Scars

Title: Scars
Author: Cheryl Rainfield
ISBN: 9781934813324
Pages: 248 pages
Publisher/Date: WestSide Books, c2010.

I snatch my backpack off the ground and rummage through it, looking for my sketches, my doodles, for anything I can use to distract her–to distract us both.
“I mean–I don’t think I’m ready.” But I have to be. I have to figure out who he is. So why do I feel like I’m going to vomit when I think about it?
I yank things out of my backpack–a bruised apple, an English test, an overdue library book, but no sketchbook. I dump my backpack upside down; pens, pencils, my dirty gym socks, a half-eaten granola bar all fall out. I shake my bag harder. Then a bright square of paper falls out.
It’s a deep magenta, almost red, folded into stiff squares. I’ve never seen it before. I pick it up by its shiny edges and open it. It makes a crackling sound.
There are only a few words typed on the page, but they cut through me like a blade: “You have broken your promise.”
My breath shudders in my throat. His hand gripping my wrist. His lips against my ear.
“What is it?” Carolyn asks, from far away.
I hand her the note with unsteady hands. “It’s from him.” (10-11)

Kendra Marshall is trying to deal with the resurfacing of memories of being sexually abused as a young child. Ever since she started seeing her therapist Carolyn, Kendra has suspected that abuser has been following her. Scary, threatening notes prove her suspicion, and her cutting to handle the pain has escalated. When a classmate comes to her rescue in the school hallway, Kendra thinks she might have found a new friend after her last friend left her. But getting close to someone might be too much to ask for as she struggles to determine who in her life ruined her childhood.

The author, Cheryl Rainfield, has been very open about her own struggles and experiences with both sexual abuse and cutting. She provides a wealth of resources at the end of the book for readers who might be suffering. While I don’t have any personal experience with cutting or sexual abuse (and I am extremely grateful), I do know a classmate in high school who revealed after the fact that she cut. I had wished that I had known during our school years. After reading this book, I’m not sure if I would have been able to do anything to help her.

Rainfield gives the side-effects of the abuse justice, giving the feelings and emotions credence. Kendra would rather feel the pain from cutting then the pain from her unidentifiable attacker. Her inability to trust anyway is also explained clearly and concisely. Lois Duncan recommends on the back cover that “It could prove to be a life-saver for other young victims of abuse and self-harm.” In actuality, it brings the problem to light for readers who could never comprehend what these teens might be going through.

The opening, part of which I’ve quoted above, grips readers from the start. You want to know who is following her, and why, and if she ever remembers the specifics of what happened to her. You want to see her overcome these problems. The suspense continues as uncertainty is cast on everyone that Kendra comes in contact with, and she continually has readers guessing if he’s the one who did this to her. It helps that Kendra has the support group she does, who know when to get her the help that she needs and know how to react. If only every teen facing these difficulties had this kind of support and professional help. A must read.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Title: Will Grayson, Will Grayson
Authors: John Green and David Levithan
ISBN: 9780525421580
Pages: 310 pages
Publisher/Date: Dutton, c2010.

I walk out the door, jog a half block down Clark, and then sit down on the curb and wait for my pulse to slow down.
Which it is just starting to do when my fellow underage Frency’s pilgrim runs up to me and says, “Who are you?”
I stand up then and say, “Um, I’m Will Grayson.”
“W-I-L-L G-R-A-Y-S-O-N?” he says, spelling impossibly fast.
“Uh, yeah,” I say. “Why do you ask?”
The kid looks at me for a second, his head turned like he thinks I might be putting him on, and then finally he says, “Because I am also Will Grayson.” (110)

On that fateful night, with a ineffective fake ID, Will Grayson meets Will Grayson. The two Will Graysons have nothing alike, with one being straight and single and the other being a closeted gay and supposedly meeting up with his internet crush. But a turn of events that no one sees coming forces them to not only confront their alter egos, but come to some self-realizations of their own.

