Bumped. Rating: Lamentable.

“It's human nay-cha...For me to sperminay-cha”

I have endured many nigh-unendurable things in my life, reader. I have driven across state lines in the middle of the night with my headlights off and a cyanide pill between my molars (just in case). I have successfully hidden false documents under a low-quality wig during a patdown. I once sat through a two-hour long Powerpoint presentation on Synergistic Innovation.

None of these trials come remotely close to meeting the suffering I endured in reading Bumped.

I found Bumped sitting on top of a vending machine at a rest stop. I left my copy at a different rest stop, on top of a vending machine, with an inscription that reads "Turn back now; you are making a terrible mistake."

Bumped by the vacant Megan McCafferty

...is an awful book. 

The premise is by now a cliche, but when I read Bumped, the exploitation of teen fertility was not yet a YA standby. The book is your standard plague-sterilizes-adults, people-buy-babies type of plot, but with a shining candy coat in the place of well-developed dystopian depth.

Our protagonist is named Melody, and she has a sister named (oh, reader, I am sorry about this) Harmony. They live in the future. In case you were not aware, the future features a lot of eyeball-based technology, which requires eye-rolling and blinking to control. I would be ever so pleased to get an analysis of this technology by the brilliant minds behind scifiinterfaces.com, but alas, I am left to my own devices as regards an analysis - so I will do the responsible thing and leave it at "this is bullshit". 

Melody is a fertile teen; her secret sister, Harmony, lives on a religious commune that rejects the commercialization of pregnancy but encourages young marriage. Both are white, able-bodied, heterosexual, cisfemale, attractive, athletic, and intelligent. Melody's pregnancy agent (it's what it sounds like) connects her with a famous sperm donor, Harmony shows up at exactly the wrong time, there is a sitcom-worthy case of mistaken identity, and everyone learns valuable lessons about themselves.

I won't go more into the plot than that, reader, because shallow things rarely need to be thoroughly plumbed. The premise is incredibly weak, the science is threadbare, and the portrayal of religion is hackneyed at best. 

This is not what makes the book torturously bad. I can muscle through a weak premise and thin science if the characters are compelling and the writing is good. That is not the case with Bumped. The characters are not unlikable; they are merely deeply uninteresting. The problem is the writing, which is uniformly bad. Having read Bumped, I am certain that Ms. McCafferty has in fact never spoken to nor observed a living teenager. McCafferty's teens are insufferable, overstimulated, slang-saturated emoticons - effectively, they are everything the media wants parents to believe their children will become. Were this book set in 2003, they would be having rainbow parties. Were it set in 2008, they would be trading sex bracelets. They are not nuanced, troubled, thoughtful, or questioning; they are not searching for answers or identities. Instead they value what the establishment tells them to value, and they do it without hesitation.

Now, for Spoilers.

 You came here for spoilers, so spoilers you shall have. The ending is no more interesting than the book merits, and no less predictable. At the end of the book, Melody has decided that she does not want to have a baby with the famous sperm donor, and Harmony has conceived with said famous sperm donor but has retreated to her religious community to bear the child with her (here's the big twist) gay husband. Both were remarkably easy to sway from their apparently firmly-held convictions. But, reader, there's no getting around it: this book was published for a reason. Someone, somewhere, thought that there was an excuse for the incredibly one-dimensional writing.

When discussing this book, there is an elephant in the room, and he would like to talk to you about satire.

Fans of Bumped like to trumpet a notion they have, which is that it makes sense for the book to be so terrible because it is satire. Melody is intended to represent the pop culture moment of two years ago, when teen pregnancy was all over the media. You remember, reader. Sixteen and Pregnant, Secret Life of the American Teen, Teen Mom. Yes, let your mind travel back to that critical time in our shared cultural memory. Harmony is intended to represent the religious backlash against teen pregnancy during that same time period. 

Melody's decision to not have sex with a stranger for money is, of course, the big rebellion against this dystopian future society (as is Harmony's decision to have sex with someone she is attracted to, rejecting her faith's narrative of sex inside of marriage regardless of desire). The two girls' actions are intended to represent a journey to the middle of what was then being portrayed in the media as a charged, polarizing issue.

The problem with the "satire" label is, of course, that satire alone does not lend merit. Satire is a category that can explain context, but it cannot rewrite a novel. The label "satire" does not remove passages like "Just thinking about all the drama gets my tubes in a twist".

"A Modest Proposal" is satire. "The Colbert Report" is satire. "Bumped" is trash angling for redemption by means of a label it does not deserve.

Rating: Lamentable. 

Possible ratings: Magnificent, Divine, Satisfactory, Tiresome, Lamentable, Execrable. This is a blog about words, what rating system did you expect?

The Enchanted. Rating: Magnificent

"The lady hasn't lost it yet—the sound of freedom. When she laughs, you can hear the wind in the trees and the splash of water hitting pavement. You can sense the gentle caress of rain on your face and how laughter sounds in the open air, all the things those of us in this dungeon can never feel."

You may be able to guess, reader, that I don't love prison books as a rule. Not just because the concept of prison has a lot of immediate potential in my life (although this is a prominent deterrent) - also because they tend to be dully formulaic. Character enters prison, flashbacks to the trial, character encounters mean guards and prisoners with hearts of gold, we find out why prisoner is actually not guilty after all, etc. These books are a potent soporific.

