Jellicoe Road, by Melina Marchetta, OR Of Confusion and Joy

Though it's been at least a year since I last read anything by Melina Marchetta, and I can no longer remember what her other books were about, I do remember that I liked them. That, combined with some seriously rave reviews about Jellicoe Road, got my hopes up. The first two times I tried to read the book however, I was let down. I doubt I made it much past the prologue the first time around, and my second try only got me to the end of the first chapter.

This time around, I finally slogged through the rough beginning chapters, and found myself halfway through and absolutely loving the book. The joy and spark in sentences missing from The Summer of Skinny Dipping was present throughout this book, and the pacing is incredible. The book builds towards the end, and does so perfectly. Similarly, we come to know Taylor as she comes to know the world around her. When she's separated and pushing things away, the reader similarly feels pushed away and doesn't particularly care for Taylor. As that changes however, and as Taylor starts to embrace the world around her, the reader similarly embraces Taylor. That in particular is very well constructed. I definitely can understand all the positive reviews this book received.

The downside to this book, however, is what kept me from getting into it the first few times around. There's a fine line between leaving the reader wondering and leaving the reader confused. A reader left wondering is eager to read more and discover what they need to know. A reader left confused, however, is more likely to put the book aside and give up on it. The opening, particularly the prologue and the first two or three chapters, leans more towards creating confusion than anticipation. Too many characters, too many different plots to follow, and seemingly no common threads. Those common threads need to be introduced earlier to avoid pushing readers away. I'm not saying we need to know everything at the beginning, but I certainly needed to know more than I did.

Aside from that problem, the form is fantastic, the prose is amazing, and the characters are delightful.

The Summer of Skinny Dipping, by Amanda Howells, OR Here We Go Again...

Here is the best thing about The Summer of Skinny Dipping: It was 33% off, and I had $5 in Borders Rewards money, so I ended up spending a whopping $1.12 on the book. I'm glad to report that my bank account will recover. This book also reminded me why it's always better to read books from the library, THEN purchase them. Because if I'd paid full price for this book, I would've been seriously miffed.

This book isn't horribly offensive. It just isn't all that good. It's the story of an overweight 16-year old girl (who just got dumped) whose spends the summer with her perfect, rich cousins at their lake house. She feels inadequate, is generally bummed out, meets a boy, falls in love with him, experiences a huge shift in worldview, and then some dramatic, life-changing stuff goes down. The end!

The biggest problem is the rather trite and conventional plot. Maybe if I had read this when I was 12 I would've bought it, but not anymore. Outsider girl with family issues goes somewhere else for the summer, meets a boy, is changed by boy, overcomes former issues, fin. This book completely falls into my hated category of 'books where girl falling for guy miraculously solves all girl's problems'. Even though this book doesn't tie things up as neatly as others, I get tired of that shtick. I love a good romance as much as the next single twentysomething, but the entirety of one's life does not become miraculously perfect upon the entrance of a single man in want of a wife into one's life, and it's simply absurd to suggest so.

The plot, however, could've been overcome. Almost all of Sarah Dessen's books follow that general trajectory, and while it still bothers me, it doesn't usually interfere with me enjoying the book. Unfortunately, Howells didn't show strong enough writing skills to excuse the plot. None of her descriptions (and there are a lot of descriptions) are particularly interesting, and too often they're cliched. The dialogue isn't anything special, and the pacing has some serious issues. Howells relies too much on foreshadowing to carry the reader through the novel, and she uses that to attempt to create anticipation rather than doing something fun with syntax or paragraphs or chapter lengths. The novel has a very steady, plodding pace, even when leading up to the high points of the story, and that gives the novel a rather flat affect (that is, if novels can have affects).

To top it all off, Howells is way too heavy-handed with her The Great Gatsby allusions. Don't mess with Gatsby if you want to stay on my good side.

Close, but no cigar

I recently had two books on my mental to-review list, but, alas, the world interfered, and it was not to be. I do have another book review waiting to be written. For now you get the reasons why the world interfered!


I recently raided my younger sister's YA Lit collection to see what I'd missed during the years when I was too busy to read anything but homework. One of the books I grabbed was Lauren Myracle's ttyl. I loved Myracle's Peace, Love, and Baby Ducks, which I read a few months ago. It was beautifully bittersweet, and I was excited to snag another of Myracle's books.

Then I opened it. And saw the entire first page written in IM-speak. And the next page was written the same way. I ran over to formerly mentioned sister and asked if the whole thing was written that way. When she said yes, I put it right back on her bookshelf where I'd found it.

