review: Openly Straight

by Bill Konigsberg
Arthur A. Levine Books, May 28 2013
young adult contemporary
ARC received from publisher (thank you!)

Summary:

Rafe knows how lucky he is to be openly gay in his tolerant community, but he doesn't want to be defined by his orientation any more. It's why he decides to move to an all-boys' boarding school in New England, and why he decides to keep quiet on his sexuality. A male world of sports, testosterone and popularity opens up for him, and Rafe plunges into it... but he's also falling in love with one of his new friends, and hiding one part of him feels a lot like hiding all of him.

The cover:

Hmm. It shouts "video game" to me, and old 8-bit video games at that. The idea of checking what type of person you are is intriguing, but I don't think it's executed well here. Also, the title font doesn't really fit the scheme of things, though the bright blue is okay.

The book:

Openly Straight is basically everything you could want from a story featuring an (almost) all-male cast: friendship, racism and all types of love tackled; highs and lows and fuzzy warm moments; and some absolutely, absolutely hilarious scenes. The themes are probably the highlight of the novel. Explored in Rafe's genuine, questioning voice, his mindset develops and takes the reader with him as he searches the differences between "tolerance" and "acceptance" and decides whose opinions matter to him.

Rafe himself is lovely. At the beginning, Rafe seems potentially arrogant and a tad obnoxious, but he soon gets his choice of friends and priorities straight. It's then we get to see Rafe's smartness and vulnerabilities, the things he thinks and the problems he ponders. Put him together with Ben, Toby and Albie, and you have an amazing brotherhood. Toby and Albie are probably the best odd pair I know in fiction; they're both a little weird (and fully aware of it) and make fpr the funniest. scenes. ever.

     "I want to save the children. I want to celebrate with all the people of the earth. I want to put candles in their hearts.
     Toby was standing in the middle of our once-again-disastrous dorm room, swaying, holding a pencil for a microphone and wearing a huge pair of yellow-framed sunglasses that engulfed his face. Albie sat his desk, his head in his hands, trying to study. I couldn't take my eyes off Toby, who gave new meaning to the phrase train wreck.
     It was Sunday night after Thanksgiving, I'd just gotten back from Colorado, and Toby was being some yellow-framed-sunglasses-wearing version of Michael Jackson. He was holding court in front of a make-believe audience, imploring them to give peace a chance.
     "What the fuck is happening?" I asked no one in particular, as Toby began singing a song that neither rhymed nor made sense.
     "Feed the word. Give the children Slankets because Snuggies are too big and they are hungry."
     "His mom streamed that Michael Jackson movie on Netflix over Thanksgiving," Albie said in a monotone. "Now he thinks he's a pop star and a humanitarian. I'll admit it's one of his more annoying phases."
     "And you get a car. And you get a car," Toby was saying, pantomiming handing out small cars to an audience that perhaps only he could see." (p. 262 - 263)

     Rafe: "Does Toby know?"
     [Albie] shrugged. "It's not something we really talk about. Gee, what is it about me that attracts all the gays? I'm like Lady Gaga or something." (p. 277)

     "Me and Ben," I said, my teeth nearly chattering.
     [Toby's] eyes lit up. "Are you cereal?"
     "Totally. Totally cereal."
     "That's great!" he said.
     I grimaced. Well, not so great, actually."
     "He hits you?"
     I did a double take. With Toby, it was hard to tell when he was serious. (p. 281)

And ohh, Ben. Ugh, it is impossible to not find him attractive, considering we're in Rafe's first-person POV. He's tall (point), muscled (point) and a soccer player (POINT POINT POINT). He's also the perfect philosophical springboard for Rafe's musings; they talk together about humanity, friends, family, love. Ben is also all the more endearing for his care of his friend Bryce (who doesn't, in my opinion, get enough page time).

Rafe is also immensely lucky in parents and BFF. His mom and dad are hippy-ish and happy, and while Claire Olivia seems a little unlikeable initially through Rafe's viewpoint, their friendship is undeniable when they're interacting together.

This plot hinges on the relationships between the characters, and as such, no scene or chapter feels superfluous. Around the climax, the pacing gets blurry--time passes quickly, then an abrupt cut to a real-time scene--and the ending is open, in that there is no neat resolution to Rafe's and Ben's relationship. Still, Rafe himself comes to a few conclusions in regards to his worldview, and it's enough to reassure us things will work out okay.

