First five star book of 2014 and I don't begrudge a single star (I must be getting soft in my old age). Eleanor & Park achieves epically sweet, emotio First five star book of 2014 and I don't begrudge a single star (I must be getting soft in my old age). Eleanor & Park achieves epically sweet, emotionally complex and infinitely satisfying without ever once spinning off into maudlin or melodramatic (which is an amazing achievement when your two protagonists are teenagers in the grips of love's first rush).
Speaking of: Eleanor and Park are wonderful. It's always such a treat when you get characters this fully realized that you can swear you've met them, that you actually know them. Their story is sweet but not saccharine, and as uplifting as it is perilous and nerve wracking. It's tough being a teenager, forced to navigate a capricious world known for its wanton cruelty; where life, as Eleanor so eloquently puts it, "is a bastard."
Isn't it though?
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This is a book about how music is its own language that can be used to speak to someone when words fail us. It's a book about family: how much it can save us, and how much it can devastate us. It's a book about two misfits finding each other and discovering what it is in each of them that's worth falling in love with.
Elaine: (on boys giving wedgies) Boys are sick. Jerry: What do girls do? Elaine: We just tease someone 'til they develop an eating disorder.~Seinfeld
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Elaine: (on boys giving wedgies) Boys are sick. Jerry: What do girls do? Elaine: We just tease someone 'til they develop an eating disorder.~Seinfeld
There can be something so vicious and primal about the way young women torment and bully each other. It's tribal and unrelenting and it disturbs me to my very core because I have three young nieces, one of who is on the cusp of tweendom. And right now I can't decide what would be worse - to have them grow up to be the bullies? Or the bullied?
All I can think of to do is to support their parents in any way I can, and stand vigilant to all warning signs and distress signals of it going either way (and pray that they will each find a neutral safety zone that falls outside the worst of the predator/prey relationships they are sure to confront).
Meet Regina Afton. She is at the very top of her high school's food chain, orchestrating feeding frenzies and character assassinations on a whim. But all that's about to change when after a drunken party it gets out that Regina had sex with her best friend's boyfriend. It doesn't matter that this is a lie. It doesn't matter that the boyfriend in fact tried to rape Regina. All that matters is what her "friends" are willing to believe.
Suddenly, Regina is enemy number one, being targeted as "slut" and "whore" in a ruthless, protracted campaign that only gets worse with each passing day. Summers paints a brutish portrait of the realities of bullying that left me squirming and feeling sick to my stomach.
Point of note: this is hardcore realistic fiction. There are no punches pulled here. If you are sensitive in any way to teen profanity, sexual content, alcohol consumption or drug abuse, then this book is probably not for you. However, if you are seeking out a well-written, emotional, honest book about the dark side of bullying amongst girls, then please read this. Then after you read it, recommend it to all the young women that you know.
For sure this book is dark. For sure there are scenes that are very difficult to read. However, as Regina fights for her survival, there is also hope and humor as she moves closer to uncovering her greatest strengths (and weaknesses).
This book made me mad because it makes you feel helpless, but I guess that's the point. The main protagonist is already dead so there's no redemption,This book made me mad because it makes you feel helpless, but I guess that's the point. The main protagonist is already dead so there's no redemption, no last minute reprieve. At least not for her. I believe Hannah reaches out to her "thirteen reasons why" not to lay them flat with some unbearable guilt (revenge from beyond the grave) but in an attempt to give them what she could not find for herself -- self-awareness, self-acceptance, self-forgiveness -- a reason to hope, a reason to change for the better and keep on living.
Hannah's thirteen reasons why are not worth her life, and that made me mad. I wanted to grab her and tell her not to take it all so seriously, that there is life after high school, and it does get better. I also believe Hannah doesn't tell us everything -- there is a deep well of pain and disappointment brimming over in that young girl and as readers we only catch a glimpse. As one of her thirteen, that's all Clay gets too when he's left to try and make sense of it all and his place in it.
