anxiety and extreme introversion and all. And it's entirely possible that I'm the one at fault for reading from a more parental, get-over-yourself view than was warranted. But it never quite came back together for me, and the final (tiny) cut was Eliza's admission at the end that she actually loved the outdoors. Because who could have possibly guessed that there was any place for a kid like Eliza between spending every minute not in school (or eating or driving) shut in your room and being transformed into an extroverted athlete? ...more
4.5 rounded up because this wasn't perfect, but I loved it hard.
Review to come (shortly) and discussions to come too? (Hint. Nudge.)
I'm still slightly4.5 rounded up because this wasn't perfect, but I loved it hard.
Review to come (shortly) and discussions to come too? (Hint. Nudge.)
I'm still slightly at a loss for how to review this, but it's all for the best of reasons. For one thing, this immediately hit my ‘THIS is why I love YA� (when I do) list, and closely related, it's very funny and still one of the more thoughtful looks at identity I've read recently. It's in that YA love category in no small measure because the protagonist’s age and somewhat neglectful boarding school environment allow her the freedom to pass as a boy that most adults wouldn't have. But the issues of gender and sexual identity she’s dealing with are most definitely not necessarily restricted to the teen years. It's also just a fabulous thought experiment, to tease over how your own view of your character would have changed had you experienced life for a time as the opposite gender. It's done with enormous sensitivity too, as I hope I might manage to indicate by a few quotes.
If you read the blurb and think of the film Pitch Perfect with a few more smart YA rom-coms and crossdressing thrown in, you wouldn't be wrong, although you wouldn't be led to expect quite as much as this delivers either. I mention that because when you get past the really funny beginning to the inevitable things-go-sour section, you might worry, as I did, where it was going. Again, I think that’s a *strength*, because the problems are far more profound than whether the Sharpshooters will win the competition, or a typical YA rom-com misunderstanding for the heroine and romantic interest. My ‘not perfect� rating does relate to this, as I felt there was a bit of imbalance in the degree of antagonism the Sharpshooters faced from a rival group. (view spoiler)[ As I said, the school isn't what you'd call nurturing, with the exception of the terrifying but seriously caring Dean of the School of Theater, but I still didn't quite see that nobody would acknowledge the conflict in having the Dean of Music, father of the vicious president of the main rival for the competition on, be quite so free to screw the Sharpshooters over. And the ‘pranks� played by the rival group went way beyond what I'd expected of this entitled jerk. (hide spoiler)]
Before I throw out a few quotes, I just have to point out something that needs to be said about this book every time, even though it's been said a lot. It's diverse, both in having a bi, ‘Asian kid� protagonist, in the diversity of the school (race and sexuality, NOT class), and in the sharply observant way that Jordan looks at that diversity, and at the one that ultimately threatens her most of all: coming from a family that's poor, has a disabled person, but isn't ‘poor enough�. It's Jordan’s father who's disabled, and although Jordan is living right across the country from them, the family’s experience is just so heartbreaking and well done.
[I marked some passages to quote, and have already spent a lot of time getting sucked in to wonderful quotes in the pages around the marked ones. Clearly this will be a great reread!]
[This is from when Jordan has looked for advice online on how to pass as a boy, and suddenly realises a lot of the information comes from trans people. She thinks about the two trans kids she knows who are out, one who came out and started to transition during the school year.]
It stunned me how awkward a bunch of well-meaning people could be. There was something exceptionally clumsy about a bunch of cis kids trying to act nonchalant about her transition, rotating between aggressive supportiveness, curiosity, and intense silence around the topic for fear of saying the wrong thing. Trying to normalize—but not to ignore. Trying to be chill—but not distant. Things had grown steadily less weird as we come to the collective realisation that this was not, shockingly, even sort of about us. […] I hadn't given it serious thought, how my act contrasted with the way some trans kids lived their lives. I was on a website that trans people used for their day-to-day. I felt like I was poaching, fishing earnest resources out of this site and turning them into ruses to trick the Sharps. [...] I thought of Nihal’s contemplative air and Isaac’s carelessness. I thought of Erik’s peacocking, showing off every talent he had, and Marcus’s desperation to please, and I tried to make sense of the possibility that any of these normal, decent-seeming people could secretly hate an entire subset of the Kensington population. It didn't compute to me. And it struck me, all of a sudden, how incredibly lucky I was not to have to worry about those opinions when I walked out into the world every morning.
