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books

Divergent by Veronica Roth (aka my seventh dystopia of the year)

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You know, I have to admit it is kind of lovely that the publishing world has seized upon a subgenre I was obsessed with as a teenager.  There’s so much to choose from!  Sure, some of it is dreck, but a lot of it is pretty darn good.  And just think, so many of these books never would have stood a chance at being published (or even written) before the subgenre’s popularity exploded, thanks in large part to a little book called The Hunger Games.

I’m happy to report that Veronica Roth’s debut novel Divergent is one of the good ones.  And because I’ve harped on this ad nauseam in practically every single review of a dystopia I’ve written lately, I feel the need to state this right away: this book tells a complete story.  That’s right folks, it’s the first in a trilogy, but there is still a beginning, a middle, and an end.  I feel like hunting down Veronica Roth and personally thanking her for this favor.
Now that I’ve gotten that important tidbit out of the way, I suppose you’d like to know what Divergent is actually about.  In a future Chicago, the people have been divided into factions that each value a different personality characteristic: Erudite values learning, Dauntless values courage, Amity values kindness, Candor values honesty, and Abnegation values selflessness.  Something terrible happened in the past (what that terrible thing is, we don’t find out, but it’s implied that it’s a big war) and the faction system was created to prevent that terrible thing from happening again.  Each faction believes that a lack of their own chosen characteristic was the cause of the strife that plagued the world before – Erudite thinks ignorance is to blame, Dauntless thinks cowardice is to blame, and so on.  It’s an interesting idea that I don’t fully buy into, but Roth’s writing and plotting is good enough that I was willing to suspend my disbelief.
Beatrice Prior, our protagonist, was born into Abnegation.  She’s about 16 years old (people in Abnegation don’t keep track of their birthdays since that would be selfish) and will soon choose which faction she wants to be a part of, along with all the other 16 year olds.  Most people choose the faction they were born into, but not all.  Those who don’t choose their parents’ faction are usually ostracized by their family (you see the problems beginning already).  
Prior to the choosing ceremony, all 16 year olds undergo a test whose purpose is to help them decide which faction is best suited to them.  The test isn’t decisive – it’s merely meant to guide the person.  Beatrice’s situation is unique: the test tells her she is best suited for not one faction, but two, making her a divergent, something very dangerous in Beatrice’s world.  Luckily, the person administering her test is a kind soul and erases Beatrice’s results, entering in a manual result for one faction.  Beatrice then struggles with her decision at the ceremony – which faction will she choose?
Initiation into the chosen faction follows the ceremony, and it’s anything but pleasant.  It’s a long, drawn-out process that takes weeks where the initiate must prove she belongs in that faction.  During initiation, Beatrice discovers that her secret status as a divergent means more than just the fact that she might belong in two factions.  She also begins to uncover secrets about the faction system and their leaders (I love a dystopia with some juicy secrets that are revealed at key points in the story).  The stakes are high and the trustworthy people few.
Divergent is action-packed the whole way through, aside from the first few chapters that set up the premise.  Beatrice’s initiation into her chosen faction is particularly well-done.  The initiation challenges both her body and her mind, and the process also allows the reader to get to know the other initiates and their foibles and fears.  While many of the ancillary characters aren’t fully fleshed, Beatrice herself is a dynamic character who grows and changes throughout the book.  There’s also a romance, but it doesn’t overwhelm the story and it makes sense in context.  What’s more, Beatrice relies on herself rather than her love interest during initiation and what follows, and even supports him at times.
There’s a lot of comparisons with other dystopias that can be made – I personally don’t mind that there’s a lot of derivative dystopias out there as long as the author can write well and add a unique twist  – but I actually found myself thinking of the Harry Potter books as I read Divergent.  In both series, children/teens are divided into houses/factions based on personality characteristics, with one particular characteristic overriding the others and determining much of the person’s future.  The problems with this system of separation are similar in both sets of novels: rather than fostering teamwork and togetherness among each house or faction, the system fosters hatred of other houses or factions and derision of their most valued characteristic.  The special hatred between Slytherin and Gryffindor in the Harry Potter novels is mirrored in Divergent with the hatred between Erudite and Abnegation.
Divergent avoids a lot of the pitfalls that other recent dystopias have fallen victim to: it tells us something about how we live now (how labels can divide us, the importance of teamwork, the difficulties of friendship during competition, and the dangers of a herd mentality), the characters’ actions make sense within the context of the novel, it tells a complete story, and the female protagonist is active rather than passive.  
I would have liked to see more world-building.  As I mentioned before, I don’t completely buy into the premise, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that Roth doesn’t tell the reader what happened to create this very unique society.  Julia Karr’s XVI – another dystopia set in Chicago – does a much better job of this, but her world is also more closely related to our own, so the world-building comes a bit easier.  I hope that future installments will give me a better picture of the decimated Chicago and greatly expand upon the snippets we saw in Divergent.  Overall, though, Divergent is a book that stands out from the pack, and I look forward to the sequels.

