Book Review – ‘The Porcupine of Truth’ by Bill Konigsberg

Hidden depths to socially aware road trip.

Genre: Y/A, Contemporary, GLBT

No. of pages: 336

From Goodreads:

Carson Smith is resigned to spending his summer in Billings, Montana, helping his mom take care of his father, a dying alcoholic he doesn’t really know. Then he meets Aisha Stinson, a beautiful girl who has run away from her difficult family, and Pastor John Logan, who’s long held a secret regarding Carson’s grandfather, who disappeared without warning or explanation thirty years before. Together, Carson and Aisha embark on an epic road trip to find the answers that might save Carson’s dad, restore his fragmented family, and discover the “Porcupine of Truth” in all of their lives.

I enjoyed ‘Openly Straight,’ so I picked this one off my shelves soon after, desperate for some more Bill Konigsberg goodness. ‘The Porcupine of Truth’ wasn’t quite what I expected, but still an engaging, brilliant read. There is a lot of wit and Dad jokes in this one which tickled my fancy. All the characters are flawed and are batted around their heads repeatedly with their failings – something I really liked about the tone of the novel.

There was a lot of philosophy of self, death, and God in this. I appreciated the raw honesty of the discussions, loved the points of view, but there were a few moments I was completely over the God stuff… but I understand the need for it to be in the story as our protagonist Carson continually searched for the answer to why?

I also loved Carson’s attitude towards homosexuality – he is faced with this question of acceptance in a variety of forms throughout the novel, and for a heterosexual white teen, he shows grace and maturity beyond his years, and beyond the scope of just about any other character in the novel. It was amazing to read. Juxtaposing this new generation growing up with tolerance and acceptance with that of an older, prejudiced one. And not just on sexuality, but on race, age, and class. It was such a succinct observation on society, as a subtext, that had me cheering.

However, with all the subtext and heavy emotional topics, I did feel it left the book feeling a bit bland. Only a bit. I kinda wanted Carson or Aisha to do something hilariously crazy and zany to balance it out. But this is realistic fiction at its best – a narrative of a person’s life on a journey, figuratively and spiritually, with an undercurrent of politics and social construct. It’s all heavy stuff laced with teen sarcasm and not-so-funny puns.

Carson is lovable in all aspects – a beautiful disaster. He’s socially clumsy and paddling to find some sort of rhythm. Searching for a place to belong. He encapsulates all that teen awkwardness and brings a vulnerable backstory that squeezed my heart.

Aisha had the same inner workings but with a more street-smart exterior. It was true genius to see her friendship with Carson progress.

I laughed plenty, and felt my throat tighten, very near shedding a tear, but not quite. Such a unique voice, though I did find the writing style slightly jarring at times. I don’t know if it was the swearing, the slightly-off jokes, or short abrupt sentences, at times it zapped out the magic to leave you facing the bleakness of it all. Great writing, but not the warm and fuzzy I was looking for.

A few things concerned me, like Carson overlooking death at a time when it should be hitting him the hardest – I only say that because I’ve been there and it’s a hard thing to come to grips with. It felt like he was using the good news of the moment to mask the pain he was going to face. Whether that was the author’s intent or not, it was something that stood out to me.

It’s a great book I’d recommend to those who love contemporaries, and books that leave you thinking…

Overall feeling: cutting and cutesy.

 

© Casey Carlisle 2017. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Casey Carlisle with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Book Review – Luna by Julie Anne Peters

She dances to the beat of her own drum in the moonlight

Genre: Y/A, Contemporary, GLBT

No. of pages: 248

From Goodreads:

Regan’s brother Liam can’t stand the person he is during the day. Like the moon from whom Liam has chosen his female namesake, his true self, Luna, only reveals herself at night. In the secrecy of his basement bedroom Liam transforms himself into the beautiful girl he longs to be, with help from his sister’s clothes and makeup. Now, everything is about to change-Luna is preparing to emerge from her cocoon. But are Liam’s family and friends ready to welcome Luna into their lives? Compelling and provocative, this is an unforgettable novel about a transgender teen’s struggle for self-identity and acceptance. 

I loved the soul of ‘Luna’ and its message. There is valuable information in here. Attitudes to realise and live by.

On the whole this is such a cool story – shedding light on a family coping/not coping with Liam/Luna and the realisation she was born in the wrong body. The fact that it was in the setting of a family unit, even a dysfunctional one, shows that gender dysphoria, and relating to people starts at birth and it can be a long, awkward, and sometimes painful journey.