I just love how she thinks that, while having to worry about so many other opinions when she ‘walks out into the world every morning�.
As Jordan is beginning to know the guys, and relish the feeling of being accepted, despite intending to keep an emotional distance, she starts thinking about the difference of presenting as a guy.
I, Jordan Sun, was pulling off the most outlandish acting performance in Kensington history […] I wasn't just pulling it off, either, I was enjoying it, maybe too much. I liked the invisibility of being a boy, inhabiting a bigger and broader space. I was feeling less apologetic about it by the day.
I also love the fact that Redgate made these guys very different and distinct, and with a minimum of two layers of privilege over Jordan, but doesn't make them just a mass of privileged, arrogant God's-gift-on-legs. Some very crappy behaviour happens, but you want only good for the Sharps, individually and as a group, and that works so well for this story.
Another time Jordan thinks back to her ex-boyfriend’s ‘freak out� when he found out she'd kissed a girl, demanding why she didn't tell him she was into girls, which she said was because she didn't know if she’s into girls.
. I hadn't had an answer then. I didn't have one now. I just didn't know. I'd never been sure if I was attracted to girls, or whether it was a too-strong awareness of how attractive I thought girls might be to other people. Three or four times, I'd had what I chalked up as weirdly intense friend-crushes; I'd meet a girl, get flustered, get fascinated, and for months, I'd want only to be around her. Where was the line, though? Did I want to be around her, did I want to be her, or did I want to be with her?
Wow. I was in my late thirties before I even heard anyone say a thing about there being a spectrum of sexual identities. Granted, I'm both ancient and particularly stupid, but I literally worried every single time I'd get more enjoyment out of looking at the female lead in a film than the male one, convinced I had to either just ‘want to be her� or I'd be a lesbian, meaning I couldn't have the life I'd always wanted of husband and kids. (I'd already lost the former and wouldn't have lost my kids even if I were to have had a lesbian relationship, but you know - this is part of that total binary thinking. And the stupid.)
One last funny and perfect observation to end with.
Super lesbian, said some of the Kensington kids, knowingly, which was funny, since Carrie was married to the guy who worked every other weekend. Not that they actually cared enough to find out. With so many queer kids at Kensington, people sometimes got weirdly comfortable, like they had a free pass to say anything they wanted about sexuality. I guess it was tempting to stick a rainbow-colored “Ally� pin on your backpack and call it a day, as if that were the endpoint, not the starting line.
This one is all thanks to Katie, and it was intense enough an experience that I'm actually feeling smug about following up on the rec before4.5 stars.
This one is all thanks to Katie, and it was intense enough an experience that I'm actually feeling smug about following up on the rec before her other friends did. Also, it's worth mentioning that I'm not actually a big Sherlock Holmes person. I probably read a story or two over the years, and read a few of the recent children's series that relate in one way or another to the originals for the History Book, but that's it for reading. I watched the first film and some of the British series (which I didn't much care for, though it got better after the first ep), but the only thing I've ever loved is Elementary. We've only watched the first season, but that's because A Certain Family Member had too many ALL the emotions and we took a break. All this preamble is in aid of clarifying why Katie's likening the book to Elementary, along with what she said about the relationship stuff, sold me immediately.
With all that roundaboutation, you'd expect an attempt, at least, at a coherent review of the book, right? Or perhaps you wouldn't, if you've read some of my "reviews". That would be sensible, because I don't feel coherent about this one and I'm going to excuse a little of it by either copping out or being insightfully accurate about the book and saying that it's that kind of book.
