Honey, Baby, Sweetheart, by Deb Caletti

Sometimes, there is too much of a good thing....

This is the story of a young woman sucked into the sphere of a Bad Boy, in a relationship that goes from risky to dangerous to harmful. Bordering on an abusive relationship, Ruby's infatuation with Travis takes her into a minefield of dependency that even her mother has not managed to overcome.

This is a richly poetic book, chock full of metaphors and allusions, and colorful observations about life and love. It addresses at least one of my recent concerns -- the portrayal of parents in YA lit. In this one, the mother (while a real human being who must sometimes make decisions in Ruby's best interest) genuinely cares about her daughter and works with Ruby to overcome her issues. Ruby does rebel and Mom is not always perfect, but this is a story of a mother and daughter working together...and that is a beautiful thing.

So, why do I have a luke warm feeling about the book? I think the primary issue for me is that the writing is SO dense that it is a very slow read. At one point, I began to observe just how dense -- nearly every page had at least two pithy observations or clever sound bites. I began to feel that Caletti was just dumping a journal-full of these quotes into the book, finding a place to slam as many as she could. It gets overwhelming. And in the end, it makes for a pretty turgid read. I love Sarah Dessen's writings for her ability to bring out these lyric moments, but restraint is a blessed thing. There can be too much of a good thing.

The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things, by Carolyn Mackler

Another really good book (I seem to be doing better these days!).

Life in upper class Manhattan for Virginia Shreves is a hell-hole of low self-esteem, living up to brilliant siblings, and dealing with cluelessly abusively parents. The book, as is almost predictable in a book of this genre, is about Virginia coming out of her shell and changing her life, with some help from her friends and a few third-parties.

More like Meg Cabot than Sarah Dessen, Mackler ties things up a bit too neatly at the end, but at least some things are left open (Virginia never quite conquers her eating compulsions, for example). It's a good read and leaves you cheering at the end. It might even make a great movie, if Hollywood could ever get itself to make a teen movie with an overweight heroine.

But let me digress on something I've noticed a lot of in YA lit that bugs me: the depiction of parents. Now, my own parents were utterly clueless in many ways and I certainly had my reasons for disliking them, but parents are overwealmingly portrayed as either permissive or arrogant. Either the parents let the kid get away with EVERYTHING or they cut their children off and punish them for expressing themselves. Are there parents that fit this mold? Certainly! But how many more parents are there out there who try to reach their kids but don't know how to do it? It's a cheap shot to always have such two-dimensional parents. Should I ever write YA (one of my dreams), I'd like to write a story where the parents are trying, but just not getting it. Sure, they can do something mean (for dramatic effect), but let's give them some depth. I think young readers would appreciate that.

What Every Girl (except me) Knows, by Nora Raleigh Baskin

Gabby Weiss is stuck with a annoying older brother and a no friends at school, but worst of all, she has no mother, so she must spend her time observing women to figure out all the secrets that a mother tells their daughters to make them ready for the real world. But over a year, Gabby makes a special friend, nearly gains (and then loses) a step-mother, and learns that the secrets of adulthood cannot be neatly placed on a list.

An absolutely stunning and beautiful book. To begin with, the story itself is delightful (albeit with some of the typical cliches of YA novels), the writing is strong and poetic (with plenty of insights and observations), and the characters are interesting and even fun. Partly, I suppose, it is nice to read a book that takes place in a familiar setting (New Paltz NY), but the characters are truly interesting and real.

Maybe not one of my all-time favorites, but a stellar read nonetheless.

Forever, by Judy Blume

Finishing up the survey of Judy Blume (for now) with a really steamy entry...

Forever is the story of Kath and Michael (and Ralph!) and their first love -- a very hot torrid physical relationship. The story recounts everything from falling in love, to having sex, to dealing with separation, and to the eventual breakup.

There actually isn't much more story than that, although Blume does fit in teen suicide, teen pregnancy, birth control, and even drinking and drug use. There's a lot going on in this book and it is pretty explicit. In fact, it's basically NC-17 (or XXX to use the jargon in which the book is written). As before, there are lots of moments that date this book (most notably, that this group of 18 year olds go to a bar and have drinks). The most dangerous dated reference (having sex without a condom) is actually addressed by Blume in a new forward to the book.