The cast of characters is what brought the rating down for me – they felt too much of a caricature. Additionally, flashbacks happened too often (a pet hate of mine). I know they were imparting vital knowledge to drive the plot forward, but towards the end of the novel I was getting tired of them. The content of these reminiscing’s also made me cringe – like events had been lifted out of a University study of typical gender dysphoric traits… it lost a personal edge, like it wasn’t connected to the characters at all.

With the story told completely from Regan’s POV, it helps shed light on the impact of a transgendered individual on family, and makes no apologies. I really enjoyed this aspect. At times Regan felt a little too politically correct, and others really hit the nail on the head. It is a difficult subject to wrap your feelings around.

Liam / Luna was the worst character in this book. She was written in a way to speak to a cause and left me not really connecting to her as a person. I love her message, but found myself rolling my eyes at her pretty much the entire time. In the famous words from ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way” – and that’s what I feel about Liam/Luna; she had the potential to be epic, but what I got was a cheesy afterschool special.

Chris felt like the most realistic of the cast, I would have loved to see him more involved in the main plot, I feel he could have balanced out all of the PC factoids and added a dash more authenticity.

With all of the issues I had with the characters, Luna illustrates a unique and important issue surrounding acceptance, how we treat others, love and gender identity.

I felt this was more a story of how far you can push someone before they snap, and that event causes a switch in perception allowing you to lose that baggage and become a better version of yourself. Like a cathartic cleansing of your personality.

Luna is ground-breaking, helps shed light on important causes and provides a story for anyone out there who identifies, or has someone in their life identifying as transgender. And I can’t praise this novel enough for tackling such a sensitive topic with aplomb (even if the characters fell short of the mark).

A fast-reading, light narrative easy enough to read in one sitting on over a weekend.

A quaint book with a universal message : don’t judge and be who you are.

Overall feeling: Amazing story

 

© Casey Carlisle 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Casey Carlisle with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Book Review – Alex as Well by Alyssa Brugman

Pobody’s nerfect

Genre: Y/A, Contemporary, GLBT

No. of pages: 224

From Goodreads:

Alex is ready for things to change, in a big way. Everyone seems to think she’s a boy, but for Alex the whole boy/girl thing isn’t as simple as either/or, and when she decides girl is closer to the truth, no one knows how to react, least of all her parents. Undeterred, Alex begins to create a new identity for herself: ditching one school, enrolling in another, and throwing out most of her clothes. But the other Alex—the boy Alex—has a lot to say about that.　Heartbreaking and droll in equal measures, Alex As Well is a brilliantly told story of exploring gender and sexuality, navigating friendships, and finding a place to belong. 

It’s been a very long while since a book elicited feelings of distaste, outright hatred and deplorability – and ‘Alex as Well’ did just that – for all the right reasons.

Alex was a little hard to relate to – but I grew to like her. Some of her behaviour, on the surface, is weird and distances the reader from the story… but if you ask why she’s acting in a certain way – and pick up on other clues – it all makes sense. Though at first glance I was like ‘what tha?’ The great thing in not giving you all the answers – this is just one girl’s story. If you read intelligently, because Alex herself does not possess the knowledge behind her behaviour, the reasons for every small action are there. This is really a very clever book.

There was a little overkill, or extreme measures in some areas of the plot – but I felt it worked in the context: to highlight Alex’s plight in dramatic manner. Any other method would have diminished the prejudice Alex needs to face.

The alternate POV just about killed me – such a distinct voice apart from Alex that slowly sheds light on a different kind of naivety. How the uneducated really should learn to keep their mouths shut until they get the facts. So many people form opinions on their ungrounded assumptions. It is annoyingly obvious in ‘Alex as Well.’ I really wanted to scream at the book to wake up to some of the idiotic comments on the page.

The change in narrative works expertly, you get a different kind of stress, all adding to the pace of the story line.

The whole book really encapsulates the phrase “nobody’s perfect.” Some other issues were touched on but not fully developed, like bullying and certain friend/relationships… but the search for self, identity and empowerment is a great one.

A short novel I read in one sitting in one day – something I’d recommend to challenge your perception a little. A valuable addition to any GLBT+ catalogue in you library.

Overall feeling: Blew my mind (expanded my awareness)

© Casey Carlisle 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Casey Carlisle with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Secret Recipe

Tales of a Temp were never so tasty…

I got kicked out of boarding school – but I won’t go into that story (maybe in another blog, it’s a comedic tale of rebellion). But that forced the issue that if I wanted to attend school in my home town, I’d have to pay for the fees, textbooks and everything else myself. That was my punishment. Enforced by my Father/Overlord. Otherwise I’d be shipped back to the cold halls filled with Nun’s wearing scowls and habits that smelled of mothballs. So I needed a job.