Let me first state that I don't have anything against that form as a general rule. Heck, I would've loved it as an 11 year old. However, I am now twice that age and probably three times more jaded and four times less patient. I had to stop using 'u' for 'you' in seventh grade when my teachers started to get annoyed with it, and it was far easier just to use standard writing all the time than to switch back and forth. After that point I completely ceased having any patience for IM-speak or text-speak. I imagine middle schoolers would love having a book written in their dialect, but it was just going to make my brain explode. I'll just have to find another Myracle book written in slightly more standard English orthography.


The next book was acquired from the new city's public library. While the neighborhood branch has a pathetic little YA section that barely compares to the YA selection available at the old city's neighborhood branch (which was admittedly the central branch that just happened to be in my neighborhood), it did have a copy of Liz Gallagher's The Opposite of Invisible, which was on my to-read list. I read the first two pages, which seemed promising, and then was suddenly confused when the sentence on the end of the second page had nothing to do with the one on the next page. Turns out a page was missing in between the two.

Well, it was only pages three and four, so I went ahead and kept reading. It was early in the book and I was pretty sure I'd be able to figure things out. And I was. Until the end of page eight, after which there was another page missing. I was getting a little annoyed, but I was willing to keep up the effort, especially when Chapter two (the first complete chapter I got to read) seemed pretty good. Chapter three kept my attention as well, until the second to last page was also torn out.

At that point I gave up and decided to check out a different copy of the book. I can only handle so much guesswork.

So, excuses made, new review coming sometime this week. Promise!

Alice in Charge, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor OR The Joy of Being an Anxiety-Ridden Senior in HS

I was getting a bit slacker-y with my YA lit reviews following my move and subsequent removal from the best public library ever (or rather, one that's better than my home town's public library). However, I made a return to my genre of choice for this week's release of Alice in Charge, the latest in Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's Alice series. I've been reading these since fifth or sixth grade, and the last time I was this excited about the newest Alice book was when The Grooming of Alice came out when I was roughly twelve. After that, my tastes shifted to prefer the slightly more contemplative and reflective (and definitely more angsty) books by Sarah Dessen and Megan McCafferty. However, last summer I spent a week or so getting caught up on all the Alice books I'd missed, and I was hooked all over again.

I love the Alice books for the same reasons I love the Betsy-Tacy Series by Maud Hart Lovelace. They follow one main character and a close group of friends from a young age growing up, and as the characters get older, the writing styles get more complex and so do the issues addressed. This gives us a lot of time to see how the characters develop and change, and it also makes you feel like Betsy or Alice are your best friends, and that you've grown up with them, too. Both Betsy and Alice make mistakes, big ones, and that makes it even easier to imagine that you know them. Both series even share a weakness--they tend to be a bit didactic because of their protagonists' screwups. Of course, Betsy doesn't do nearly as much talking about sex as Alice does, and Alice doesn't worry about curling her hair or winning the Essay Contest each year, but they do both spend about 60% of their lives focusing on school dances, so it's really all the same.

Now moving on to this Alice book in particular. Naylor does an amazing job describing the absolute insanity of the first semester of senior year of high school, and she barely even talks about the stress of classes and homework. In fact, Naylor does such an amazing job getting this across that I started to feel anxious and like I should be doing homework just from reading it. From what I remember, this was what initially made me tire of the Alice books. I was plenty stressed enough in real life, so I didn't need to be stressed when I was reading for fun. I was all about escapism. And it appears I still am, only now that I'm no longer in school I'm looking to escape back to that chaos. Reading about Alice's college visits, her panic over leaving home, trying to do all her extracurricular activities so she'd look good when applying to college...it was enough to make me want to take a nap.

I do appreciate the number of controversial issues Naylor tackles; in this book it was racism and white supremacy. I think it's really good to discus these things in YA Lit, and I love that the book's message always advocates tolerance and open dialogue. In fact, Naylor doesn't even insist that the reader agree with Alice. Alice is so open to listening to other people's opinions that she doesn't isolate a reader who disagrees with her. That said, I worry at times that Naylor lets these issues take over the plot. It doesn't always feel like these issues are flowing out of the plot, but rather that they're forced so that Naylor can address the controversy. That's not a terrible thing, but it'd be nicer if there was a little more flow and it seemed more natural.

Honestly, that's my only real complaint. I do wish Naylor would write a little faster (there are three more books coming, but there's only going to be one published each year). Yes, she wants to write other stuff besides Alice books, but I'm looking at this from a purely selfish point of view, and I want to read the end of the series NOW (patience is not my strength, which is why I drove 15 miles yesterday to get to the closest store that had this book in stock).