There are certainly lovely moments in the book, like recounting the awkward physics of having sex with a new partner or the cuteness of pet names (although I used "Richard" instead of "Ralph"), but again it is a rushed book. And like so many of her other books, Blume is on a crusade and it shows. Kath is so comfortable having sex and so uninhibited (as, in fact are the adults) that it is surreal. Even for adults, it does not go that smoothly. But in the end, the whole experience is just so clinical -- Blume is basically trying to show young readers that sex is awkward and wonderful -- that the story is hollow and empty. To have written a book about how beautiful young love and passion can be would have made a fantastic read. Instead, we have a clinical and political manifesto....and one that left me feeling a bit dirty.

Lifted Up by Angels, by Lurlene McDaniel

OK, so I give up on this one. The first book in the series was borderline, but my suspicions were bourne out in the second installment...

This is the continuation of the story begun in Angels Watching Over Me and picks up six months after Leah's stay (and recovery). Longing for her Amish friends (and her love Ethan in particular), Leah spends the summer in Napannee IN, near where the family lives. She learns a lot more about the Amish and has a few adventures. A dramatic tear jerker ending that comes out of nowhere will elicit a sob or more.

The writing style grows more stilted in this book, with such amzingly bad prose as "the rose fingers of dawn" and some amzingly bad dialog. McDaniel gets her style from adult romance novels and this is basically one of those, with a slightly younger heroine. The man is a wooden figure, his stoic boring nature explained away as being Amish. Leah's swooning, recounted repeatedly through the book, never quite seems justified or real.

The book came on a recommendation from a young reader, and maybe if you hadn't read a lot of romance novels yet, this would be appealing, but the story has little to do with growing up or learning to become an adult (like a decent YA novel) or with young people coping with disease (as the author claims her goal is).

Lizzie at Last, by Claudia Mills

Elizabeth is a math whiz, with a penchant for wearing Victorian dresses, writing poetry, and imagining that she would be better off in the time of Emily Dickinson. Her quirkiness gets her labeled as a "nerd" by her classmates, but her academically-minded parents don't get Lizzie's desire to become "normal" and popular as she enters seventh-grade.

It's a bit of a hackneyed plot, with the predictable self-discovery at the end that has Lizzie deciding to be true to herslef rather than what people want her to be. However, it's lightened on the way by Mills's ability to recreate Junior High in wonderful technicolor. Again, the book suffers from being written in the third person, but Lizzie emerges nonetheless as a three dimensional character, albeit a bit of a stereotype.

Still, anyone who grew up quirky (like me) will appreciate some degree of familiarity in Lizzie's personality.

The book itself is part of a series which includes stories of several of her classmates as well. That is bound to be fun, but a bit lost on me as I'm joining the series mid-way.

Angels Watching Over Me, by Lurlene McDaniel

Now, I venture into Christian-romance territory....

The first of a trilogy about angels, McDaniel's book is about Leah, a young woman who spends a week alone in a hospital (her mother is away in Japan on a Honeymoon) with a broken finger that becomes a diagnosis for bone cancer. Her roommate, an Amish girl, and her roommate's family teach her a number of lessons about simplicity and faith in God. Along the way, there is a strange mystery visitor who no one else knows of and who the book strongly suggests (but avoids outright stating) is an angel.

I get a bit scared with books with strong religious undertones, but I have to admit that this one (I'll reserve my judgment on the next two installments) was pretty good about keeping the preaching to a minimum. Stories about Amish (I'm thinking of Plain Girl) can be great fun so I enjoyed that part of the story.

It is a bit hard that the book is written in third person. As a rule, I prefer the first-person style for YA literature. Written this way, the author has distanced us from the main character. Overall, the style is more adult romance novel than YA literature as well. There is some obligatory references to adolescence, but everyone seems terribly grown up here, and so I may eventually lose interest with the story if we don't return to some more age-appropriate action.