My rescue came in the form of a popular fast food chain restaurant. It was fairly new to our town at the time, and employed younger workers that could accommodate evening and weekend shifts. It took me a single day to find the job and get my first roster from what would be my third ever employer. I don’t think my father thought I was capable, that I’d cave in to his will and get sent back to his expensive boarding school with a tail between my legs. Well, I showed him! Watching his eyes bug out and veins pulsing along his forehead and neck, I informed him I had enrolled in the local (and Public) High School having fulfilled my required employment. I missed my friends, my home and was happy to never see the Nun run dorm rooms ever again.

Unlike the institutionalised education I’d been surreptitiously ejected from, I became fast (food) friends with my blue-collar worker types. No snobs here… it’s hard to be stuck up when you’re covered in a thick layer of cooking fat and have mayonnaise stains in unfortunate places. Swapping pinstriped blue and grey uniforms for maroon polo shirts and tan pants, I bonded with my new mates facing similar dilemmas – needing money… from hard yakka. Plus, I was loving the new independence my own greenbacks afforded me.

I suffered through coming home smelling like grease, rude customers, hairnets, and a couple of occasions soaring into the air as I slipped on an oily floor. I don’t fall gracefully, I look like Bambi jumping on a trampoline: all flailing limbs and unco-ordination. All for the benefits of staying home and my own money. Another was left overs… my brother was my best friend. I’m sure he grew an entire foot over the year with all the extra food he kept sneaking out of the fridge.

It was a pretty cushy job, because of my big smile and eloquent diction, I was always placed on drive through. And I enjoyed it until someone did a grab and dash. But funny how you know everyone in a small town. Needless to say the culprits were caught on CCVTV and quickly tracked down.

Christmas brought a staff party, where three girls sung carols in beautiful harmony, affectionately dubbed the ‘Pointer Sisters’ (because they were aboriginal – I know – I shudder at small town mentality).

So by halfway through the year I had cracked my secret recipe to happiness: paid my tuition, bought my first car, expanded my wardrobe and had a social life. Even though the food may have had secret herbs and spices, it was the greens in my bank account I was more thankful for. Even though I’d been in the workforce before, this was the first job to make me feel like a grown up.

© Casey Carlisle 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Casey Carlisle with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Formidable girls

Finding great female role models in life and literature.

There came a tap-tap-tapping and a screeching of wooden fingers along the roof during a windy night. It was disconcerting when strange noises echoed from outside in the darkness, and while I didn’t strap on my black leather and wave a trusty crossbow – no sensible girl would venture into the pitch black bushland alone –  I was resolved to rectify those ominous sounds come daylight. Some tree was going to get a severe haircut!

I love reading novels with strong female leads. I also lose myself in writing, about independent self-minded young women as protagonists. But does that translate into real life? Do readers feel empowered, or is it all simply living out a fantasy, stepping into someone else’s shoes for a fleeting moment?

I’d like to think it’s that and more!

I’m not taking down demons or an egalitarian government, but lopping off a few limbs of a tree. Courage and determination came from within. Constructed from images of my mother, my girlfriends, movies and, yes, my reading. It’s not about obnoxious ultra-feminist girl power, but the strength to look after and be proud of myself.

And that translates to looking for a partner, or friends (both male and female, or in-between) that embrace this power also. I don’t want to be treated like a princess, I don’t want someone making decisions for me. I want to carve my own path and share that experience with others who are doing the same.

My man friend/slave loathes it when I do things traditionally reserved for the masculine – you know, like heavy lifting, gardening, lawn moving, fixing a leak, moving furniture… you get the picture. Needless to say, that is what most of our disagreements are over – me emasculating him. It doesn’t help that he is old school and he feels it’s disrespectful to let a lady do manual labour.

But today, with no man friend to help out, I had to complete tasks on my own (as I did before he started to help out; and every other time he goes home or to work). Pulling out a chainsaw and pruning the suspect tree which had become annoying – I thought – heck, I’m as bad-ass as Buffy or Katniss.

Yes this train of thought is all a little too altruistic; but don’t you think it’s worth it. All of us being equal. Blind to gender, sexual orientation, race, social status…

And all of that from a plethora of wonderful women in my life and in my literature.

© Casey Carlisle 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Casey Carlisle with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.