YA or STFU

Burgess, Melvin (2007). Sara's Face. NY: Simon and Schuster. 272 pages.

I'm not totally sold on Melvin Burgess (I don't think anyone is); however, I admire the risks he takes with content and form and, with this long view, find his latest novel, Sara's Face, an intriguing addition to his oeuvre as well as the contemporary YA scene. Seventeen-year-old Sara is fascinated with the concept of fame and celebrity and has spent most of her adolescent life trying on personae and "performing" for her friends and schoolmates. When a burn accident lands her in the hospital, she meets Michael Heat, a svengali like Michael Jackson-esque singer and celebrity, who invites her to live at his estate and promises her reconstructive and cosmetic surgery. Heat is something of legend in Britain (and the world): a popular singer turned philanthropist, Heat made his name and endured in the public eye by constantly changing both his image and appearance through increasingly drastic cosmetic surgery. Now sporting a Michael Heat mask that he wears to hide his collapsed face, Heat retains his influence; scores of young people wear similar masks that cover and change their entire visage (s?). Once installed at Heat's mansion, Sara becomes convinced that Heat and his surgeon intend to "steal" her face during her cosmetic surgery and graft her youthful and beautiful face onto the ruined skull of Heat.

Told in the form of an investigative/true crime novel, the "narrator" of the story is the author, Burgess in the guise of Ann Rule. This is an intriguing conceit, as it forces us, as readers, to maintain a distance from the characters whose thoughts and actions are related third-hand. While this technique has not garnered the novel any praise--and, I admit, it is a bit clunky for what is, essentially, a novel--this is an especially appropriate way to handle the novel's main themes related to fame and celebrity. I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed by the ending and the failure to resolve all of what seem to be deliberate allusions (to Bluebeard, to Frankenstein); however, the premise of the story kept me reading and the sketchy conclusion made me linger a bit more over the novel than I might have otherwise.

Posted by Amy P. at 10:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Parker, Robert B. (2007). The Edenville Owls. NY: Philomel. 224 pages.

Now, I love a good mystery and am always excited when the prospect of a great addition to the YA mystery canon appears. This novel, however, is not destined to be one of the YA greats. Set in the mid 1940s, this novel by adult mystery writer Parker involves its fourteen-year-old protagonist Bobby in a mystery plaguing one of the adult citizens of his small Massachusetts town of Edenville. When Bobby's beloved teacher Miss Delaney comes to school with a black eye and Bobby and his friends, known as The Owls (the friends are on an independent basketball team "coached" by Bobby), witness a mysterious man harassing the teacher, the gang decides to find out what's going on. Soon, Bobby, as the self-appointed leader of the crew, is hiding out in Miss Delaney's attic (creepy!) and spying on the gravel-voiced man responsible for her black eye.

Dude, this book was soooo lame! I hate it when adult authors craft novels for young people that are really aimed at their adult audience. The cheesy pseudo-autobiographical detail and indulgent "greatest generation" details of post World War II life were so not needed. I had a hard time believing Bobby as a fourteen-year-old, much less a sleuth who, with his gang of junior high basketballers, could effectively blackmail a white supremacist to get him to leave town and stop bothering their innocent teacher. Give me a break, man. This book is for the birds.

Posted by Amy P. at 10:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lyga, Barry (2007). Boy Toy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 416 pages.

When Josh, the high school senior who narrates this new novel from Fan Boy and Goth Girl author Barry Lyga, was twelve years old, he entered a sexual relationship with his young and attractive history teacher. Their relationship lasted almost a year; however, the emotional residue of this experience still clings to Josh. The details of Josh's "grooming" are related in a flashback narrative in the middle of the novel, though brief "flickers" of his experience pop up throughout the narrative.

As someone who didn't see what all the hype around Fan Boy and Goth Girl was all about, I wasn't prepared to enjoy this well-crafted and thoughtful novel of abuse and its aftermath. Frankly, given the recent attention to similar "real world" incidents, I expected some cheap exploitation. Like Catherine Atikins' brilliant When Jeff Comes Home, this book deals realistically with the complexities of sexual abuse and exploitation and, like Atkins' book, by casting a male as its protagonist, effectively challenges gender stereotypes related to sexual victimization. Furthermore, by confronting Josh's feelings of complicity, the novel takes on the popularized issue of female on male sexual abuse and reveals it for the (frankly) fucked up fantasy it has become.

