So when I started doing the YA ordering, I got online and ordered what were generally considered to be some of the best of the best in YA GLBTQ books. I tend to think that, being a more rural library, these books are even MORE important to have. While a teen in a big city might have a support group to turn to or be "out" so that s/he can be friends with others who are also "out", that simply isn't an option here. The "good 'ol boys" network in my town is strong and bullying for being different is a part of that.
In my library, the person who was working as the Teen Librarian at the time this book was popular felt it was "too mature" for the teen area. Considering the book was falling apart when I went after it, I'd say the teens were seeking it out anyway. And then I got irritated (I mean, it is published in partnership with MTV books, for goodness sake!), so I ordered another copy for the teen area this year. I knew this book would come back around in popularity, especially because the movie was coming out soon.
This book follows Charlie through a series of letters to a friend, who is never identified. Charlie is a freshman and having some trouble making friends and fitting in in high school. Charlie is a wallflower, someone who is there but not noticed. Until, one day at a football game, two seniors, Sam and Patrick, who are step-siblings. They are beautiful and worldly, both things Charlie is not, but they befriend him and it means the world to Charlie.
They help Charlie cope after the death of an aunt he loved dearly (and around whom there is a significant twist at the end of the book) and help him with his depression and anxiety. There are tough issues in this book and they are dealt with in a way that seems to ring true.
It'll sound hokey, but I think all of us have a bit of Charlie in us. Even the most popular person in the room has probably, at one time, felt like a wallflower. I think this is one of the reasons this book is still popular (and remains very challenged); everyone can relate, even if only a bit.
Ava is from a super liberal family; she calls her parents by their first names and when she declared herself a lesbian, her parents literally broke out the champagne. Ava has a girlfriend, dyes her hair a deep black, and wears very little color.
But Ava has a secret: she longs to be a girl who wears pink. She loves the color. She also loves skirts and dresses and kitten heels, she just doesn't feel that she can get away with wearing those things. In order to get a fresh start, she transfers to a private school and, on the first day, wears a pair of fitted jeans and a new pink, cashmere, argyle sweater that she just adores.
Even though she's struggling a bit with the new, heavy course load, she feels that she's off to a great start. She's fallen in with a good crowd who conspire to hook her up with a boy named Ethan (Ava thinks she might like boys as well, so she's totally ok with this).
Things start to get dicey, though, when she auditions for (and completely makes a fool of herself while doing it) the school musical. She ends up signing up to work with the stage crew, or Screw, as they call themselves, which Ava's new cool friends think is just awful. At this point, you get to see how very confused Ava is about a lot of things in her life. She is confused about what she wants and who she wants to be. She wants to be "normal" more than she is normal and has a hard time accepting that.
No comments:
Post a Comment