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume

OK, now we're in true classic territory in my survey of Judy Blume books.

This is the story of Margaret Simon, daughter of a Jewish father and Christian mother, who struggles with determining what religion (if any) she believes in. As far as the title and the synopsis is concerned, that's basically the plot. But of course, the book is really about buying her first bra and waiting for her first period, and other classic traumas of sixth-grade femininity.

Like with the other books by Blume I've been reading, I have mixed feelings about this one. This was landmark stuff when it came out and it manages to avoid getting too pedantic at the difficult moments. But, once again, Blume is on a mission to deliver a message and the plot and the characters are pretty incidental to that mission. And then, there's the unmistakable style that she has whereby Margaret sounds like every other character from a Blume novel (even like the boys). That gets a bit tiring. I'm reminded of Phyllis Naylor's Alice series and of the smart move that Naylor made at just having the same character throughout, thus avoiding any problem with having so many allegedly different kids sound the same.

Multiple Choice, by Janet Tashjian

Wow.

Hadn't read a good book in a while. I mean, I really good book.

Multiple Choice is the story of Monica who suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. She develops a game to try to help her overcome her compulsions but instead it makes her life much much worse.

There are a couple of things I like about this book. First of all, it doesn't have a happy ending, although it ends on an optimistic note. Not everything gets solved and her path to recpvery will definitely take longer than the story allows. Second, the subject matter is original and interesting. I felt a strong personal interest in the problem (I have some compulsions of my own so I could sympathize with her fears about making mistakes and her need to do things right all the time). I found myself being drawn into her issues.

And any book that draws me in and won't let me put it down is a definite keeper!

Deenie, by Judy Blume

Having suffered through a mile case of scoliosis myself, I figured that I'd be able to relate to this story of a girl who has to go through the stigma of wearing a brace (although I thankfully never had to wear one). What I didn't realize is the real reason that people read the book.

Given that the book was written in 1973, mentioning masturbation in a children's book was pretty advanced stuff, and discussing it several times made it more than just a gratuitous inclusion.

Again, however, Blume's writing hasn't aged well. Putting aside the references to full-service gas stations and department stores, Deenie and her friends are just a bit too wide eyed and innocent for the 7th graders they are. Phyllis Naylor and her "Alice" series has covered the same topics in the midst of IM and email with a similiar innocence.

The problem I think comes down to putting adult thoughts into children's minds. On one hand, they are portrayed are these innocent creatures, but then they are also fairly technical and clinical about their bodies. It's an odd juxtaposition. Almost as if the author is saying "hey, here are the sexual facts stuff" rather than trying to portray how adolescents understand sexuality.

To some extent, that was Blume's attempt of course -- to give girls (mostly) a safe way to find out correct information about sex, but it makes for a pedantic story. Because, in the end, Deenie's curiosity about masturbation and sexuality really don't have much to do with the rest of the story. One could argue that maybe that just is the way life actually IS, but again I think YA lit has come a long way in 30+ years.

Jacob Have I Loved, by Katherine Paterson

So, it's a classic. It won the Newbery in 1980 and a ton of awards. It's the story of Sara Louise, or "Wheeze" who grows up in a crab harvesting community in Chesapeake Bay in the 1940s. The book is largely about sibling rivalry with her sister Caroline -- the brilliant and talented.

It is a good book. But probably just not my type of good book. The writing is not outstanding in itself, although there are a few wonderful strong moments. And the story has a broader scope (travelling with Sara all the way through to her adulthood, marriage, and child). In fact, the story doesn't really seem to know how to end, and major characters are lost and forgotten about by the end. So, since I tend to derive my greatest satisfaction from strong characters who acheive some sort of change or development, I was left a bit disappointed.

That said, it is a good book. But not one that will move you in a strong emotional way. It simply is.

A Song for Jeffrey, by Constance M. Foland

This is a book in the American Girl Fiction series and, being part of that commercial line, I didn't have high hopes for it. However, it has a few good points.

First of all, it is a mildly educational book about muscular dystrophy and the troubles that children with it go through, both physically and emotionally. It is also a warm experience to watch how the heroine Dodie matures as she deals with the fact that her friend has MD and is dying. The author could have taken a lot of cheap steps to pull on heart strings and she avoided that.

