YA or STFU

Quaking, by Kathryn Erskine

Erskine, Kathryn (2007). Quaking. NY: Philomel. 272 pages.

Since the death of her mother at the hand of her father, fourteen-year-old Matilda–AKA Matt–has been shuffled around from distant relative to distant relative. When her Aunt “Loopy” deposits Matt at the home of her second cousins, Matt is certain that this new living arrangement will be just as “successful” as her previous placements. Unlike her Evangelical Christian relatives, Matt’s new family are Quaker and, as Matt learns that their advocacy for peace places them in sometimes violent conflict with the so-called patriots in their town, she begins to wonder if she shouldn’t take a stand on the issue as well. Although she is initially ambivalent about the conflict in Iraq, Matt’s encounters with her opinionated history teacher (whom she calls “Mr. Warhead”) and his teacher’s pet, a militaristic bully, lead to trouble both at school and in town.

Got issues much? This book had WAY too many of them. First, the narrator, Matt, is struggling with PTSD resulting from her years in an abusive family; then, she moves in with a culturally distinct (Quaker) family who are also caring for a developmentally disabled boy; then, she has to deal with a really opinionated and rather threatening history teacher (the only one in school, apparently, so she can’t just switch classes); and THEN, there’s the teacher’s henchman, a bully who has it in for Matt. And, oh yeah, there’s a war on.

Erskine attempts characterization by excluding contractions from Matt’s narrative, as well as her dialogue. I think this is meant to distinguish and distance her from the other characters in the book, and to underscore her genius (we discover during her visit with the school guidance counselor that her IQ test results are impressive). Unfortunately, this technique, once noticed, overtakes the reading of the book and becomes more of a distraction than an effective device. Subtle, perhaps, but also very annoying.

The secondary characters are pretty extremely placed on the sides of Good and Evil. Matt’s aunt and uncle (the aforementioned Quakers) are Good–her uncle, especially, is almost styled as a peace-savant–and “Mr. Warhead” and his bully student are Bad. While there are hints as to the motivations for each character’s behavior–Uncle Sam’s (har har–but that’s really his name) father is MIA in Vietnam, “Mr. Warhead’s” son was killed in Iraq, and the bully’s father probably abuses him–each are drawn as such extremes that it’s hard to understand them except as symbolic forces used to motivate the novel’s central conflict.

Sorry, dudes, but this one gets a thumbs down.