Since it's summertime, I've spent roughly 50% of my time with my nose stuck in a book. I've read some good, some bad, and two that I think deserve a bit of special attention.
THE GOOD: The True Colors series by Melody Carlson, the Alice series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Something Rotten by Alan Gratz, Benny and Omar by Eoin Colfer, Luna by Julie Anne Peters, A Cold Day in Paradise by Steve Hamilton, ANYTHING by Laurie Halse Anderson (more on her later)
THE BAD: The Day I Killed James by Catherine Ryan Hyde (good idea, bad execution), The Supernaturalist by Eoin Colfer (sorry, Eoin...I tried to get into this one...I really did...just couldn't make it happen), The Host by Stephanie Meyer (to the person who told me this was a good book: YOU LIED, MADAM. YOU LIED.), and perhaps most disappointingly of all...
Larry and the Meaning of Life by Janet Tashjian.
*dies a little inside*
I am absolutely in love with Janet Tashjian's work. I mean, I will read anything that she has written. Put it in front of me, and I guarantee I will have it finished within a couple of hours. There aren't many authors I trust this absolutely--even my childhood heroine Beverly Cleary has had some definite hit-and-miss moments--but she is definitely one of them. I read The Gospel According to Larry and that was it, I was addicted. I went through everything of hers in my library. And when I found out that the third book in the Larry series, Larry and the Meaning of Life, had FINALLY gotten to my library, I squeed like a fangirl and snatched it up.
And promptly spent two hours wondering who in the hell had written this book and what she had done with Janet Tashjian, because this simply could NOT have been written by the same woman.
To recap, for those of you who don't know the story (POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD): Josh Swensen is your average teenage philosopher, with one secret: He is the head of a popular website called The Gospel According to Larry. One fan, betagold, decides to make discovering Larry's true identity her life's mission. Of course she succeeds, and all hell breaks loose. But that doesn't stop Josh from running for President in book two, Vote for Larry. But of course it's not that easy; someone is sabotaging him--and he thinks he might have a pretty good idea who it is. But in the heat of the moment he blames it on someone close to him, someone who would cut off her arm for him, with disastrous consequences.
Now, in Larry and the Meaning of Life, Josh/Larry is attempting to piece together his life after the insane events of the first two books, with minimal success. Without a project to work on, he begins to get depressed. His failed search for his ex-girlfriend Janine (the girl he wrongly accused of sabotaging him in Vote For Larry) hasn't exactly made things any better, so it's up to Josh's childhood best friend Beth to help him get off the couch and back into the game...but she has a bit of a strange way of accomplishing this.
(WARNING: INSANE SPOILERS AHEAD. READ WITH CAUTION, UNLESS YOU'VE ALREADY READ THE SERIES.)
From the beginning things were screwy. In book one, Josh is a firecracker, willing to put everything he has on the line to get his message out and make the world a better place. In book two, he willingly comes out of hiding to run for president, event though he knows going in that he's going to get his ass kicked. And then here we are in book three, where our rebellious hero can't get his ass off his living-room couch.
*facepalm*
I'm not going to lie--it didn't seem like a great opening for the book. But I had faith in JT, and I kept reading, because so far I've never been let down by one of her books. Within the first couple of chapters, things started to pick up. Josh meets a sketchy guru named Gus, and starts to try to pick up the pieces--and I started thinking, "YES! Now THERE is the Josh that I know and love!" or, more accurately, "Now THERE is the Janet I know and love!" I was excited, especially when Janine, who was one of my favorite characters from the past two books, showed up at the end of one of the first chapters--I thought, "Okay, I see where this is going. He'll try to win her back, she'll be cold at first, but when she sees how sincere he is, she'll come back to him and everything will be fine and they'll save the world together."
Oh, how wrong I was.
Now, let me just say, I understand what the author was trying to do, because I've seen her pull off this very trick before: She was trying to create a direct path to WTF Land and drag Josh straight down it, but at the same time leave clues for the readers, indications that something bigger was going on. Theoretically, if this is done correctly (as it was in the first two books), you should either reach a crucial twist and smack yourself, saying, "WHY DIDN'T I SEE THAT BEFORE?" or you should come to a crucial twist, gasp, throw the book in the air, and cry, "I SURE AS HELL DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING!" and then realize later that she cleverly foreshadowed it.
That's what I thought was going on, and I eagerly began searching for those "plants." I thought that Gus would turn out to be a father-figure, or that he would be in league with betagold, or that he would be the catalyst for something that had happened in one of the first two books. As it turns out, I was two-thirds right--but in ways that were so incredibly wrong that I actually cried in disappointment after I finished the book.
~MAJOR SPOILER COMING UP~
Every single person in the book was breathtakingly out-of-character, most of all Josh's nemesis betagold. I'm sorry, but WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? You don't just say, "Hmm, I chased this kid for two years, hell-bent on revealing his identity and hell-bent on destroying his campaign, but you know what, when his best friend comes to me and asks me to help him, I'm just going to say, 'Ooh, okay!' and then, after that's done, I think maybe I'll just attempt suicide to round off the novel as confusingly as possible..." NO! THAT IS NOT HOW IT HAPPENS!
