Anna and the French Kiss - Stephanie Perkins

How cute was THIS book? YA is in this pattern, as Alice has pointed out , of following either the Stephenie Meyer or the John Green paths of fiction; that is, the Possibly Paranormal but Definitely Controlling Boyfriend and Mary Sue Path, or the Super-Witty Self-Aware-Teen Path. Two paths, someone once said, diverged in a wood, and Stephanie Perkins took neither of them.

I worked hard on that metaphor

Anna’s dad is a pretentious author who decides that she needs to spend her senior year at a school for Americans in Paris instead of in her own hometown. Anna, being a teenager, vigorously protests this move because she didn’t think of it first.

I really liked how… teenager-ish this novel was. Anna does stupid things, kids drink without someone dying (it’s legal in Paris which is why no one has to Learn a Lesson about Drinking), characters miscommunicate and then figure it out – or not, and despite the setting of Paris – which seems not quite like a real place to me – it’s realistic and adorable.

“Beautiful. He called me beautiful! But wait. I don’t like Dave.
Do I like Dave?”

Being a teenager is so confusing.

“We stop at a red light. Mom stares at me. ‘You like him.’”
“OH GOD, MOM.”

And embarrassing.

So good for you, Stephanie Perkins, for creating interesting teenagers upon whom adults can smile sagely, and to whom teenagers themselves can relate without reinforcing their terrible relationships or their self-satisfaction.

And hey, congratulations for actually completing NaNiWriMo!

8 out of 11 Lost Dorm Room Keys

The Bughouse Affair - Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini

I’ve mentioned my library’s 7-Day Shelf before, usually to bemoan my inability to return books on time; library fines are an actual line-item in my (mental) monthly budget. (Who has time for a real budget? I’m too busy spending money I don’t have!)

I did a quick sweep of the 7-day shelf at one point and came home with this GEM, but I’ll admit to the following mental process:

1) Wow, that cover is really awful.
2) What a terrible title.
3) Pronzini? Ahhhahahah!
4) *reads the first paragraph of the inner flap * Set in Victorian-era San Francisco! Yes, I’m reading this.

I may have been a leeeeetle biased going in. But nothing prepared me for the accuracy of my first impressions.

Except vast experience in Being Right, of course.

Story! Let’s start with John Quincannon, Male Lead, and his views on his attractive-but-widowed business partner:

“She was not a beautiful woman, but at thirty-one she possessed a mature comeliness that melted his hard Scot’s heart.”

That, my friends, is what some assholes  call a “neg” – the ostensible compliment that hides a criticism. Also, the descriptor “Scot” shows up 3 more times in the first chapter, just in case you didn’t catch it the first time around.

Other things you might have missed because you are stone-blind and have the mental capacity of a thimble:

• A mental map of 1890-something San Francisco. Don’t worry, this book will provide you with one! “Quincannon walked to Terrific Street, as Pacific Avenue, the district’s main artery, was called, turned into an alley, and entered a large building mid-block.” Good job making me not care at all about your whorehouse scene, Authors, because I’m too busy trying to navigate your commas.
• A definition of American Victorian slang, such as “yegg.” 
• Murderous hatpin-using pickpockets 
• Sherlock Holmes in the flesh

Sadly not this flesh.

Let’s define the word “yegg.” OH WAIT, we can’t, because unlike other, more obvious words (::coughbughousecough::) that are used in context over and over again – and defined on page 245 just in case you missed it – this one word is never explained.

Moving on to the hatpin-wielding pickpocket. This girl’s MO is to find a likely-looking victim in a crowd, jab him viciously with a hatpin, then cut his purse. Okay, I’ll buy that.  But what I will not buy is that your victims wouldn’t know the difference between an attack of biliousness and a jab with a sharp, supremely unhygienic object, to the point where a guy would die in short order of what he thought was a stomach problem. How deep did can one poke a hatpin without someone noticing blood?

It turns out that Sherlock wouldn’t have been a surprise if I’d read more than the first paragraph of the bookflap. And to be honest, I’d probably have put it back; after my experience with Death Comes to Pemberley, I’ve given up on pastiche.

One final quote because I just. can’t. stand it:

“The open-air California Market, known far and wide as San Francisco’s ‘entrepot of foods,’ ran for an entire block from Pine to California streets between Montgomery and Kearney.”

Oh good. Next time I’m up there, I’ll be sure to think about how everyone in the Middle Ages used to know what an “entrepot” was.  [Spoiler: it’s a trading post.]

The worst part about this book is that the authors have not only 40+ years of writing experience and 35+ published novels between them, they also have a Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. EACH.

You’d think they would know how to set up some tension, create interesting characters without having to borrow them from somewhere else, and maybe add a plot twist so that it wasn’t the wife who did it.

Are you kidding me?

THE WIFE?!?

3 of 11 Poorly Plotted Pastiches*



*Don't get all excited, Authors. That third star is only because I got to spend an hour downloading Sherlock gifs. 

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky

I think I was slightly too old for this book when it came out, so I missed it entirely.

That sentence probably encompasses most of the young adult section of the library, actually, so I should just stop typing it (fat chance).

But anyway. The book has finally (?) turned into a movie, and since I like Emma Watson I decided that I will probably watch it - but obviously not before I read the book, because that's just how you do in Book Blog Land.

You know.

The problem with being too old for a book isn't that I'm actually too old. I like YA fiction a lot. It's that I have a hard time getting into the headspace of a teenager without also being in the headspace of being a former high school English teacher; they're kind of inextricably linked at this point. [As a side note, I thoroughly enjoyed teaching English. It was hard and frustrating, but it was also surprising and hilarious every day, and I was really, really good at it. I wish teachers were paid appropriately so I could have actually supported myself in that job without needing a secondary income (i.e., a spouse). But that's a whole 'nother issue.]

Anyway, all that to say that I kind of want to sit the characters down and say, "this is not all there is. I know it's important and scary and very, very big right now. But it's not all there is." Except that they are teenagers which means they will look at me with that perfectly blank teenaged stare and think to themselves, "you don't know what it's like to be me. MY LIFE IS DIFFERENT!"

Oh yes, I remember being 16, and it. was. awful.

But this book was not! Especially if you happen to be 16 and need to feel all the feels.

7 out of 11 clandestine underage beers.