Stupid Fast (by Geoff Herbach)

Man, this is what I’m talking about! Geoff Herbach’s Stupid Fast hooked the cat from the very first page, all courtesy of Felton Reinstein’s great stream-of-consciousness narration. The type of book you put in the hands of reluctant readers, knowing they will come back for more!

Felton Reinstein is 15 and used to be just another scrawny kid, with no social life to speak of. He just has one real friend Gus, and a back history that would make any sane person depressed. At the age of 5, he found his father hanging from the garage ceiling. Now, though, his life is totally out of control and he is telling us about it in an almost feverish one-night diary-style narration. We learn that he’s grown more than 7 inches in 8 months, and doesn’t know where all the body hair keeps coming from and whether he will ever stop eating! His only friend Gus is out of the country for the summer, and Felton’s mom makes him take over Gus’s paper round, something he really doesn’t want to do. But then he discovers that Gus’s house has been let out to talented pianist Aleah and her father. And to top it, his mom, Jerri, who’d always been a non-typical mom, completely checks out mentally on him and his younger brother Andrew, and he can’t really figure out why. Almost accidentally Felton discovers that one of the side effects of his enormous growth spurt is that he is now stupid fast. This will prove to be the ideal way to get rid of the stress that this crazy summer is giving him, and – besides Aleah who he develops a crush on – the only way to stay sane and to deal with his mother’s mental breakdown. His speed gets him noticed by the jocks and the sports coach at his high school, though, and everyone is convinced that Felton has it all to make it as a D-I football player… Meanwhile, Felton finds all of this crazy and unbelievable.

Stupid Fast is so many things at once. It’s first of all the story of a boy who is literally growing up to become a man. Seldom have the physical changes of a boy turning into a man been described so aptly in a YA novel. The awkwardness of puberty that Felton feels because of these changes is also the reader’s awkwardness. All props here go to Herbach’s natural talent for capturing the confusing mess of going through puberty so well (and what a breath of fresh air to read about this from a male perspective for once!). Secondly, it is the story of a boy who always had to struggle socially to ‘belong’: weird hair (Jewfro), weird family (he has to call his mom Jerri), weird friends… Felton was the type of kid who looked at the town honkies (a word Felton and Gus use to describe the popular kids) with both disdain and fear, but who now gets to be friends with the people who used to call him “Rein Stone” and “Squirrel nuts”… and he has to admit that they’re really not that bad after all and that he might have been too quick in judging them. It’s also the story of a boy falling in love with a girl for the first time. And now there’s this fantastically talented, beautiful girl who likes him despite and even because of all his weirdness. Finally, it’s also the story of a family slowly falling apart, and a boy figuring out what to do about that.

There are several elements that make Stupid Fast work so brilliantly, but the most outstanding thing must be Felton’s voice, which is stupid funny. Even though Felton has pretty much given up his dream of being a comedian because he thinks he’s not funny enough, his almost too honest observations about the things around him, are seriously hilarious at times. The brilliant mix of a sincerity (almost embarrassingly so) and humor makes Felton’s voice reminiscent of for instance Junior’s voice in Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. And also just like Sherman Alexie’s book it combines life-changing events and serious emotions with humor. And that is what makes both books into such hits! That, and of course the fact that it has heart, it’s smart, it’s fresh, it’s compelling. Definitely a must read!

The Piper’s Son (by Melina Marchetta)

The Piper’s Son, published in 2010, is a sort of companion/follow up novel to Melina Marchetta’s Saving Francesca (2003). It features characters which also appeared in Saving Francesca and even though it’s not an absolute requirement that you have read it too, it might help to get some of the back story of some characters in The Piper’s Son.