To get the mystery element out of the way first; I thought it was okay but not great. There were too many things that Mycroft and Rachel (or James and Watts, or any permutation of names you prefer) got to do that they were extremely unlikely to have been allowed to do, and even I pretty much called the villain from early on, which is not good.
BUT. The characters. Just that, okay? Rachel is fantastic - angry and sad and smart and a "good daughter" and fed up and a good friend and strong. Certainly capable of screwing up badly and saying things she wishes she hadn't too. We're in her head all the time, rather than having the POV switches more common in YA, and it works really well. Mycroft is - well, he's perfect for a mostly-Sherlock-alike. Very, very damaged, but brilliant and caring as well as self-destructive, rather than the tortured & utterly self-involved 'bad boy' romantic hero type. As powerful as his history (when we finally get to see it) is, Rachel's family story is unexpected and deeply moving too, and a reminder that some countries are BIG and rural farming in them is quite different from farming in, say, Ireland. Or even in a lot of the northeast of the US, where I've also lived. Of course this is obvious, but the family farm on which Rachel grew up, and which she mourns deeply, is extreme. That aspect of the book was fascinating and never really neatly resolved, because how could it be?
There was one scene though, when Mycroft has gone off after getting in serious trouble, and Rachel thinks: "It's the longest hour of my life. I spend most of it fretting about where Mycroft went after he left, what damage he's inflicting on himself. If he torched a building because of a fight with me, what will he do now?" (About the earlier incident, too it's "It was me who made him feel that way..." Italics hers.) It's almost more disturbing now that I've typed it out, but at the time I was pretty much split in two. Half of me was simply going THEIR LOVE IS SO TRUE. THEY MUST BE TOGETHER. The other half was intensely worried at the idea that Rachel (and readers) was falling into the *classic* trap of thinking that Mycroft's brokenness can be "fixed" by loving him enough. The first drowned this out with THEIR LOVE IS SO TRUE IT DOESN'T MATTER. YOU CAN FIX IT, RACHEL. (Do I have personal experience with this classic error? Oh, yes. Is it one of the most tempting of the faulty thinking traps? Definitely.)
I kept reading, and I loved it, and I'll be reading the second. And the third. (And hoping for more and fast writing and more, please!) The kissing scenes were just awesome, and also thinking about them still makes me laugh, days after reading. And, you know what? Their love really IS so true....more
This was broken for me on the basis of girl crashing a car, killing her best friend and seriously hurting herself, being charged with murder. Not vehiThis was broken for me on the basis of girl crashing a car, killing her best friend and seriously hurting herself, being charged with murder. Not vehicular manslaughter, not careless driving (not car theft, which it seems to have been) but murder. How does that make any sense? It would have been hard to recover from that, but this set of characters didn't do it....more
If you want one dead-sibling YA to out-grief them all, this will probably do it. It's incredibly moving, and funny and appropriately hormonally-chargeIf you want one dead-sibling YA to out-grief them all, this will probably do it. It's incredibly moving, and funny and appropriately hormonally-charged (protag is a 16-year-old boy), but I did end up feeling as if the loss of a 3 year old child was enough, without adding more and more horror to how it happened. (view spoiler)[Not only did Mason die, choking to death on the chocolates in Meg's room, but the door stuck and we had the detail of him pressing his chocolate-covered fingers on the sliding door glass, able to see his parents but not to get their attention. Maybe it was partly reading as a parent, who had nightmares about *everything*, but couldn't it have been left at his dying? (hide spoiler)]
I loved the messed-up, messy but deep friendship between Otis and Dara, probably more than almost anything. She was - great character. Hard to live with, but great character! I'll be very interested in reading Garner's next book, after an impressive debut. ...more
If you're looking for realistic YA with teens being super-sleuthy, solving possible crime committed by the rich and powerful... Right, but this is betIf you're looking for realistic YA with teens being super-sleuthy, solving possible crime committed by the rich and powerful... Right, but this is better than it sounded actually, in being readable, having a nice kind of made family (her sister who'd left years before and sister's boyfriend), and playing with the mean popular girl trope until it wasn't that at all. ...more