The problem with the book is that it really tries to do too much. rather than focus on Dodie and Jeffrey's friendship, Foland also throws in the parental separation angle, as something of an oversight. This leads to several excruciating dialog scenes between daughter and parents about why her parents can't live with each other, and an overly sweet and tidy resolution (of sorts) to their problems.

And then there's the overly writing. Wonderful plot devices, great writing, until we get to the dialogue that just sounds flat and a bit fake. Too much preaching, vocabulary (and conversation) that's entirely age-inappropriate. Foland understands children and how they think, but she just doesn't get the way they talk down on paper.

A mixed review. Better than one would have expected, but suffers from the preachy and shallow nature of most AG works.

Catalyst, by Laurie Halse Anderson

Set at the same High School as Anderson's Speak, this is a somewhat similar (but different) story about a high school girl who has hit the success path with a grinding abandon that too many adults do. She works especially hard to be the "Good Kate" who excels at all her classes and extracurricular activities, until it all falls apart. And, of course, learns that there is more to life than excelling at education.

In a subtle moment, there is a gratuitous moment where the heorine of Speak and Kate actually meet and share a few words. But thankfully that moment is kept tastefully short. But the two girls are also surprisingly similar: overachievers with communication problems. They succeed at everything they do, except for talking about their needs with the people they love. That is sad (and a recurring theme of YA literature) and also discouraging because Anderson never shows her characters really overcoming their problems. They fix their immediate problems, but their fears that hold them back are never really overcome. That's the way modern novellists like to work (avoid the tidy ending) but in reading these stories you really wish the girls had grown in that way as well.

In this book, it is particularly frustrating: you really want things to work out somehow, but problems are unresolved at the end (with resolutions merely hinted at). I longed at the end for Kate to come up with some sort of summary about her experience and how she had changed.

But perhaps the fact that I wanted it so badly is indicative of the quality of the book. With too many other books, I could have cared less. So, I'd recommend this one and giving yourself a chance to get as frustrated over Kate's choices as I did.

Then Again, Maybe I Won't, by Judy Blume

Continuing the survey of Judy Blume books....

This little book is a ways off of my usual. First of all, the character is a boy and he's not a terribly insightful character. Secondly, the book is terribly dated (references to fancy hard top cars, expensive $30 baseball gloves, etc.). The book is about a teenage boy, but the problems he faces are terribly quaint in retrospect.

This is an early Judy Blume book and one of her attempts at trying to write about growing up from a boy's perspective. Some of the material rings true (being embarassed about getting erections during school) but some of it is just out there. The kid lives a fairly sheltered charmed life where kids still call adults "sir" and "ma'am". The most traumatic thing that happens to this kid is that his friend shoplifts. This send our pretty perfect boy into such a fit that he has an ulcer and has to spend ten days in the hospital (you can tell this was long before managed care!).

Perhaps I'm just not as interested in boys, but I think this one just falls flat. Young Tony just isn't very insightful about his life or his feelings -- not an inspiring picture for kids looking for role models in much more complicated times.

Missing May, by Cynthia Rylant

I guess that I get so used to "issues" stories, that I forget that YA literature is full of simple beautiful stories about...well, not very much. Missing May is one of those simple stories. A lot like Patricia Maclachlan's books, this story takes on the grieving process. Summer is a young girl whose elderly stepmother has died. She and her stepfather, along with a kooky neighbor Cletus, discover how to "turn the buggy around."

The story is set in West Virginia and felt very familiar. Not that I grew up in poor Appalachia, but the culture is similar to what I did grow up with so I recognize the lingo and the mannerisms.

It's a short sweet tale, the type that has me choking back tears. No major life lessons here, but wonderful lyrical material.

Blubber, by Judy Blume

Continuing my survey of Judy Blume novels...

I actually read Blubber at the age of 12 or so but I don't remember much beyond the ending for some reason. I blocked out the obnoxious little brother or the subplot about vandalizing the mean man's mailbox. I remember the humiliations though. Strange what we remember.

