Review: Taking Off by Jenny Moss

There's a superstition out there that whatever you do on the first day of a new year is something that you'll be doing often for the rest of the year. I'm kind of hoping that I can apply that superstition to books: the first book you read published in the new year should be indicative of how the rest of the year's books will turn out. So I'm really, really glad I chose and AWESOME book to be my first published-in-2011 read.

Annie is a senior in high school in a suburban Texas town facing large, looming questions. Like where is she going to college and what will she do with the rest of her life. Surrounded by engineers who work with NASA, and fellow students who know that college is the next step, Annie isn't even sure she wants to go to college. She loves poetry, and has tried her hand at writing a few times, but is pretty sure she's actually terrible and knows there's no money in the endeavor. She hides her passion from everyone - her divorced parents, her best friend Lea, and even Mark, her boyfriend of two years.

When Lea, the daughter of NASA engineers, invites Annie to yet another dinner party featuring NASA personnel and astronauts, Annie drags her feet until she learns the Teacher in Space, Christa McAuliffe, will be there. She maneuvers her way to sit next to Christa at dinner, and even though the conversation is rather routine, Annie finds herself inspired by Christa's passion for life and following her dreams. While Annie doesn't know the answers to her big life questions yet, she knows she wants to see Christa's launch into space.

Meeting Christa, and roadtripping with her dad and his handsome young friend Tommy to see the Challenger launch, and ultimately the disaster after takeoff, inspires Annie to start taking risks. Small ones first, but bit by bit Annie draws strength and inspiration from Christa's memory, and is finally able to take off for herself.

First of all, I have to give massive props to Jenny Moss for how she carries off the climactic scene of the Challenger's explosion. I knew going in that it was going to happen, and yet when the shuttle finally launched, and then broke apart, my heart was in my throat. I felt like I was right there with Annie, even though Challenger happened when I was barely a year old. 

The romantic subplot in Taking Off is absolutely superb - because it reflects a lot of the indecision that can happen in relationships, especially young ones. I've gotten burned out on the number of YA books that end with the teens finding their soul mates. Annie is content with Mark, but knows they're not soul mates. So refreshing to see a girl exploring her options!

This Friday marks the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster, meaning this book is set at a very specific time that is close enough to feel contemporary but long enough ago that the book's intended audience wasn't even born yet. This is historical fiction that will still appeal to people who think they hate the genre, because aside from the Challenger and a few mentions of cassette tapes, Annie's personal struggles are truly timeless.

Review: Wicked Girls by Stephanie Hemphill

Every time I'm ready to write off verse novels, something pulls me back. The last verse novels I read were back in April, Firefly Letters and Crossing Stones and I concluded that, for me, verse novels really only work when they're contemporary stories. For historical novels, I need a vested interest in the material. Then along comes Wicked Girls, covering the Salem Witch Trials that have fascinated me for as long as I can remember...in poetry.

The basic story is well-known by now: in 1692, a group of young women and girls in Salem Village started accusing their neighbors of witchcraft. What followed was a literal witch hunt, as the authorities were determined to drive out all hints of sin in their village, and relied on the testimony of the girls to send 19 people to their deaths, and scores more to prison.

Wicked Girls delves into the inner lives of Mercy Lewis, Margaret Walcott and Ann Putnam Jr., following the girls and their cohorts from the initial incriminations through to the bitter end. Hemphill hypothesizes what drew the girls to accusations of witchcraft and why they continue even in the face of doubts.

I'm truly torn about this book, because on the one hand, Hemphill has crafted an amazing story. There are many theories about why the girls began crying witch, and Hemphill explores the possibility that the girls were essentially drunk on power. Once the girls started making accusations, they suddenly had the attention of the entire town. Powerful men were listening to them, and servant girls were just as powerful as the daughters of the merchant class. Some of Mercy's poems were almost physically painful, as she describes being looked at as a powerful person to be respected, rather than a pretty girl to be lusted after by men young and old. Hemphill also explores some scary "mean girl" dynamics, as the ringleaders try to ensure loyalty among the group, showing just how strong peer pressure can be.

