Book Log: Just Listen, The Boyfriend List, Goy Crazy

[penmage]

28. Just Listen, by Sarah Dessen

Annabel Greene seemingly had it all: good friends, a close, loving family, good grades and a modeling career - until a traumatic confrontation brought it all crashing down. Annabel, who cannot stomach confrontation of any sort, has spent the summer in self-imposed exile, and she dreads returning to school and facing her ex-friends again. As Annabel struggles to find her place without her friends, she begins an unlikely friendship with Owen, the school loner. Owen, a music addict with his own issues, believes in honesty above all else - a difficult concept for a girl who has trouble with uncomfortable truths. As Owen and his worldview begin to change the way Annabel sees the world, she must deal with both the explosive incident in her past and her family's fragile present.

This book, like all of Sarah Dessen's books, is damn good. Annabel is a mulitfaceted, interesting character with a clear voice, and her slow transformation is uplifting to read. The people around her are sharply rendered, from the backbiting Sophie to the deliberately calm Owen. My favorite characters in the book, however, were her sisters. I loved Annabel's family portrait, past and present, and watching them grow apart and come together was a joy. Sarah Dessen is one of the best teen writers out there. Even though many of the themes of her book seem clichedand overdone, every single one of them without fail is fresh and original and excellent. This book is no exception.

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29. The Boyfriend List, by E. Lockhart

Ruby Oliver is having a tough year. Her boyfriend of six months, Jackson, has dumped her for her best friend Kim. This traumatic turn of events causes Roo to have panic attacks, which lead to her visiting a shrink named Dr. Z. Dr. Z encourages Ruby to write a boyfriend list, a list of all of the boys who have ever had any sort of impact on her life at all. As Ruby goes through the list with Dr. Z, we are treated to past and present glimpses into her life at Tate Prep, as well as her relationship with her friends and her experiences with boys. And just when we think things couldn't get any worse, a rough draft of the list ends up in the hands of Ruby's best-friend-turned-boyfriend-stealer, Kim.

This is a painful book to read out of order. The Boy Book, which I read first, details Ruby's social and emotional healing after the traumatic events of this book. This book has only a little bit of healing - mostly it has emotional pain and social trauma on a major scale. It's an okay book. Ruby's narrative is fast-paced and funny, and her footnotes are a lot of fun. But as always, I find that E. Lockhart's books are not very substantive. A quick, easy read is not a bad thing. But I like my teen fiction with a little more meat, more Sarah Dessen and Maureen Johnson style.

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30. Goy Crazy, by Melissa Schorr

Rachel Lowenstein is 15, and struggling with typical 15-year-old troubles: friend problems, hair problems and school problems. When she meets the perfect guy at her brother's bar mitzvah, things are starting to look up - with one catch. Luke Christiansen isn't Jewish. Convinced that her parents would never approve, Rachel stages elaborate ruses to date him in secret, including pretending to go out with her nerdy neighbor Howard. But as she dates Luke, Rachel struggles with the idea of combining their two religions. How much does Judaism mean to her in the long run? And how much it is she willing to give up for love?

I'm kind of embarrased that I read this book, but once I saw it in the store I kind of had to. A lot of this book felt really stupid to me. I guess they're typical fifteen-year-old things, but a lot of the struggles and internal conflict in the book just felt dumb. In fact, in the last few pages of the book, Rachel's mother sums up pretty much what I was thinking the whole time: that they had no problem with her dating a non-Jew, because aside from the fact that they were pretty liberal, nonpractising Jews, it was probably safe to assume that Rachel wasn't going to end up with the guy she dated when she was fifteen. This book was predictable and annoying, and had very few redeemable qualities.

Comments

[jmfunnyface.livejournal.com]

LOL at the non-Jewish boyfriend's last name being CHRISTIANsen. That's a little too painfully obvious.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

Yeah - that kind of sets the tone for the whole book. It's all a little too painfully obvious and over the top. It's like it's one of the unpopular kids trying too hard to fit in.

[offbalance.livejournal.com]

I was honestly disappointed by a few things in Just Listen, mainly how they'd spent all this time building Sophie up as a character only to have her fade out in the end. There were a few other things I found kind of cheesy and cloying, but since it was YA, I let it slide. On the whole it was a good read, but after the buildup you gave Dessen, I honestly expected more.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

I thought Just Listen was a letdown as well. I didn't finish it: too coy for me.

I did appreciate Dreamland.

(On the other hand, The Boyfriend List struck me as a pleasant surprise, much more thoughtful than I expected. Which may tell you as much about my expectations as the book, but there you are.)

[penmage.livejournal.com]

Have you read some of her other books? In particular, I loved Someone Like You, Keeping the Moon, and The Truth About Forever.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

I've heard people talk about all of them enough that it's hard to be sure which ones I've actually read! But I think I have not; I've been trying to read broadly, and wasn't impressed enough to go deep. Maybe sooner or later, though, especially as now I have a library card for the local branch, and I'm favorably impressed with their YA section.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

This is not one of my favorite of her books, but because I love Dessen so much, I find myself willing to let some things slide. Try Someone Like You, This Lullaby or Keeping the Moon, or for a heartrending read, try Dreamland.

[janni.livejournal.com]

I haven't read that book, but it does seem the issues of dating non-Jews get oversimplified a lot of the time. Dating or marrying is different from dating or marrying another Jew, for sure, but there are significant ways in which marrying a non-Jew has made me more thoughtful about my practice, and I think I'm actually a bit more involved than I would be otherwise ... it's not as simple as saying that marrying a Jew makes you more Jewish, and marrying a non-Jew makes you less Jewish ... There are all sorts of things that can result from both decisions; and both sorts of couples can drift closer to or farther away from practice or belief or whatever it is that being Jewish means for them, I think.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

The issue is so complex and multifaceted in so many ways, and so reliant on the decisions and nature of the individuals involved. And so not a major issue in dating a fifteen-year-old boyfriend. It's the sort of book that would have been more interesting, and more complex, if she had been in college, and if this had the potential to be a serious relationship. Then, I think I would have enjoyed it more. This just seemed frivolous and insignifigant.

I read the book because I was hoping against hope that there would be a thoughtful treatment of the issue at hand. And instead, it was just a bad teen novel with religion tossed into the mix. Which I guess I can't fault it for being, but it isn't my cup of tea.

[janni.livejournal.com]

You're right. As a book about college students, even early college students, it would have been much more interesting, and the questions raised much harder. You'd have to acknowledge the lack of easy answers, in that setting.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

Yes. Here, the conflict was primarily how to keep it from her parents (with a little bit of self-doubt and a touch of personal religious angst tossed in) and in the end, everything is resolved when (a)she tells her mom, and it turns out she had nothing to worry about, and (b)she realizes that Luke isn't the guy for her and breaks up with him anyway.

The religious angle, even though that's what's hyped as the point of the book, just seems secondary and really minor.