Sweet Valley Confidential by Francine Pascal

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(Warning: contains spoilers)

I collected Sweet Valley Twins books like young boys collected baseball cards. Their candy-colored spines were lined up on my shelves, ready to be traded with friends, passed around, and discussed. When I had devoured everything I could, and began to feel a bit too old for the sixth grade adventures of Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield, I firmly felt that I was ready to move on to Sweet Valley High and the “mature” adventures that high schoolers have. My mother disagreed. So I got my fix of Sweet Valley High in the library, after my mother had dropped me off for the afternoon. I spent hours curled up on the floor of our town library, devouring the illicit adventures of the “adult” Wakefield Twins. Yes, at that point in my life, junior year of high school was way adult to me.

Therefore, the prospect of being introduced to the Wakefield Twins as actual adults (or as twenty-seven year olds, just a year younger than me) was enticing. Not only would I be able to see where all of my favorite characters had ended up in life, but I would also finally get a tale of Wakefield twins who were actually approximately my age and see a (hopefully) satisfying conclusion to a key part of my childhood.
Oh, how wrong I was.
Sweet Valley Confidential opens on Elizabeth Wakefield, living alone in New York City, working for the online theater magazine Show Survey, a sort of “Zagat ratings guide of Off Broadway” (p. 5), as she so often has to explain to people. We are immediately confronted with her utter hatred of Jessica, as Elizabeth ignores a pleading phone call from her sister. The reason for this sisterly feud, and the crux of the entire book, is Jessica’s engagement to Todd Wilkins, Elizabeth’s former boyfriend and her lifelong crush. And not only has Jessica stolen Todd, but she started this entanglement with him back in college, and then revived it while Todd and Elizabeth were still together. As Elizabeth mopes in New York City, starting a semi-romantic relationship with an upcoming playwright/Todd-lookalike and planning her revenge, Jessica and Todd are home in Sweet Valley. Although the entire town looks askance on them, judging their betrayal, Jessica refuses to leave her hometown, from a mix of stubbornness and a “this is where I want to raise my kids” sentiment.
As expected, the entire book is basically a set-up to get Jessica and Elizabeth back in the same place, for the inevitable blow-up, shakedown, and reunion, but the way Pascal goes about it is contrived and seems to drag on forever. Both Elizabeth and Jessica, characters who I desperately wanted to be as a middle schooler, were reduced to pathetic caricatures, simply acting upon their basest instincts. And the plot was just a bares bones shell of an outline, with Elizabeth and Jessica repeating the same lines over and over.
Elizabeth: “I hate Jessica. I loved Todd. Oh, betrayal, betrayal. I’m too weak and wimpy to act, or to even tell people how I feel.”
Jessica: “Oh, Todd, everyone hates us. But I love you so. But I love my sister, too.”
Todd: “Uhhh………”
Pascal (who I recently discovered didn’t even write the Sweet Valley High books back in the day) is a perfect example of why it is a bad idea to tell, not show. Everything is spelled out for the reader, and we never get a true glimpse into either of the Wakefield twins, never get to see why they feel the way they do. We are just hammered over the head with their angst. Additionally, some of the writing just plain doesn’t make sense at all, or is so flowery that it invites eye-rolling: “Their eyes were shades of aqua that danced in the light like shards of precious stones…There wasn’t a thing wrong with their figures, either. It was as if billions of possibilities all fell together perfectly. Twice” (p. 9-10). On multiple occasions while reading, I looked up to exclaim, “WHAT is going on here?”, to the amusement of my husband. (I will not even go into the sex scene that appears in the last chapter of the book. The language used here would make third-rate romance novelists appear to be National Book Award winners.)
However, the oddest thing about this book was the way that Elizabeth and Jessica thought of each other. While I am not a twin and have no idea how twin relationships work, or their level of closeness, Pascal wrote this novel as if Elizabeth and Jessica were actually involved in a torrid romantic relationship. The two seemed to pine for each other in a way that slightly disturbed me, aching for each others’ bodies. It was just plain weird.
While it was nice to be able to see some of the characters that had appeared in the Sweet Valley High series, these supporting characters didn’t get much air time, save for the small mentions of what they were doing as adults, and a brief anecdote to illustrate this. Save for Bruce Patman, who did a completely 180 overnight and transformed into Elizabeth’s best friend, and Steven, their brother, no one else really factors into the story. I would have liked to see more of an appearance by both Lila Fowler and Enid Rollins, who were Jessica and Elizabeth’s best friends, respectively, but the narrative is very tightly focused on the twins themselves. I believe Sweet Valley Confidential suffered from the exclusion of the other residents of Sweet Valley, who were a key part of the Sweet Valley High books.
Ultimately, I am glad that I read this book, simply for the nostalgia factor. I wouldn’t discourage any Sweet Valley Twins or Sweet Valley High fans from doing the same themselves. But I wouldn’t hand this to anyone who had never read the Sweet Valley books before. Perhaps the reader needs that firm grounding in the Sweet Valley universe to retain their love for the Wakefield twins after reading Sweet Valley Confidential.