On the other hand, as I said at the start of this review, I'm just not a fan of poetry for historical fiction. The poetry itself is fine, though it was more the content that affected me rather than the style. I can't see what the poetry added to this story that couldn't have been achieved through prose. As I said in my Goodreads review, I wanted to give this 2.5 out of 5 stars as a perfect half-way point, reflecting all the good things I felt about the plot that were essentially negated by the format.

Review: Bruiser by Neal Shusterman

When I finished reading this, all I could do was agree with Laurie Halse Anderson's cover blurb - this was a wild ride, and absolutely magical.

Brewster "Bruiser" Rawlins was voted "Most Likely to get the Death Penalty" by the school - so when 16 year old Tennyson discovers the brute is dating his twin sister, Bronte, he's pissed and does everything possible to sabotage the relationship, from following the pair to mini-golf to making sure their dad knows the kid's brutal reputation. Bronte, however, insists the others don't know Bruiser - they don't know he's memorized "Howl" and how tenderly he cares for his little brother after their mother has died and they're living with a drunk uncle. Tennyson is reluctantly drawn to Bruiser, after seeing him in the locker room with his back covered in bruises and scars. As Bruiser becomes closer to Tennyson and Bronte, the twins start  noticing strange things happening when he's around - their injuries heal and disappear quickly, while Bruiser adds new ones daily. And while their parents' marriage is crumbling, when Bruiser is around their problems don't seem to be so bad. Bruiser's friendships with Tennyson, Bronte and their family lead to complex questions about the meanings of friendship, family and pain.

I read this shortly after I finally got around to watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and found myself comparing the two in terms of tone and genre. Shusterman has written a story that has some very classical elements, combining a deathly serious story with the slightest touch of fantasy. There is no explanation for Bruiser's abilities, just like no real explanation is given for Benjamin's aging in the movie (and, I assume, the story on which its based). It's just something that exists, and in the face of undeniable evidence, Tennyson and Bronte accept it with little question. They acknowledge it's weird, and they wish they knew the how and why of it all, but when your twisted ankle heals itself in minutes while your boyfriend suddenly starts limping, you can't really argue with what's happening.

There are four narrators to this story: Tennyson and Bronte, then Bruiser and his little brother, Cody. The last two are the narrators that really stick out stylistically, for Cody narrates perfectly in the voice of an eight year old who is simultaneously wise beyond his years and painfully naive. He's never had a real injury, which gives him even more bravado than the average eight year old, but he's also been witness to and subjected to horrific abuse at the hands of his uncle. And Bruiser narrates in amazing poetry - starting with a perfect adaptation of "Howl" before moving into free verse.

This is a dramatic story with some very serious questions at its core about pain, joy, family, responsibility and friendship. The magical touch of Bruiser's ability gives Shusterman a unique way to comment on life, without having to go too far into the realm of fantasy. It is a perfect blend of the fantastic and the all-too real.

Nonfiction Monday Review: I Am an Emotional Creature by Eve Ensler

Found via: Amelia Bloomer Project

I debated whether this should be a Nonfiction Monday post or not. It's poetry/monologues, but they are all drawn from interviews and writings of real teenage girls. There are no fictional characters or plot - it's a collection of writings about the real experiences of girls and young women, that have been polished by Ensler. Since Amazon includes it in two nonfiction categories and one fiction category (literature and fiction > Drama), and the Library of Congress headings don't include fiction, I figured it could count for Nonfiction Monday.

Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues was a watershed moment for women. A play that spoke frankly about the most shamed part of our bodies. While there are parts of it that are definitely applicable to women of all ages, it's generally not the sort of text you hand to a middle or high school girl. But where can these girls to turn for validation of their experiences? Ensler has filled that void with I Am an Emotional Creature. Inspired by girls all over the world, from US suburbs to eastern European brothels, African villages to middle eastern cities, the poems and monologues interspersed with "girl facts" about our bodies and our treatment around the world (child labor, sex trafficking, etc) give voice to a variety of female experiences. There's the girls at a sleepover playing "would you rather," girls experiencing first love and their "first time," and girls who were sold into slavery - or ran away from home to escape that fate.