And finally, I love Patrick Long. And he has red hair. If he and Alice don't end up together forever, the heart of my eleven-year old self will die all over again. Maybe real life couples don't work out, but honestly, fictional couples HAVE to work out. That's the point of fiction. The author can decide these things.

Dear Phyllis Reynolds Naylor,
Please consider the heart and soul of my eleven-year old self when writing the final Alice books. I need Patrick and Alice to end up together.
Regards, Katrine.

The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things, by Carolyn Mackler OR How It's Done

I’m sure there were some of you who were disappointed that my review of Things You Either Hate or Love wasn't exactly overwhelmingly positive. Never fear! Those of you who wanted to read a book about an overweight girl named after a state that seceded from the union with family issues who likes to make lists whose best friend has geographically departed for a period of time, I have found another option for you! (Oh, and it’s the girl who has family issues, not the state that seceded from the union. This is an excellent example of ambiguity in language. Please take notes.)

This time our protagonist is Virginia, not Georgia. Virginia comes from a more or less perfect family, wherein she sees herself as the only blemish. Her older sister, Anaïs, is smart and athletic, and currently is off with the Peace Corps in Africa. Her brother, Byron, goes to Columbia and is handsome, popular, a star debater, and a straight-A student. Their mom, who is from Arkansas, has a Ph.D. in adolescent psychology. She used to be overweight, but now just works out obsessively and eats lettuce at every meal. Their dad is a software executive who “is the first to admit that he likes women skinny” (18). Oh, and the whole family can speak French fluently and they love artsy things. Virginia is pretty sure that she was a mistake. And probably was switched at birth, too.

Virginia is overweight, loves to read magazines and spend time online, obsessively follows pop culture, hates working out, and is not good at French. And, to top it all off, her best friend has moved to Seattle for the year for her parents’ work. She has a weekly makeout session (for more on the oddness of that term, see Karisa Tells All) with a boy named Froggy, but she doesn’t even consider him a friend. After all, according to the Fat Girl Code of Conduct (written by her), no fat girl should ever push a relationship with a guy, and she should overcompensate for her looks by going further than skinny girls. Virginia’s so convinced of her own inferiority that she’s sure everyone else sees it the same way. She doesn’t give people the chance to get to know her because she assumes they don’t want to.

Things start to fall apart when her old brother gets in some serious trouble, gets suspended from Columbia, and moves back home. Virginia struggles with readjusting her view of Byron, and she withdraws even further from her life. She deals with her emotions by eating, whether it's refusing to eat anything or eating everything she can find. She’s on the verge of self-harm, burning her finger on purpose and breaking her toe when she kicks a wall. But when her parents refuse to let her spend Thanksgiving with her best friend in Seattle, Virginia finally starts to take things into her own hands. She uses her own money to buy the plane tickets out there, and she finally starts to feel again.

She gets an eyebrow ring, and the most popular girl in school (who pukes her guts out between every meal) admires it, which is a bit of a wakeup call to Virginia. Her doctor, instead of telling her to worry about her weight, says that she might want to start kickboxing to get out her anger. She buys a dress she likes, and when her mom says it’s the wrong color for her hair, she dyes her hair the same color as the dress—purple. She starts a webzine at her school where students can vent about their lives, and invites Froggy (who had stopped speaking to her because she kept ignoring him) to join. She even faces the person whose life should’ve been ruined by Byron, and learns a thing or two about moving on. She writes a letter to her older sister telling her everything that’s gone wrong, even though her mother wants her to keep it all quiet. And finally, she tells her dad that her weight is none of his business.

After all of this, things with Froggy finally work out, but he insists on having a public relationship.

This, my friends. This is how it is done. You do not give your main character mono so that she can lose weight. You have her face her feelings, you have her face her problems, you have her start to work through things. Then, once she’s done that, she gets a boy. That’s fine. But her problems don’t magically go away, as they did for Georgia in Things You Either Hate Or Love. Instead, Virginia has to work through them. She has to tell people what’s bothering her. She has to stand up for herself. She has to do things on her own, break a few rules, break out of the box that she put herself into.

Oh, and if she references Ani DiFranco lyrics a few times along the way, that works, too.

The first 60 books of the year

I made a goal this year to read at least 120 books. That was about 20 more than I read last year (yes, I keep track of these things because yes, I am a nerd), and it came out to 10 books a month, which seemed reasonable.

Much to my surprise, I’m about two months ahead of schedule, since I passed the halfway point this week—guess that’s what happens when one doesn’t have homework taking up 24 hours a day and then some. Since I’ll be leaving the country in September, it’s a good thing that I’m moving along so well—I’m not sure what my access to books in English is going to be after that point, but I suspect I’ll have limited choices. I’m also leaving behind my favorite public library in just a month, which is going to kill the number of new books I get each week. I don’t have the funds to buy ten new books every week, especially if they could turn out to be awful. I also definitely don’t have the space to keep them somewhere. One of these days I’ll take a picture of my bookshelf as proof.

