In the end, you will fail to save that which matters most.

My daughter is a Percy Jackson fangirl. (How big of a fangirl? She was practically inconsolable when the series ended, she won a trivia contest [and collector's edition of the first book] at our local Borders during their movie kick-off event, she began studying Greek mythology, she was thrilled to get a copy of The Odyssey for Easter, and she was PISSED about the movie version BEFORE IT EVEN CAME OUT. Et cetera. I mean, I could go on.) So after we listened to all of the Harry Potter books, I promised her we would listen to the Percy Jackson books. As always, we started with book one: The Lightning Thief as read by Jesse Bernstein.

What I Liked

- I think the book is a lot of fun. The characters are great, especially the main trio (Percy, Annabeth, and Grover). Percy and his imperfections make the perfect kind of protagonist for reluctant readers, and the fact that he is a reluctant reader himself would probably endear him even more to that particular demographic. Annabeth is smart, snarky, and fearless. And then there’s sweet sidekick Grover.

The best thing about the trio is that they all have their own reasons for going on the quest, and they all have something to prove. Unlike in the Harry Potter books where Ron and Hermione are mostly helping out because Harry is their friend (and for the good of wizard-kind), every member of this trio has his or her own separate, personal, and mostly selfish reasons for joining the quest.

- The reliance on Greek mythology is awesome. As I stated above, it definitely fueled my daughter’s interest in Greek mythology (as well as other mythologies). There’s lots of fun background info given to the readers, and it’s all easily woven into the narrative instead of an obvious attempt to school us about Greek mythology.

- I also love the way Riordan modernizes Olympus and ties the United States and its geography to the gods and goddesses. That the record company is the entrance to the underworld? Awesome. DOA Recording Studios? BRILLIANT. The depiction of the gods and goddesses is also cool. Ares as a motorcycle head, Poseidon as a retired beach dude, and Zeus as a CEO? Nicely done.

What I Didn’t Like

- This is a very male heavy narrative. Annabeth is smart, snarky, fearless, insecure, and has something to prove. Percy’s mom (who is in an abusive relationship) is interesting and nuanced. However, Percy’s mom is absent for most of the narrative and the other female characters that are present (besides Annabeth) are villains and bullies. I hope that changes in the rest of the books.

- As for the audiobookiness of it all, the narrator is really annoying. Percy sounds like a whiny sixteen-year-old rather than a smart alecky twelve-year-old. And Jesse Bernstein narrates THE WHOLE SERIES. Shoot me now. Also, I should point out that my daughter hates the narration as well. It’s a very, very, VERY good thing the story is so compelling because there is nothing remotely appealing about Bernstein’s narration.

Except Ares. I’ll give him Ares. His Ares is very good.

In conclusion: I recommend the book, but not the audiobook version–unless you like your smart alecky twelve-year-old boys to sound like whiny sixteen-year-olds. The story is superfun, and I can see how and why Percy’s story has become so popular.

See larger image The Lightning Thief: Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Book 1 (Audio CD) By (author) Rick Riordan List Price: $19.99 USD New From: $10.84 In Stock Used from: $10.79 In Stock Release date June 14, 2005.

The fact is, I had no love from my mother or my father from the beginning, from birth. But I survived. To tell the truth, I haven’t received a real love almost ever in my life, believe it or not. People look at me now and think what a hot life I must’ve lived–ha! I never found a real, lasting love. But I have survived.

I, Tina: My Life Story is definitely a survival story. It details Tina Turner‘s life story in her own words (with some narrative help from Kurt Loder. Yes, that Kurt Loder), focusing on her youth in Tennessee, her rise to fame as part of Ike Turner’s revue, their terribly abusive marriage, her fall from fame, and then her career as a solo artist, which culminated in her being the oldest female artist to have a #1 hit.

The style of the book is certainly different. Unlike most memoirs, Tina’s is written in the third person with first person sections in Tina’s voice or her colleagues’ voices. And (surprise!) even Ike’s voice. So even though it’s definitely her story, it’s not exactly a memoir/autobiography the way I’ve experienced either before. The approach makes for interesting–and fuller–reading.

Before I move onto the content of the book, let me just say up front that it’s impossible for me to think about Tina Turner’s autobiography separately from the movie What’s Love Got to Do with It?. In college, my friends and I watched it practically every weekend, so much so that we knew the words to the movie and songs by heart. It had a profound effect on how I read the book and also how I’ll watch the movie in the future. So much left out! Some stuff that’s really, really important even.  So my review of the book will be tempered by the knowledge I have of the movie, focusing on what’s different.