The actor in me relished these poems and monologues, as they beg to be performed. Many of the poems are obviously drawn from the experiences of multiple girls and I am sure would be best understood if the various lines were said by different girls to build a story.

Randomly, one selection from The Vagina Monologues is included - "My Short Skirt." It's an excellent poem and definitely worthy of inclusion considering how young women are often shamed for their fashion choices, it was just slightly distracting for me as I was reading the poem and thinking "I've heard this before..." (Freshman year of college I performed in The Vagina Monologues. Unfortunately I didn't do "My Short Skirt." I got to put on my best British accent and perform "The Vagina Workshop")

This should be considered mandatory reading for every teenage girl - even teenage boys would benefit from some of these (like the aforementioned "Short Skirt"). While much of the book is about body image and sexuality, there are lots of other topics too - like child labor, from the girl who works in a Chinese factory assembling Barbies, and dating violence, like in the letter to Rihanna penned by a girl in her own abusive relationship but hasn't left, like Rihanna did. It's an excellent assortment of points of view, arranged well so you aren't overwhelmed by dark and depressing themes before a more lighthearted piece pops up.



Nonfiction Monday is hosted this week by the Book Nosher. Be sure to check out all the other great nonfiction books highlighted today!

The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

Recommended by Cindy who sold me on it by saying "Humor, grief, sexy bits"

I apologize profusely for taking so darn long to post this review. This was the first thing I read back during the read-a-thon, having only a quarter of the book left to finish at the beginning of the day and desperately needing to finish it before I started on anything else. Why has it taken me so long to write this review? Because the read-a-thon was when my books read to books reviewed ratio started to get skewed and I just lost track of this one for awhile.

But no longer!

Lennie and Bailey are sisters who've been inseparable for as long as Lennie can remember. Abandoned by their mother when Lennie was only two, they've grown up with Gram, an artist who only paints with the color green and grows the most beautiful roses in town, and Uncle Big, a man in love with love, and they've been a content, if idiosyncratic, family for years.

Until Bailey dies suddenly of an arrhythmia. Lennie feels like she's lost without her beautiful and talented older sister around. Gram and Big both fret over Lennie, trying to support her while also letting her heal and grieve in her own way. To add to Lennie's disorientation, she finds that after a lifetime of indifference to boys, sex is suddenly on her mind all of the time, leading her alternately into the arms of her sister's boyfriend and the handsome new French boy in her music classes, in an attempt to reconnect with the world again.

I should note that Cindy's full recommendation of this read "Humor, grief, sexy bits, a reefer smoking uncle and a painter gram (who is made of awesome) and random poetry, a forest bed and band geeks. Doesn't get much better." I couldn't agree more, and that one sentence really does sum up all of the wonderful aspects of this novel. All of the characters were beautifully drawn, even the adults (who often get the short end of the stick in YA books). I love that Uncle Big still loves the idea of romance after five divorces, and fully believes that the roses Gram grows cause people to fall in love.

The snippets of poetry throughout the novel are absolutely inspired. Each chapter begins with a piece of Lennie's poetry written on any number of found objects - receipts, coffee cups, park benches - if she can leave her words on it, Lennie will find a way.

Lennie's relationships are absolutely heartbreaking and totally real. Sometimes she isn't the easiest person to like, because the rational part of my mind says making out with two different guys and lying about it is uncool, but at the same time my heart was breaking for her - Lennie has lost so much in her life, is it so wrong that she wants all of the love she can get at this time?

Definitely one of the top books of the year - you absolutely have to seek this one out!

Review: Borrowed Names by Jeannine Atkins

Found via: Read Roger

More poetry! But I'm not too bothered I couldn't fit this in to National Poetry Month, as this collection is all about mothers and daughters. Well, three specific pairs of mothers & daughters: Laura Ingalls Wilder and daughter Rose Wilder Lane, Madame C.J. Walker and daughter A'Lelia Walker and Marie Curie and daughter Irene Joiliot-Curie. A perfect post-mother's-day book!