Suicide is a selfish, desperate act born out of loneliness and isolation. Asher's point is not to provide solid reasons why someone would kill themselves (there really are no reasons good enough for an act so drastic and irrevocable), but rather, he shows how a person's mind can get trapped in a devastating loop of negative thoughts; there were ways out for Hannah, she just couldn't see them, or refused to. That's the tragedy.
This is a propulsive story and the pages turn themselves. Hannah's voice is at once strong and clear, sad and lost. The unfolding drama, while at times flirting with melodramatic (we are dealing with teenagers after all), moved me. And for that I'm going to give it three stars. ...more
Warning:this book contains graphic (honest) descriptions of teen drinking, drug use and sexuality.
I'm blown away by how much I loved this book. On thWarning:this book contains graphic (honest) descriptions of teen drinking, drug use and sexuality.
I'm blown away by how much I loved this book. On the surface, it could seem like quite a shallow, gratuitous read about a group of bitchy girls terrorizing their high school. Let me tell you these girls are mean, and after a party one night, one of them is sucked into a "Groundhog Day" time loop in which she is forced to live February 12 over and over again until she gets it "right".
From page one I was completely riveted by Sam's dilemma and could not put this book down. Oliver has an astonishing capacity for the nitty gritty details of the average American high school, an eat or get eaten savage island, where your only salvation is your "status" - popular or geek? accepted or rejected? worshiped, ignored or worst of all targeted? Oliver paints a brutish portrait of the realities of bullying that left me squirming and feeling a little sick to my stomach. Some of the actions taken by Sam and her friends are fiendishly terrible, and in any context pretty much unforgivable.
Yet, as the story progresses - Sam, Lyndsey, Elody and Ally become more than just the prima donna high school bitches that they are; Oliver delves into each young woman's character - Sam's especially - and deftly examines motivations, putting the girls' flaws (and friendship) under a microscope. While these girls don't ever become sympathetic, they certainly surpass the realm of mere caricatures of the villainous. I began to care for them, even while I was wanting to kill them. That's great writing.
There are some beautiful insights contained in this story about living each day as if it were your last, and treating others as you would want to be treated. It's about getting to know people, based on who they really are, not how you perceive them to be. It's a story about the value of family and the gift of friends. While Sam and her posse are terrorizing the weak and vulnerable around them, they still manage to share an amazing bond that makes them fiercely protective and loyal of one another.
And Kent ... I can't say too much about this character without giving away one of the most surprising delights of this novel. Suffice to say, I fell in love with him, and I bet you will too. ...more
Lean and mean, great allegorical writing; for me, what happens at Trinity is Nazi Europe in a nutshell -- it's easy to see the Vigils all growed up anLean and mean, great allegorical writing; for me, what happens at Trinity is Nazi Europe in a nutshell -- it's easy to see the Vigils all growed up and goose-kicking their way through murder and mayhem. Evil exists in even the most innocuous, seemingly innocent places...like a prep school, and the preppie students who go there. A little power can fuel a lot of misdeeds and looking the other way is how evil wins. While I feel this book has a lot to offer, especially for its intended audience, and remains relevant even for today's teens, it falls short of Lord of the Flies, one of the most important books ever written, one of the best stories ever told.
This book made me so uncomfortable for so many reasons...gritty, raw, powerful. At times I almost felt complicit in the brutality and dehumanizing actThis book made me so uncomfortable for so many reasons...gritty, raw, powerful. At times I almost felt complicit in the brutality and dehumanizing actions of the Beckoners. Mac's immense talent is obvious; she remains in total control of her narrative and I as a reader was swept along for the ride, grimacing, white-knuckled, and nauseated, all the way to the bitter end. My one criticism is that the ending seemed a little too "and they all live happily ever after" for me. Perhaps Mac felt she had put the reader through enough and this was her way of apologizing...of offering a message of hope and optimism. But for me the almost trite resolution seemed out of place in a novel so fierce in its unflinching look at teen violence -- how savage, tribal and unrelenting it has become. ...more
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