That said, I thought the end of the novel tied up a bit too quickly (in a scene of sudden but important revelation that, in the context of the greater book, seemed to resolve Josh's psychological dilemma in a rather pat way). That said (again!), the parallel plot dealing with Josh's parents' disintegrating marriage was realistically depicted and added further depth to the story. This was a strong novel with well-developed secondary (and even tertiary) characters that makes a powerful political statement.

Posted by Amy P. at 09:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Zarr, Sara (2007). Story of a Girl. NY: Little, Brown. 192 pages.

Sixteen-year-old Deanna is known as the school slut. Ever since her father caught her getting busy in the backseat of her older brother's friend's car, she's been symbolically labelled with the scarlet "A." It didn't help matters that Deanna was thirteen at the time, or that her all-too-willing partner was seventeen. In the three years since the incident, Deanna's father has been unable to forgive her or even look her in the eye.

When Deanna takes a summer job at a pizza restaurant and discovers that her former "flame," the seventeen-year-old with whom she was "caught," also works at the restaurant, she is forced to confront those issues from her past. While this sounds like a pretty dramatic set-up, the novel is pretty low key and it is this lack of drama that really lends credence to the story. Set in a small California town way outside of San Francisco, the novel conveys a sense of quiet desperation that would likely be familiar to the denizens of any nowhere town. Deanna's family is a mirror of the setting and equally bleak: her father is angry and sullen and explosive in turns, her mother seems oblivious, and her brother and his girlfriend eek out a desperate existence in the basement of the house and take turns caring for their lovechild.

I know what you're thinking: this one really sounds like a downer, and a boring one at that. In fact, nothing really does happen in the book; however, the story is more about living day-to-day with mistakes you've made than grand and life changing gestures. I don't know why I ended up liking this book. Maybe it's because it did seem so real. The characters are kind of stuck, but they negotiate small ways of working with their situations that speaks more strongly to resilience than any dramatic climax ever would.

Posted by Amy P. at 09:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds (2007). Dangerously Alice. NY: Atheneum. 294 pages.

Okay, okay, I know: at this point in time, 19 books (22 if you count the "prequels") into Naylor's "Alice" series, people are starting to talk about formula. And, yeah, I have to admit that the books to have certain formulaic elements (thank God Naylor finally got rid of the summary beginning involving Alice's mistaking her aunt for her mother!); however, I'm still a fan of the series. Maybe I'm drawn in by the progressively more graphic accounts of sexuality (though Naylor is no Judy Blume or Norma Klein on that front), maybe I'm comforted by the not-so-subtle didacticsm. Either way, I'm along for the "Alice" ride.

In the latest installment, Alice has entered her junior year of high school and, as she nears the final lap of teenager-hood, she's watching the old gang change and grow away from each other. Suddenly, old pals Jill and Karen are slutty, cigarette smoking snobs and the boys at Mark Stedmeister's pool just want to drink beer. Recognizing that her changing attitude towards her friends is the likely sign that she's turned into a goody-goody, Alice tries to put a little pizazz into her life and begins to date a "fast" boy from the school newspaper. Meanwhile, her attempts at independence seem to be shot down all over the place by her father and stepmother.

This is a typical "Alice" entry, complete with funny asides from brother Lester, bizarre conversations with Alice's nutty aunt from Chicago, and the obligatory masturbation scene. That said, I love every minute of each sweet and reassuring book in the series. For all the repetitive elements (do we have to hear about Pamela's hair again?), there are what seem like genuinely real moments of conflict and confusion that raise the character of Alice up from modern mouthpiece to well-realized creation. And, though the afterschool-special plot point near the end of the novel did seem a little tired, I was glad to see it serve as motivation for a very real and kinda testy conversation between Alice and her stepmother that didn't just tie up in a neat little bow.