1867 was apparently a banner year, as that is the year the three mothers highlighted in this collection were born. The book is divided into three sections, each focusing on one mother/daughter pair, chronicling the daughter's life as she grows up, watching her mother, learning from her mistakes, and gaining inspiration for her own life. For the daughters are no slouches either: Rose Wilder Lane was a journalist and a biographer before helping her mother turn stories of her childhood into the Little House series; A'Lelia Walker used the fortune she earned as part of her mother's company to support the Harlem Renaissance; and Irene Joliot-Curie joined her mother as a WWI X-Ray technician, saving countless lives, before earning her own Nobel Prize, following in her mother's footsteps by studying radioactivity.

The poetry is well done, as is the biographical content. While I'm no expert on any of these women, Atkins doesn't pull any punches and shows both the ups and downs in these women's lives, including a troubled marriage for Rose and the sexism of the Nobel committee. This bit stuck out for me:

She remembers them taking a train to Sweden
where a woman might earn the Nobel Prize
but would be kept from speaking on the stage

Borrowed Names page 149
It's subtle but spot on, in the way that only poetry can be.

This is the sort of book I would have loved to have available for Ada Lovelace Day. Maybe someone else will pick it up for review next year. While I don't think this would be a replacement for a full biography on any of these women, it's certainly an interesting supplement, and really breathes life into these families in a way a standard biography never can.


Nonfiction Monday is hosted this week by Picture Book of the Day. Check out other great non-fiction posts going up today!

Review: How Beautiful the Ordinary ed. by Michael Cart

Found via: 2010 Lambda Literary Award Finalist

The subtitle on this should really be "Twelve stories of sex." I really don't want to think of myself as a prude, but there are a lot of teenagers/young adults getting it on in this book - including a poem that wouldn't be out of place in an erotica collection. If ever there was a book that seemed intent on catching the attention of the book-banners, this is it.

I'll admit, that I was a bit put off from this book from page 2, during the introduction, before the stories has even started. As I tweeted on Tuesday, the introduction refers only (and repeatedly) to "gay, lesbian and transgender" folks. As someone who identifies under the "B" in the LGBT acronym, the forgotten bisexual reference really stuck out for me. Now it's totally possible that no stories featuring bisexual characters were submitted (though there are two stories that feature men sleeping with and/or marrying women as well as sleeping with men), but I wish that had been acknowledged in the introduction. I don't want to play oppression Olympics, but I'd bet that bisexual characters are almost as invisible as transgender characters.

So I was already spoiling for a fight with this collection. I was ready to relax after reading the first story and title piece by David Levithan. It's haunting and beautiful, addressed directly to the reader from the general collective of gay people from the past. From there the quality was rather uneven. Stories about gay men outnumber the stories about lesbians which outnumber the stories about transgendered teens. I gradually lost interest as the book went on until I about quit halfway through Gregory Maguire's incredibly long concluding story. I actually like the plot of that one, but it just dragged on for way too long, which isn't a way I'd describe Maguire's other work.

The other 2010 Lambda Literary Award finalists for YA lit are:
Ash by Malinda Lo
In Mike We Trust by PE Ryan
Sprout by Dale Peck
The Vast Fields of Ordinary by Nick Burd

I've read (and linked to my reviews) Ash and Vast Fields of Ordinary, so of the three that I've read so far, I'm rooting for Ash to take the award. I'm waiting for Sprout from the library, but they don't have In Mike We Trust yet, so I don't think I'm going to be able to read all of the nominees before the May 1st award ceremony. What I don't understand is how something as uneven and unsatisfactory as this collection can be nominated while great, groundbreaking books like Almost Perfect and Rage are totally ignored.

If you're a fan of David Leviathan, I can definitely recommend picking up this book from the library to read his short story. If you are looking for more transgender representation in YA lit, the stories in here are good. There are also at least three stories featuring people of color: one about a transgender young man who is half black, half white, another about a gay Thai man and the protagonist of Maguire's concluding story is Iranian-American. If you want some lesbian poetry that is sure to be dogeared and passed illicitly among tittering friends at the lunch table, then this would be worth a look as well. Otherwise, pass.