Mainly, all I can say about the differences is that her life in the movie was bad, but her life in reality was much, much, MUCH worse.  It was basically terror-filled hell.

Here’s what I learned:

- Tina’s mother didn’t take her sister and leave Tina behind. Both she and her sister were left in the care of relatives until they each decided to join their mom in St. Louis at different times in their lives. (Tina, in fact, had several siblings, but she and Alline were closest in age.)

- Ike was not Tina’s first and only romantic relationship. She had a high school sweetheart, Harry Taylor, that she L O V E D and lost her virginity to.

- Tina was involved with someone else in the band (Raymond Wilson) before she and Ike ever got involved. In fact, Tina got pregnant by Raymond and they had a son.

- Ike and Tina were more like brother and sister when they started performing together. The first time she slept with him was more out of obligation than anything. (Ike initiated it, and she went along to get along. Definitely a sign of what was to come.) Both of them described the experience as weird/icky.

- Before they got involved he paid her for singing with the band, but after they got a record deal, he told her that he would pay her rent and keep the money for himself. They were romantically involved by this point and she was pregnant by him.

- Ike beat Tina before they ever got married. The first time he beat her was with a shoe stretcher in his office when she told him she wanted to go back to just being friends but would continue to work with him. She was pregnant by him at the time (he was still married, btw). He also made her have sex with him immediately after.

- Ike was involved with several of the women in Tina’s life. He would pick Ikettes based on who he wanted to sleep with. Once the women became involved with him, he would beat them as well.

- It was nearly impossible for almost anybody–male or female–to get away from Ike. He would threaten people and hunt them down if they tried to leave. He also carried a pistol at all times and had a reputation for pistol-whipping people. It was easier for him to control women, though, so most of the people who worked for him were women, including one of his ex-wives.

- He lost several band members because of his treatment of Tina.

- It took Tina a long, long time to fall out of love with Ike.

- After the drug use started, she says he became even more erratic and unstable, and the constant fear was even more constant. Where he used to do a slow burn and she could have days between beatings, she started to endure several a day.

- Tina’s closest friends were the other women in the group, most of whom were sleeping with Ike. How messed up is that?  Because her whole life was being on tour (Ike had them performing every night, basically), they were the only women she knew, and, because they were involved with Ike, they understood her situation very well.

- He stalked her terribly after she left him.

- Here is the one thing I am absolutely APPALLED that they left out of the movie, and that I think should have been addressed.  When Tina left Ike, she had to start over from scratch. That much is clear. What the movie doesn’t tell us is that Tina was responsible for paying back all of the no-show fees to the venues and promoters because she was the talent listed on the bill and who everybody was coming to see.  And she owed over $200,000 dollars.  So when she was doing the disco/cabaret performances, it wasn’t just to rebuild her image or jump start her career.  It was because she owed so much money, and she had to pay it all.  ALL OF IT.  Ike was not liable; she was.

- It took her over five years to re-establish herself as a viable artist. And she didn’t write “What’s Love Got to Do With It?”; someone else did.  But it was written FOR her to sing by someone not even aware of her situation.  And she was totally against it!  But they convinced her to sing it, and history was made.  So basically Tina Turner + “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” = MFEO.

Tina’s tale is a survivor’s tale. She talks about her transition from taking care of everyone else to realizing she needed to take care of herself.

The most surprising thing about the book is the humor. I’ve had the experience before of listening to women speak of their pasts, horrible though they may be, and laughing about it. My grandmother is a woman who does it. Tina is, too. She never makes light of her situation, but she’s able to see the ridiculous moments and find the hope there. Even when she talks about being depressed, she’s able to focus on the things, small though they might have been, that kept her going.

Though the book is hard to read at times, it’s a very satisfying read. I’m glad I read it.

Women Unbound: 6/8; POC Challenge: 16/15

See larger image I, Tina: My Life Story (icon!t) (Paperback) By (author) Tina Turner, Kurt Loder List Price: $13.99 USD New From: $4.32 In Stock Used from: $3.82 In Stock Release date June 22, 2010.

Right now I would love to have a personal message from God.  I want to believe the way I used to, when my dad or mom or sometimes both would pray with me at night and I would picture God listening, kind-eyed and bearded.  He was real to me, as real as my own parents.  I don’t know when God stopped being someone I saw as my true friend, and turned into something I’m mostly confused about.

Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr is about Sam, a preacher’s kid, who has a crisis of faith that is compounded by the kidnapping of one of her peers.

What I Liked

- I really enjoy Sara Zarr’s writing.  She is a sparse writer, but the emotion in all of her scenes is palpable.  I feel what Sam feels, always.

- The tension between Sam and her father.  That he doesn’t belong to just her but to the community, but that she wants him to see her as just as important and worthy of his attention as his calling to his congregation.

- Likewise, I love the way Sam’s mother is handled in this text.  I’ll have to agree with the review on Zarr’s page about how the mom isn’t villainized because she’s an alcoholic.  Because, yes, it’s true that not all drunks are mean drunks.  That doesn’t mean it’s a positive experience having an alcoholic parent, but…right.  Not all drunks are mean drunks.  That’s all I can say about that.  I also like that it’s clear Sam’s mom is suffering from depression, specifically, and not just raging alcoholism.

- The relationship between Sam and Nick.

- Okay, so basically all of the relationships in the book are fantastically handled.

- I also just really, really like how Zarr handles Sam’s loss of faith and how she navigates that necessity for something to grasp on to, not just to understand God, but to understand her world, which has been shattered first by her mother going to rehab and next by Jody’s abduction.

- The tension between who and what people expect Sam to be and just who she really is and how she really feels is well-handled.  You know, like everything else in the book.

I used to think my faith was mine. [...] I thought that what I believed was what I believed.  Now I think maybe I’m just…here because my parents expect it.

What I Didn’t Like

- This is honestly a dumb complaint, but the book is so sad.  It’s dumb because the book is melancholy from the outset, and the subject matter lends itself to sadness.  However, I have to say, I felt overwhelmed by sadness as the book continued, and I really, really wanted Sam to be happy, and it frustrated me that she was so unhappy.  Which is the point!  So, yes.  Dumb complaint.  But also a hint at how much I connected with Sam.

In conclusion:  Great book; great theme; excellently handled world, characters, and plot.

They promised me nine years of safety but only gave me three.

Such a Pretty Girl is by Laura Wiess.  It is called her debut novel, but I know better.  (And, yes, I know, pen names.  But still.  ALL SHOULD KNOW THE GIRL FRIENDS SERIES.)

At any rate, I sought this “debut” novel out because, of course, my love for the Girl Friends series knows no bounds, and I had to see what kind of writing one of my favorite series writers is up to.

In brief, Meredith’s father, a pedophile who raped her as well as several other children, is released from prison on good behavior six years early.  Her mother is still in love with him and demands that Meredith give her father another chance.

What I Liked

- This book is extremely short and fast paced, and Wiess does some truly spectacular character work in so few pages.  I could clearly picture all of the characters in my head, and I had a good sense of their personalities, their smells, everything.

- I finished the book in one sitting because I was so worried about Meredith and her friends and family.

- Wiess is not graphic at all, but she offers up concrete details that leave an indelible impression.  For example, Meredith mentions the charm on her father’s necklace and says she remembers the whomp of it against her teeth.  That is such a small detail that clearly paints a horrifying picture.  Gah.

- Meredith is in danger because her mother is blind to the horrors her father has committed.  Her mom constantly says he made a mistake and they should give him one more chance, and OMG.  It is awful.  But.  Important.  I had problems with the mother’s characterization, but Wiess makes a good point.  Sometimes it’s the blindness of those around children (EVEN KNOWING WHAT THEY KNOW) that keeps/puts them in danger.  Her mother is so caught up in wanting the dad that she is willing to believe he is not the monster he is convicted of being.  The “they” that promised her safety is the justice system, but more than that, should have been her mom.

- Aside from the mother and father, I loved all of the other characters.

- There’s some interesting religious stuff going on in the book.  Most notably:  victim souls.

What I Didn’t Like

- The characterization of the mother was flat, flat, flat.  I have no idea what made her so gung-ho about the dad.  (Not that any answer would have sufficed, but.)  This is a very self-sufficient woman with her own home that comes from money.  I got no sense of what made her so in love with him or why she felt the appearance of a together family was more important than her daughter’s safety.

- There’s a moment where Meredith equates adultery with pedophilia.  Um.  No.  I understand why it would upset her, but none of the characters ever addressed the fact that there’s a difference between two consenting adults doing the dirty and a grown man forcing himself on minors.