Bumped by Megan McCafferty

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Like in any good society nowadays in ya lit, the world which Megan McCafferty creates in Bumped starts with a virus that makes everyone over the age of 18 sterile. Unlike in other worlds, where teen girls are forced into birth-slavery though, in this one, girls are paid big bucks to carry children for those who have crossed the 18 year threshold. Melody, one of the two main characters in the story, has been offered a mega deal by a couple, and her womb has suddenly become gold territory in the world. While her adoptive parents are excited, she’s a little worried and angry about the deal because she’s got a massive crush on her friend Zen. See, in this world she can’t express that or follow through on it because that would be a waste of her physical resources.

Things get even more complicated, though, when Harmony, Melody’s long lost twin sister, shows up at the door. Harmony’s come to grab her sister back from the dark side and instead train her in the ways of her lifestyle on the religious Goodside. Toss in a case of mistaken identity sure to happen when twins are involved in a story, and you suddenly have more and fewer problems than you had from the beginning of the novel.

Bumped was one heck of a hilarious book. So many reviewers have commented on this book, suggesting it’s strange or not as enjoyable as they hoped, but I actually really liked it. Though this is not my usual fair, I loved the spoof on the influx of dystopian worlds in the ya world today. This is satire done well.

In the beginning of the story, readers are tossed in the midst of this world, and there’s little to grasp. McCafferty doesn’t offer us the rules or the history of this society for quite a long time; in fact, it’s not until many chapters in that we understand why Melody’s fertility’s been sold off to a high bidder. It’s not until near the end we understand why she has scored such a mega deal with a genetically perfect rockstar of a bumping partner, Jondoe. Likewise, we don’t really get exposed to the relationship that exists (and develops) between Melody and Zen for quite a while: it’s not really important. It ends up playing a pivotal role in the story later on, but the growth and investment in that relationship doesn’t matter that much in the context of the story. It’s more a plot device. Then when Harmony enters into the story, the plot becomes even more complex and unexplained.

What McCafferty does is trust us to go with it and experience the absurdity right along with both the characters. She wants us as readers to draw upon our knowledge and experience of future and dystopian worlds and see what it’s like when every single one of them collides. This is what many readers seem to be missing in the story — it’s not meant to be a fully realized world and the characters aren’t meant to be fully developed beings. Instead, we’re supposed to get a kick out of the idea of twins separated at birth reuniting then experiencing (and perhaps reveling in!) mistaken identity; that anyone over 18 suddenly gets a virus and loses fertility and must resort to bribing teenage girls to have babies for them; that there’s a girl who gets a great deal but instead is considering throwing it all away in the name of love to another teenager; and, of course, the fact that one twin comes from the crazy religious group and wants to save her sister from her life of sin. Let us not forget, too, that this is indeed the first book in a series.

It’s insane. It’s hilarious. It’s spot on. And in this strange way, it works so well.

Perhaps my favorite part of the book, though, was the language. Like any sci-fi, dystopian world, there’s a lexicon to learn. The way it was used reminded me a lot of M. T. Anderson’s Feed: it’s strange enough to be different but understandable enough to make perfect sense to the reader. For some readers, it might be a turn off, especially given the lack of laying out the world and its rules clearly, but other readers will eat it up.