Review: Blue Plate Special by Michelle D. Kwasney

Found via BBYA 2010 nominations

Note to self: when going on a weekend outing with your mother, don't take along a book about girls who have less-than-stellar relationships with their mothers! Sure, it might make you appreciate your own mother more, but what a downer!

Madeline, Desiree and Ariel are three very different young women growing up in three very different times. Madeline is quiet and overweight in 1977, the defacto head of the family since her father is gone and her mother prefers to spend the welfare checks on alcohol. Desiree, getting ready to graduate from high school in 1993, tells her story through poetry (and I didn't hate it!), as she tries to avoid her mother and her mother's skeezy boyfriend, finding her only refuge in her high school sweetheart. Ariel, the contemporary girl in 2009, has a workaholic for a mother and is throwing herself at Shane, her new boyfriend that wants her to spend all of her time with him - and only him.

Like I hinted at above, this book is a bit melancholy, but ultimately thoroughly enjoyable.

I always find it supremely satisfying when I reach the end of a book and can sit back and appreciate just how finely crafted the book is. There are complex books out there that can feel like they're being complex just for the sake of complexity; there are others that are exciting and breathtaking but don't necessarily feel like they were crafted. It took me a little bit to really feel immersed in Blue Plate Special, probably because the chapters alternate between three different young women in three different decades, but at the end you can't help but appreciate how deftly Kwasney has woven their stories together.

Review: Almost Astronauts by Tanya Lee Stone

Winner: Siebert Medal 2010

I've never seriously wanted to be an astronaut - unfortunately, I'm one of those women who dropped out of math and science way too early to think of making a career of it. But I've always been fascinated with space (I blame family Star Trek nights as a child). Combine that with my desire to read anything about women's history I can get my hands on and Almost Astronauts becomes my kind of book!

Stone has packed a lot of history into a compact book, giving great descriptions of not only the physical astronaut trials the Mercury 13 women went through, but also the social and political trials they faced in daring to want to pilot a space shuttle. Stone does an excellent job conveying the various injustices these women faced; the jokes made at their expense, and the outright discrimination they received from the highest levels of government. Sprinkled throughout the book are also concise glimpses of what was going on for women outside of NASA in the 60s and 70s, so contemporary readers get the feeling that these women weren't only being shut out of NASA, but they were shut out of institutions we now take for granted (I don't know how I would function if I weren't allowed to do banking on my own without my husband's permission!)

Stone also follows up on the Mercury 13's history by showing what has happened for women in flight in the last 40+ years, from Sally Ride being the first female mission specialist (which was actually quite different from what the Mercury 13 were trying to accomplish - they wanted to be pilots, while Ride was a scientist. And important and exciting position, but her presence on the shuttle wasn't the success the Mercury 13 had been waiting for) to the first woman Thunderbird pilot. But Stone also isn't afraid to point out that everything is roses now - I was very happy when she pointed out that in media portrayals of contemporary astronauts, the men are still portrayed as heroes off to do a job while stories on the female astronauts tend to focus on their non-spaceflight hobbies and how their children will cope with Mommy being away. All too often these subtle forms of sexism go unnoticed, and while it's disheartening they're still there, we can't eradicate them if we don't recognize their existence.

Be sure to check out Stone's website for bonus material - poems that she wrote when she was originally envisioning this book as a children's poetry picture book. It's a fun addition to the text of the book - like an Easter Egg on a DVD, but more literary.

Almost Astronauts is absolutely a must read for anyone interested in space, NASA, and previously-unknown tidbits of women's history.

Review: Lavinia by Ursula K. LeGuin

I have a weakness for re-tellings of famous stories from the points of view of different characters. Wicked remains one of my perpetual favorite books in part for that reason. While I'm not familiar (at all) with The Aeneid, I hoped that this re-telling, from the point of view of a woman who is mentioned in the epic, but never speaks, would capture my imagination.

Short version of this review: it didn't.

