Anna and Kat just graduated high school and the world looks totally open to them. Kat suggests that she and Anna take a cross-country road trip and keep the spirit of Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums as their guide — as a way for them to sort of find the meaning of their lives and their purpose.

It sounds like fairly straight forward premise, but it’s actually a lot deeper than that. Anna has experienced a huge loss in her life. Multiple losses, actually. Her mother died a year ago and her father’s given up all in a higher power, despite having been a pastor prior to his wife’s death. She has a lot of mental unpacking to do now that she’s free from school, and despite thinking Anna has a fun idea in a road trip, she’s a little reluctant. All of this time with Kat has her a little worried — not just about having to confront what her next plans are and not just about what has happened in her past. Anna’s going to have to come to terms with the fact she might be a little in love with Kat, too.

Kiss the Morning Star had so many elements I like in a story: there’s a road trip with a solid premise behind it, the potential for a good romance, and Anna’s going to have to deal with a lot of emotional baggage from the many changes that have taken place in her life over the last year. Without doubt, the book delivered on a few of these things, but I found the writing and execution of the story to be somewhat weak.

The characters in Hoole’s story were great. Anna is a reluctant participant in this road trip, much as she’s a reluctant participant in the romance between her and Kat. And her reluctance makes sense. We know from the start something happened to her family, and we know her mother’s dead. It’s never quite clear why, but loss is heavy on her mind. As the story unfolds and the girls find themselves in some pretty tight spots — their car breaks down and needs a repair that’ll take a couple days, they meet a pair of girls who aren’t as kind as they seem, Anna has her wallet stolen, and then there’s a near-death incident on a missionary bus trip, just to name a few things — Anna reveals more about what happened to her mother and her father. The loss was an unexpected one, and Anna’s emotions and reactions to thinking about her mother’s death were authentic and honest. She’s not a hugely emotional girl, and she prefers to keep her thoughts about these things inside herself. Anna also wrestles with the notion of religion and God; her life had a healthy does of spiritual belief in it before her mother’s death, given her father’s career, but now that she’s experienced loss and she’s dealing with grief, she’s not so sure anymore what, if anything, she believes. This trip causes her to open up more and come to grips with her feelings.

Kat, on the other hand, is wilder. She had the idea for the trip and for the pursuit of all things dharma bum, and she pushes Anna into joining her. She’s in control of the vehicle for a good chunk of the story, and she’s the one who makes suggestions about wild adventures, then pursues them. She pushes Anna into joining on a missionary trip to Mexico, she pushes Anna into camping in the wilderness, and ultimately, she steers Anna into pursuing a relationship with her. As much as Kat is an enabler and a little pushy, she’s not perfect. She’s broken inside, and Anna catches those moments more than once. And it’s in those instances that Kat becomes more attractive to Anna. She’s vulnerable, too. Kat’s got a tough exterior, but she’s not all concrete.

Hoole develops a great romantic relationship between Anna and Kat. It’s sweet while also maintaining a sultry element to it. For both girls, it’s not a big deal, despite the fact Anna does question whether or not she’s actually a lesbian. She questions the term more than the thing itself, and it’s Kat who reminds her the words don’t matter. The feelings do. Of course, the relationship isn’t perfect, and it’s sort of because Anna gets caught up in the newness of it and in the act of defining it, rather than experiencing it.

That’s sort of the biggest element of the story worth talking about — one of the most obvious characteristics Anna has is that she obsesses over definition. Of being sort of removed from everything about her, rather than experiencing it as it happens. She worries a lot about what things mean rather than letting herself take it at face value and appreciating it as that. This ties into the Kerouac aspect of the story, and for that, I applaud Hoole. It’s smart and subtle.

Writing-wise, I felt this could have been stronger. I found the use of Anna’s internalization at the beginning of each chapter a little jarring and out of context. While there’s a difference between the internal and external growth (see the previous paragraph), it didn’t work being so separated in the story. Maybe my biggest problem was that the story begins very bumpy; the girls are already in the midst of their trip where we pick up, and there is little time to get to know who the characters are, despite being given an internal moment from Anna immediately. I had a hard time sinking into the story because I didn’t get a chance to meet the characters nor the set up in the first couple of chapters. Once I figured the two girls out, the pacing was better, and I was able to suspend belief for some of the more ridiculous moments that occur in the story.

I’m usually a fan of road trip stories, but this one tread close to using the idea as a plot convenience than a hearty, fully-fleshed aspect of the book. I found myself thinking this as the story moved further west, particularly when the girls head to Victoria for a palm reading. There was a big chunk of time that went missing between Wyoming/Colorado and being near the ocean. It was less an issue of pacing and more one of the trip itself being forgotten. In addition to the road trip being sort of lost in the second half of the book, I found the religious aspect of the plot falls out of the story about the same time — maybe about the point the girls realize being on a missionary bus trip to Mexico wasn’t a good idea — and I don’t know if either girl ever came to terms with that struggle. I don’t expect clean resolutions in my stories, but I prefer when the elements making up a story do come together at some point or have some sort of closure, even if it’s open ended.

The other issue I had will sound a little contradictory with what I talked about enjoying in the story, and that’s Anna and Kat’s relationship. They go through a lot of wild adventures together, and they’re respectful toward one another, despite pointing out one another’s flaws periodically. However, I felt that Kat was a bit condescending throughout their relationship, and I do not believe this was at all intentional. The reason I read this into the story, though, was because she continuously (obnoxiously, even) addresses Anna as “Anna babe.” The way she uses it and the context she uses it in almost degrades Anna a bit, furthering Anna’s swallowing back her emotions. Just when it feels like Anna is making progress toward figuring herself out, Kat calls her by her pet name. It rubbed me wrong, and while I don’t necessarily think it impacted Anna, it impacted me and made me question the power dynamics of their relationship.