Very cute, easy to read, with a lot of nice people and some fun banter. I loved that one of the protag's best friends was a committed Christian and3.5
Very cute, easy to read, with a lot of nice people and some fun banter. I loved that one of the protag's best friends was a committed Christian and also identified as bi. ...more
I had to do a small mental edit and make this a world in which Much Ado about Nothing was either never written or was lost to the world, and then everI had to do a small mental edit and make this a world in which Much Ado about Nothing was either never written or was lost to the world, and then everything was so much fun. Really, why didn't the two (genius) protagonists spot their names, and the name of their school, and the plot? I really enjoyed the way the author veered away from the line of the original just enough so you weren't sure who was the villain (or was s/he?)...more
Not rating this one, because I need to have a think about some things I gave a pass to which shouldn't have got passes. Not rating this one, because I need to have a think about some things I gave a pass to which shouldn't have got passes. ...more
This was so great. Well, okay, maybe it wasn't all that great, but it hit a lot of right notes for me and I really enjoyed it. Apparently I love politThis was so great. Well, okay, maybe it wasn't all that great, but it hit a lot of right notes for me and I really enjoyed it. Apparently I love political family YAs. Or love to hate the political parents, probably, and this was just what I like. Okay, it was more than a bit pat that Andie would turn out with those exact set of personality traits stemming from her family life, but really, adolescence is tough enough without a totally absent sole parent whose career you can destroy with an ill-timed public screw-up. And zero help with the death of her mother, five years before. Zero. So I disliked her father intensely, but was happy to be won over when he was forced to stay home for the summer and finally got to know Andie, and be involved in her life, and step up to parenting.
Romance was cute too, except for the extremely unrealistic prodding necessary to get Clark in the right place while keeping him the right age for Andie. (view spoiler)[ No, he did not write that good a book and a sequel and have millions of fans desperately hoping for the two-year-late third book between the ages of 14 and 19. (hide spoiler)] And dogs, lots of dogs, including one very important one.
The friendship was great for a long time, although I had difficulty with one of the girls from the beginning, and it kept getting worse and worse until everything fell apart totally, and it was ugly. (view spoiler)[ Toby was the one I couldn't take, and honestly, I probably should have had more sympathy with her and less with Bri, but she was impossible, and if it had been a guy being *that* possessive over a girl who'd made it very clear she wasn't into him, I think the reactions would have been different. So the absoluteness with which she controlled that sub-friendship within the foursome by neediness set my teeth on edge. (hide spoiler)]
And the story of how Andie's parents met was just fantastic. And the campaign bus. ...more
Picture me (if you will), walking into a virtually empty YA section of a bookshop back in May, and grabbing this book from the shelf, heart pit-a-pattPicture me (if you will), walking into a virtually empty YA section of a bookshop back in May, and grabbing this book from the shelf, heart pit-a-patting with excitement - that cover! that title! the aching desire for these two lovers to be reunited! - how could I even wait to get home to immerse myself?
Or don't, because it was pretty much the opposite of all that, except for the empty bookshop and the month; I think cover and title are ridiculous and only wanted to read this because I foresaw more great discussions with Beth and Melissa. (We went on for pages over the last, if I remember rightly!) The sky was still falling at the time, so I didn't manage the energy to write it up, and now I still have - sigh - 45 books to add by the 31st, so bullet points it is.
1. Oddly, this didn't give me hives of irritation the way the second book did, probably because I'd gone in expecting all the weaknesses of the previous two and couldn't give a flying, er, couldn't have cared less about our anguished lovers. For roughly the first half. (That's the cranky itching that didn't start, rather than caring about Arin and Kestrel, because that never happened.)
2. The world building is still thin and this is definitely the Least Likely To Succeed Evil Empire EVER. They've got the yearbook picture and all!
