March Books
Apr. 2nd, 2009 11:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slemslempikeMarch
Laurie Loved Me Best - Robin Klein
Throne of Jade - Naomi Novik
Girl - Blake Nelson
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Black Powder War - Naomi Novik
Amber - Jacqueline Wilson
I picked up Laurie Loved Me Best at the bookswap, because I thought I'd read it before. I had, though I didn't remember anything about it except one part where a smaller child in the commune steals her bras and she can't do anything about it because she's not meant to care about property. I am clearly unutterably materialistic, because that has stuck with me for about twelve years, long after the rest of the book felt me. Possibly this is the source of my buying too many bras. I cannot be held responsible.
I'd had Throne of Jade and Black Powder War sitting on my shelves for ages, and finally got around to it after reading some lovely fic in yuletide. I like the dragons, and I like Temeraire's yearning for social revolution, but it was still a bit of a slog to get through. I've never had much trouble with reading matches or pantomimes in school stories, but the dragon fighting bored me. I shall probably stick to fic in future.
I loved Girl. I got it from one of those boxes outside Any Amount of Books for £1, and it was great. It's from 1994, sort of diary-style but not that structured, with Andrea getting through high school and discovering music and sex. And it was difficult and messy and she was sometimes stupid but she also had some great sex sometimes and made better friends with people. It doesn't remind me of me, or make me wish I'd been like her, but it was sad.
"I told Darcy about Mark Pierce getting on top of me and if you could have an orgasm from making out. And I was saying how easily I could have had sex with him and didn't she think it was inevitable really, and was it dishonest if you didn't like them that much? Darcy said it wasn't about being honest, it was more about if you're ready or not. And I asked how you know if you're ready and she said, "If your friends are all doing it, then you are.""
"I picked out the least ugly dress and as I put my regular clothes back on I watched myself in the mirror and imagined I was in Mark Pierce's bedroom and we had done it and he was asking me to stay but I couldn't because I had a meeting to go to or a flight to catch or something important to do."
[She has woken up to find Scott Haskell holding her down and masturbating onto her.]
"And the more I thought about it the madder I got and I said maybe I should tell everyone at school. But Darcy said not to because it would make her look stupid and me look stupid and guys would just twist it around and make it our fault. And then we stopped at 7-Eleven to get some ice cream but we didn't get out of the car because all of a sudden we both understood our situation with Mark Pierce and Scott Haskell. We were groupies. We were these little sophomore sluts who guys like Mark Pierce and Scott Haskell jerked off on. And all this time we had tried so hard to not identify ourselves with them and that was exactly what they wanted. They didn't want us to be their girlfriends, they were glad we were stupid and didn't make any demands and just hung around so they could fondle us whenever they wanted. And Mark Pierce never loved me, he didn't even like me, he just liked how stupid I was. And he was probably having sex with Renee Hatfield the whole time, probably right this second they were they were in her parents' bed foing it and laughing their heads off. And then Darcy said, "I don't feel like ice cream." And I said, "I feel sick." And Darcy started the car and drove us both home."
"she gave me all this crap about how she wasn't avoiding me, she was just chasing this boy that Wendy knew from Bradley Day School. It was such an obvious lie. I said, "You don't have to pretend about some boy." And I sounded really snotty all of a sudden and I didn't mean to> And then she said she wasn't pretending at all, his name was Peter and at least he wasn't some redneck boy from Canada who gave girls bullets. And I said, "Well at least Brad likes girls. At least I'm not a vir-" But then I stopped. And we both looked away and I huess we were shocked that we hated each other so much. And then she saw Gary Tisdale and went running after him and I just stood there and it was so awful."
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is accidentally making me look slightly more widely read this month. Next month I plan to read almost entirely YA again, though.
Amber turned out to be another book I'd read before and forgotten, and although I got it entirely separately from Laurie Loved Me Best, it also has commune children, and a girl trying to move in with her staid grandmother to escape her bohemian mother, and more than that turns out to be the source of another isolated YA scene from my childhood, when Amber dies her hands black by mistake and everyone thinks it's a deliberate Sign from her. Early Jacqueline Wilson is so much better than the more recent stuff.
Laurie Loved Me Best - Robin Klein
Throne of Jade - Naomi Novik
Girl - Blake Nelson
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Black Powder War - Naomi Novik
Amber - Jacqueline Wilson
I picked up Laurie Loved Me Best at the bookswap, because I thought I'd read it before. I had, though I didn't remember anything about it except one part where a smaller child in the commune steals her bras and she can't do anything about it because she's not meant to care about property. I am clearly unutterably materialistic, because that has stuck with me for about twelve years, long after the rest of the book felt me. Possibly this is the source of my buying too many bras. I cannot be held responsible.
I'd had Throne of Jade and Black Powder War sitting on my shelves for ages, and finally got around to it after reading some lovely fic in yuletide. I like the dragons, and I like Temeraire's yearning for social revolution, but it was still a bit of a slog to get through. I've never had much trouble with reading matches or pantomimes in school stories, but the dragon fighting bored me. I shall probably stick to fic in future.
