“Heart on My Sleeve,” by Ellen Wittlinger

I must admit, one of my favorite things about “Heart on my Sleeve” is that the main character, Chloe, and I have the same taste in music.  The epistolary style drew me in to begin with, but the fact that all of Chloe’s subject lines are lyrics to folk songs is what really won me over.  Chloe is an 18 year old Bostonian, in the midst of graduating from high school and deciding which college to go to.  Her college search has led her to Julian, a boy she met while visiting a college in Connecticut.  Despite the fact that Chloe has a boyfriend, and Julian has an almost-girlfriend, they start getting to know each other over e-mail and IM.  The letters serve as a means of dishing out their insecurities and rants about life, bringing them confusingly close, and enlightening the readers on their lives.  Chloe’s confusion over her feelings for Julian serve as the main plot, but her sister coming out as a lesbian, Julian’s sister getting married, Julian trying to gather up enough money to go to college, and both of them trying to get through prom, graduation and the rest of high school all tie together nicely.  As an added bonus, the song lyrics in the titles of the emails add extra insights into Chloe’s feelings (and if you’re me, get a bunch of Dar Williams songs stuck in your head).  The tension lies in whether or not Julian and Chloe will get along as well as they think they do, once they see each other in person again.  They plan an elaborate weekend visit, and the drama unfolds from there.

I liked the commentary that Wittlinger makes about the different types of communication, and for teens, pondering long distance relationships is relevant to them as they transition from high school to leaving home for college.  The characters were lovable but introspective, and intelligent but still in touch with modern teenager-hood.  Chloe and Julian’s shared interest in folk music and liberal arts colleges set them apart from your average Gossip Girl, and made for interesting characters.  The parallels between Chloe’s reaction to her sister coming out and Julian’s reaction to his sister’s shotgun wedding were also nicely drawn, bringing the two closer together as well as adding to their transitional woes.  Above all of that, though, it was a fun and entertaining read with a great ‘soundtrack’ (the back of the book contains a guide to all the music references).

Book talk hook:  I might play a clip and introduce some of the music references, selling the book as a “novel with a soundtrack.”

Wittlinger, Ellen (2005). Heart on My Sleeve. NY: Simon and Schuster. 240 pages.

“My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins & Fenway Park,” by Steve Kluger

Ninth graders T.C. and Augie are brothers, but not in the traditional sense. They adopted each other when they were seven, somehow got their parents to go along with very frequent sleepovers, and have been living as though they were brothers ever since. When they start high school, their world is infiltrated by Alejandra (the object of T.C.’s affection), Andy (the object of Augie’s affection), and a six-year-old named Hucky (the small child introduced in order to teach everyone a Lesson). T.C., Augie, and Alé are assigned, at the beginning of their senior year, to write about their “most excellent year,” and through each of their journal entries, we learn about the events of their freshman year, which shaped the rest of their high school career. The novel reads like “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” meets “Boy Meets Boy,” but somehow still works. The cuteness levels bordered on unbearable at times, but the characters were indeed lovable, so it made up for it.

T.C. is a baseball fanatic and budding politician, who spends all of his freshman year scheming to get Alé to fall in love with him; Augie is Ethel Mermsan in training, who spends his freshman year coming to terms with his sexuality, and trying to get Andy to fall in love with him; Alé is the daughter of a Mexican ambassador, who spends her freshman year realizing that her true passion is theater, and then trying to get her parents on board with that concept. Though it takes place in the very real town of Brookline, MA, the world they inhabit is a bit like some of Levithan’s novels – it’s a high school in which the drama kids don’t get any flack from the other kids, being gay is No Big Deal, and everyone’s parents are in cahoots with each other to take the kids to baseball games and help them take in random six-year-olds. Speaking of which, I could have done without the random six-year-old, whose sole purpose is to remind these kids to start acting like grownups, the convenience of which was just plain grating. As fantastical as their world is, I had a lot of trouble believing T.C.’s relationship with the child. In the end, though, I kind of couldn’t stop wondering what was going to happen to these sweet kids. I doubt most teens would believe that this high school and these students actually exist, but I enjoyed all the musical theater references, and the characters were interesting enough that the lack of melodrama made the novel more endearing, rather than boring.

Book talk hook: I would read aloud one of the sections in which the characters are emailing each other, and draw readers in based on the character development.

Kluger, Steve (2008). My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins and Fenway Park. NY: Penguin. 403 pages.

“Love and Lies”, by Ellen Wittlinger

In “Hard Love,”  Gio falls hard for his friend Marisol, a lesbian who is therefore never going to be able to love him back.