Kiss the Morning Star will appeal to fans of road trip books. Even with my skepticism of the trip, it succeeds in propelling a story about growth and change forward. Hoole’s story does a good job of balancing light-hearted adventure with heavier issues, and the relationship between Anna and Kat is real and intense. Likewise, readers who like stories about teens who are figuring out what to do after high school will find this will fit the bill well.

Review copy received from the publisher. Kiss the Morning Star will be available April 1.

The Monday of Homecoming week at Mount Washington High School is when the annual list shows up. It’s written anonymously and has on it the names of two girls from each grade: one who is the prettiest and one who is the ugliest. For all eight girls, being put on the list changes their status at school, despite the fact none of them choose to be included. Suddenly, they’re all in the spotlight.

Siobhan Vivian’s The List is a story about the eight girls on this year’s list and what being put on that list does to them.

There are eight voices in this book and each of them is unique and fully developed. It’s in third person present tense, and it works — rather than being inside the heads of each of these girls first hand, we’re getting more objective understandings of each because we’re removed from them. Vivian excels in writing tight prose that elevates and rounds out the characters, but she does so without forcing the reader to believe one thing or another about them through the story; they’re dynamic.

When readers are dropped in the story, the characters are just learning they’ve been put on the list. That means the first interactions we have with the characters are emotional ones: Abby, prettiest freshman, is pleased to find herself on the list but immediately worries how her older sister Fern will react; Danielle, ugliest freshman, has just reunited with her football playing boyfriend Andrew after a summer apart and now being called out as not only the ugliest girl but as “Dan the Man” has her worried how much longer he’ll hang around; sophomore ugliest Candace is trying to make sense of going from being one of the prettiest to becoming one of the ugliest in just a year and keep her friends in line with their elaborate Homecoming plans; Lauren, the prettiest sophomore, is adjusting to being at a normal high school after spending her life as a homeschooler; Sarah, the ugliest junior, doesn’t care she’s made the list because appearances aren’t her thing at all; prettiest junior Bridget went through a dramatic physical transformation over the last summer due to a worsening eating disorder; senior ugliest, Jennifer, has made a school record in being the only girl to appear on the list four years running, though it’s not necessarily a badge of honor; and finally, Margo, prettiest senior, takes this as a sign she’ll follow in her sister’s footsteps and become Homecoming Queen but she’s quickly approached by the principal, as he’s suspicious that she knows the truth behind the list. He wants answers and he trusts her to deliver them.

As the week progresses, we learn these girls are a lot more complex than their labels suggest. I found myself invested in some girls more than others. I don’t find that to be the fault of the writing, but rather, the fact that some characters spoke to me more than others. In particular, I thought Sarah’s story was extremely compelling — she’s okay with being the ugly girl. More than okay, in fact, as she owns it and displays it. She chooses to go without showering as sort of a sign that the person or people behind this list were right. Sarah is the loud representation of everything that’s wrong with the list: she’s proving the point she can become what people want to believe if they go by appearance alone. Deep down, she’s a hurting girl and she’s complex, but that’s not what the people around her way to know her as. They only care that she’s unattractive. Her owning it is as much of a middle finger to the people around her as it is a defense mechanism for the pain she’s carrying.

On the opposite end, I also found myself quite invested in Bridget’s story, too. She’s gained her notoriety as the pretty girl through her eating disorder. For her, being on the list is almost confirmation of the way she’s treated herself, and it’s also almost motivating, since she doesn’t find herself stopping the behavior, either. Whereas the “fame” gives Sarah a way to rebel, it gives Bridget a sense of purpose. The other character I found myself drawn to was Danielle — her relationship with her boyfriend hurt to watch. Not because he didn’t treat her well, but because he becomes pressured by his teammates to reconsider his involvement with the girl deemed ugliest in the school. The list had power to not only impact the girls who made it, one way or another, but it impacted those who knew the girls, too.

The List explores the power of labeling, as well as the power of identifying with or rejecting them. Of course, the labeling is a small aspect of it, since the story is much more about appearance and the power beauty does or doesn’t have in defining people. Vivian does a good job of keeping the story very much high school. There are big issues here, but it never comes across as inauthentic. Because this story takes place over the course of Homecoming, the big event plays into the story and grounds it. It’s a time when emotions are already a little heightened, but the list only amplifies them. Also playing a role in the story is the fact the list is anonymous. There are plenty of ideas of who could be behind it, but there aren’t many strong leads, except for the fact whoever creates and distributes the list has — or has access to — an official school seal, which is placed on each of the copies.

For me, this is Vivian’s strongest book yet. It combines her ability to develop full characters with strong writing and an engaging premise. More than that, though, it not only tackles the complex issues of labeling and appearance well, but it also tackles a slew of other issues within each of the individuals without ever making them stereotypes nor flat, single-issue people. This book will appeal to fans of Vivian’s other books, and it’ll appeal to teen readers who like strong contemporary stories that are very much about high school life. While I don’t dismiss the fact there will be male readers who can enjoy this story, I definitely see this having higher appeal to female readers, and in part, that’s because the characters are relatable. I can see teen girls finding themselves in at least one, if not more, of these stories. This is the kind of book that’s made for a book discussion because there is a lot to dig into and talk about. The List is also partially inspired and in the spirit of the classic Cormier title, The Chocolate War, which gives it even more to dig into.

Previously: 
Review of Siobhan Vivian’s Same Difference
Review of Siobhan Vivian’s Not That Kind of Girl
Twitterview with Siobhan Vivian 

Review copy received from the publisher. The List will be available April 1.