I think many readers have been unfair to this book because it’s the first book that McCafferty’s published since her Jessica Darling series. Whereas that series is a contemporary fiction and one that many readers (yours included) fell in love with, it’s a completely different and unrelated book to Bumped. Comparing the two isn’t fair, and in fact, I think it speaks to McCafferty’s strengths as a writer that she can produce two entirely different story lines successfully.

Pass this story off to your fans of quirky stories — I would think your fans of stories like Natalie Standiford’s would appreciate this book quite a bit, even though it’s less contemporary and more science fiction. This will also work quite well for your fans of dystopian fiction: they will see what McCafferty’s doing and appreciate it. I think those who appreciated Julia Karr’s XVI, M. T. Anderson’s Feed, and similar titles will eat this up. Of course, this is one to also hand off to those who enjoy a great satire. Be warned, though: there is frank discussion of sex and reproduction in this book, so it’s not one for your younger or more sensitive readers.

Review copy received from the publisher. Bumped will be published April 28.

Back When You Were Easier to Love by Emily Wing Smith

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Joy’s a new girl in town, but not totally new. She’s been in the small town of Haven, Utah, for a year now, but this year’s different since Zan, the boy of her dreams and first guy who noticed and cared for her in this town, is now out of the picture. He’s left Haven for a college near Joy’s original home town in California. He’s also left no contact information, no way for them to stay in touch. It’s like he’s disappeared off the map all together, and he never even gave Joy a proper goodbye — nor did he properly end whatever relationship they had.

Now that he’s gone, though, Joy can’t move on. She needs closure, and she’ll get it thanks to the help of Noah, Zan’s ex-best friend and the guy who Joy wants to ignore. But she realizes he could be the key to her closure, and with him, they travel to Zan’s new college and seek him out.

Back When You Were Easier to Love was a book I went into with high expectations, but I left feeling a bit left down. The book is exceptionally fast paced, as chapters are only a page or two long; as a result of this, though, the characters are a little underdeveloped for the complicated and lengthy-feeling plot line. While the pacing and set up certainly mirror Joy’s own journey, the structure wasn’t strong enough for me to forgive the weaker aspects of the story.

As a reader, I wanted to care for Joy: she’s in a really tough spot, being a new girl in a small town. But the thing is, she’s not really a new girl. She’s a new girl only in the sense that the guy she clung to when she was new has left her for college. Rather than use this as an opportunity to slide back into life as she should have a year ago, she instead chooses to fixate on Zan. As a reader, I was annoyed because Joy had no interests outside Zan, both when he was a part of her life and after he leaves her. During the course of the story, we see hints of what her interests are, but so much is focused on her obsession with this boy that she quickly becomes an irritating character. I didn’t quite care about her finding her closure because it seems like something she should have done during the summer between the end of her first year at Haven and the start of the second. Instead, there’s a bit of a gulf in time.

I will admit that this fixation/obsession is well done. Joy blows off everything she has in her life for this guy, including Noah, Zan’s former best friend. Noah was probably my favorite character in the story, as he’s clearly moved on from being ditched by his best friend, and even though he’s moved on, he’s willing to put up with — maybe even encourage — Joy’s obsession because he wants to be a good friend to her. She ignores him and treats him like dirt, yet he still comes back loyally to her. I liked this about his character, but I also wrestled with it because I wanted him to find someone new who’d actually care about him. As much as he wasn’t outwardly struggling with the loss of Zan, it was clear he was internally wrestling with losing a huge part of his social life; the thing is, he was unable to express it because no one would bring it out of him. Joy was far too self-centered to step back and consider what Zan’s departure meant to his best friend.

Zan was never developed as a character to me, and as a result, I found the obsession Joy has frustrating. She describes him as brilliant and gorgeous, but we get little else. It’s clear she’s idealizing him (as seen when she finally gets her closure later in the story), but because I have to believe her for a long time before “meeting” him, I wanted a little more reason to believe in him. I didn’t; perhaps that was because as an adult, I’m under the belief any person who just disappears and doesn’t leave contact information prefers not to be reached. And maybe that person is just a jerk who needs to be forgotten about, too.

What I did enjoy about this book, though, came after Joy finally gets her closure. As a reader, it was what I wanted to happen to her — as painful as it was — and it was through this and this alone that she finally figures out who Noah is and why he’s important. More than that, though, Joy realizes that there’s much more for her to have in Haven, even when she was earlier convinced it was a worthless place to be. Even though the Vegas scenes were strange to me, I let them slide under the belief they’d make Joy a stronger person, and they did. For me, these scenes read a little bit like some of the scenes between Amy and Roger in Morgan Matson’s Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour, meaning they were a little uncomfortable/too much like a honeymoon scene (that is, much older than a teen’s perspective). That said, though, I think most readers who enjoyed Matson’s book will eat this one up because it’s of the same premise of dealing with grief and love through a road trip.