In “Love and Lies,” the sequel/spinoff to “Hard Love,” Marisol wants so badly to fall in love that she falls for her writing teacher, an impossibly beautiful, irresistible woman who does in fact turn out to be too good to be true. Thankfully, though, she now has Gio as a friend on her side, along some other quirky characters to keep her in line.   Although I’m not usually a fan of the old “young ingenue falls for teacher and learns about sex AND (insert art form here) while conducting a semi-illegal, covert affair” storyline, this was still an absorbing story. I got attached enough to the characters in “Hard Love” that I wanted to see how things turned out for them.   Of course, Marisol’s quirky breed of friends, roommates and coworkers turned out to be much more interesting than her love interest, and my favorite parts were the scenes that including all of the people her own age. I was just as dismayed as her friends were when she was constantly whisked away by her older, slightly mentally unhinged love interest.

What I love (and also kind of hate) about Wittlinger’s writing, though, is that the emotions are true to life in their messiness. There is never a clear answer to matters of the heart in her books, and therefore they never end on a neat and tidy note, either. This is frustrating as all hell after reading two hundred pages, but it’s more reflective of real life than most fiction. Though I didn’t care for many of the specifics of the plot, it was still well written and painfully awkward, as being a teen should be.

Wittlinger, Ellen (2008). Love and Lies: Marisol’s Story. NY: Simon and Schuster. 256 pages.

“Weetzie Bat”, by Francesca Lia Block

Weetzie Bat is set in Los Angeles, which is the perfect setting for the fantasy tone it invokes. Weetzie Bat starts out as a teenager who hates high school, and we follow her life over several years, as she creates a family for herself, interacts with a magical genie, and deals with her father’s death. In the beginning of the book, we are introduced to Weetzie’s best friend, Dirk. They make an awesome duo, as they ride around LA in their “slinkster cool” car, and watch Jayne Mansfield movies. First Dirk falls in love with Duck, and later Weetzie picks up My Secret Agent Lover Man. The four of them make up a surrogate family, especially when Weetzie decides to have a baby with Dirk and Duck, and My Secret Agent Lover Man brings back his daughter, Witch Baby. All of the action takes place in a fantasy version of LA (which isn’t really that far off from the real Hollywoodland), but beneath all of the glitz, these characters deal with some very real issues.

This was a quick and entertaining read, and I loved how the setting contributed to the fantasy aspect of it. Plus, I used to live in LA, so I could picture the characters going to the restaurants and places they named, and the entire tone of the book made sense to me. Weetzie and her friends are untraditional and march to the tune of their own drums, which was refreshing and fun to read. I loved how unapologetic Block is about including controversial themes and stories, and Weetzie’s love for life shows her ability to roll with the punches. It’s as if Block is telling teens, “Sometimes you have to deal with crap in life… it doesn’t mean you have to be dramatic about it.” However, it is interesting how, much like in “Boy Meets Boy,” Block set her action in a fantasy world, perhaps so she could get away with what otherwise would have been Major Issues. The 1989 publication date also makes this book unique in it’s treatment of things like homosexuality and AIDS.

Book talk hook: The decriptions of Weetzie’s outfits and LA geography or famous landmarks.

Block, Francesca Lia (1989). Weetzie Bat. NY: Harper Collins. 109 pages.

“Empress of the World”, by Sara Ryan

Nicola (Nic) Lancaster is a nerd.  There, I said it.  She’s a nerd.  She likes school, she gets along with her parents, and she wants to be an archaeologist when she grows up.  When she meets Battle, a southern quiet-type with long honey colored hair and some hidden family secrets, she’s suddenly faced with some feelings she can’t explain, because Battle is a girl.  Thus begins “Empress of the World,” one of my favorite YA novels that I’ve read thus far.

The rest of the book chronicles Nic and Battles’ tentative, on-again off-again summer camp romance, with a lovely sense of humor and evocative descriptions of first love.  Nic, the archaeologist in training, has trouble putting aside her penchant for analysis, which makes it hard for her to really fall in love; and Battle has trouble opening herself up to Nic’s constant soul searching, which makes it hard for her to really fall in love as well.  Their ups and downs are colored by their ragtag group of nerd friends – Katrina, the computer programmer who comes up with matchmaking schemes; Isaac, who’s always brooding about his parents’ divorce; and Kenny, who can compose symphonies but can’t put a sentence together.

