Review: Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr

Deanna Lambert is not a country music star although her name is remarkably similar to one Miranda Lambert.  She is, however, a 16 year old girl trying to escape the reputation attached to her name forged when she was just 13 years old.  At 13, Deanna was caught in the backseat of Tommy Webber's Buick by her dad, and no matter how hard she tries, she cannot escape the stigma of that night in the eyes of her dad, her classmates, or herself.  In a last ditch effort to save herself, Deanna takes a summer job at Picasso's, a crappy pizza joint on the half-dead strip.  While Deanna doesn't emerge from the summer as exactly the person she dreams of becoming, she does come to realize her role in the lives of those closest to her.

What Sara Zarr's Story of a Girl has going for it is it is realistic.  The plot and prose are simplistic but believable.  Deanna struggles with family and friends and crushes and the ramifications of poor choices.  All teenagers can relate to Deanna, and her agony over her 13 year old decisions may act as a cautionary tale for kids trying to grow up too fast.  However, when Tommy reappears in Deanna's life, her conflicting feelings for him resurface, and the reader begins to understand the deeper intricacies of a teenager's first relationship.  These complications are reflected in the supporting characters in the various stages of their relationships.  Deanna's best friends Lee and Jason represent the beginning stages of a relationship when everything is new and exciting.  Her older brother Darren and his girlfriend Stacy along with their baby April represent the challenge of a new family, and her mother and father represent a relationship gone sour under the strain of everyday living.  Deanna knows what she doesn't want - her mother and father's life - what she does want - a relationship like Lee and Jason's (if not Jason himself) and what she wants to improve on - Darren and Stacy's tenuous existence, yet she lacks the right partner and more importantly, she lacks confidence in herself.  Through interactions with all of these characters and her new boss Michael, Deanna embarks on a summer of self-discovery, and although what she discovers is not the fairy-tale formula for family she hoped for, she knows she's going to be alright.   

Although I think Zarr didn't fully flesh out the Jason/Lee/Deanna triangle, Story of a Girl is a relateable, enjoyable read that encourages readers to explore the consequences of their actions without being preachy.

Best matched with teens knee deep in the pressures of junior high and high school.

Here Comes Santa Claus with Ten Books for Me!

Image from The Broke and the Bookish

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme by The Broke and The Bookish, and with Christmas right around the corner this week's topic is perfect.  What are the top ten books you hope Santa will stuff in your stocking?  I told my mother that I didn't want any books this year because I am attempting to read all of the books I own, and as this picture of my book shelves shows, I have a lot - not including what's on my Kindle.  But...here are the top ten books that I want to read but don't own yet.


1 -3. The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins (Don't yell at me!  I haven't had the time to read them yet, but they are number one on my list.)

4. The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater (When I first read the synopsis for this book, I wasn't terribly interested.  Flesh-eating horses are not my thing; however, I have read some RAVE reviews of this book, and I loved The Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy, so I am looking forward to picking it up.)

5. Thumped by Megan McCafferty (Thumped is the sequel to McCafferty's Bumped and not due out until Spring 2012, but I am dying to get my hands on a copy.  Bumped was hilarious and thought-provoking, and I know Thumped will only complicate the view of society that McCafferty has created in Bumped.)

6. Scars by Cheryl Reinfield (I read a great review of this book at For the Love of YA's blog.)

7. The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare (Like The Hunger Games, The Mortal Instruments series has been recommended to me by my highly trusted YA reading friends.  I just haven't found the time to pick it up.)

8. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jaqueline Kelly (The beautiful cover caught my eye, and the plot synopsis reminds me of some of my favorite childhood books, which I talk about here.)

9. A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True by Brigid Pasulka (The plot synopsis reminds me of one of my favorite books ever, Nicole Krauss' The History of Love.)

10. Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan (Two of my favorite authors collaborate - I must read this!)

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Waiting

This Advent season I have been thinking more and more about its characteristic feature...waiting.  This is an activity (or in-activity) that I am not terribly adept at.  My mother and my sisters could tell you horror stories about my attempts at "waiting" in doctor's offices (where I loudly proclaimed I was about to rot) and long car rides (where I plastered myself to the car window), but for some reason, as this year comes to a close, I have been fascinated by the concept of waiting.