I’m torn as to what to think about this book. I liked straight Will Grayson slightly more than gay Will Grayson, but both were fairly self absorbed people. I think I was most drawn in at the beginning of the book, but when things go from bad, to good, to worse, the book is so full of self-reflection that I think all the charcters took a back seat. While there were some fairly profound statements that came out of the characters mouths, I think what stays with readers (at least me) most is the examination of the various relationships. The convoluted courtship that occurs makes you step back and re-examine where you are and what you’re doing in your own life. Maybe that was the intention?

In actuality, I didn’t think any of these relationships were really all that healthy. Gay Will ends up dating Tiny Cooper, a gay friend of straight Will. Just that sentence alone should show how convoluted and intertwined these relationships are. While there is obviously a lot of focus on the Wills (since they’re the narrators of the stories), I think Tiny is the one to blame when both relationship hit their bumpy roads. Tiny seems to take advantage of straight Will, forcing him to fight Tiny’s fights and stand up to bullies. As a result, straight Will gets teased and taunted. Tiny is seems oblivious to Will Grayson’s feelings about being essentially replaced in their friendship by someone with the same name. Talk about an identity crisis! In the midst of creating an autobiographical musical (yes, you read that right), Tiny is oblivious to straight Will’s feelings regarding a character in the play obviously based off him. Tiny also seems to be in love with being in love, which is never addressed. He actually gets upset when gay Will tries to point that out, saying that “some variation of this always happens”.

Tiny seems to steal the show (pardon the pun) from both Wills. Both Will Graysons are such bundles of nerves and feelings that they’re hard to follow. While it’s brought up that they had good reason for acting the way they do, the Wills are still the ones who end up apologizing and resuming disastisfying behaviors. I have a hard time accepting that no one else was at fault AND that either Will Grayson was wrong in reacting the way they do.

Hero

Title: Hero: A Novel
Author: Perry Moore
ISBN: 9781423101956
Pages: 428 pages
Publisher/Date: Hyperion, c2007.

I was the one who’d stopped the threat and saved the day back in the Simulated Training Area. I deserved to make that team more than anyone else. I wasn’t going to let them get away with this. They weren’t going to walk all over me. I turned around. [...]
I approached Justice, ready to chew him out. I was going to tell him off for abandoning my father when he needed him the most, remind him that he was supposed to live up to his name, and not just when the cameraas were rolling. I poked Justice on the shoulder with my index finger like I was mashing a beetle into his back. He turned his head, and I spun him around by his shoulder. Shock registered on Silver Bullet’s and Golden Boy’s faces. My lower lip trembled and a new thought suddenly entered my head. Screw the speech; I wanted to clock him. I clenched my fist, and Justice looked at me, surprised.
“Congratulations, Thom. You made the team.” (130-131)

High schooler Thom Creed is used to being a loner, especially when your dad is blamed for the biggest national disaster on record. His dad doesn’t let that or the loss of his hand on that day slow him down, and he attends all of his son’s basketball games. Thom gets an invitation to try out for the league of superheros that disowned his father all those years ago. While he’s excited about the prospect of becoming a superhero and discover his developing powers, he know better to tell his father. But this isn’t the only secret that Thom is keeping from his father. In a world of super heros and super villians, it seems like everyone has their own secrets including his missing mother, his teammates, and his father. Who can you turn to when there is noone to trust?

Perry Moore writes a compelling novel. The character development is top notch, with a friend of mine calling them “complex and realized” which I agree with. Thom’s got a lot going on, and he alternetly runs away from his problems and confronts them head on, depending on his mood. There are a multitude of relationships happening, and each one seems to have its own ups and downs. As Thom describes his rag-tag group of hero wannabes, “A leader that wants to kick some ass, some bitchy girl with a major attitude problem, a geriatric precog, a guy who should probably be quarantined at the Center for Disease Control, and me, just your average, ordinary, gay teen superhero.” (149) They aren’t the only ones, as Thom’s father and mother both evolve through Thom’s eyes as characters with involved motives, feelings, prejudices, and pasts.

