Beyond Clueless

June 15, 2015
Mistaken identity, misbehavior, and musical theater. Now that she's starting Catholic school, how will 14-year-old Marty spend time with BFF Jimmy, who's staying in public school and has a new boyfriend distracting him? Marty likes Jimmy's boyfriend's friends from the Gay-Straight Alliance but misses Jimmy's undiluted attention. At least Marty's school is doing Into the Woods-musicals are Marty's lifeblood. Playing Little Red Riding Hood, she falls for the wily older boy playing the Wolf; Into the Woods fans will gobble up the detailed connections between show and life. As the kids pal around and drink beer, Marty's oblivious social assumptions exist only to set up a plot tangle of identities, jealousies, and missteps. Weak characterization strains for voice, with Marty's campy first-person narration ("HELL no. I'm not going to be the only girl-skank in these pictures!") sounding the same as her gay friends' ("Sweetheart, you have no idea what a trove of secrets I keep"; "You are soooo changing out of that...arrangement of fabric"). Ongoing snark about unshaven female legs, an it's-so-weird attitude about a Chinese name before Marty learns its pronunciation, and variations on a slur ("mah bitches," "bee-yatch," and the classic "bitch") aim for humor and flavor but come off, well, bitchy. In a subgenre about queer themes and musicals that's big enough to offer choice, other options are funnier and more genuine than this. (Fiction. 13-15)

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July 1, 2015

Gr 8 Up-When Martha (Marty) and Jimmy-BFFs since fifth grade-head to different high schools, their lives begin to change. Jimmy, acknowledging that he's gay, falls for Derek, and Marty fears that she'll be replaced. Obsessed by Broadway musicals, she auditions for Into the Woods at her all-girls' school, encouraging Jimmy and his new friends to do likewise. She and Derek are cast, her cellist friend Xiang opts to play in the orchestra, and Jimmy and his friend Oliver agree to be assistant directors. Totally smitten with gorgeous Felix Peroni, (typecast as The Wolf), Marty agrees to a backstage secret romance, unaware that he is two-timing her. Finally jolted back to reality, she discovers that someone else has cared about her all along. The well-paced story with its typical adolescent behavior-sexting, swearing, sneaking out, underage drinking, making out-will ring true with teens, and its plot twists and turns will maintain high interest. The theatrical setting will appeal to stage-struck young adults, and the ultimately positive parent/kid relationships will resonate with readers. While less overt than David Leviathan's Hold Me Closer (Dutton, 2015), Alsenas's title offers practical, kid-appropriate advice on the value of friendship and the importance of self-knowledge. VERDICT A pleasing, humorous tale of relationship angst.-Nancy Menaldi-Scanlan, formerly at LaSalle Academy, Providence, RI

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2015
Ever since fifth grade, Martha Marty Sullivan has been perfectly happy with just one friend: flamboyantly gay Jimmy. But now her parents insist on sending her to an all-girls' Catholic high school, which expands her social horizons both among girls (rebellious new friend Xiang) and guys. The school production of Into the Woods recruits from other schools for the male roles, several of which are filled by boys from Jimmy's new Gay-Straight Alliance group and boys Xiang meets at the mall. Lost in her misguided crush on mall-boy Felix, who, it turns out, is appropriately cast as the Wolf to Marty's Little Red Riding Hood, Marty misses the signs of Jimmy's kinder friend Oliver's crush on her (wrongly assuming that a male GSA member couldn't possibly be interested in girls). Meanwhile, Marty drifts apart from Jimmy, who has met and is busy dating Derek. This tale of many characters is mostly light fare, but it's an honest portrayal of the cluelessness inherent in early high schoolers. In these overlapping social circles, being out-and-proud is no big deal, but having one's best guy friend find a boyfriend can induce the same jealousies as in any friendship. A comedy of errors for readers still figuring out modern adolescence. shoshana flax The Question of Miracles by Elana K. Arnold Intermediate, Middle School Houghton 234 pp. 2/15 978-0-544-33464-9 $16.99 Sixth-grader Iris, mourning the death of her friend Sarah in a car accident, seeks to make sense of the tragedy. She wants to know why Sarah died when she, Iris, standing just a few feet away, survived. Iris feels Sarah's presence and tries various ways of communicating with her, including mirror gazing and electronic voice phenomena, a technique she finds on the internet. When she discovers that her new friend Boris was a miracle baby who survived near-fatal problems in utero, she fixates on the concept of miracles. In the course of her search for meaning, Iris initially rejects the consolations offered by religion, her parents, and her therapist. In the end, though, it is precisely those consolations -- the power of memory, the cycle of nature, the value of metaphorical thinking -- and the solace of a new friend that help Iris pull through. Arnold tackles tough questions here, but she does so gently, with small, focused effects. Iris's parents are a bit kooky, but they're not cartoons. Boris is an outsider, bullied at school, but confident in his own way. Church doctrine is not useful to Iris, but neither is it derided. Iris changes, but her growth is slightly shaky and provisional. In other words, realistic. sarah ellis

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