As I mentioned earlier, there is a lot tackled over the course of this fast book, and one of them is faith. This is a Mormon-friendly read, although I felt this aspect of the story really got buried beneath Joy’s obsession with Zan. It’s not until about 3/4 of the way through the book do we see Joy talk more candidly about her spiritual beliefs; this made me sad because I thought had this aspect been amped up sooner in the story, I would have found Joy such a fuller character. Instead, this got a little buried, and part of me wonders if it was the case that had it been a bigger aspect of the story, this book would become too easily labeled as religious ya fiction (a label that carried a certain weight when you use it).

Back When You Were Easier to Love will appeal to those looking for a light-hearted and extremely clean book. Even though I had issues with character development and plausibility within the story, the right readers will overlook this. For them, it’ll be a story of reconciling lost love and moving on into a new relationship. There’s nothing blush-worthy in here, so you don’t have to worry about a heavy or sexual relationship among the characters. It’s definitely a book with greater appeal for female readers, and I’d be comfortable handing it to middle or high school readers.

Review copy picked up at ALA. Smith’s novel will be published by Penguin/Dutton April 28.

Chime by Franny Billingsley

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I think the best word I could use to describe Franny Billingsley’s Chime is “odd.”  It’s a very different sort of fantasy written in a very different sort of way.  I do think it’s well done, but it’s going to appeal to a specific kind of reader – a patient reader who enjoys leisurely stories and takes the time to absorb the writing style.
To be honest, it’d difficult for me to explain exactly what this book is about.  It doesn’t have an easy plot that can be summed up in a few snappy lines.  Briony is a teenager and lives in Swampsea, which is (I believe) supposed to be somewhere in England.  Swampsea is built on a swamp (obviously), and the town leaders have decided to drain the swamp to improve the economy of the city and the standard of living of its inhabitants.  Evidently swamps aren’t great places to live.
The Old Ones, supernatural-type beings with names like Mucky Face and Boggy Mun, have a problem with this swamp-draining idea.  The swamp is their home and they’d like it to remain as it is.  The Old Ones inflict the swamp cough, an incurable disease, on Swampsea’s inhabitants on a whim, and one of the cough’s victims happens to be Briony’s odd twin sister Rose.      
Brought into this mix are the Chime Child and the idea of witches.  The Chime Child is a person born at the stroke of midnight who can determine whether a person is a witch (in this world, witch=bad).  And she’s not always correct.  I suppose everyone makes mistakes.
The book opens with Briony telling the reader that she’s a witch and deserves to be hanged.  The rest of the book involves Briony telling us what led up to her arrest – she believes she’s responsible for her sister Rose’s mental condition as well as a massive wave that injured her stepmother’s spine and eventually led to her death.  (This is all revealed very early on, so don’t worry that I’m spoiling it for you.)  Briony has a lot of self-hatred, and this permeates the entire novel.  It can get a bit depressing, but it’s not surprising considering what Briony believes she has done.
And there’s a boy.  Of course there is a boy.
So, have you got all that?  And that’s not even half of the weird stuff going on in Chime.  There are so many elements at play, a reader has really got to be patient and wait for it all to fall in place at the end.  Patience is also required for the writing style.  Billingsley’s writing is heavy on metaphors, particularly odd metaphors you wouldn’t have considered before.  She also uses some really quirky phrases that add to the mood of the book, but also cause the reader to do a double-take at times.  Instead of being drawn further into the story by the writing style, it made me feel further removed.  It also made for a very long read – make no mistake, this is a slow-moving book.
Most times when I review a book I didn’t particularly care for, such as in the case of Chime, I have something fairly critical (but valid) to say about it.  Usually it’s mediocre writing, flat characters, or a nonsensical or boring plot.  In many of these cases, the book can still be enjoyed if one is willing to overlook these factors.  In the case of Chime, however, I don’t have anything specific in mind to criticize – it simply isn’t my cup of tea.  It’s slow, certainly, and it’s the weirdest book I’ve read in a long time, but these can also be strengths for the right reader.  Billingsley was going for a particular mood and she achieved it – it’s just not one that really appealed to me.
Copy checked out from my local library.