I think it’s the gay aspect of Thom’s life that brings the most intrigue. You don’t hear about gay superheros as an authentic description, and more often it’s used as a derogatory term due to their tights and costumes. I’m grateful thought that Moore doesn’t overemphasize that aspect of Thom’s life. In my opinion there are too many books about homosexuals that would make that the only focal point of the plot, but in Hero it’s not so. This is an action-packed book, with several fights between villians and heroes, and the story is about a hero who happens to be gay struggling against bad guys, as opposed to a gay super hero who struggles against his homosexuality or prejudice because of his sexuality.

Readers familiar with comics and super hero stories might find quite a few similarities with Moore’s characters and those classic stories. Justice’s story mirrors that of Superman, crashing onto an Earth farm, being adopted by an elderly couple, maintaining an alter-ego who wears glasses and works as a newspaper reporter, and having one major weakness. The fact that he leads the League makes the group of superheros Justice’s League, which isn’t a far stretch than the well known Justice League. Wonder Woman becomes Warrior Woman, the Flash becomes the Silver Bullet, and portions of Batman’s history is super-imposed on Thom’s father’s history. One of Thom’s teammates briefly attended an instution that sounds remarkably like X-Men’s Xavier Institute. I’m not sure if he meant it as an homage to the greats who came before, or if these similarities were meant to be a parody.

One problem I do have with the book is that the charcters seem to grow exponentially by the end of the book. There is no mention of the problems facing them, and all resemblance of Thom as a teenager has disappeared by the final page. It seem like they became 20 somethings, striding toward their future. My friend who also read the book felt that it was difficult to pick out his intended audience, and I agree with that too. After the convience of making the main character a high schooler wore off, he seemed more like a displaced graduate then a dependent teenager.

Overall, I feel I would recommend it to teens. It’s an amazing story, even with the slights quirks mentioned, and I think the minimalist cover will draw them in.

The Vast Fields of Ordinary

Title: The Vast Fields of Ordinary
Author: Nick Burd
ISBN: 9780803733404
Pages: 309 pages
Publisher/Date: Dial Books, c2009.

I was sixteen at the time, and I knew I wasn’t straight. I’d known that for a fact since I was ten and my babysitter Kendra Kaufman let me stay up late and watch Nigh of 1,000 Werewolves, one of Johnny Morgan’s first films.
“I want to marry Johnny Morgan,” I told her when the credits were rolling.
“Kid,” Kendra said, “don’t tell our parents I let you watch that movie, and definitely don’t tell them what you just told me.” (15)

Dade Hamilton is struggling to come to grips with his life, which is spinning out of control. His dad tells him that he’s cheating on Dade’s mother, before telling his mother. He’s introduced to Lucy, a lesbian who has moved from California to live with her aunt in the small Iowa town because her parents think it will straighten her out. Finally, Dade realizes just after high school graduation that the guy he’s been dating will never be interested in breaking up with his public girlfriend and pursuing their secret relationship. When things couldn’t get any worse, Dade meets Alex at a party. From that starts an never ending spiral of events in Nick Burd’s The Vast Fields of Ordinary.

I’m going to be quite frank: I did not like this book. It was a pure struggle for me to continue reading this book to the very end. The events are depressing, and not in Lemony Snicket kind of sarcastic/ironic type of way. Drug use, alcoholism, and rampant sexuality abound in this book, which ends in a character’s suicide. I understand the need for books for teens who do witness and live with these types of problems. For me, who has never smoked or drank or dealt with events even remotely similar to what Dade and his friends encounter, it was a difficult read. You would really, really need to know the patron to be able to accurately and appropriately recommend this book. Haulden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye comes to mind with similar events, but it is definitely not of the same par as the classic.

While I’ll admit to a tendency to read happy books, I have throughly enjoyed books with sad endings and events in the past. They however must drive the plot. Dade does have a personal ephihany of sorts by the end, but it has taken him so long to reach that position, that I didn’t have any enthusiasm or investment in the characters. This first book, in my opinion, was a sensationalistic first flop.