Young Adult Novels

I've was going through YA novels lately at a pretty past clip--about one book a day. Much too quickly to write about them as I went along, so here are a few short hits:

Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Peterson
Oh, I loved this book. It could have so easily turned into a book of maxims about being anti-social and not loving your family, but it didn't--Louise's problems are always taken seriously and we aren't persuaded to moralize over her. Obviously, some readers find this a bit disturbing. Really, I'm not sure it's good for kids--we're such moralists when we're young--but at 29 I think it's one of the best books I've read for a long time.

Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
Ellen's favorite YA book. I've heard the plot so many times (and Ellen's alternative endings) that there were no real surprises. One might think that a story of a young Jewish girl who falls in love with a Nazi would not be on the right side of history. However, the issues of fascism, racism, and anti-semitism are much more complex in the novel. Of course, Greene herself was accused of anti-semitism. Although Patty's parents are awful, they are not caricatures of awful Jews--her grandparents are wonderful, caring people who are Jews too. You're persuaded to really think about hatred and prejudice, something we aren't really used to doing.

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konisberg How is it I only read this now? I was always talking about running away as a child.

Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
Another runaway. Only this one skins animals, makes stew, and builds her house out of ice. The end is heartbreaking

All of a Kind Family by Sydney Taylor
Food-obsessed little children and a stupid love story tacked onto it. A favorite of East Village Inky's Ayun Halliday.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
I bought this for my cousin Tess several years ago, but only read it now. I'm glad I got it for her, but I hope she doesn't think that I support slavery.

Judy Blume: Forever, Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself, Then Again Maybe I Won't, Deenie
Compared to most of the books above, Judy Blume's stories are kind of boring. Just dumb Jersey kids doing normal, dumb kid stuff. But, they are actually dealing with pretty deep issues--disability, sexuality, class, family relations, the legacy of the Holocaust. No wonder kids love Blume. She takes them seriously, whether they're waiting for their periods, fighting with their friends, or trying to figure out how the world works.

The Meaning of Wife by Anne Kingston

I decided in college that I would not marry, ever. I mentioned to my mother and she just said "Well, you're allowed to change your mind." (Note: most people do change their minds about marriage. Usually, when they're in one.) Years later, I told my recently-divorced boss that I did not ever want to get married and had not wanted to do so for a long time--"And you had the wisdom to make this decision at 19?" she jokingly asked. She married her first husband at 19.

My decision to not get married is the product of many things, not least of which is that I don't want to be a wife. My mother is a wonderful mother and wife, and generally happy with both roles. But I saw the way that my father relied on her in ways that she could not rely on him. She took care of the home, of my brother and me, fed everyone regularly, walked the dog, and participated in the financial support of the family. My father worked and mowed the lawn. This isn't to indict my parents for anything, it is just to say that I figured out pretty early on that I did not want my relationships to look like theirs. I would not want my partner's job/time/energy to be considered more important than mine and, if I had children, I wanted him to be more involved with them than my father was or was able to be.

It's semantics, but I see the crux of the problem to be the definition of "wife." Ellen, who does want to get married someday, says that she sees the same problems, but wants to reform "wife" to mean a full and equal partner, not a mere helpmate. I see the term as beyond reform, that we have to create new paradigms of relationships (heterosexual and homosexual) to achieve true equality.

That said, I am in a relationship now that is not a marriage and both of us agree that we do not want it to become a marriage. And yet...I am his wife. When I moved in to his place, I felt time and again (and still do, although to a lesser extent) that I needed to make him happy at the expense of my own happiness. My partner does not encourage my passive abegnation, but we all know that it's a good deal to have a wife, and he is as happy as anyone to not have to take out the garbage or clean the kitty litter.

So what does that mean for this book? Well, it means that it forces you to reflect on your own decisions and "wife"-related status. Which can kind of suck, you know?

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

So I read Atonement last winter, right when the movie came out (the book was sitting on my shelf for years, but once I had the chance to groan at Keira Knightly in another literary adaptation, I finally got around to it). I was talking to my friend Ellen about it and she asked if I had read On Chesil Beach--"Atonement is like being beaten with a sack full of feathers, but On Chesil Beach is like being beaten with a sack full of rocks," she said gleefully.

Her comment is oddly accurate. The fight on the beach between the two main characters is dead-on, painful and disturbingly real. The tension between the two (and between what they want and what they say to each other) is excrutiating.

I read it in two days flat.