Something, Maybe, by Elizabeth Scott
Scott, Elizabeth (2009). Something, Maybe. NY: Simon and Schuster. 219 pages.
OK, I had a hard time with this novel. Not because I hated it or anything, just because I didn’t like it nearly as much as the most recent (and only) book of Scott’s I had read, Living Dead Girl. Scott has authored a couple other novels, including the romantically themed Bloom and Perfect You, and has been compared to Sarah Dessen in review text. Though I haven’t read these Dessen-esque pieces, I think I can safely say that Living Dead Girl seems to be something of an anomaly; Something, Maybe is definitely a return to the romantic form.
Told in the first person voice of Hannah Jackson James, the only daughter of the Hugh Hefner-like Jackson James and his former “special friend,” Candy Madison, Hannah lives with Candy in a small town near the interstate. Known for her relationship with Jackson James and her role in the short-lived sit com Cowboy Dad, Candy now hawks her autobiography via a website featuring Cowboy Dad outtakes and pictures of the onetime star scantily clad. Needless to say, both Candy and Jackson James–whom Hannah hasn’t seen in years–are embarrassments. Although Hannah nurses a crush on a guy at the call center where she works, it is a second co-worker who seems more interested in Hannah, herself. The novel revolves around Hannah’s gradual realization that it is the second co-worker who is the real prize and, after a disastrous visit with her father, begins to come to terms with her mother’s profession.
While the semi-quirky set-up makes this novel sound like a Sarah Desson or even Maureen Johnson plot, I couldn’t help but feel like the whole book was a bit too transparent. From the beginning, it is clear that the real boyfriend prize is Guy Number 2 and that we, as readers, will be spending the whole novel waiting for Hannah to come to the conclusion we have. While this certainly puts us readers in a realistic, albeit annoying, position (how many of us know girls who “protest too much” about their hatred for certain guys who they can’t seem to get off their minds?), this kind of literary proposition belongs in a middle-grade fiction novel, not really in a YA book. The storyline involving Hannah’s relationship with her mother and father is interesting, but seems a bit unfinished. That is, the situation is resolved, but in a rather unsurprising way.
I can’t help but feel like this new novel is still something of a rough draft. Given the popularity of Living Dead Girl, I wouldn’t be surprised if Scott was persuaded to follow up this critically acclaimed departure with something really quickly and was pressured to put out Something, Maybe before it was really ready. I think that all the ingredients are here for, as I said above, a good Sarah Dessen or Maureen Johnson type story; however, this one doesn’t quite make it.