As for Beth, what in the blue hell happened there? She's a college student with no time on her hands, and yet she has the means to create an entire alternate reality just to get Josh up off the couch? You know what my friends do to get me off the couch? They call me and say, "Hey, idiot, quit sulking. Come play hide-and-seek with us." Or if it's because I'm down, like Josh was in this book, "Do you want to talk about it? Let me help." They don't say, "Oh, I HAVE AN IDEA, I'm going to create a PARALLEL REALITY just so that my best friend snaps out of it!" Sorry, but this was waaay too unrealistic, even for the Larry universe.
Normally I would excuse things like that. No, really, I would. Despite the enormous OOC moments in the Harry Potter books, I still manage to enjoy those...BECAUSE THOSE BOOKS DON'T HAVE COP-OUT ENDINGS. According to Junior Library Guild, "What begins as a harmless Thoreau-esque search for meaning soon turns into Josh's most chaotic and profound adventure yet." I'm sorry, did I miss something? There is nothing profound--except maybe profoundly ridiculous--about your best friend creating an alternate reality for you. What kept me turning the pages was the incredible, fast-paced nature that carried over from the last two books (this is one of the few things that didn't disappoint me), but at the end, I was more than just disappointed. I was pissed off.
Here's the crux: The plot kept me on the edge of my seat. The moral conundrums--for instance, Josh having to donate a kidney to betagold because it might save her life even though they have been enemies in the past--were pure, classic Tashjian, all the way. Oh, there were moments of WTF-Land-Inc--like when Brady is euthanized after allegedly biting a policeman's son, and Janine blames Josh for the whole incident--but again, that's just the author's style, and even though it was more exaggerated than usual, I went with it. Some of the moments were downright nail-biting--the uncovering of the conspiracy to fill Walden Pond with landmines, featuring betagold as a potential suicide bomber was even more tense than the three-way presidential race in Vote For Larry.
But the ending was, as I said, a cop-out. You go through the whole book with a sense of detached danger, a feeling that everything is about to blow up (literally and figuratively) in front of Josh, a feeling that everything is spiraling out of control. But in the end you discover, along with Josh, that everything was a hoax. Not a single event after chapter two was real. It's part Claire Voyant and part Punk'd. Beth engineered the whole thing, just to shake Josh up.
Now, if I were Josh and I found out that my friend had done this to me, I would probably not forgive her instantly. But guess what Josh does? Yup, that's right, forgives her instantly. No problem, honey, I don't mind that you scared me half to death multiple times, put me under anesthesia for no reason, joined forces with a woman who once nearly killed me, caused unnecessary tension between me and my stepfather, and gave me reason to think that the girl I love is involved in a terrorist conspiracy...because, hey, IT WAS ALL FOR A GOOD CAUSE.
That's just it, though--there is no good cause in this book. The Gospel According to Larryhooked me because it was about a young kid trying and continually failing to make the world a better place. Vote For Larry won me over because it was about an eighteen-year-old kid running for President of the United Staes against astronomical odds, again so that he could change things for the better. But Larry and the Meaning of Life takes the Josh Swensen that we all fell in love with and completely throws him under the bus.
And it all could have been so much better! Instead of creating a huge hoax, why couldn't Beth have found a way to help Josh get re-involved in what he does best--trying, in his own quirky way, to save the world? Now that is something I could have enjoyed reading about.
Oh, and as if that's not enough? betagold's random suicide attempt at the end just made me throw the book across the room in frustration. Ms. Tashjian, I'm sorry to say that if you were trying to make me feel sympathy for this woman, you failed. But if you were trying to confuse me, frustrate me, and make me wonder why on earth you had to include THIS PARTICULAR SCENE, hey, congrats, you succeeded!
One last thing...that whole Beth/Josh/Janine love triangle that started last time? Yeah...it STILL remains unresolved. I could buy it at the end of Vote For Larry. I really could. But this time, it's just plain annoying. The "I loved you once but now you're different and I don't know if I still can" horse has been beaten to death so many times, both in this series and in literature in general. Part of the reason that I love Tashjian's books is because they avoid the clichés of common teen lit. But the end of this book, as far as Josh and the Beth/Janine debate is concerned, is so full of cliché that I wanted to scream.
Janet Tashjian, I absolutely love your work. I really do. But I was painfully disappointed byLarry and the Meaning of Life. I could read and re-read most of your books over and over again, but I think this one is destined to fall squarely into the category of checked-out-once-and-never-bothered-with-again. And that is a real shame, because like I said...you are at the top of my list of favorites. Please, please, please win me back over...write another Larry book and prove that somewhere in there, the characters that charmed me in The Gospel According To Larry still exist.
Love,
your concerned (but still hopeful) fan, Beatnik Belle.
~SPOILERS (and melodrama) END HERE!~
Now, as it happens, in the very same week that I read the disappointment that was Larry and the Meaning of Life, I snagged another book from the library called Twisted, by Laurie Halse Anderson.
...
...
...
Holy freaking crap.
Can you say "really flipping awesome?" Because that's what this book is, in a nutshell.