3. I would kind of love someone to examine the trilogy as an interesting example of the greater fluidity of genre in YA than in adult books. Unfortunately I think many of the flaws are due to its being YA (which is NOT because I think YA (in general or YA fantasy) is weaker than adult books). I simply don't think you would be as likely to find slavery used as an important part of the romance element in adult fantasy. Not in new romance either? Maybe this is being overly optimistic, and I'm hopeful because I HATE the way Rutkoski handles the slavery here. Come up with a less offensive damn star-crossing for your lovers.
4. Maybe again it's just me, but I wouldn't show my romantic lead actually killing so many animals, on page. It's certainly not up there on my list of swoon-worthy behaviour.
5. This is the biggie. Love, in a broad sense, may be the most important thing in the world, but romantic love blowing duty and responsibility out of the water as irrelevant? That is one very, very dangerous message. And lest anyone should think I'm just reading too much into a character's deep and perfect (romantic) love and shouldn't call it a message? We're hit over the head with it twice. So Arin, who plays a *vital* role as leader of the ~allies (view spoiler)[ tells Kestrel he'll abandon them immediately if she wants him to (hide spoiler)], and Verex (view spoiler)[ abandons the Empire, knowing there's not an insubstantial chance of civil war, to go off with Risha and live for love. The Empire is pretty rotten, but it's one-dimensionally rotten because it's poorly written, and if you think of it as a real country with real people, the civil war isn't nothing. He could have sent Risha off somewhere and worked towards getting a successor, but it's apparently less romantic than Giving It All up for LOVE. (hide spoiler)] Judgmental? Maybe. But when people depend on you, the selfish desire to be happy at their expense doesn't sit well with me.
6. What is it with the god starting to talk to Arin. HE'S NOT GEN. (I AM judgy on this one, but it felt so much to me as if people went 'ooooh, twisty romantic political historical fantasy - you're just missing the god(s) talking to the hero and you'd have The Queen's Thief!' Except that's actually GOOD and the gods aren't an afterthought, but one of the brilliant things about the series.
7. The prose. Overwrought in many places, as before, and then we got to battle scenes and had the short, choppy sentences.
And the paragraphs of one line.
And we see someone go down off her horse under an arrow. The suspense will be heightened if we must...
[turn virtual page]
...wait to find out if she lives or not.
NO IT WILL NOT. Waste of perfectly good paper.
8. I ended up feeling sorry for the General, which wasn't entirely comfortable. (view spoiler)[Kestrel betrayed *him* too, after all, but that was ignored, while his betrayal of her was so great that he wouldn't even CONSIDER asking her for forgiveness. Really? I certainly wouldn't like to have my kid sent off to the salt mines, but, you know, there are reasons nobody's making me general of anything. (hide spoiler)] ...more
Picked this up all shiny and bright in Easons, along with The Winner's Kiss, and it felt like a recovery of sorts. Pity the book itself wasn't great. Picked this up all shiny and bright in Easons, along with The Winner's Kiss, and it felt like a recovery of sorts. Pity the book itself wasn't great. Clever and all, but *way* too heavily based on the old mean girls trope, and no new perspectives added, so not a win for me....more
Very frustrating because there was a lot of fun in this, and the idea is great, but I think I'm probably finished wth this series.
The first book had Very frustrating because there was a lot of fun in this, and the idea is great, but I think I'm probably finished wth this series.
The first book had far too many repetitions of 'they're my friends... I should really trust them and tell them... but they'll think I'm crazy and I don't want to lose my only ever friends...' Far too many, of something understandable but not my favourite.
In this it's 'I've got friends.... I don't know how to be a friend.... but I must try or I'll lose my only ever friends...'
Two quotes I marked out of many possible iterations:
I remembered something important: James was my friend too. My sympathies engaged.
He promised me he'd think about what I said. [spoiler] might not even be glad about my meddling.
I'd done all I could there. I was doing my best to be a good friend - and to be true to myself. The rest was up to them.
