If the following opinions seem harsh or mundane, please find it in your hearts to forgive me. I've not been in the best of moods lately, and I believe strongly that mood reflects opinion. Perhaps I could have waited, allowed myself more time for reflection. Perhaps I could have eaten a meal before posting this--as those who know me freely admit my cranky nature when I'm unfed. And yet, I feel compelled to share.
I just couldn't, or possibly wouldn't, love this book. It had every intention of enticing me. I wanted to like it some (this is not to say I didn't like it some). I even felt somewhat intimidated by Jenny's comment that she has been noting passages of interest to her. Therefore, before I even started reading it, I felt I was naturally going to be blown away. Sadly, I was not.
We are introduced, through narrator Lisa, to Celeste, apparent perfection in face and form. Celeste is one of those naturally wonderful girls everyone loves. By the age of 11, she is beautiful, smart, generous and unafraid to stick up for anyone. She is the perfect best friend, the perfect daughter of a warm and loving family, a perfect candidate to engage in typical adolescent recklessness that moves very quickly into self mutilation, drug use, and self loathing as evidenced by her increasingly erratic behavior. The problem with all this is I just didn't see it. That narrator-Lisa follows Celeste down this path is unavoidable and far more understanding, being that she has always felt herself inferior to her friend and comes from a distant family with a close connection to mental illness.
Perhaps that's the point and I'm missing it all.
I've read those stories before, the ones in which the seemingly perfect girls secretly engage in self-destructive behavior that spirals down the drugs-booze-hardcore path. Maybe that's what's bothering me. If I've seen it before then I want to see what reasons there are for it now. Lisa's narration doesn't do justice at all. Oh, we see many (unnecessary) chapters outlining the advent and development of their friendship. We have many opportunities to glimpse how wonderful Lisa thinks Celeste and her family are. And no, we are not as naive as Lisa to believe Celeste or her family that perfect, but we certainly see little evidence otherwise. (Trust me, when one is practically living at another's house, one sees more than a few dinnertime tiffs.)
I thought immediately upon finishing perhaps Lisa was to be one of those untrustworthy narrators we all learned about in Sophomore English with "Why I Live at the P.O.", but no. Lisa makes it a point to establish for us early on that she is not a victim of the same mental illness that plagued her mother and that this is a tale being told from future reflection, she's gotten her life quite together, thank you. So we must trust her, mustn't we? Otherwise, why include the disclaimer?
The blurbs on the book tell me I'm being too harsh. I'm not appreciating the "white-hot prose" of this "hypnotic portrait of two girls spinning perilously out of control", that this is a "funny, sexy, inventively told, and scary as hell" debut novel. Perhaps I am blind. Or maybe I'm just too jaded by the whole genre (GCoA). Or I find--having lived a pretty recklessly misspent youth myself--that there was something essential missing. That I was not hypnotized by a good two-thirds of the book and when it was just getting good, it of course speeds up, details are skimmed over and then it ends. And while the interludes between chapters (each taking place at a different punk show in the early 80's) are blazing with anger and self-loathing, they read as the only unadulterated moments in the book and are the only clues to what we're missing by the time we get to the good stuff. I do believe there could have been a way to ensnare us in Celeste's descent without the initial seven-chapter introduction to the height of the grace from which she would fall. (a whopping 135 pp. of seven chapters, a good third of the book)
Yes, I know, I'm the wrong person to be criticizing. I generally dislike novels like these. I don't find them tantalizing, the "disarming candor about sexual hunger" (per blurb) left me slightly chilled. Having known people who could come as close to Celeste as any real person can, I don't need to live vicariously through passages of drug use and sexual promiscuity. And yes, I am the person who loves long-winded prose and apt passages of description, but I can't name a single novel I truly in my heart love for all eternity about which I would say, "Oh, you could cut about 80 pages from this and it would be much cleaner." Nor has anyone ever heard me say about such novels: "If only they had expanded the final third of the book (of course after cutting 80 pp. from the first third), it would have been a much more compelling read."
And I think that's my real problem with this novel. Not the characters, setting or descriptions, but the imbalance of it. So much attention is given to the earliest years, when I'm waiting (per blurb) for something "racy, dangerous and very captivating", seven chapters of How We Ruled the School don't do it for me.
There are those who would say this is actually Lisa's story, not Celeste's, and as Lisa's story doesn't it all make more sense. Well, pshaw. Of course it's Lisa's story, but Lisa tells us it's Celeste's story. So make it Celeste's.
That is not to say there isn't some true merit here. The middle third of the book (wherein our heroines become muses of a sort, and teenage sexual playthings, to an older art professor and his student) was, in my opinion, the best part. Like, should have been the whole book best part. I wanted to like the early passages which take place at sleepaway camp, but certain events (important again in the development of Lisa's character, though not Celeste's) felt eerily familiar. A can't-quite-put-my-finger-on-it-but-I-know-it's-there similarity to something else I'd read at some point in the past. Perhaps this early disgruntlement poisoned me for the remainder of the book. I couldn't say now.
So of course, by the time I get to the juicy stuff, well, first I'm surprised I'm still reading. So there was something there. And for that, I will recommend this book. Plus, Jenny liked it a lot (and I'm sure it has nothing to do with having a slight crush on the author's husband) and she is an excellent judge of such things. I, however, am cranky and tired of reading about little girls with little hope. Here's to a change of genre!
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