This is of course a classic. Probably one of the better books about peer pressure and the sheer meanness that kids can express to each other. It struck home very hard when I was little since I had been in Blubber's place when I was a kid and struggled with the desire to be a tormentor instead of a tormentee.

Blume never really gives any advice for dealing with the problem and I know I was frustrated by that. To this day, I wonder if there wasn't a better way of dealing with teasing and being teased.

The Face on the Milk Carton, by Caroline B Cooney

OK, the premise sounded really interesting: teenage girl finds a photo of herself on a missing child picture. Then the mystery and the drama of trying to discover the truth of what happened.

Great concept but absolutely lousy delivery. Perhaps I've been spoiled by reading some really good literature lately, but this was utter schlock. The author created the most amazingly two dimensional characters. These folks were so dull I raced through the book just to find some plot to keep me going. The young protagonist starts off interesting (some playfulness, anxiety, and teen angst) and she gets a boyfriend, but they end up both just putting me to sleep. They talk matter of factly about having sex, more like a mechanical thing than any talk about feelings. Her chats with her girlfriends are largely boring as well.

It seems that the author really doesn't know the first thing about teens or how they feel. Instead, there is melodrama, people crying and screaming for no real reason.

There are two other books in the series and when I started I was afraid that I would have to read them all. I won't bother.

Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great, by Judy Blume

OK, so here I go into Judy Blume books. I blame Kara of course, because she bought me a pile of them for my birthday. She chose her own personal favorites, so I'll have quite a few of them coming up (although I'll try to intersperse other authors into the mix). I did actually read one or two of them wehn I was growing up, but it was a bit embarassing because they were so obviously girls' books. And the odd thing is that now I read all these "girls' books" now, I still find myself to be a bit embarassed to be reading them.

So, Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great is the story of a girl who spends a summer in tarrytown with her older sister and family. She learns to play with a yo yo and she learns to swim and she has a few adventures, but the pace goes by pretty quickly and there isn't a terrible amount of depth. I suspect that I've grown used to YA literature so intermediate reads seem terribly superficial these days. I had the same problem with the Judy Moody books. It's an OK read, but nothing terribly memorable.

Stop Pretending, by Sonya Sones

Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy is Sones's first book and her most autobiographical, tracing the story of what she went through when her older sister had a nervous breakdown and had to be hospitalized. Sones's style (free verse poems that run a page or two) can be a bit precious at times, but it worked well in her latter books: What My Mother Doesn't Know and One of Those Horrible Books Where the Mother Dies. In those books, the verse was often witty and individual poems stood on their own.

In this book, it is a bit thin and the poems seem largely based on what a much younger Sones might have written. Authentic, but juvenile and a bit thin.

The problem with here is that there is so much detachment. The character falls in love, but the observations are largely stereotypical and superficial. So in the end, you really don't feel much. Occasional pangs arise over the pain of a family trying to cope and a young woman having to decide what to tell her friends, but this just doesn't reach.

Thankfully, Sones gets a lot better in her latter books.

Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson

Speak is the type of book I would like, even if it was written poorly. An "issue book" for Young Adults, I'm not really sure if the intended readership would be as gung-ho for it as I. But as a fellow survivor, like the protagonist, I can't help but relive some of my own experiences even as I read about hers.

The story, more or less like the blurb portrays it: A school year in the life of 9th grader Melinda, who loses all of her friends because she called the cops (and got everyone busted) at a party at the end of the summer before the year (and the story begins). We take a leisurely stroll to finding out what happened at that party, during which Melinda's amusing cynical observations about cliques and HS life make for amusing reading. But underneath her sarcasm, there is a achingly painful story to be revealed. And an ending that I really didn't see coming.

Anderson doesn't have a lot of poetry in her writing and there are few really memorable quotes, but the story is engrossing.

As an adult, it is hard to watch a character suffering so much pain, needing so much to reach out for help, and yet denying herself the help that she needs. However, as much as I may hate watching it happen, I have to admit that it rings very true. It took me a decade before I talked about it, so Melinda's 9 months really seems like breakneck speed.