PROM ANONYMOUS; A BAD BOY CAN BE GOOD FOR A GIRL; AN ORDINARY MAN
Whoopsie, what was I thinking--I don't have 10 minutes free on Tuesdays!
So three today. 15 minutes. Yep.
First off the is promised Prom Anonymous by Blake Nelson, he of New Rules of High School fame (and many others that I haven't read). This one is the tale of three girls and their prom plans. Junior Laura has been dating senior Mike for over a year, and their sex life is pretty boring. She's determined that her two childhood buddies, athlete Jace Torres and stoner/slacker/poetry girl/sort-of Goth Chloe, have just as good a time at this year's prom as Laura did at last year's. The POV switches among the three of them. Some of it was pretty formulaic, and of course you can see plot twists coming a mile away, not to mention how super-annoying it was that the rebel girlz end up just needing to be picked up and taken away from their brooding (come on now, rite of passage!), but I liked it anyway. It definitely, however, made me think of the massive gulf between straight kids and gay kids. Sure, some gay kids go to prom, and some kids are bi, and blah dee blah, but I'd say that, like everything in a straight-dominated society (and where isn't it like that--Ptown, Michigan Fest?), everything is so naturally focused on the het people that it's like...I don't know, what invisibility is really about. Anyway, no more time to talk about that, but it definitely made me think about the wall of removed experience that I felt in high school and college, and often feel today, because what the hell are other people DOING sometimes? I don't get them, and if they were ever surrounded by lesbians 24/7, I bet they'd feel similarly. OTOH, I often also think that's because I have type 1 diabetes, and it just keeps me one or two steps removed. Not sure how to define or write about that. Just needed to say it.
OK, well, moving on: Tonya Stone's A Bad Boy Can Be Good For a Girl. Y'know, I'm not totally sure I liked this one. Why is it written in verse?
Richie Partington points out that it leads to good discussions for girls about believing one's peers when they say a particular boy is only out for one thing and doesn't treat girls well. Might be true, I guess. Another book that made me feel very distant from straight girls because that was never, ever my concern in life. Not that I don't care about healthy sexuality for teenage straight girls; I do, I do. It just sort of...left me wondering. Especially about the third girl, who's very artsy and poetic, but allows herself to get sucked into the life of a "popular" girl--and acts like partying is REALLY what she wants. Not buying it, Aviva. OK, gotta stop with this one.
Third. So yeah, a lot of us probably saw Hotel Rwanda. And I've been asked to review the memoir Paul Rusesabagina (with Tom Zoellner) wrote, An Ordinary Man. First of all, I should say that in the fall of 1992, I had a French professor from Zaire whose family lived in Rwanda (and were Tutsi, and were murdered, leaving her and her husband with about 9 nieces and nephews to adopt). And that I was politically aware, active, involved, and all of that, so the whole thing was TOTALLY in my consciousness in April of 1994. OK, that out of the way, apparently not a lot of people were thinking about it. And apparently a lot of people haven't been reading the analyses since then. So Rusesabagina sort of has to do a lot of education while he tries to write a personal memoir. The voice wavers back and forth from personal to authoritatively philosophical. Anyway, I DEFINITELY think young adults should read this book. Hearing the horrific tale that the US could have jammed the freakin' radio broadcasts that led to all of the death--we need to know that stuff. It's not a great or well-written book, and yes, the movie is actually better than the book although the book gives more background, which is good to have. But like Corrie ten Boom's The Hiding Place or any of the massive variety of memoirs about genocides from Guatemala to the Ukraine, An Ordinary Man gives information that older teenagers need to hear and think about. (And usually want to hear and think about, considering the morbid streak that runs through the forming minds of the young folks for some developmental reason I don't actually know.)
Well, that took longer than expected. OF course, I did all kinds of things in between writing different reviews, so who knows how long it ACTUALLY took? In any case: here 'tis!
So three today. 15 minutes. Yep.
First off the is promised Prom Anonymous by Blake Nelson, he of New Rules of High School fame (and many others that I haven't read). This one is the tale of three girls and their prom plans. Junior Laura has been dating senior Mike for over a year, and their sex life is pretty boring. She's determined that her two childhood buddies, athlete Jace Torres and stoner/slacker/poetry girl/sort-of Goth Chloe, have just as good a time at this year's prom as Laura did at last year's. The POV switches among the three of them. Some of it was pretty formulaic, and of course you can see plot twists coming a mile away, not to mention how super-annoying it was that the rebel girlz end up just needing to be picked up and taken away from their brooding (come on now, rite of passage!), but I liked it anyway. It definitely, however, made me think of the massive gulf between straight kids and gay kids. Sure, some gay kids go to prom, and some kids are bi, and blah dee blah, but I'd say that, like everything in a straight-dominated society (and where isn't it like that--Ptown, Michigan Fest?), everything is so naturally focused on the het people that it's like...I don't know, what invisibility is really about. Anyway, no more time to talk about that, but it definitely made me think about the wall of removed experience that I felt in high school and college, and often feel today, because what the hell are other people DOING sometimes? I don't get them, and if they were ever surrounded by lesbians 24/7, I bet they'd feel similarly. OTOH, I often also think that's because I have type 1 diabetes, and it just keeps me one or two steps removed. Not sure how to define or write about that. Just needed to say it.
OK, well, moving on: Tonya Stone's A Bad Boy Can Be Good For a Girl. Y'know, I'm not totally sure I liked this one. Why is it written in verse?
Richie Partington points out that it leads to good discussions for girls about believing one's peers when they say a particular boy is only out for one thing and doesn't treat girls well. Might be true, I guess. Another book that made me feel very distant from straight girls because that was never, ever my concern in life. Not that I don't care about healthy sexuality for teenage straight girls; I do, I do. It just sort of...left me wondering. Especially about the third girl, who's very artsy and poetic, but allows herself to get sucked into the life of a "popular" girl--and acts like partying is REALLY what she wants. Not buying it, Aviva. OK, gotta stop with this one.
Third. So yeah, a lot of us probably saw Hotel Rwanda. And I've been asked to review the memoir Paul Rusesabagina (with Tom Zoellner) wrote, An Ordinary Man. First of all, I should say that in the fall of 1992, I had a French professor from Zaire whose family lived in Rwanda (and were Tutsi, and were murdered, leaving her and her husband with about 9 nieces and nephews to adopt). And that I was politically aware, active, involved, and all of that, so the whole thing was TOTALLY in my consciousness in April of 1994. OK, that out of the way, apparently not a lot of people were thinking about it. And apparently a lot of people haven't been reading the analyses since then. So Rusesabagina sort of has to do a lot of education while he tries to write a personal memoir. The voice wavers back and forth from personal to authoritatively philosophical. Anyway, I DEFINITELY think young adults should read this book. Hearing the horrific tale that the US could have jammed the freakin' radio broadcasts that led to all of the death--we need to know that stuff. It's not a great or well-written book, and yes, the movie is actually better than the book although the book gives more background, which is good to have. But like Corrie ten Boom's The Hiding Place or any of the massive variety of memoirs about genocides from Guatemala to the Ukraine, An Ordinary Man gives information that older teenagers need to hear and think about. (And usually want to hear and think about, considering the morbid streak that runs through the forming minds of the young folks for some developmental reason I don't actually know.)
Well, that took longer than expected. OF course, I did all kinds of things in between writing different reviews, so who knows how long it ACTUALLY took? In any case: here 'tis!