The Piper’s Son is set 5 years after the events in Saving Francesca and Marchetta has made Tom Mackee  (who “want[s]  to be the first male in the Mackee family to reach 40 and still have a liver) and his aunt Georgie the focus of this razor-sharp, character-driven literary tour de force.  Tom Mackee has reached rock bottom.  It’s two years after his uncle Joe got blown to bits in a London tube station and he also lost the girl he had a one-and-a-half-night-stand with (Tara Finke). Tom is angry, Tom is sad, Tom is lonely, Tom’s an asshole. Tom is everything you don’t wish your friend, brother or dearest to be. He is completely broken and it doesn’t look like he wants to get fixed or healed, and it doesn’t really look like he can. After pretty much getting kicked out of his apartment, he moves back in with his aunt Georgie, who has her own set of problems: pregnant by her ex-boyfriend of 7 years, Sam, she doesn’t only have to deal with the fact that she’s 42 and pregnant for the first time, she also has to relive all the complicated emotions of anger and confusion she felt all those years ago after Sam’s betrayal (he got a kid, Callum, with another woman). On top of that there’s her family (both the living and the dead members of it) to deal with. Tom, of course, but also her alcoholic brother Dom who left his own family, but wants to get back in. Both Tom and Georgie suffer from the stubbornness that is a key Mackee-Finch family trait and that now also threatens to be the main obstacle for any possibility to recover from their past and their grief.

Although The Piper’s Son starts out as a tragedy full of heartache, it’s also an incredibly warm family portrait that is described with such raw honesty and intensity, that it will make you sad when you have to leave the family at the end of the book. There’s nothing dysfunctional about this family or about this bunch of friends: this is exactly the way families with a past interact or friends with history relate to one another. This is how they function, and this is what they have to get through to get closure and a future. And although there is so much bleakness, self-destructive behavior and drama in these characters’ lives, there’s also humor, and there are these great lifelike scenes, emails and conversations (the dialogue is absolutely outstanding!) in the book that will make you smile and laugh and wish you could have been there with them.

If there’s any author that can convince even the most reluctant and skeptic of adult that YA is more than “books for kids”, and is proper Literature with a capital L, then it’s Melina Marchetta. If you still think otherwise after reading The Piper’s Son, then you’re either  a) one of those old white men who decides what people should read or b) a complete nitwit, or (the cat’s favorite) c) a total doofushead.  You’re beyond saving.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post (by Emily M. Danforth)

The Miseducation of Cameron Post would be the cat’s entry for the William C. Morris award if she had a say in it. As a first break onto the YA – or any literary – scene it is definitely one hell of a statement, both topic-wise and literary wise. Giving us a brand new take on coming-of-age, Danforth introduces us to Cameron Post, who tells her story sometime after the event she’s narrating in the book, that of her finding her (sexual) identity.