(view spoiler)[Both relate to the apparent interest James finally takes in Maddy when she shows interest in someone else. It's not that jerky of James, actually, and I liked the more sympathetic version of James who's been through a lot with his dad and all. BUT telling James to wait around until maybe - hopefully - inevitable? - Dante moves on if he really cares about Maddy is hardly my idea of being a good friend. And what's the 'true to myself' got to do with anything here? It's just too leaden and really, I GOT the idea that Lois feels a bit overwhelmed as well as lucky at having real friends after a few pages. Having her voice the thought again and again and again added nothing. (hide spoiler)]
I could conceivably be swayed into reading on, but honestly am hoping for spoiler filled reviews so I can get the story without having to wade through the writing....more
Surprisingly weak, given how good most of the Maeve Kerrigan books are. The setting wasn't very well developed (how is *everyone* in this small town sSurprisingly weak, given how good most of the Maeve Kerrigan books are. The setting wasn't very well developed (how is *everyone* in this small town so incredibly privileged?), Jess's plan to trap the person she was sure had killed her cousin was ridiculous, and there was a weird thing about kids looking exactly like parents that felt off. Not sure I'll bother trying the next one to see if the series gets any better....more
I had to add a new shelf for this, 'mental illness', and the rating is more a reflection of how important I feel sympathetic and informed depiction ofI had to add a new shelf for this, 'mental illness', and the rating is more a reflection of how important I feel sympathetic and informed depiction of characters with mental illnesses in YA is, than how well the book works overall for me. Even in this aspect I don't feel it hits it quite right, but it's far more effective here than as a feminist novel for teens, though I also feel there's a great need of good ones of those.
[ETA I use way too many scare quotes here, but can't quite see how to avoid the overuse, so sorry. Also there's bad language, alcohol and drug abuse in the book, the first of which is reproduced in this review.]
So, Evie has OCD, initially misdiagnosed as anorexia because she couldn't make herself eat all the potentially contaminated food, which led to her being sectioned. And being put on medications that aren't really approved for teens, though she's now at a new school, seeing a therapist regularly, and being weaned off the meds. Right from the beginning it's possible to see the author's attempts to educate her readers about mental illness, society's attitudes towards mental health, and the ways people who are untreated or in poor control or relapsing can behave. It's often very funny, so mostly it's grand. But sometimes it's not as grand.
Early on Evie writes a section on 'What really pisses me off about people and mental health problems'. (The novel is first-person, with interspersed pages from the 'recovery diary' her therapist gives her, flashbacks, explanations, lists, and BAD THOUGHTS. Occasional sensible thoughts or good thoughts, but mostly it's bad.) There's a little bit of history of society's lack of understanding of mental illness and then this.
Because now people use the phrase OCD to describe minor personality quirks. 'Oooh, I like my pens in a line, I'm so OCD. NO YOU'RE FUCKING NOT. 'Oh my God, I was so nervous about that presentation, I literally had a panic attack.' NO YOU FUCKING DIDN'T. 'I'm so hormonal today. I just feel totally bipolar.' SHUT UP, YOU IGNORANT BUMFACE.
Right. The first is spot on. I've recently seen people on cleaning websites not only say they're OCD about cleaning but say they *wish* to be 'more OCD' about cleaning.
The second ... is baffling because anyone can have a panic attack, even without having Generalised Anxiety Disorder (Evie has also been diagnosed as having this), and I'd think there was more disservice done by suggesting that only people who have severe mental illness, diagnosed and all, can suffer from a panic attack than anything. (I know the first time I had one, my biggest worry was how on earth I'd be able to describe it to a doctor. I'd heard of TIAs, and thought that might have been it, but not of panic attacks.) How can people get help for anxiety if they don't know they have a 'right' to help? (I know! But I spent many years firmly believing I didn't have a 'right' to get help for some pretty bad stuff that had happened when I was young. Which, btw, is VERY MUCH A FEMINIST ISSUE.)