- I had to take some real plausibility leaps with this one.  That her dad lives in the same housing complex as her and legally fought to win that battle doesn’t sit right.  It might be possible, but I want to believe it’s not.  That said, her mother kept bringing him around, so it’s not like any kind of restraining order would’ve actually worked.

- I am not in love with the ending.  I can’t figure out how I feel about it, though.  On the one hand, I like it.  On the other hand…I don’t know.

Women Unbound?

Violence against girls, women, and children.

In conclusion:  This is not an easy book to read, and I’m not entirely sure I would suggest it to someone who has suffered abuse, only because it is so terrifying and Meredith spends so much of the book locked in terror.  Ultimately, though, she does have to figure out how to survive, and she figths for herself every step of the way.

In her dreams, at the end, Miranda loved her.

Impossible by Nancy Werlin is the story of a girl who is cursed to get pregnant and go crazy at seventeen–just like her mother before her and her mother before her, et cetera and so forth, way back to the beginning of time.

This book has a lot of similarities with the Magic or Madness trilogy by Justine Larbalestier, so I’d be remiss if I didn’t address that right away.  The main thing, of course, is the curse of teen pregnancy and the consequent madness, which I find an interesting approach to teen pregnancy.  I don’t study folklore or fantasy (nor do I read that much of it), but it made me wonder if pregnancy as a curse is recurring trope in folklore/fantasy.  I also find teen pregnancy as a literal curse to be a fascinating approach to teen parenthood and the way that teen parents sometimes beget teen parents.  So that it’s a curse is both problematic from a real life standpoint and interesting as a folklore trope.

I wish I had more to say about it than “huh, interesting” but…I don’t.  Maybe a folklorist would, though.

Anyway.  Down to business.

What I Liked

- I found this book compulsively readable.  I would pick it up and just read pages and pages in one sitting without even meaning to.  I really wanted to know what was going to happen.

- The relationship between Lucy and Soledad.  The evil dude even comments at one point that he hadn’t anticipated the effect of a mother’s love on helping Lucy break the curse, and I thought that was such a great moment.  The curse focuses on biological ties, but that Lucy’s bio mom is not able to help her but she has a wonderfully supportive and loving adopted mom who becomes instrumental in helping her break the curse is just awesome.

- The relationship between Miranda and Soledad, even as it’s written in the past.

Craziness aside, sadness aside, the diary was also the story of Miranda’s relationship with the one true friend that she felt she had ever had, and this was, of course, Soledad.

So, that goes back to the power of motherly love and also the power of female friendship.  Soledad is able to be such a fantastic mother to Lucy in part because of how much she loves Miranda and how connected the two of them are.  And part of the fight is Soledad reclaiming her friend’s life as much as it is about helping Lucy reclaim her own life.

- The romance, while cheesy, added to the overall message of the power of friendship and the all-encompassing power of love.

- LOVE CONQUERS ALL.  The end.

What I Didn’t Like

- This is not a story about the horrors of rape or the challenges of being a teen parent.  That said, Lucy is raped and becomes a teen parent, and while the book doesn’t exactly gloss over these as horrors or challenges, it doesn’t really do a good job of dealing with the issues either.  What I do like is that there is an emphasis on therapy and family support, but at the same time, I feel like Werlin missed an opportunity to really make some statements about both of these things.  Which leads into my next complaint…

- …the book is too short.  I feel like it could be a lot longer, and if it were, it would be able to address the Big Issues that it covers.  (It would also solve some of the summary/glossing over/big things happening off screen problems that some of the Goodreads reviewers had.)  Plus, I found myself actually wanting more of the story,  more about the characters, and more evidence of the connections between the characters, so I totally understood why Larbalestier did hers as a trilogy.  Because it’s just a lot of story to cram into a short book.  (Amazon says the book is 384 pages, but I still argue that’s short–especially given how big the font/margins are.)

- I don’t understand why this book was a National Book Award finalist.  I mean, yes, compulsively readable, but it had a lot of issues in execution.

In conclusion: I liked it, but recommend it with reservation just because I know several people who did not like it…mostly for the reasons I outlined above.