Aside from the sweet, no frills love story, and the friends I wish I had, my favorite thing about this book is it’s simplicity.  Our heroines meet, banter a lot, fall in love, have a little bit of sex… and that’s it.  No coming out drama, no angry parents, no cynicism from authority figures.  I also really like the fact that for once, the nerds get to win.  It’s not about the girl who was once popular and then shunned when she came out of the closet; It’s not about the girl who was always teased and then made it worse when she fell in love with that other girl.  It’s about the self-proclaimed misfits, the ones who know that once they get to college, none of this will matter.  It helps that it’s set at summer camp, a world in which its easy to forego the authority figures and the popularity contests, but it works, because for those of us who have been to academic/performing arts/visual arts summer camp, we know that it is indeed a place to leave high school behind.

Maybe I just like this book because I relate to it (not that I got that much action at camp), but in any case, I found it refreshing and just plain sweet.

Book talk hook:  I would talk about how much Nic likes to analyze things, and leave the audience wondering whether the love story is going to work out.  I might talk about the kind of magical place she depicts the summer camp to be.

Ryan, Sara (2001). Empress of the World. NY: Viking. 224 pages.

“Boy Meets Boy”, by David Levithan

Imagine that you live in a suburban town where the gays outnumber the straights; Imagine that your kindergarten teacher wrote on your progress report, “probably gay,” and meant that as a positive thing; Imagine that the high school quarterback is a drag queen who is also the Homecoming Queen.  This is what David Levithan does in “Boy Meets Boy”, where our protagonist Paul falls in love with his first, but for a change, being gay is not a problem for him.  The plot is pretty typical romance – boy meets boy, boy loses boy, boy gets boy back.  Meanwhile, he’s also dealing with gossip queen Infinite Darlene, his best friend Tony coming out to his parents, and his friend Joni who seems to be falling for the wrong guy.  And it all takes place in a utopian version of suburbia, which alternates between being way too cheesy and being refreshingly upbeat.

I’m kind of ambivalent about this book – there are lots of good things about it, but there are also lots of annoying things about it.  When compared to any of Julie Anne Peters’ books, “Boy Meets Boy” is, in fact, refreshingly upbeat.  Paul and Noah get to fall in love and experience high school without having to be kicked out of their houses, or shunned by their community, or even spend hours of introspection on figuring out whether they’re gay or not, as if it matters.  For them, it doesn’t matter – everybody loves everybody in this novel.  It’s nice to read a gay romance that’s not also a coming out story.  But therein lies the problem, the other side of the coin – Levithan’s utopian little town is grating after a while, and the upbeat tone of the novel starts to feel dull.  If the book was set in a regular town, I wouldn’t believe that these kids have such an easy time.  But the commentary made by setting it in a clearly fictional town is, while somewhat necessary, irritating after a while.  It was kind of like how, after about 3 seasons of The West Wing, I just wanted Aaron Sorkin to shut up, even though I agreed with him.

Book talk hook: I would tout this as a traditional romance, saying that it has all the swoon-worthy elements of a traditional romance, only it’s a little different.

Levithan, David (2005). Boy Meets Boy.  NY: Knopf. 192 pages.

“The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, by Stephen Chbosky

Fifteen year old Charlie writes letters to an unidentified recipient, in his unmistakably naïve style, and describes what it’s like to be him. Charlie is an observer in his own life, learning through guidance from his English teacher, best friend, and therapist, to participate in his life. We follow his thoughts as he describes his first kiss, his family, and the sexual molestation he experienced with his uncle. Charlie’s naiveté becomes kind of a character in the book, and we often wonder if he’s autistic, depressed, or where his attitude comes from. The tone of the book is very reminiscent of The Catcher in the Rye, yet is somewhat updated and more contemporary. This book was part of interesting marketing campaign, which put it on shelves in record stores and clothing stores, and advertised it on MTV.

I’m not sure what put this book ahead of others, according to MTV, but it does have a different feel than many of the other teen novels we have read this semester. For one thing, the main character is male, and his sounding board is not given a gender, giving the book a more universal appeal. I have to admit, I’m still deciding if I like it or not. The action moved fast, and I didn’t put it down like most books I don’t like, but in many ways, I found Charlie insufferable. I understand the point the author is trying to make about everything in a teenager’s life being melodramatic, but I kind of wanted Charlie to just stop whining already. He seemed to give the same amount of importance to finding a date to the dance as he does to the sexual molestation he experienced as a child, and I just didn’t buy all the whining. His naiveté didn’t quite ring true for me either – I often felt like either he was autistic, or living under a rock. If high school students are assigned to read Catcher, that’s probably enough passive whining for them.

