She’s so Money, by Cherry Cheva
Cheva, Cherry (2008). She’s So Money. NY: Harper Teen. 290 pages.
High school senior Maya dreams of leaving her Michagan home and her job at her parents’ restaurant to attend Stanford with her best friend and, until her parents go away for the weekend, it looks like her dream is not far from becoming reality. When her parents leave her in charge of the restaurant, a surprise visit from the health inspector leads to the issue of a large–$10,000–fine and Maya is certain that her “just this once” ignorance of all the closing cleaning duties are to blame. Certain that her family doesn’t have the money to pay the fine and reluctant to confess to her parents, Maya and Camden, a popular boy she tutors, develop a rapidly expanding homework service and begin taking students’ money in exchange for completed homework assignments. As business booms and Maya and Camden have to hire and manage a number of employees and clients, Maya discovers an unexpected fringe benefit: semi-popularity and status as Camden’s sort of girlfriend.
I really wanted to like this book–I love popular fiction–but this Alloy-produced offering fell short. First-time young adult novelist Cheva draws a convincing picture of teen afterschool life–hanging out in the tutoring room, driving around aimlessly, chaging into your “work shirt” at the start of your part-time shift–and this contrasted with the plot, which became more and more fantastic. Maya’s sudden acceptance into the popular crowd and her budding romance with Camden did not seem like logical outcomes to her predicament. Add in a peripheral student, a guy named Leonard who has a crush on Maya, and his attempt to blackmail Maya into dating him, and the whole thing gets even more outlandish. Then, there’s the ending, which involves equal parts confession and two expressions of heartbreaking loyalty. Yak!
And another thing: what’s up with the characterization of Maya? From the first sentence, we are told she is the first generation daughter of Thai-American restaurant owners; however, aside from the Thai nature of the food served at the family establishment and the looming threat of being, in Maya’s words, sent back to Thailand for failing her parents, the Thai thing seems kind of stuck in there for no reason. I’m not saying that every book with an Asian or first generation character has to deal with The Problem, but it does seem like Maya’s ethnicity is the elephant in the room. Coupled with the fact that the girl in the cover photograph looks more caucasian than Asian, I’m curious about this issue. I guess this is just one of those culturally neutral books the critics are talking about. Which leaves readers (or just me) to ponder the question: can a book ever be truly culturally neutral?