At the age of 12, Cameron’s parents die in a tragic accident during a weekend trip up to Quake Lake. After the obvious initial shock Cameron can’t but feel relief…relief that now they will not find out that just the day before Cameron had kissed her best friend Irene Klauson. Having grown up in desolate, conservative, Miles City (aka Miles Shitty), Montana, Cameron is convinced that what happened to her parents is her punishment, and she no longer just feels relief, but also shame and guilt for having done what she did. Her parents’ death marks a shift in her friendship with Irene (the girls had previously been almost inseparable, the way 2 best friends can be in that innocent pre-teen stage of life). From then on the two drift apart – not just because Irene moves away to a fancy boarding school due to her family’s newfound richness – and Cameron tries to find solace in being cooped up inside, watching rental movies. The events surrounding Cameron’s first hesitant chaste kiss with Irene Klauson, her feelings for Irene before and after the kiss, the feelings of guilt and shame because of what happened to her parents are what determine the first part of the book. In the second part, Cameron’s aunt Ruth has moved in to take care of her. The kiss between Cam and Irene may have made Cameron feel guilty, the feelings which lie at the bottom of it don’t just disappear, and in the following years Cameron starts experimenting, mostly very innocently through the movies she rents (from Thelma and Louise to The Hunger). She also hooks up with Lindsey, a girl who comes to Miles City every summer for the swim competition. Contrary to Cameron, Lindsey is well aware of her sexuality, and seems to know all about the LGBQ-community (she’s from Seattle). In part 3 of the novel, things take a turn for the best and worst for Cameron when she gets to know Coley Taylor, a beautiful cowgirl who goes to the same church and youth group as Cameron. See, Aunt Ruth is a conservative person, conservative even in Miles City, and she has found God again (she’s a born again Christian), and she has Cameron join her when she attends Gates of Praise. Cameron has been in love with Coley ever since she first lay eyes on her. The two girls form a friendship, a friendship which of course gets complicated because Cameron clearly has romantic & sexual feelings for Coley, while Coley has a boyfriend and is (or seems) as straight as can be. Yet, the two girls bond, and when Coley’s boyfriend is away for the summer, they take their friendship to a new (sexual) level. But this is Miles City, Montana, and Coley exposes their relationship, overcome by feelings that she probably can’t explain herself, after which Aunt Ruth finds out, and ships Cameron off to “conversion camp”, God’s Promise… a de-gaying camp. God’s Promise is a religious school where Cameron is forced to face her sins, and where she will be “cured” of the sin of homosexuality. The stay and this camp and the way that Cameron has to deal with who she is forms the last part of the book.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post is bulky book, closing in on shy of 500 pages, but it’s exactly this broad scope that renders the books its authenticity. Cameron’s voice is nothing if not real and authentic. From the way she talks about the period when she was 12 (1989) to the period at God’s Promise when she’s 17 (1993-1994), there’s a believability in what she tells us she felt at those times, and the way she behaves. Cameron may have been a good little girl at 12 (except for the shoplifting, of course), but over the years she starts to behave like any other teenager, experimenting with drugs, alcohol and yes , … sexuality. The only thing with Cameron, though, she doesn’t experiment with teens of the opposite sex, but of the same sex. And, yes, the conflicting feelings of being gay in an all-out conservative town isn’t lost on Cameron. She even ‘tries out’ her friend Jamie, despite the fact that she feels that it’s not how or who she is.

What makes this book also one of the truest around is the way the antagonists are portrayed. It would be very easy to put the blame on Aunt Ruth and the people at God’s Promise. But that’s not what happens. All of them are so completely and utterly convinced of what they are saying and doing that any form or trying to tell them otherwise is futile. So it’s like 2 parties talking/not talking to each other, and the only thing either of them say is “you’re wrong”. Cam is who she is, there is no changing, or de-gaying, or converting her, and Aunt Ruth, Reverend Rick and even Lydia are who they are, despite Lydia’s secular Cambridge (England!) education. After a particularly horrible event at God’s Promise, Cameron observes: “I’m just saying that sometimes you can end up really messing somebody up because the way you’re trying to supposedly help them is really messed up.” (p.399) This is the farthest that Cameron herself goes in condemning and blaming the others for sending her to the camp. And even though this might not sound all that militant, it definitely reinforces the feelings of frustration that she feels, and that you as a reader will feel about what’s going on not just with Cameron, but with and to so many other real teens who go – willingly or unwillingly – to these types of camps. In a side note, the conversation that Cameron and aunt Ruth have when Cameron gets to go home for Christmas and when they reflect on Cameron’s ‘healing’ process is probably one of the most lifelike conversations ever between a teen and an adult who’s supposed to be the person with all the control and power over said teen (p. 342-344): neither of them know what the other feels and they just can’t get out of that situation.

Apart from an honest exploration of a teen’s sexual identity, The Miseducation of Cameron Post is also descriptively a beautifully written novel, yes slow-moving, but oh so atmospheric because of it. The detailed descriptions of the rural Montana setting will draw you into an almost alien world if you’re – like the cat – not accustomed to the landscape Danforth is describing. Likewise, when Cameron describes how the other girls make her feel, for instance, it’s like she wants you bring home that experience as much as possible so that it feels not just the most natural thing ever, but also universal, because ‘hey look, this is all how we fall in love, how we experience first kisses,…’: “There’s nothing to know about a kiss like that before you do it. It was all action and reaction, the way her lips were salty and she tasted like root beer. The way I felt sort of dizzy the whole time. If it had been that one kiss, then it would have been just the dare, and that would have been no different than anything we’d done before. But after that kiss, as we leaned against the crates, a yellow jacket swooping and arcing over some spilled pop, Irene kissed me again. And I hadn’t dared her to do it, but I was glad that she did.” (p.10)