Ethnic balance: 2.5 1.5 out of 5. Ben and Bryce are black, but I don't think anyone else's ethnicities are mentioned. Still, having a POC as the love interest is a major step forward. Unfortunately, turns out Ben is not black, which dials back the progressiveness of this relationship to about 1, and makes me tremendously sad. :(

Rating: 4.7 out of 5

review: Stuck

by Oliver Jeffers
Philomel, September 1 2011
contemporary picture book

Summary:

Floyd has gotten his kite stuck in a tree. The logical method: throwing other things into the tree to dislodge it, of course. But no matter what he throws (a whale? a house? a firefighter? sure, why not), everything seems to get stuck...

The cover:

Perfect. The title font is large, clean and (I think) handwritten, just like all the text inside, and its placement in the tree matches the word's meaning and the story told, while also giving away nothing at the same time. The olive background goes with the entire book's colour scheme as well.

The book:

There is something unutterably elegant about a picture book like this. Full-page but sparse illustrations highlight the movement of our very active protagonist with either no or half-completed backdrops, and simple shapes (e.g. Floyd's oval head, rectangular body) characterize every object drawn. In fact, the artistic style is—presumably deliberately—very rough; sketch-like lines are used instead of clear outlines. The lack of backdrops also allows Floyd's character to almost literally move across the page, from left to right, as if in a comic book with invisible panels.

The story is repetitive but nevertheless adorably quirky, with a mix of dialogue and character cameos keeping things fresh. The scale of the objects being thrown by Floyd grows and grows with matching (hilarious) illustrations. And at the point where it seems that he's finally realized some common sense, instead one more thing gets stuck... but at least he gets his kite back.

Ethnic balance: N/A. As a picture book, this only has two characters (four if you count the firefighters), and all are white. Small sample size.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

review: Chantress

by Amy Butler Greenfield
Margaret K. McElderry Books, May 7 2013
young adult historical fantasy
digital review copy received via Edelweiss

Summary:

Lucy never expected that taking off the stone pendant she’s always worn would cause her world to burst into song. And when she sings the song, it wraps her up, sweeps her off her feet and spirits her and her guardian, Norrie, away from their isolated island and into the midst of London. There, she learns that a man named Scargrave has seized control over the King through a grimoire—a grimoire taken from a Chantress. And Lucy learns that as a Chantress herself, it will be up to her to destroy the grimoire and free London.

The cover:

This is a tired theme where the girl’s hand is focused and her face is blurry in the background, usually with the design attempting to place significance on whatever the model is holding. And yep, the purple-pink shades and overtones are present and accounted for. Even the font treatment is part of the theme. Here, the font treatment is nice, but seems irrelevant to me.

The book:

There is rather little to speak of in regards to Lucy. She starts off with a bad first impression (going explicitly against her guardian’s wishes) but levels out by the end by not being swayed by other influences, so we’re left with a neutral feeling; there’s little in the first-person narration that endears her particularly to the reader. Nothing truly unique exists in the voice, and so Lucy is tolerable, but she probably won’t be the reason to keep reading.

The interesting and relatively unique premise of Chantresses is the foundation of this book. We’re given the tour, so to speak, of Chantress powers and brief snippets of history. However, more depth could’ve been given considering how key the Chantresses were to the novel; there is definite potential in adding layers to the Chantress aspect and subsequently adding layers to the plot.

Which would’ve been lovely, because the plot is shallow: once Lucy arrives in London, she does nothing but learn, gather information, and train. The story arc matches the linear function y = x, a steady slope upwards to the right, with a straightforward climax and practically no surprises at all. (Often, several chapters are spent in a row in the same setting, with our characters all sitting around a fireplace exchanging information.)

Many of the characters are stereotypes. Penebrygg is the kind old man with an interest in dabbling in science, and he’s often the one making the paragraph-long info-dumps for the benefit of Lucy and the reader; Lady Helaine is the strict and sharp godmother; Norrie is the plump old nanny who can cook really well. Even Nat, who displays the most potential to becoming a 3D character, is given too little page-time for the reader to really believe that he and Lucy have any chemistry.

The climax of the book showed hints of developing our principal antagonist Scargrave into an ambivalent character, what with the grimoire’s sentient mind, but the latter isn’t explained fully, and the ending arrives before it can become anything memorable. Unfortunately, this historical fantasy falls flat thanks to weakly developed characters, a lack of intrigue and a premise that failed to deliver.

Rating: 2 out of 5

busy.

I need to be this organized.

It's nearing May, which means school is pressing. I will ergo be posting irregularly here on Pass the Chiclets, and only reviewing the galleys sent to me for review. That also means I won't be able to post any fun or creative discussion stuff, like Novel Sound's amazing poems + books idea. But I'm going to let myself off the hook for that.

Thank you for reading! Now here's a very elaborate signature just to make up for this ridiculously short post.