Book talk hook: I don’t think I would bother book talking this one. I was ultimately bored by Charlie’s incessant introspection and whining.

Chbosky, Stephen (1999). The Perks of Being a Wallflower. NY: Pocket Books. 224 pages.

“How to Ruin a Summer Vacation”, by Simone Elkeles

While working my shift at the public library, and browsing the YA fiction shelf for books to read for this reading journal, I randomly pulled “How to Ruin a Summer Vacation” off the shelf. I’d been trying to read ansgty, coming of age novels (“The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” “Seventeenth Summer”, et al), and was looking for something a little more fun. Perhaps one of the Traveling Pants knockoffs, even. So you can imagine that the title of this one appealed to me, as I was looking for something slightly more comedic than what I had been reading.

In “How to Ruin a Summer Vacation,” seventeen year old Amy is sent by her mother to Israel with her biological father, whom she only knows as “Sperm Donor.” Ron mysteriously shows up in her life again, despite being an absentee father all her life, and whisks her away from her previous plans of tennis camp and boyfriend, to Israel to visit her dying grandmother whom she’s never met. And oh yeah, Safta lives on a moshav – a sheep farm. Lots of life lessons and learning about other people’s cultures, as well as questioning her own spiritual identity, ensue.

Though the premise sounds tough to take, I have to admit, I was able to get past it and enjoy the rest of the novel. Elkeles writes in a colloquial tone, and I got a kick out of her sense of humor. I laughed out loud every time Amy used one of her Anglocized nicknames for her new Israeli friends (Her cousin, Osnat, quickly becomes known as “Snotty,” and a member of the group is often referred to as “Moron”), and even chuckled right along with the Israelis at her ignorance of their culture. The story moves fast, as Amy learns to put aside the chip on her shoulder, and really question all she’s ever known about love, religion, and day to day life. Her new gang of friends are funny, have much to say about “stupid Americans,” and complement each other well. Her spiritual struggle almost reminded me of an older version of Blume’s Margaret, as Amy observes the nuances of Judaism and wonders whether she should embrace it or not. The romantic comedy aspect got me too – she and Avi meet cute while doing something disgusting with sheep, and the insults fly between them until one day, they make out. In a kayak on the Jordan River, no less.

While some of the writing did get trite at times, with lines like “Life in Israel is hard compared to the teenage life in America,” I have to admit, I kind of bought it. I visited Israel as a teenager, as did many of my friends and relatives, all of us skeptical Jews at best, and thoughts like that really did cross our minds, as simplistic as they sound. I had many friends who came back with a new understanding of what life is like there – most of us didn’t come back and start keeping kosher kitchens, but whether our visits inspired more fear or more understanding, they certainly did have an impact on us, similar to what Amy experiences in the book. Despite the on the nose descriptions of the lessons Amy was learning, I could totally buy her transformation. That is, until the last page or two wraps everything up in an unnecessarily neat and rushed ending.

If I were to booktalk this book, I would probably read aloud one of the passages where Amy first gets to Israel, and has lots of comical mishaps involving sheep farming and stepping on dead snakes.

Elkeles, Simone (2006). How to Ruin a Summer Vacation. MN: Flux. 240 pages.

Another wan GLBT romance: “Gravel Queen,” by Tea Benduhn

Perhaps Emily Gilmore was right, when she said on my beloved television show Gilmore Girls, “There’s nothing funny about being a lesbian.”

Yes, I attempted to read yet another YA GLBTQ romance, and once again my efforts failed miserably. Unfortunately, I think I have already exhausted this genre, having blasted through all of the Julie Anne Peters and David Levithan oeuvres already. I was hoping to try out a new author, in the hopes that I would find some variety and a refreshing perspective. So far, aside from Sara Ryan, most of the other GLBTQ romances I have read were by ‘one hit wonder’ authors who wrote boring books and were never to be heard from again. It looks like “Gravel Queen” is not much different.

In “Gravel Queen,” Aurin lives in sleepy Greensboro, North Carolina, and is spending her summer vacation at the park with her ‘kooky’ friends – attention whore Kenney, queeny Fred, and new additions football star Grant, and Neila – the object of Aurin’s affection. Neila happens upon them during a game of ultimate Frisbee in the park, and the budding romance between Aurin and Neila throws off the balance of their group. As Aurin and Neila spend more and more time together in dance class, parking lots, neighborhood parks, and each other’s living rooms, Kenney feels left out, and Fred laments even more over his crush on Grant. While the premise is a fairly realistic imagination of the drama between teenage groups of friends, the problem with it is that NOTHING HAPPENS. Aurin and Neila meet cute, exchange a whole lot of longing glances, kiss once or twice, and live happily ever after.