The Miseducation of Cameron Post will be hailed as a great LGBQ-novel, but it’s more than just that. It explores identity and sexual identity, yes, but in doing so in transcends that mere label, which could (but definitely shouldn’t) limit its exposure. It’s also just a beautifully written novel with a great protagonist who’s at a turning point in her life. And again, what is more engaging and beautiful in a piece of literature than a character finding his/her place in the world[1]?

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[1] I am glad that Emily Danforth also denies this book being just another coming-out story.

Where Things Come Back (by John Corey Whaley)

Birds, boys and a writer bursting with healthy literary ambition and you get yourselves this little prizewinner. Where Things Come Back is the type of book that takes you totally by surprise.

Cullen Witter is 17 and lives in Lily, Arkansas, a small Southern town where nothing exciting ever happens. The only thing on Cullen’s mind is escape,  from his town and from the people in it. But then Cullen has to identify the body of his cousin Oslo (who died of a drug overdose) at the morgue, and things are seemingly set into motion, especially when on top of the grief his family is now dealing with, some ass-hat ornithologist claims he’s seen the long thought to be extinct Lazarus woodpecker. When completely out of the blue Cullen’s younger brother Gabriel goes missing, Cullen finds it surprising and frustrating that the entire town of Lily seems to think that some stupid bird is more important than looking for his kid brother. In a secondary plotline, we meet the young Benton Sage (BEEN-TONE SOG!), who’s a missionary in Ethiopia, and whose story brings in a religious aspect into this slender novel (228 pages). I’m sure this may prove to be a challenge for some readers (Angels and the Book of Enoch, say what?), but it’s worth keeping an open mind because the two plotlines (they are told alternately) somehow merge in the most surprising of ways.  Even though you know they will somehow be linked, once they finally do, it’s such a gasping experience!

However, besides reading a very cleverly plotted novel, what probably led to Where Things Come Back winning the Printz (deservedly so!) is the outstanding use of voice in this novel. Cullen’s voice in particular is something else alright: alternating between 1^st and 3^rd person narration, you feel close to Cullen and removed from him at the same time. Shifting between the two narrative points of view (within 1 plotline) makes you question what you read and you never quite know what to believe (which is majorly important for the ending!). Cullen is one messed up kid, alright – who wouldn’t be if you had to identify your cousin who OD’d, your brother has gone missing, you have girlfriend issues and the town is only thinking about some stupid ass-hat bird that probably doesn’t even exist anyway! The third person POV intensifies this feeling even more with Cullen often pretending to fight zombies and going off in his own world, dreams and nightmares are nothing if not escape… Also: talking to/about a certain Dr Webb? Who is this guy and why is Cullen talking to him like some ass-hat Holden Caulfield I ask you? I mean, Cullen seems to have lost so much already that it’s hard to imagine a place where things come back for him. But that’s exactly what this book is also about: not just about things that got lost (birds, brothers, cousins), but about the potential of things coming back, and like John Corey Whaley says on his website: second chances.

There is so much going on in this little book (the symbolism!), but what really shines through is what an incredibly original spin John Corey Whaley gives the great genre of the coming-of-age story, which is – as some may argue – the true YA literature as it traces the experiences of a teen growing up into adulthood, with things being taken from them and things coming back to them, and deciding which things to hold on to. If this is what John Corey Whaley can do in his debut, then I’m more than a little bit excited to find out what will be next!

Drowning Instinct (by Ilsa J. Bick)

Ilsa J. Bick’s Drowning Instinct is the second Printz contender the cat has read in as many weeks. Drowning Instinct, though, is a whole different ballgame than Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Drowned Cities. However, the voice of its protagonist/narrator is as powerful as the reach of Bacigalupi’s (geo)political ambitions (BTW, ‘drowning’ seems to be a keyword these days). Drowning Instinct is contemporary YA at its best. It’s set very much in the tradition set by a someone like Laurie Halse Anderson, introducing us to stories that are thoroughly character-driven, and delving into the deepest human emotions possible, wherever that may take you.