Posted by Amy P. at 04:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lamba, Marie (2007). What I Meant--. NY: Random House Children's Books. 310 pages.

Sangeet "Sang" Jumnal just wants to go on a date. She knows one of her classmates, the hunky Jason, totally likes her and has even asked her out--kind of--but her parents forbid her to go out with a boy until she's 16 years old, a date that is months away. Unfortunately, what could be a successful campaign for early dating is effectively ruined by the involvement and constant presence of Sang's aunt Chachi, who has moved in with the Jumnal family following the death of her husband. Chachi, unlike the rest of Sang's blended Indian-American family, is uber-Indian, and harbors an intense dislike for Sang's Anglo mother and even Sang, herself. In fact, Chachi is so mean, she steals household items and blames their loss on Sang and manages to convince the whole family that Sang is both bulimic and a total whore. And Sang hasn't even kissed a boy! Couple this family conflict with a sudden rift between Sang and her best friend (who Sang worries might really be bulimic) and the drama abounds.

While the romance aspect of the novel didn't really reel me in the way it usually does (I could totally tell that Jason was a cad, WAY before Sang seemed to), Chachi's hijinks really hooked me. This lady was so evil! It was totally like shades from Nancy Werlin's The Killer's Cousin (a coincindence that begs the question, are relatives once removed destined to be evil?). Unfortunately, even though Chachi got her due in the end, the resolution wasn't nearly dramatic enough for me. There was an attempt as explaining Chachi's evil nature and a prefunctory casting out of the nasty aunt, but I wanted more. I guess this is really an indicant of the book's success on this front: I felt so sympathetic to Sang that I wanted revenge exacted on her behalf.

Posted by Amy P. at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

McNeal, Laura and Tom (2007). The Decoding of Lana Morris. NY: Knopf. 304 pages.

Lana Morris, sixteen, is a resident of a group foster home run by Veronica (whom Lana calls "The Ice Queen) and her indulgent, good-looking, but often absent husband Whit. Because Veronica's house is locally known for its special needs residents--or "snicks," as Veronica calls them--Lana is pretty much an outcast at school. Her only friend--and I use the term loosely here--is the next-door neighbor, a teen boy whose influence has allowed Lana minimal acknowledgement by a group of high school toughs. It is on a joyride with these toughs (Lana rides in the trunk, natch) that Lana comes upon an exquisite box of drawing paper in a dusty second-hand store. When Lana tries out the drawing kit, she discovers that not only can she draw better than she ever imagined, but also that what she draws comes true (cue "Simon," for all you Saturday Morning Cartoon folks).

Lana's first drawing, an unflattering picture of Veronica, seems to lead to the Ice Queen's car accident and the subsequent loss of her arm. This is a dubious boon, as Veronica's incapacitation forces Lana to take the reins in the household. Whit, on whom Lana had nursed a strong crush, turns out to be little help and, as the novel runs its course we discover the man Lana throught would be her salvation is nothing more than a charming cad.

Booklist called this novel a Cinderella story, and this is true to a certain extent. Lana does manage to wrest herself and her makeshift family of "snicks" from the clutches of Veronica and company and gets them all placed in a much more commodious home. I'm not spoiling the ending here, from the very first introduction of the character who ends up fostering Lana and "snicks," you can totally tell what's coming.

I'm surprised that I enjoyed this novel. On its surface (and, really, in the summary above) it seems like an "issue-novel"-slash-fairy-tale; however, the authors introduce a couple of moral grey areas that complicate what could have become a pretty black and white narrative. That this story written by co-authors wasn't structured in the typical alternating-chapter dual voice is notable as well; for a book written by two minds (four hands?), the narrative holds together well.

You're probably wondering what the title means, especially since the cover art features an incongruous dandilion, its seeds blowing in the wind. Well, its a clever (too clever, really) play on Lana's last name (Morris = Morse) and Whit's promise/threat to "decode" Lana Morris (Morse). Needless to say, it never happens. Snap!

Posted by Amy P. at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)