I can't describe this book. I really can't. But I'm going to try, because hopefully this will convince you to read the book, and EVERYONE needs to read this book--ESPECIALLY my generation. Class of 2011--hell, class of 2015--READ THIS BOOK.
Why?
Because this book is proof that there ARE adults who understand. There is a forty-nine-year-old woman who is not only a hard-core EXPERT on high-school girls (understandable, seeing as she was one once), but gets into the head of a teenage boy so well that you'd swear the book was actually written by a teenage boy. This is not an everyday occurrence. Believe me, I know plenty of fortysomething women who can't even get into the head of a teenage girl (I speak from personal experience on that one!), let alone a teenage boy. (coughcoughHIGHSCHOOLFAIRYTALESTEACHERcoughcough)
Basically, in Twisted, high school senior Tyler finds his reputation completely changed after he commits a "foul deed" that earns him a probation officer and mandatory community service. His crush Bethany, the popular daughter of his father's boss, decides that he is officially date-worthy, only to wind up getting him in a load of trouble when nude pictures of her at a boozed-up party surface on the internet.
Now, just from the summary, you wouldn't think this would be anything out of the ordinary. But that's just it--I didn't read the summary. I picked up this book in the library because the cover caught my eye. I opened it up to read the inside flap, and all it said was, "Everybody told me to be a man. Nobody told me how." The reviews on the back also gave away very little about the plot--but they raved about the book itself. Intrigued, I took it home and read the first three pages, and by the end of the second chapter (about the eighth page of the book), that was it--I was officially hooked.
What draws me to Twisted so much is that I feel like I know Tyler, after only reading a few pages. Not every author can take a character like this and, within ten pages, make the reader feel as if they've known this person since grade school. Now make no mistake, I do know a few "real-life" Tylers--in fact, as soon as I read his description, one of my friends popped into my head and stayed there for the rest of the book--but that's not the real reason why it takes such a short time for him to become familiar.
No, that is because Tyler has a brilliant knack for putting into words every single thought that every teenager in a situation like his has ever had, every feeling that a teenager has ever felt, good, bad, or indifferent. Submitted for your consideration:
"My alarm went off at five the next morning. My first thought: It was a bad dream. My second thought: No, it wasn't. My third thought: Crap." (p. 22)
"A lot of kids would tell you that being taken away in a squad car was the coolest thing I'd ever done." (p. 45)
"Meet my father: Corporate Tool." (p. 5)
"The girls kept getting pissed. An almost-naked hottie would strut down the hall, butt swaying side to side, top of her underwear peeking out of her shorts, hair flowing down her back, jewelry in her belly button, boobs spilling out of her top, big smile, and what would happen? Every guy she'd walk by would say something crude. Or whistle. Or pant or moan or follow her. And she'd get pissed. Well, duh." (p. 62-63)
"Again with the clean-nose thing. Authority figures ha a pathological fear of boogers, that's how I saw it." (p. 83)
"I cried like maybe it might help something. It didn't." (p. 133)
"Breathe. Just keep breathing. And kill the first thing you can get your hands on." (p. 69)
"She was an innocent, a freshman, one of the sad believers who thought high school was where they would be popular and smart and happy--above all, happy....The enlightened ones--the wounded sophomores, jaded juniors, and wise seniors--we trudged to the door, a prison gang so beaten-down we didn't need ankle shackles." (p. 44)
I swear to God. This woman is a genius.
This is not teen lit. This is not chick lit (God forbid). This is something that I can relate to, that I'm willing to bet about 95% of my friends could relate to, that I'm willing to bet almost every teenager on the planet could relate to. You don't have to have Tyler's situation to understand how he's feeling. As adolescents, we have ALL felt that hopelessness, that irritation, that joy, that desire. (Even if we don't always want to admit it.) If there is someone who can't relate to at least something in this book...then his name is probably either Joe Jonas or Justin Bieber. (Kidding, of course...sort of, anyway...)
Since getting this book from the library about three weeks ago, I have read it so many times I'm surprised the spine hasn't fallen apart yet. I have memorized my favorite passages, right down to the page numbers. If they make this book into a movie, I want to be the one to direct it. I have the perfect cast in mind, comprised of both people I know personally and the actors from my favorite movies. I would have Laurie Halse Anderson herself write the script.
Now, I know that won't happen, because a) I haven't even been to college yet, and by the time I get out it'll probably already have been made, and b) I'm not that lucky. BUT. Someday I will make a movie that will have something in common with this book. Maybe it will have a leading male character like Tyler--someone who, in spite of the fact that he has the worst luck in the world, still contrives to be a good kid. Maybe it will have the same sort of storyline--a down-on-their-luck teenager trying to hack it in the real world. Maybe it'll just have that same tone, that Louis Sachar-esque black-comedy-meets-total-realism sort of feel.
Whatever it is, you can bet that if (BIG IF *crosses fingers*) I ever have the chance to give an acceptance speech after winning an award for that movie, the first person I thank will be the woman who wrote this incredible, honest, raw, all-kinds-of-inspiring novel.
I think I have a new obsession.
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