Similar to the endless descriptions of nature and flowers in “Seventeenth Summer,” “Gravel Queen” spends much of its time describing the butterflies, bubbles and other random items Aurin feels in her gut whenever she looks at Neila. I found myself saying, “Enough already, kids, just make out!” Yes, it’s adorable and refreshing that these kids are happy to be young and gay, but there was no conflict whatsoever in this novel, rendering it dreadfully boring. I understand what Benduhn was going for here – no coming out drama, no angst over questioning one’s sexuality, no kids beating each other up or being beaten by their parents because they’re gay. But when you’re fifteen, everything is dramatic, no matter how small the problem seems – at least her characters could act their age and put some umph into falling in love. And if they’re not going to be dramatic about it, they could at least have a sense of humor.

Despite all of my efforts to find a GLBTQ novel for teens that really speaks to the culture of contemporary teenagers, this one isn’t it, and it just fuels my misunderstanding of why GLBTQ authors are having such a hard time finding voices. How about a lesbian version of Jessica Darling? Or “The Brotherhood of the Traveling Pants” – set in Provincetown? There are so many opportunities for a sense of fun and humor, and yes, even sex, in the GLBTQ world, and I’m looking forward to finding some more writers who will truly take advantage of it.

Book Talk Hook: I would not bother book talking this book, because it’s so boring, I don’t think I could muster up enough enthusiasm about it.

Benduhn, Tea (2003). Gravel Queen. NY: Simon and Schuster. 160 pages.

Revisiting a classic: “Forever…” by Judy Blume

In my YA lit class, we talked some about how being a more experienced reader really changes the way you interpret and absorb books. We talked about how books are written for young adults with this in mind, making them conceptually and stylistically different from adult books. It’s also apparent how when your world perspective changes, so does your ability to relate to different situations. Never has this been more apparent to me than in a re-read of Judy Blume’s “Forever…” (don’t forget that ellipses in the title!).

This book was one of my absolute favorites when I was growing up. During my entire relationship with my first boyfriend, this book was my bible. I wanted to be just like Katherine, and my boyfriend was my Michael. Our relationship was going to be just as romantic as theirs. Except for the sex part – I was way too much of a prude to do that. My friends and I giggled for days at the scene where Michael whips it out and calls it Ralph. Actually, that still makes me giggle because, seriously? Ew, dude.

Upon rereading this story as a 30 year old, I’m realizing that Michael? Is kind of a douche. I expected to put the book down and go, “aww, that’s a cute story.” Instead, I’m kind of disturbed that this girl stayed with the douchey guy for so long. For one thing, he asks Katherine if she’s a virgin… on their first date. I would have punched him the face.

And I totally forgot about the part where the friend who is questioning his sexuality ends up having a meltdown, and is sent to the psych ward. Yeah, that’s right. You may have missed that subplot the first time around because you were so busy giggling over Ralph. I know I did. But yes, it happens. Though I’m torn about this subplot, I think I’m mostly praising Ms. Blume for her ingenuity on this account – I can totally see that as something that happened frequently in the 70’s, and actually I can sort of buy that a suburban teenager struggling with his sexuality might have a similar meltdown, even today. I wonder if that was her way of shedding light on that issue without actually having to write an entire soon-to-banned book about it. Thank the literary gods that we’ve come far enough that in today’s YA lit, there actually are a ton of whole books on the subject. Because of that, though, I wonder if it seems dated and out of place to today’s readers. By the same token, I wonder if girls will be as taken with the whole “loss of virginity” narrative as we were. Does this story really hold up when instead, teenage girls can read Twilight or Gossip Girl?

Don’t get me wrong. I have a really hard time saying anything remotely negative about anything Ms. Blume writes. My point is that “Forever,” while once a classic in my teenage mind, just doesn’t really hold up when you’re an adult, the way her other stories do. Don’t worry – I still think Sally J. Freedman is the greatest kid ever, and I still share Margaret’s ambivalence about getting her period. But I am sort of enlightened on why “Forever…” is a book meant for teenagers, not for us, now that we’re grown ups.

Book talk hook: Point out that this is no ordinary romance because of the details.  Mention Ralph.

Blume, Judy (1975). Forever… NY: Simon Pulse. 208 pages.