The book starts when Jenna Lord, 16, is dragged out of the water and Detective Pendleton (‘Bob’) gives her a tape recorder so she can give him her story… the truth, the truth, and nothing but the truth. Of course, that truth is an ugly one. At 16 Jenna is already deeply scarred, figuratively as well as literally. She’s just returned from an extended stay in a psychiatric hospital, courtesy of her cutting, a fire and a dysfunctional family life or all of that combined. She now has to attend Turing, because her emotionally demanding father (aka PsychoDad), insists this will be the best way to adjust to normal life again. This is where she meets Mr Anderson, who she claims is the way her story of the truth should start.

There are a couple of things that make of Drowning Instinct a captivating and thoroughly twisted read. First of all,  there’s the device of the unreliable narrator, used here in the best way possible. Jenna insists that in the complicated relationship between her (a student) and Mr Anderson (a teacher), she was not a victim…which is of course the first thing that pervy Bobby-o (Jenna’s words) would think of. And indeed to a certain extent (and up until the big reveal, which I’m not going to reveal!) we see that both characters are thoroughly messed up, and both need each other to fix them back to normal. On the other hand, there are a couple of things our unreliable narrator Jenna omits. For one, I don’t really recall Jenna actually mentioning Mr Anderson’s age… which of course, shouldn’t matter when we’re dealing with a student-teacher relationship, but my point is, Mr Anderson could be 24 (Jenna says he attended Stanford), he could be 30 or he could be 40. When someone of about 24 is in a relationship with someone who’s 36, no one thinks twice about this. But when one of the two is a minor – even ‘already’ 16 – and the other is an adult – even ‘only’ 24 – then things get complicated of course. I’m not saying that one is right and the other is wrong, but it’s the same sort of dynamic that plays all through the novel. The same is true when the relationship gets physical. Narrator Jenna careful skirts over that, because she feels it’s none of ‘Bob’s’ business. Who’s predator, who’s prey? Does Jenna find out, will the reader find out? It’s just such a thrill to see what (if anything) will be revealed by the (un)reliable narrator.

Also, the characters – and it’s not just the protagonists Jenna and Mr Anderson – in Drowning Instinct are of the type the cat loves best: they are complex, they’re messed up, there is never only a right or only a wrong, there are so many shades of gray here that it’s almost an expressionist landscape of pain, cuts, emotions added onto the canvas layer upon layer. Of course, Jenna only tells us what she wants to tell us about the other characters, but I liked the way Matt (Jenna’s brother who’s deployed in Afghanistan) and Danielle’s characters were used in the book, showing us that there are more broken people that just Jenna and Mr Anderson.

Lastly, there’s Ilsa J. Bick’s use of setting and space. The Wisconsin woods in which Jenna starts to run again is used so effectively that it’s almost a metaphor for the density of emotions that Jenna ànd Mr Anderson are dealing with. This is something which I also noticed in Ashes, where the woods are also almost a character of their own. Again, the mood of much of the book is enhanced by the setting, and this setting definitely has some filmic overtones. This really is how an author should use space to really show and to add meaning to the words on a page.

The cat loved Drowning Instinct, but she doesn’t think it will win the Printz. Is it good (“literary”) enough to win it? Probably (narrative voice, setting and pacing are stellar), but I don’t really know whether the Printz Committee would go for this particular topic right at this moment in time. I do think it’s Printz Honors material for sure.  Readers who liked Barry Lyga’s Boy Toy will find an equally as uncomfortable read in Drowning Instinct. There’s something about broken and flawed characters that make them so irresistible to read about, maybe because they make us feel less flawed, or maybe because we recognize ourselves in part of who they are. Either way, contemporary YA at its best, peeps. Read Drowning Instinct!