The third... has anyone actually ever said anything like that? If so, it is bad, but I'd suspect much more likely to say they were feeling 'schizo'. Maybe that's just Dublin though - or possibly Dublin of the - er, of yore.
The thing is, there's such a mixture of a spot-on calling of really insensitive behaviour AND a rather superficial swipe at quite a complex situation. To explain via the personal again, I've been on anti-depressants in the past, which I didn't really expect to be put on, but still feel extremely anxious about ever saying I am or was depressed, because of the family members who've been suicidally depressed, with bipolar, and it is so completely different I need different language for it. I would quite probably be diagnosed with mild OCD if I bothered to go visit the family psychiatrist, not to mention anxiety disorder, but really only ever talk about it with my daughters, who know I know the difference, and know there are a lot of people in the same category: might find life easier to cope with on medication but barely even uncomfortable compared to people with more extreme versions of these mental health problems. So I end up torn between feeling that the MOST important thing is for society to be more understanding, better educated and provide better funding for mental health and a niggling concern that a lot of teens might end up reading a book like this one and come out believing they've no 'right' to think about getting help, as this level of severity is the only kind of mental illness that 'counts'.
Poor Evie is so utterly caught up in wanting to be 'normal', that she fails to see it's more important to be well, or coping with her not-quite-everybody-else's-normal, and this leads to one of the places where I think the entirely laudable desire to educate readers somewhat weakens the book. We're told that people suffering from OCD can be quite manipulative, and I think that was put in to try to keep Evie sympathetic, as she spirals down, lying to everyone who cares about her, hurting people, and ignoring the many things she's been told repeatedly (so WE can be told repeatedly) about how common it is for 'bad thoughts' to start coming back as meds are lowered, but it's okay because the person now has the tools to *deal* with them. And yet Evie has more and more signs of not only the thoughts but the behaviours returning, and is (sometimes) honest about it with her therapist, and unable to hide it from her family, but it seems we have to have the huge, dramatic crash for her finally to understand that she's been chasing a dream version of 'normal' (as her therapist tells her), in a very unhealthy way. I KNOW this from experience, and I still wasn't finding it easy to read, and certainly wasn't feeling a huge amount of sympathy just from the repeated 'I was crying SO HARD' lines. Especially as Evie's almost ridiculously 'wise' and caring younger sister (view spoiler)[finding out she'd been severely bullied and hadn't said anything because of Evie was an OTT touch, I thought (hide spoiler)] is one of the people she hurts.
Then there's the feminist - er, I almost wrote 'feminist message', while meaning to write just 'feminism', which is rather telling. The author almost manages to pull the little talks about feminism off by having Evie and her two friends give some of them during meetings of the Spinster Club they form, but not quite. Everything said is good, and I was especially pleased at the fact that Bourne specifically said that feminism is about equality, and the skewed view of gender and mental health ends up hurting men and boys as much as women. But that doesn't quite stop the talks from being more lecturey than naturally integrated into the story. Nor does it quite make up for the boys being just awful, which is sad. I mean, Evie's used-to-be best friend (who dumped her cold for a guy) is going out with someone in a band, and wrote a song they perform called 'Die Bitch Die'. Evie and her two NEW friends are kind of eye-rolling about it, but not much more, except to make a jibe about how his current girlfriend better not piss him off, and somehow Evie is still managing to be attracted to another guy in the band, though she loses interest temporarily when the first line of the next song is 'I hate you so much for breathing. I wish I could make you stop.' WHAT???
A lot of this can be swished into the general category of 'real life is messy, and teens are especially messy (sometimes), even without mental illness' and there's a lot of delightfully spot-on humour, which I haven't really mentioned because of all the negatives and possible negatives I'm discussing. I do plan to read the next book, which is about Amber, the character I thought got shortest shrift here, and am more enthusiastic because the author says there are 'NICE BOYS' in it. (She calls the ones in this 'the über-douche male characters'.) ...more
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