The current Diversity Roll Call addresses the problem novel as inspired by a Justine Larbalestier post.  More specifically:

Did you read these kinds of works when you were an adolescent? Did you think they were silly or did you gain something from them? Do you enjoy them as an adult? Do you recommend them to students or other teens you’re in contact with? Which titles and to whom would you recommend them? What issues or circumstances would like to see address in YA? What are your recommended best reads and which would you honestly say are poor examples in this genre?

First things first.  I think it’s important to define what a problem novel is to me.  Someone in the comments section over at Color Online said they would call it realistic fiction, but I honestly kind of like the Wikipedia definition of an adolescent’s first confrontation with a social or personal ill.  Which, yes, realistic fiction.  But I would take it a little further.  Since most realistic fiction deals with problems, I’m thinking more specifically of novels I would describe by the social or personal ill first as opposed to, say, the quest the character is on.  Like Monster is about a boy in jail or Out of the Dust is about a girl surviving the Dust Bowl. Because most books require characters to have personal ills on whatever level for the sake of conflict, a problem novel would be more about a social ill than anything.  Meaning that when I think about the novel, I think about it first in terms of that social ill and recognize the ill as a social problem.  (I’m trying to think of realistic fiction, I don’t define as a problem novel, and so far I have True Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet [her sobriety is a big part of the novel, but I first think of it as her leaving her old life behind for a small town], Story of a Girl [double standards, family issues, teen pregnancy, but I first think of it as about a girl who did something and now is trying to figure out what that means for her--maybe the title has something to do with that], and A Northern Light [which, I know, murdered pregnant woman, but I think of it more as about Maddie trying to decide if she should go away to school or not].)

At Color Online, Susan says:

The problem novel isn’t designed to fix life’s ills, but it can help a young person realize they are not alone and possibly find the courage to seek help or gain understanding. The problem novel is sometimes the first time a young person finds identification.

I would go a step further and say that it’s also to help teens gain understanding of people who are not like them that may have stories they don’t understand.  So if you know someone in jail or who has been raped or has an abusive parent, these kinds of books would benefit you.  And if you don’t personally know anyone facing these issues, you’ve probably heard about them on the news or whatever, so the books can personalize the story.

As a teen/adolescent, I read pretty voraciously, but I often don’t remember the books I read back then.  The only novels I remember that dealt with problems, honestly, are the SVH Very Special Topic books:  the one where Regina o.d.’s, the one where Robin is  anorexic, when Ken goes blind, etc.

Those, and Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson, which is one of my favorite books ever of all time.  I would count it as a problem novel because it’s all about how Wheeze feels slighted by her family, and Catherine is the preferred sister:  she’s prettier and more talented, and more importantly, she almost died at birth.  I haven’t read the book in years, but Louise’s pain is just as palpable to me now as it was then.  Also, I never forgot the ending where Louise makes sure both twins she helps deliver receive equal attention so those babies won’t go through life the way she and her sister did.  OH MY HEART.

It’s only now as an adult that I can identify that most of the books I read now are problem novels–or realistic fiction.  And for me, the gold standard of problem novels is Monster by Walter Dean Myers.  Not only is it about a boy in the system, it’s also about the problems with the system. It also addresses all of the issues in a non-didactic way.  Everything is just put on the page for you to decide what to do with it.  (I wrote a whole paper on the book, so I’m trying to be concise.  Basically, the heteroglossia of the novel lends itself to the reader making up his/her own mind about the issues in the book.)  I also love that, in any of the classes I’ve taught on the book, there is never any agreement about whether Steve is innocent or guilty, but everybody can agree that the system is messed up.

In fact, I’d classify most of WDM’s books as problem novels:  Shooter (school shootings), The Beast (heroin), etc.  His most didactic book is the one on recidivism (A Handbook for Boys), and while I like it, I can imagine it’d be pretty annoying to a teen (as evidenced by the reaction of my students when I taught it).  The topic is still well handled, but, yeah, didactic.

Anyway, there are lots and lots of books I’ve read and like that fit this topic, but I’m going to narrow it down to five other books I’d recommend that all deal with different societal ills.

The Queen of Everything by Deb Caletti is about a girl whose dad kills his girlfriend’s husband.

Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff is about a girl who babysits for a teen mom in their impoverished neighborhood.

Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott is about a girl who is held captive by a pedophile.

Inexcusable by Chris Lynch is about a boy who rapes a girl.

Hope Was Here by Joan Bauer is about a teen who joins a campaign to fight political corruption in her town.