I loved Girl. I got it from one of those boxes outside Any Amount of Books for £1, and it was great. It's from 1994, sort of diary-style but not that structured, with Andrea getting through high school and discovering music and sex. And it was difficult and messy and she was sometimes stupid but she also had some great sex sometimes and made better friends with people. It doesn't remind me of me, or make me wish I'd been like her, but it was sad.
"I told Darcy about Mark Pierce getting on top of me and if you could have an orgasm from making out. And I was saying how easily I could have had sex with him and didn't she think it was inevitable really, and was it dishonest if you didn't like them that much? Darcy said it wasn't about being honest, it was more about if you're ready or not. And I asked how you know if you're ready and she said, "If your friends are all doing it, then you are.""
"I picked out the least ugly dress and as I put my regular clothes back on I watched myself in the mirror and imagined I was in Mark Pierce's bedroom and we had done it and he was asking me to stay but I couldn't because I had a meeting to go to or a flight to catch or something important to do."
[She has woken up to find Scott Haskell holding her down and masturbating onto her.]
"And the more I thought about it the madder I got and I said maybe I should tell everyone at school. But Darcy said not to because it would make her look stupid and me look stupid and guys would just twist it around and make it our fault. And then we stopped at 7-Eleven to get some ice cream but we didn't get out of the car because all of a sudden we both understood our situation with Mark Pierce and Scott Haskell. We were groupies. We were these little sophomore sluts who guys like Mark Pierce and Scott Haskell jerked off on. And all this time we had tried so hard to not identify ourselves with them and that was exactly what they wanted. They didn't want us to be their girlfriends, they were glad we were stupid and didn't make any demands and just hung around so they could fondle us whenever they wanted. And Mark Pierce never loved me, he didn't even like me, he just liked how stupid I was. And he was probably having sex with Renee Hatfield the whole time, probably right this second they were they were in her parents' bed foing it and laughing their heads off. And then Darcy said, "I don't feel like ice cream." And I said, "I feel sick." And Darcy started the car and drove us both home."
"she gave me all this crap about how she wasn't avoiding me, she was just chasing this boy that Wendy knew from Bradley Day School. It was such an obvious lie. I said, "You don't have to pretend about some boy." And I sounded really snotty all of a sudden and I didn't mean to> And then she said she wasn't pretending at all, his name was Peter and at least he wasn't some redneck boy from Canada who gave girls bullets. And I said, "Well at least Brad likes girls. At least I'm not a vir-" But then I stopped. And we both looked away and I huess we were shocked that we hated each other so much. And then she saw Gary Tisdale and went running after him and I just stood there and it was so awful."
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is accidentally making me look slightly more widely read this month. Next month I plan to read almost entirely YA again, though.
Amber turned out to be another book I'd read before and forgotten, and although I got it entirely separately from Laurie Loved Me Best, it also has commune children, and a girl trying to move in with her staid grandmother to escape her bohemian mother, and more than that turns out to be the source of another isolated YA scene from my childhood, when Amber dies her hands black by mistake and everyone thinks it's a deliberate Sign from her. Early Jacqueline Wilson is so much better than the more recent stuff.
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no subject
Date: 2009-04-02 11:10 am (UTC)*nods* Oh yes.
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Date: 2009-04-02 12:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-03 02:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-03 02:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-04 06:42 pm (UTC)Making Hate (1977), which is more of an adult title, which lists
- Hide and Seek
- Truth and Dare
- Swap
- Let's Pretend
Nobody's Perfect (1982)
The Power of the Shade (1987)
- Waiting for the Sky to Fall
Falling Apart (1989)
Amber (1986)
- The Other Side
And now I am off to search for the ones I don't have too!
no subject
Date: 2009-04-05 10:37 am (UTC)The ones I have are: Deep Blue (1990), which must be a reprint as it mentions Tracy Beaker in the author bio: 'also by' lists The Left-Outs and Take a Good Look (as well as Video Rose and Werepuppy); and
Is There Anybody Out There? 2 Crystal Gazing (1990 - time-slip/body-swap novel - in the first one I gather a Victorian girl entered the body of a modern girl, in this one the modern girl slips back into the Victorian girl's body/life), which lists 'the Stevie Day series' (about a fourteen-year-old 'small skinny feminist' who solves mysteries): Supersleuth, Lonely Hearts, Rat Race and Vampire (reviews are dated 1987 and 1988). Awesomely the Stevie Day series is listed alongside Scrambled Legs and Class of '89, both of which I remember enjoying tremendously (especially Class of '89).
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Date: 2009-04-05 10:46 am (UTC)Small skinny feminist solving mysteries! Oh, I want to track those down.
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Date: 2009-04-05 01:33 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-04-06 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-02 11:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-02 12:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-02 12:51 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-04-02 12:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-02 11:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-02 12:33 pm (UTC)I couldn't really work out from the back whether it was going to be awesome or turgid, and then it was wonderful. Do you know if she's written anything else worth reading?
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Date: 2009-04-02 03:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-02 07:17 pm (UTC)Thanks!
Date: 2009-04-02 08:30 pm (UTC)Re: Thanks!
Date: 2009-04-02 09:21 pm (UTC)I was suspicious rather than downright annoyed initially
Date: 2009-04-02 09:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-02 08:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-02 09:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-02 09:53 pm (UTC)