Longer version: Lavinia has grown up as the daughter of a peaceful king. She takes pleasure in the simple tasks of her home, including helping her father with religious rituals and visiting the sacred oracle at Albunea. But as Lavinia grows into a woman, her beauty, and the power a man would gain by marrying the daughter of a great king, begin to attract attention from a wide variety of suitors. While her mother pushes her to marry Turnus, Lavinia - ever pious - insists she follow the words of a prophecy she and her father learned at Albunea: Lavinia must marry a foreigner.

That foreigner is Aeneus, a Trojan hero who has a prophecy of his own to fulfill. The jealousies of men to lead to war, as they so often do. While Aeneus is successful in fulfilling his end in the prophecy, Lavinia watches in fear as he inches ever closer to fulfilling the tragic end of her own prophecy - and after it is complete, learns how to continue living in contentious times.

Overall, I was just bored with this book. Perhaps that had something to do with the last book I read (Graceling) being such an awesome adventure. Maybe if I knew The Aeneid I would have been entertained by catching references to the original work. But while I'm always interested in women's stories and women's histories, I was just bored throughout this one as Lavinia was so often a passive presence in her own life. Her entire life was ruled by men or prophecy - honestly, she only began to feel engaging in the last twenty or so pages (I just checked and I can't believe it was only that long - not only was I bored, but this book dragged). Since it's totally possible to have a story starring a character who never does anything for her- or himself (Hamlet springs to mind, though that may be just because my fiance has spent the last two days memorizing the 'To be or not to be' soliloquy and Hamlet is kind of taking over the apartment), I guess I'm sort of at a loss as to why LeGuin felt this book had to be written. Since so much of Lavinia's life is spent not doing anything on her own, what does this really add to The Aeneid? If this is what Lavinia's life was like, perhaps there's a reason she had nothing to say in the original poem...

Review: Looks by Madeleine George

This is a slim book, but it's not a fast read because of it's length: it's a fast read because of the engrossing and unique tale Madeleine George spins about two girls and their struggles with their bodies, making friends and, of course, high school.

Meghan Ball is the fat girl - at least, that's what poet Aimee Zorn dubs her before she learns Meghan's name. Meghan has perfected the art of invisibility - she's so large that people treat her as if she were part of the scenery, or perhaps mentally disabled, and will say things around her they would never say if anyone else were listening.

At first there's only one exception to her powers of invisibility: the school's jock hero J-Bar has made it his personal mission to harass Meghan as much as possible - so long as he thinks the only witnesses are his jock friends.

The second exception is new student Aimee Zorn, who is as thin as Meghan is fat. Meghan sees a kindred spirit in Aimee, as if their polar opposite physiques could make them an unstoppable team. Years of perfecting invisibility, however, seem to have robbed Meghan of her ability to speak to the enigmatic new girl, so all Aimee sees is the fat girl - someone worthy of pity thanks to the merciless teasing from J-Bar Aimee witnessed.

Aimee joins the literary magazine and becomes fast friends with the editor, Cara, while Meghan lurks in the shadows of Aimee's life, first desperate to befriend her, then desperate to warn her away from Cara. When Aimee doesn't heed Meghan's warning, she realizes that she needs the fat girl's help - and an unstoppable team is born.

Surrounding Aimee's and Meghan's story is a colorful cast of characters, from Aimee's slacker ex-almost-step-father, to Mr. Handsley, the advisor for the literary magazine, passionate fan of the Caesar (as in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar) and enemy of jocks everywhere, to the incredibly obtuse Ms. Champoux (like the hair soap) who is probably the worst morning announcement reader ever.

Now, I'm not a fan of poetry, but generally I loved the poems that are scattered throughout this book. There are some great contrasts in poetic styles, from the cliche'd bit of high school poetry about birds first submitted to the literary magazine by one of Cara's simpering devotees to the rough, raw and ragged poetry that Aimee digs out from her weak little frame. They're great poems (or not so great poems used for great contrasting effect) and are used in just the right amount to keep from overwhelming the prose.

I also loved how Aimee's anorexia was treated, for Aimee is never actually diagnosed with anorexia through the entire book - she merely has allergies. To everything. So she doesn't eat. Lots of YA books have been written about girls with anorexia, but for such a complex disorder so many books reduce it down to one cause with one pattern of behaviors.