I’ll be honest.  I don’t exactly like Living Dead Girl or Inexcusable but I think they’re doing something different and are worth a read.  LDG is extremely disturbing (so very disturbing, so very VERY disturbing), but I seriously could not stop reading it once I started.  Inexcusable is not even a very good book, and it left me with a feeling of incompleteness at the end (needed more something), but it’d make a good companion to Speak.  As for the other books, I’ve taught them, and my students have liked them.  Hope Was Here is probably the least depressing of the books just because it’s so gosh darned upbeat and uplifting even when it’s dealing with heavy issues, which is why I’ve included it on the list.

I also feel that any list of books about problem novels without a mention of Chris Crutcher, and specifically, Whale Talk is incomplete.  All of his books are, on some level, about abuse and its effects.

And then there are all of the other books that I’m not going to spotlight, but that I think fit this category.  So, a list:

• The First Part Last by Angela Johnson (teen pregnancy/parenthood)
• Shattering Glass by Gail Giles (bullying)
• The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler (fat acceptance)
• Looking for Alaska by John Green(death–although, as my students pointed out in one class, it is rare not to have death in YA lit)
• Big Mouth & Ugly Girl by Joyce Carol Oates (media hysteria)
• Just Listen by Sarah Dessen (rape)
• Dreamland by Sarah Dessen (partner violence)
• Don’t You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dumphrey by Margaret Peterson Haddix (neglect)
• North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley (disfigurement/emotional abuse)
• Don’t Think Twice by Ruth Pennebaker (teen pregnancy)

“You know, if you had told me two weeks ago that I’d be involved in a rally and have a whole new group of girl friends, I never would have believed it…I don’t know whether it’s the rally that’s making me feel so good, or the girls…It’s…I don’t know how to explain it.”

“Exhilarating?”

“Yeah, but that’s not really strong enough,” Stephanie said. “It’s just…the best.”

Last month I said I was rereading the first book in one of my favorite series, Girl Friends, and I finally finished. This is a book I’ve read lots and lots of times, and what I find most interesting is that, of course, as I reread, I notice different things that I hadn’t before.

When I first read the series back in 1993, I related most readily to Natalie and Cassandra, since they’re black cousins.  Natalie is a lot like girls I knew in school and her situation with a deadbeat dad and knowing pregnant teens is something I could easily grab on to.  Cassandra is a ballet dancer, and since I took dance, though not as intensely,  I totally got that part of her.

I also related a lot to Janis who has a big mouth.  There’s a part in one of the later books (book 3 maybe?) where Cassandra laments that Natalie and Janis have found each other since they’re the two biggest antagonists she knows.  It’s a small detail that I’ve always loved because, yes, Janis and Natalie would have been my friends.  And me and my friends were totally obnoxious and loud in high school.

I had a huge crush on a guy who got high all the time, so I got Stephanie and her relationship with Phillip (although, my pothead was not in love with me, sadly).  I was also writing an epic novel/series of my own, so I loved that Stephanie always referred to Frances, the heroine of all her stories.  Stephanie frequently rewrites scenes she’s living in her head or on paper, and that still is awesome.

I never much related to Maria. I mean, yes, I was on the pom squad in high school, but she’s pretty and popular and her family has money. However, on reread, I find her story the most fascinating. I remember most of the details of her story, of course:  she bucks the popular crowd to hang out with the girl friend; her brother is the front man of a local band; her boyfriend assaults her and then brands her a slut.

What Grey does with Maria that I didn’t catch back then or even five or six years ago is pretty thoroughly deconstructs societal pressures on girls.  Maria stays with her boyfriend that she hates because she is terrified of what will happen in her circle of cheerleading friends if she chooses to break up with him.

This is how she describes Leif:

He was in her way, like a thick, brick wall, preventing her from escaping, making her feel trapped and anxious and she wouldn’t be sorry if she never saw him again.

This comes on page 52, which is pretty early in the book, and is the beginning of an exchange when she realizes she should break up with him because she doesn’t really like him, but it’s nice to have someone to date who is in her circle.  Right as she’s about to tell him she doesn’t want to date him anymore, this happens:

“Leif,” she began, then stopped as an image of Vanessa rose in her mind.  ’You what?’ the image shrieked, clutching its chest in horror. ‘You broke up with your only squeeze less than a month before Homecoming because he tried for serious sugar? What’re you, nuts?’