Waiting, and doing so patiently, is not something that many people today willingly engage in.  Social networking sites and online shopping, for all of their benefits, have created a culture infamous for its desire for instant gratification.  While it is nice to immediately see what friends and family are up to or to finish your Christmas shopping with one click, being able to still your mind and body in preparation for an event can heighten the pleasure of that meal/gift/experience when the time comes.

It has been a whirlwind of a year, and after, not so patiently, waiting for the semester to end, I am looking forward to this final week of the Advent season to wait and rest, hoping that with the birth of Christ on Christmas day, I will also be reborn into this New Year, refreshed.

Review: Hold Still by Nina Lacour

I had heard great things about Nina Lacour's Hold Still when it was first published in 2009.  An illustrated young adult book focusing on friendship and the the ways we soldier on when encountered with tough issues like suicide was right up my ally, but I put off reading Hold Still for a while, even when I finally purchased my own copy several months ago, because I knew this was a book that was going to affect me.  Big time.  Like heartbreakingly, devastatingly so.  And it did, it was, but it was a lot of other things too.  In fact, Lacour's novel delivers in the area that has become a hallmark of YA fiction.  She offers a realistic yet hopeful look at the painful and troublesome world we live in.  It is dark and messy, but the characters can make it.  There might be days where they can't get out of bed, but it's not one long novel of days where the main character can't get out of bed.  Nor is it one long maudlin reflection on friendship and death, or a cursory, superficial look at teen depression and suicide followed by a cheery return to an artificial high school experience.  It is a book that cannot be easily categorized because it most closely resembles life in action.  The characters are living, breathing, and in motion - even when the world around them has shattered.  Gayle Foreman, author of If I Stay and Where I Went, said it best when she wrote, "Hold Still may be the truest depiction of the aching, gaping hole left in the wake of a suicide that I've ever read.  But it's anything but depressing and gloomy - it's also about the tender shoots of new relationships that grow unexpectedly out of tragedy."

Hold Still chronicles the year after Ingrid's suicide through the eyes of her best friend Caitlin.  Caitlin is devastated by the loss of her friend and wracked with guilt, especially when she finds Ingrid's journal shoved under her bed full of letters to those she loved most.  As Caitlin attempts to navigate life without Ingrid, she has to reacquaint herself with the places, like the old theater, pursuits, like photography, and people, like their photography teacher, that she shared with Ingrid.  What results are new relationships and new associations and talents that still harbor Ingrid's spirit but give Caitlin the strength to move forward.  Lacour's novel, however, is not a linear progression from grief to anger to recovery.  It mirrors the true grieving process and cycles between days of unbearable sadness and days of refreshing growth and back again.  Although Caitlin's story dominates, readers get an intimate peek at the effect of Ingrid's suicide and Caitlin's retreat on their parents, friends, and potential lovers as well.  It is these emotional snapshots that have stayed with me long after the novel's close.

I highly recommend this book.  I have read several books since my last set of mini reviews, but none of them captivated me as Lacour's Hold Still.  Wonderfully written with bits of philosophy and art woven through, Hold Still "breaks your heart and puts it back together again" (Elizabeth Scott, Living Dead Girl).

Best matched with anyone who has traveled the weary road from darkness to light.

Challenge: What new to do?

Susan Byrum Rountree, author of Nags Headers and In Mother Words, posted a question to her blog, writemuch, the other day.  She asked, "What new did you do this year to challenge yourself?" and encouraged readers to respond in the comments section or on their own blogs.  Susan's question got me thinking about the choices I have made in the past two years that have brought me to the brink of "The BIG Decision" that will not only affect the tail end of this year but will reverberate for many years to come.

Tonight, I am going to my alma mater, North Carolina State University, where I received a Master's Degree in English in May of 2010, to look at a PhD in Education program.  This is a big deal for me because when I decided I wanted to be a teacher "when I grow up" as a second semester sophomore at Peace College, I constructed a plan to get me there.  It looked like this:

BA in English, MA in English, PhD in English (specialization British Literature), and then professorship at the university of my choice.