Anyway, I figured I’d do a quick recap of books 1-60, all of were given scores from 0-5, 5 being the highest and indicating that said book is generally awesome.

First book: The Red Leather Diary, by Lily Koppel, 3.

30^th book: 10 Things I Hate About Me, by Randa Abdel-Fattah, 3.

60^th book: Beautiful, by Amy Reed, 1.

Books receiving the full 5 points: The Last Time I Was Me, by Cathy Lamb and Paper Wings, by Marly Swick.

Books receiving 0 points: Winter Love, Winter Wishes, by Jane Claypool Minter (this book was an example of the perilous dangers of picking up any book that has figure skating on its cover) and My Name is Sus5an Smitth. The 5 is Silent, by Louise Plummer.

Average score for the first 60 books: 2.25.

Willow, by Julia Hoban, OR Why Pay for Therapy When You Could Have a Boyfriend?

I want to hate this book. I really, really do. The fact that I don't hate it makes me seriously concerned.

Let’s start with the least problematic aspect: I really disliked Hoban’s (or her editor’s) comma usage. There were several points where the lack of commas interfered with clarity. I also spotted a few other errors like missing spaces, so she should get a better copy editor (I’ll go out on a limb and volunteer myself since I could use a job).

Working my way up from there, the next troubling aspect was the poor use of Shakespeare, particularly The Tempest. It’s used as a clumsy plot device, and it’s not done so by someone who understands it. Though not the biggest Shakespeare fan around, I do think that he had some fantastic plots and themes and (this is the big one) competing discourses. When we’re presented with The Tempest and told only that it’s “romantic,” that really discredits all the other themes running through the play. Even worse, Hoban doesn’t even entertain the possibility that Early Modern Drama might not have the same conception of romance that we have today (for those who are wondering, it doesn’t. Not even close).

Next problem, which is an extremely serious one from my point of view: gender roles! Guy (yes, the male love interest's name is Guy) only likes Macbeth because he’s male? Yikes. So much for the universality of literature. And it killed me to have to suffer through lines like “I hoped that there would be a time when I would need to…protect you like this” (299). Ugh. Male as protector and savior, that’s nothing new. (Aside on this quote: from my perspective, there are two ways of reading it. Either Guy is referring to having a condom as his way of protecting Willow—which, though a bit paternalistic, is good, since I’m all for safe sex—or he’s referring to the act of sex itself as protecting Willow from her cutting. Not a big fan of the second reading, but it seems to be the more likely of the two.) Unfortunately, Hoban’s choice to deal with cutting as a subject matter makes this even more problematic than other books (like Sarah Dessen’s) that frequently have a male as a savior figure.

This leads me to my next concern. Ultimately, Willow isn’t able to save herself—Guy has to save her from herself. Guy is responsible for keeping Willow from cutting, and he is also responsible for trying to make her stop. And in the resolution, it’s having sex with Guy that gives Willow the ability to stop cutting and work towards resolving her conflicts with her brother. I have no problems with sex in YA lit, and many authors pull it off wonderfully. Unfortunately, this novel never seems to address Willow’s sexuality. Instead, sex is simply another alternative to cutting, another way to feel, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want people thinking about sex like that. And in the end, Willow doesn’t need psychological help to deal with her cutting. She just needs a boy.

Despite all of the above, I liked the book. I didn’t realize it was written in third person until I was almost done with it, which shows how close Hoban is able to bring the reader to Willow. All of Willow’s emotions are strong and real and subtle, but clear.

Quite frankly, I’m even more concerned about the book because I did love it. If the characters were flat and uninspiring, if the plot wasn’t engaging, if we didn’t care about Willow—then there would be no danger in all of Hoban’s messages. We could dismiss the book as a whole. But since we can’t, we have to be sure that we make explicit the problematic assumptions Hoban makes about gender, sexuality, and mental illness. Because maybe a young 14-year old who’s cutting won’t be able to see how it’s problematic—she’ll just see that she needs to go have sex with a boy and then everything will be better.

This reads like a lit paper. Making explicit problematic assumptions? You can take the English major out of lit classes, but you can't take the lit classes out of the English major.

The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman, by Louise Plummer, OR Alternate Universe Me

This book was published in 1995. I was somewhat relieved to discover that, because it means that Louise Plummer is not somewhere out there reading my mind. After all, in 1995 I didn't know a thing about linguistics, I didn't yet have my strange fascination with the Twin Cities in MN, I had seen skating occasionally on TV but hadn't been introduced to ice dance at all, and I didn't have any opinions on the process of writing or the distinction between fiction and autobiography or the conventions of certain literary genres.