Maria then “surrenders to the familiar logic” and instead of breaking up with Leif, politely says good-bye.  And the thing is Maria HATES Leif.  He completely disgusts her.  When they go on dates, she dresses in what is essentially armor because he has grabby hands, and if he can’t get his hands inside her clothes, she ends her dates with a sense of triumph because she’s bested him.  It is pretty thoroughly disgusting, but Maria is all about appearances.  And not only appearances but maintaing the status quo, keeping things on an even keel. She would rather go out with Leif who is disgusting and who makes her feel anxious than risk not having a date for the dance or having to explain herself to her cheerleading friends.  It’s just easier for her, socially, to go along with it all than to dump him.  Because if she breaks up with him, she’ll be bucking expectation, and worse, she’ll have to explain.  Which she says!

Leif would be showing up anytime now and she hated the thought of dealing with him in front of everybody.  Driving home with him after the game on Friday had been a bad move but everyone had expected it, so what was she supposed to do? They were, in a way, a couple and blowing him off now, for no good reason, would be social suicide.

Everyone had expected it!  She knew it was a bad move, but she knew what was expected of her, so she did it.  Way better to deal with Leif and how gross he makes her feel than to commit social suicide.

Then there are Maria’s parents and brother.

Her parents had always taken great pains to protect her.  They had rules regarding what was acceptable and if her rules were stricter than Jesse’s had been, it was, her parents explained, because more harm could befall a girl.  Having fun was one thing, but once a girl got herself in trouble, it would follow her forever.

Jesse, by the way, is a huge slut.  And that’s what the books call him with no qualifiers (i.e, he is not a “male” slut, just a good old slut) who sleeps with groupies who he describes as a “nameless, faceless way to work off energy.”  He also tells his sister not to be like the girls he has sex with.  And Maria knows and understands it’s a double standard, but she can’t help living it.  Her reputation IS everything to her.  And not just sexually, because she knows the boys lie and say they have gotten something from her, but socially.

So Maria plays by the rules.  She doesn’t break up with Leif. She tries to maintain appearances.  And in the second book, Leif assaults her.

SHE DOES EVERYTHING RIGHT.  She tries to please everybody.  And it fails.  And what I think is brilliant is that Grey clearly shows WHY a girl would stay in a relationship with someone who makes her anxious and suffocates her and who she hates kissing and doesn’t want to touch.  I mean, no, Janis or Natalie wouldn’t do that, and even Stephanie has Phillip who loves her, but Maria wants to fit in and wants to belong and wants to not rock the boat.  And she knows she should like Leif, on paper at least, and she doesn’t really have anybody else right now, and isn’t it better to have someone to go to the dance with than not?  ISN’T IT?

And if Maria is doing all of this with a boy she doesn’t even like, what about the girls who love their abusive boyfriends?  (And let’s be clear here: even if Maria doesn’t think of his relentless pawing of her as assault, there is clearly something about him that threatens her and makes her feel panicked and anxious around him–basically fear.)  Taking out the question of love, erasing whether or not she likes him, makes it even clearer how sometimes there are these unspoken expectations for girls.  It’s better to have a boyfriend than not.  It’s better to have a date than not. It’s different for boys.  Boys want it, girls don’t. Etc.  Of COURSE Maria would put up with Leif then.  Of course.

Anyway, that makes the books sound super heavy, and they do deal with some pretty serious topics (like racism, school shootings, HIV/AIDS, homelessness, death, bulimia, drugs), but oh my word, they are delicious to read.  Here it is sixteen years later, and I’m just now getting how freaking brilliantly a lot of these topics are handled.

Another thing I like is that these girls are isolated or loners and it makes perfect sense, but they all have someone to talk to so that they’re not friendless.  Janis is all about her causes, but she has her friend Simon.  Cassandra is all about dancing, so doesn’t really interact with anyone at school…except Natalie.  Natalie is new to the school, but she has befriended Gus.  Stephanie works to take care of her family and maintain straight A’s so she can get a scholarship, but she has Phillip.  And Maria, while a cheerleader, doesn’t really feel comfortable with them or count them as her actual friends.

So, yes, they have these relationships, but none of that compares to the five of them coming together.  Empowerment through female friendships.  I’d be lying if I said that this series hasn’t inspired my dissertation topic focusing on female friendship.  If I didn’t love these books with all of my heart, I doubt very seriously that I would even think about or consider friendships between girls as much as I do.

I am so sad they are out of print.  Because I want to make other people read them.