Big dreams, big plans - certainly not unattainable, for I had the drive to see this through to the end, but by the end, I would have been an unrecognizable ball of nerves with no friends, and probably no husband, to speak of.  My first semester, nay, my first week as a graduate student at NCSU tore the plan in half.  I loved English, I loved teaching, and I still do, but I quickly discovered that the PhD fast track was not for me.  In fact, I vowed I was not going back to school for my PhD.  Ever.  Therefore, upon graduation, a university professorship, now even more competitive than ever due to the current economy, was out.  Instead I applied to community colleges, and even the occasional high school!, across North Carolina, and I was lucky enough to land a full-time position as an English instructor at Nash Community College in Rocky Mount.  The decision to accept this position afforded me with many opportunities over the last year and a half, namely, the opportunities to  move back home close to my family and marry my high-school sweetheart.  However, most importantly, I was able to further develop my teaching style and discover my professional niche.  The experiences I have had as an instructor in the community college environment, working with mostly developmental students, over the past year and a half have encouraged me to see my future differently.  It is the interactions and discussions I have had with students and faculty members here at Nash that have prompted me to reconsider my emphatic stance against a PhD. 

Over the past few weeks, I have begun to think about and research options for returning to school as a doctoral student but in areas and ways I had not considered as an undergraduate or even a naive graduate student.  I focused my research on PhD's in Education with distance education delivery.  Now settled in our new home, I did not want to uproot my husband, who has been the happiest I have seen him in years now that he can step out the front door and look out over fields and tree lines instead of highways.  Lo and behold, this search turned up a surprising prospect in a PhD in Educational Research and Policy Analysis with a specialization in Adult Education and Community College Teaching and Learning.  Immediately, I wanted to know more, and fortunately, the program is hosting an open house tonight on site.  Although my husband is reluctant to lose time with me to studying and paper writing, he is supportive of my quest and will attend the open house with me tonight.  I have not made a decision yet, and when I do, I may decide to wait another year or two before applying to the program, but the decision to look and consider this option has been a big one and one that, strangely, feels right.  We'll see what the new year brings; Dr. Harkins may be on the horizon.

Top Ten Tuesday (posted on a Thursday): Childhood Favorites

Image from The Broke and the Bookish

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, which is saving my blogging hide at this point in the semester.  If it wasn't for their engaging and quick blogging topics, "Matched" would be a very quiet place, at least until mid-December when exams are over, grading is done, and all of my students have fled the campus.  Then, in the midst of all of my holiday preparations and parties, I might find time to write.  But until that blessed day, I can always rely on The Broke and the Bookish to give me ideas for quick and interesting recommendations/reviews - although I may also be following Susan Byrum Rountree's advice at writemuch and blogging on her question a day for the month of December.  I am already behind, but I promise I have been pondering my answer to her query, "What new did you do this year to challenge yourself?," and it's a doozie.  But without further ado...here are the top ten books/series that carried me through my childhood:

1. Digby and Kate by Barbara Baker - This collection of short stories about best friends yet opposite species dog, Digby, and cat, Kate, has earned its number one spot on my list.  It was my favorite as a child.  I read it over and over again, and I still pull it out from time to time when I need to lose myself in the simplicity of childhood where a warm bowl of tomato soup and a cold glass of milk were all you needed.

2. The BabySitter's Club series by Ann M. Martin - I was obsessed with this series even though I was not a serial babysitter.  I loved the close-knit friendship the girls shared, their crushes, and the exoticism, to my pre-teen eyes, of fashionable Claudia and California born and bred Dawn.  My favorite book of the series (and the one I still own despite its tattered edges) has to be the Secret Santa novelty edition.  It combines the characters I had grown to love with one of my favorite literary tropes - the interactive letter (which I have also blogged about here).  The story of this Christmas is told through letters and Christmas cards the girls share, and the reader gets to actually open each letter and card, all hand-written in the girls' respective handwriting.

