Tag: high school

Looking for Alibrandi

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Author: Melina Marchetta
Genres: Young Adult, Fiction
Read: Jan. 2018

This is a tough one to review because I’m not quite sure how I felt about this book. Looking for Alibrandi was Melina Marchetta’s first book and it’s been on my TBR for a very long time. On the Jellicoe Road is the first Marchetta book I read and it still remains my favourite of her books (and one of my favourite books of all time). I keep hoping that one of her other books will be better than Jellicoe Road, but they never are.

This was a fun book. I really liked Josie. She was spunky and I laughed out loud at her more than once. I haven’t read a YA book like this one in a while and sinking into Marchetta’s writing is like sinking into a hot bath. It feels so nice and comforting. I didn’t love Looking for Alibrandi and I did take issue with the main romantic relationship in the novel, but I also appreciate what Melina did with this book.

Josephine Alibrandi is in her final year of high school and she’s determined to do well on her HSC exams so that she can become a barrister (it’s set in Australia). Josie has never quite taken herself seriously and sees herself as an outcast because of her heritage. Her grandparents moved to Australia from Italy in the 1940’s and she’s been raised heavily Italian. Her mom became pregnant with her at 17, alienating herself from her family, and raised Josie on her own, without any support from Josie’s father.

Josie struggles to belong because of her heritage and because she goes to a catholic high school, she is largely shamed because of her single mother. She’s had a crush on do-gooder John Barton for years, but she finds herself enamoured with the rough-around-the-edges Jacob Coote after she meets him at a regional school event. To top things off, when her father unexpectedly shows up in Sydney, she knows she’s in for a whirlwind senior year.

There were a lot of things I liked about this book, the biggest of which was the insight Marchetta provides into race relationships in Australia. Many of the Australians are actively racist against the families that immigrated from Italy and Greece in the 1940’s and 1950’s and there’s an interesting dynamic between Josie and some of her classmates. I enjoyed when Josie learned about her Italian heritage and how she learned to accept it and appreciate it.

I also liked the relationship she built with her father and the dynamic between her and the rest of her family. Her relationship with her mother and grandmother felt very real. At first you wonder if any of them actually like each other and they all seem a bit bipolar in how they treat one another, but when I think of my family and how we can one minute all be screaming at each other and the next minute happily sitting down for dinner, it rings true of that special bond that you can have with your family that I’ve never experienced in any other friendship.

The reason I liked Josie’s relationship with her Dad though is that it was so anti-dramatic. Children finding their birth parents always has a super dramatic and emotional narrative, but I loved that Josie was so secure in herself and her family relationships that meeting her father was just an event that happened to her. She never felt like she was lacking anything and when she finally did meet her father, it was just this interesting opportunity to get to know him. I never felt emotionally manipulated by the author in any of the relationships.

Now, to the part I didn’t like: Jacob Coote. Am I supposed to like this character? He reminded me a little of Rhett Bulter in Gone With the Wind in that he never conformed to what Josie wanted him to be and was the only one her called her out on her bullshit. I feel like we’re supposed to like him for refusing to change himself, but I never liked Rhett and I didn’t like Jacob either. He was just straight up not reasonable and in my opinion, not really respectful either. He gave Josie shit about stuff that I didn’t think was any of his business, like her relationship with John Barton and her opinions of when to have sex. And when he complained about meeting her mom and then kicked up a stink when she didn’t want him to meet her grandmother? Get over yourself Jacob and respect Josie!

Anyways, I was still pretty pleased with how this book went and it’s given me a huge hankering to re-read Jellicoe Road. The Piper’s Son is now the only Marchetta book I haven’t read, so I’ll need to get around to that one too!

My recommendation would be to skip this book and go straight to Jellicoe Road!

The Female of the Species

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Mindy McGinnis
Genres: Young Adult, Fiction
Read: Dec. 2017

 

This was so DARK.

I cannot figure out my feelings about this book. I pretty much read it in 2 sittings, so it’s a pretty quick read, but it packs a punch.

The Female of the Species is told from 3 points of view: Peekay, the preachers kid who has just broken up with her boyfriend; Jack, the popular guy trying to get a full ride to college; and Alex, whose sister Anna was raped and murdered several years prior. Alex is a loner and mostly people don’t think about her, but what they don’t know is the dark feelings Alex struggles to hide inside her.