Kate Bjorkman is a linguistics nerd living in Minnesota when she has a wonderfully romantic Christmas. She decides to turn her story of that Christmas into a romance novel, with help from The Romance Writer's Phrase Book, which can turn an everyday action into someone "flounder[ing] in an agonizing maelstrom" (8). As she writes her romance novel (which makes up the bulk of the novel we read), she stops every few chapters to note revisions she may or may not want to take, and she often has to decide whether or not what really happened has a place in a romance novel. Her family wants her to change the way she presents them, and her best friend thinks that since it's a romance novel, not an autobiography, Kate should have no qualms about changing things around to make her best friend a more important character. And since this is, after all, a romance novel, we get to follow her reintroduction to Richard, a boy who grew up with her, and all the romance that follows.

I picked this book up because there was a girl in figure skates on the front cover. You may think that I'm exaggerating, but I cannot put down a book that looks as though it may have something to do with figure skating. Sometimes this means I end up reading some really awful books with just one mention of skating. In this case, however, the characters went skating twice, and the second time they made reference to both killian and waltz positions, so it was totally worth it.

To add to the skating situations, there were lots of linguistics tidbits throughout. In the sixth line we already hear about a name ending in "an unvoiced velar plosive" (1). I always was taught that they were called stops, not plosives, but I can handle that. Kate also likes to identify people's hometowns by their accent and get into debates about the Whorfian hypothesis. I enjoyed this immensely.

AND, as if the figure skating and the linguistics weren't enough, we get lots of explorations of literary theory. Kate opens every chapter with an explanation of what this chapter should be doing in order to conform with the genre of literary theories, and by page 28 she's discussing feminist literary criticism. The distinctions between fiction and autobiography topped everything off, and I was a very happy English major while reading this book.

I wonder if Louise Plummer could both see into the future and read minds...that might explain the confluence of everything I love into one book.

Things You Either Hate or Love, by Brigid Lowry OR The Power of Mono

This book demonstrates the power of a good case of glandular fever (which my research tells me is mono) and the loss of 4 kilos (which I believe to be about 8.8 pounds…my phone informs me that it is 8.818490 pounds).

Once upon a time there was a charming, entertaining girl named Georgia who liked to make lists and who longed to go to her favorite music group’s concert. She went out on a hunt to get jobs, hated babysitting, didn’t get invited to interview at a video shop, got fired from a bakery after attacking a coworker with a baguette (BEST scene in the book, as I’ve always been a firm believer that baguettes would make excellent weapons), and then worked at a supermarket where there was a holdup. She was also overweight, though her mother and best friend (who was on a one-woman mission to save the world) assured her that she was simply curvy. Georgia’s dad died when Georgia was about four, and her mom still hadn’t started dating again. Georgia’s aunt and uncle were also on the verge of divorce. AND said best friend went on a vacation, leaving Georgia alone for the holidays (which is when Georgia starts working the supermarket job). Georgia develops a crush on a boy who works with her, but for 9/10ths of the book this boy is taken by various others as far as Georgia knows. Another boy likes and tries to kiss Georgia, but she’s not interested. Oh, and Georgia’s favorite music group breaks up because two of the members are heroin addicts. Then Georgia gets mono.

Ahhh, mono, you are thinking to yourself, this is truly terrible, poor, poor Georgia. But you see, it is with the help of mono that Georgia manages to lose the oh-so important 8.818490 pounds, as she feels too sick to eat. Miraculously, Georgia starts dating the boy she likes, her mother talks to her about her father and also starts dating, her aunt and uncle move back in together, she gets a job she likes, her old best friend finds a new best friend who will change the world with her, and Georgia finds a new friend at said like-able job.

ALL BECAUSE OF 8.818490 POUNDS.*

That’s it. I shall now lose that much weight (in a very unhealthy way wherein I will simply stop eating) and keep you all updated as to my life situation. I currently anticipate that I shall get a cute and intelligent guy who works with me to date me, I will get into all post-grad programs I applied to, I will be offered a job at my home ice rink, all my friendships will become picture perfect, and I will have a wonderfully normal relationship with my family, both immediate and extended.

If you know my extended family, then you know we will never, ever, be normal. It’s part of our charm.

As I promised, updates on how this life change goes will be forthcoming.

*Another reading is that she gets the boyfriend and that solves everything else. In that case, when I get a boyfriend I will also keep you updated as to how everything else in my life suddenly starts going well.