3. The Boxcar Children series by Gertrude Chandler Warner - I was introduced to this series in the third grade when my teacher, Ms. James, read us the first book in the series.  I was hooked.  Although each book centered around a mystery the children had to solve, I was most interested in the development of each character and the evolution of their boxcar hideaway.  The first book remains my favorite because I am forcefully reminded every time I read it of a child's need to inhabit and lay claim to his/her own space.  I credit The Boxcar Children for the inspiration for my own (brief) foray into the genre of mystery, the product of which my grandfather still has copies of today.  Written in the fourth grade, the story centers around the mysterious disappearance of Mrs. Cornflower's diamond.

4. Taffy of Torpedo Junction by Nell Wise Wechter - Another excellent mystery, this one set by the sea, introduced to me by my fourth grade teacher, Ms. Waters.  I loved Taffy's tenacity; she is a gutsy heroine, and she certainly sparked an interest in strong female characters for me.  She was everything I wasn't as a little girl, bold and adventurous.  Bonus points: this book is set in North Carolina (where I am from) and has ties to the Holocaust, which I am always interested in reading about.

5. Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder - Like Taffy, Laura, the heroine of the Little House on the Prairie series, was a strong female presence in my reading life.  Although Laura is a more subdued character than Taffy, she is tough in her own way.  She lives in the middle of nowhere with panthers lingering outsider her door!  My favorite scene from this book is the part where Laura receives her homemade doll for Christmas - the warmth and simplicity of the family's Christmas puts the out-of-control consumerism of our modern day Christmas to shame.  Even as a child, I reveled in the true holiday spirit emanating from the page.

6. Little Witch's Big Night by Deborah Hautzig - My maternal grandmother lives around the corner from a library.  My mother taught school, and as a child, I often spent afternoons at my grandmother's house and, of course, at the nearby library.  I loved the silliness and magic of The Little Witch series.  Little Witch is the youngest of her coven, and even though I am the oldest of three, I could relate to her desire for her talents to be taken seriously.

7. Miss Nelson is Missing! by Harry G. Allred, Jr. - A fantastic book about the dangers of the substitute teacher, Miss Nelson is Missing! describes a classroom gone wild in the absence of their teacher, Miss Nelson.  The class is quickly put back in order, though, by the terrifying substitute teacher, who some students think have kidnapped their beloved instructor.  The book has a surprising twist when the reader discovers the stern substitute and sweet Miss Nelson may be one and the same.  This book reminds me of one of my favorite teachers, Miss Wilson.  Miss Wilson followed my class from first to second grade, and one Halloween, she dressed up as a witch and came to class as her alter ego.  While some students were not fooled, it wasn't until many years later that I realized that the witch from that Halloween and Miss Wilson were the same person!

8. Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink - Caddie was another girl in my reading life that inspired my adventurous side.  My play time during the fourth grade year I read Caddie Woodlawn evolved into a recreation of Caddie's "live-off-the-land" philosophy.  My best friend at the time, Coley, and I would hunt and gather and write letters to each other, pretending we lived in a much earlier era where this was the only way of life.  Caddie's open minded approach to people and to life is one most eleven-year olds would do good to emulate.

9. Charlotte's Web by E. B. White - One of the most timeless and important pieces of fiction about the power of friendship.  I read this book so much as a child that the cover is literally in pieces, but I cannot bear to part with it for a newer, brighter copy.  My copy carries the memories and emotions created during each new reading.

10. Chicka-Chicka-Boom-Boom by Bill Martin, Jr. - My sisters and I adored this book as children and read it over and over again.  It is a colorful and fun look at the alphabet sharing the premise of "no more monkeys jumping on the bed."  The lowercase letters in the alphabet all decide to climb a coconut tree, with disastrous results.

*Honorable Mentions: These are books that I read more during my "pre-teen" years then as a child, but they are books that shape my memories of those times and that I returned to over and over again when I had nothing new to read.

Ashleigh's Diary (Thoroughbred Series) by Joanna Campbell
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. by Judy Blume
Sweet Valley High series by Francine Pascal
Both Sides of Time by Caroline B. Cooney
It Happened to Nancy Anonymous
The Diary of Anne Frank