From the synopsis you think this is going to be a revenge novel, but it’s mostly focused on relationships. I knew it was going to be dark, but I was surprised by how sweet some parts of the novel were. Peekay and Alex work together at an animal shelter and start an unlikely friendship in their senior year. Peekay is still reeling over her boyfriend breaking up with her to hook up with the most popular girl in school, Branley, and Branley is secretly hooking up with all-star Jack. Until Jack meets Alex and can’t shake her from his mind.

There’s a lot of cheating and hook-ups in this book and Branley plays the role of the villain trying to steal everyone’s man, but I liked how honestly McGinnis tried to portray her. Yes Peekay hates Branley for stealing her boyfriend, but the author still wrote a really interesting relationship between them, which gave Branley a lot more depth. She also highlights the culture of slut shaming and I liked when Alex defended Branley’s right to have lots of sex and enjoy it, without being cast in the role of slut.

Ultimately this book is about rape culture. After Anna’s death, Alex struggles with all the casual rape jokes and with anyone even touching her or her friends without consent. When creepy guys threaten her friends, she lashes out at them and hurts them in the same way they intended to hurt women, but the hurts she causes are perceived as so much worse than the potential hurts an assault would cause the victim. There’s a minor scene in gym class where she watches her classmates and teacher ignore one of the guys pretending to simulate sex with his basketball and comments that if she were to act the same way as a girl, people would lose their damn minds.

I liked Alex but she still scared the life out of me. I liked that she erased graffiti against other girls in the washroom, that she always looked out for Peekay, and that she was totally comfortable in her sexual experience (“it’s okay if we wait to have sex”, “I know” lol). I don’t really know what to comment about Alex’s violence. Obviously you can’t just go around killing people no matter how bad they hurt you, but portraying her character this way was an effective way to get your reader thinking about rape culture and all the ways it impacts and hurts people.

The Upside of Unrequited

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Becky Albertalli
Genres: Young Adult
Read: July 2017

 

This was a cute book and it definitely surpassed my expectations. I thought it sounded a bit juvenile when I read the synopsis, but it was just so relatable! I have almost nothing in common with Molly, who is a twin, has two moms, a bi-racial family, and is fat, and yet I could totally remember what it was like being a teenager and thinking everyone has grown up and left you behind.

Molly’s the only one in her friend group who has never kissed anyone, but it never really bothered her until her twin sister, Cassie, gets her first girlfriend and Molly begins to feel like she’s been left behind. She’s had dozens of crushes over the years and Molly desperately wants a boyfriend, but she’s afraid to put herself out there and what people might think of her.

Every little thing matters when you’re a teenager. Your friends are your lifeline and the most important people in the world to you. But teenagers are really bad at balancing friends and boyfriends/girlfriends and I could absolutely relate to Molly’s fears that she was slowly losing her sister. Your romantic partner does eventually become the most important person in your life, but when only half of a friendship is having the experience of falling in love, it can be really hard to watch and it can make you feel really lonely.

It can also make you feel really uncomfortable when the people around you are having their first sexual experiences and you can’t relate with them. I liked that Albertalli addressed that a lot of teenagers exaggerate their sexual experiences to try and fit in. Molly felt so out of her depth when her friends started talking about sex and Reid expresses that he thinks half of them are just making things up to fit in. Molly is surprised to learn later that even though Cassie’s girlfriend Mina talked a big game, Cassie was the first person she had ever had any kind of romantic relationship with.

There was a lot going on in this novel and the sister relationship reminded me a little of Fangirl, but healthier. It’s a quick read and I enjoyed watching Molly grow and how her relationships changed. I could see people being upset that she ultimately resolves her issues by finding love (why couldn’t she just love herself?), but I thought that Molly actually did love herself already and that she needed to believe that other people could love her too. There was no antagonizing over how she was fat and trying to lose weight – she loved to eat and generally seemed happy with her body. It was more that she was worried that society tells us that fat girls are unlovable and that boys wouldn’t be able to see beyond her weight to who she actually is.

Side note, I also loved that Molly took medication for anxiety, but that it wasn’t part of the story. There wasn’t a sub-plot about her overcoming anxiety, she just takes medication and that helps her, end of story. Overall, I thought this was a sweet, coming-of-age story that had a ton of diversity! I know everyone is obsessed with Albertalli’s other book, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, but I actually found that one a little heavy handed and preferred the Upside of Unrequited!