And finally, Mr. Handsley may be my favorite fictional teacher ever. Sure, I knew I was going to like him when he was so passionate about Julius Caesar (not my favorite Shakespeare play by a long shot, but it's more fun than Romeo & Juliet), but then he kicked a kid out of class for calling another kid a faggot and I just about cheered. I would have liked a lot more of my high school teachers if they'd had the guts to do that!

This is a great book about standing out from the crowd, and how living one's life as if one were invisible isn't actually a life at all.

Review: Unraveling by Michelle Baldini and Lynn Biederman

The jacket copy on Unraveling makes it sound like this is another Teen Sex Book, filled with morals about what teenage sexuality is like versus what it should be like, and how you shouldn't be pressured into sex, etc etc.

That is not at all what Unraveling is about.

Yes, the specter of teen sexuality hangs over the whole thing - Amanda is, after all, in a hurry to grow up and wants to go "all the way", either during a vacation to Myrtle Beach with the boy she met there last year, or back at school with her mortal enemy's boyfriend. But that's merely background chatter for what this book is really about: one teenager and her mother struggling to understand each other.

Amanda seems to always be at odds with her mother, aka The Capitan, a former English teacher who insists on proper grammar and word usage at all times with an almost slavish devotion to rules. The relationship is exacerbated by The Capitan's relationship with Melody, aka Malady, Amanda's younger sister who can apparently do no wrong. Everything and anything that goes wrong in the Himmelfarb household is apparently Amanda's fault, from stressful vacations to terrible family dinners to an unfortunate Shirley Temple (the drink) meets Chanel dress accident.

After a disastrous family vacation, complete with ill-timed periods and her mother discovering a secret tryst, Amanda returns to her usual life as a social outcast in high school. But when Rick Hayes, the boyfriend of Amanda's arch nemesis, begins to show an interest in her, Amanda is sure that everything will change.

In the meantime, her relationship with her mother continues its downward spiral. After setting up an e-mail account for her mother so she could keep in touch with her best friend, Amanda periodically checks in on what her mother is writing about her. The e-mails between the Captain and her best friend seem to confirm all of Amanda's worst fears: her mother hates her. This discovery leads to Amanda having to balance two precarious relationships: the burgeoning relationship with Rick, and the unraveling relationship with her mother. Helping her sort out her feelings are Amanda's cool aunt, the sister whose advice the Captain has never trusted, and her trusty notebook filled with poems about her feelings and eerily prescient fortune cookie fortunes.

Amanda's a very chatty narrator, and her voice was incredibly believable. Her feelings were completely authentic, from the bratty sister (I absolutely love the nicknames in this book - Malady might be the best annoying-sister-nickname ever) to worries over whether Rick actually likes her.

The harder part for me to read was the mother. I know I'm incredibly lucky to have grown up with a mother that I have always had a great relationship with. I honestly can't remember a single big fight we had. Sure, sometimes I don't completely "get" her (ie, she thinks George W. Bush is probably the best president ever while I...don't), but otherwise life has been pretty good. But like I said, I know I'm lucky, so I understand there are lots of books out there that look at mothers and daughters who have trouble connecting, for a variety of reasons.

This one, however, took the cake for me. The Captain isn't just mean in Amanda's opinion - we get to see e-mails The Captain sends to her best friend where she complains about how incompetent her daughter is. At first I thought, since this is a first person perspective where you can't always entirely trust the narrator's perspective, that Amanda was exaggerating her mother's horribleness. Nope. Mom's a bitch, plain and simple. Oh she apparently had an angsty past that has colored how she interacts with Amanda, but that doesn't explain why she so blatantly favors her younger daughter, or why she's so self-centered around her husband.

On a positive side for the book, I did like the "multi-genre" quality of it. Interspersed with fortune cookie fortunes, poetry written by Amanda, and e-mails sent back and forth between the Captain and her best friend, the variety of story telling methods give a well rounded view of what is going on for Amanda at this point in her life.