Thus, I was skeptical about The Enchanted. The thing that drew me in was the cover - and who could resist that cover? Lovely. That cover is a coup. I decided, against my better instincts, to read it.

My instincts frequently steer me straight. Once, I had to rely on instinct alone to avoid being recruited by a group of assassins who were giving me shelter - and as you can tell by my frequent use of personal pronouns, I am not currently a member of the Silent Fist, so there is evidence that my instincts are not to be ignored. It is a rare occasion indeed on which ignoring my instincts is fruitful.

I am happy to report that this was one such occasion.

The Enchanted by the luminous Rene Dunfeld 

...is incredibly difficult to describe. It is a beautiful book about terrible things. It is a book about monsters and nightmares and the deepest, darkest parts of men; but it is written so gorgeously that I am breathless in my attempt to describe it. It was almost painful to read, like looking at a field of snow when the sun is shining - stunning, in every possible sense of the word.

This is a book of words as words are meant to be used. 

It is a book about the way that we break each other, and the way that we carry on. 

The setting is an almost fantastically dark prison - our narrator, who remains unnamed, is on death row awaiting execution. This is another reason that I tend to dread prison narratives, as the death penalty is so terribly fraught and authors have a hard time resisting the temptation to use their stories as platforms from which to decry or support the practice. I will assuage your fears, reader: this book does not touch that temptation.
The narrator tells us of those who are in the prison, those who run the prison, and those who pass through the prison. The guards, the warden; those who long for their punishments, and those who are punished in ways that no human deserves. The novel features an ensemble cast, but the standout characters are The Lady, who seeks exoneration for death row inmates (in this story, she is working on a particularly difficult case); and the Fallen Priest, who has fallen far indeed, and dares to hope for redemption. (A side note, reader. I hate the phrase "dare to hope". In most cases, hope is not daring; it is inevitable. It is reflexive. But in this case, the hope is truly daring, because it is incredibly dangerous to hope. So I am making an exception.) 

Now, for Spoilers.

Here is your spoiler: it happens exactly as you think it will.

Honestly, reader, there is not much to spoil. A spoiler would be telling you about the secrets at the end of the book, but they really are not there. Yes, there is an incredibly compelling and deeply developed plot, but it does not swing around on itself to show the reader how clever the author has been. There is not a sharp twist in which one comes to understand everything that has happened and will happen. The book explores, it invades, it shines. It is not here to answer your questions about what exactly the narrator did to end up in prison; it is not here to answer your questions about whether the Fallen Priest will ever be redeemed; and it is not here to help you determine the roots of The Lady and explore her emotional landscape. It is here to be what it is and not what you want it to be. 

The people who you think will be executed do indeed die. Human struggle and suffering is not resolved; it is instead extracted, lit well, laid on a bed of velvet and placed under glass for the reader to examine. 

The Enchanted explores escape - but not, reader, the kind of escape you imagine while sitting at work or lying in bed. The Enchanted explores the escape of which monsters dream.

Rating: Magnificent.

Possible ratings: Magnificent, Divine, Satisfactory, Tiresome, Lamentable, Execrable. This is a blog about words, did you expect stars?

When She Woke. Rating: Tiresome

“Here she was, being rescued by a socialist, feminist, lesbian, baby-killing, foreign terrorist. What would the ladies in the sewing circle say to that?”

This book has a stellar premise. When a coworker loaned this book to me, I was excited. "Yes," I thought, "I should definitely read that!" I was so excited to read it that rather than give it back to her, I kept it on the passenger seat as I fled the state. (Don't worry, reader - I shipped it back to her using the return address of the library in a ghost town I passed through. I included a note tucked between pages 2 and 3 that says "I am so sorry for accidentally stealing your terrible book. Please do not ever recommend it to anyone else.")

Here's the problem, reader - a stellar premise is not the same thing as a stellar novel. I have several exciting premises written in my dream journal - for instance, what if all of the cement in the world turned into moss? Or, what if wall-to-wall carpeting was sentient? But I have not written these premises into books, because I know that the books would not be good (and because publishing houses ask invasive questions which I am not prepared to answer).

When She Woke has a spectacular premise. "What if, instead of sending people to prison for a long time, we dyed their skin to indicate what crime they committed?" Delightful. Building on this, the author further supposes "what might happen if this system was in place in a right-wing theocratic America?"

Such potential.

When She Woke by the arid Hillary Jordan

...thoroughly wastes that potential. Drawing heavily from Handmaid's Tale and The Scarlet Letter, this novel sketches out a future in which Hannah (our protagonist, early twenties but with the maturity and voice of an underexerted teen) has been convicted of getting an abortion and has been dyed red as a punishment. Hannah leaves prison after the author has applied a thin veneer of characterization (she liked to sew prettier dresses than she was supposed to. There, I saved you from reading the flashbacks).

The book is miserably overextended. It is clear that the author had a great idea for a novel, and that once she got going, she felt a need to apply layer after layer of exploration. The American prison system and shame dynamics, abortion politics, the Christian religious right, domestic abuse, homosexuality, faith and politics, and the role of women in the church all get a moment in the spotlight. The novel is thus painfully reminiscent of a late-season sitcoms' best-cameos clip show - there's a lot to look at, and you know it's supposed to be interesting because the characters are important, but really it's just a time-suck.

Now, for Spoilers.

Let's talk plot. First, Hannah goes to a halfway house where everyone is utterly manic. The stakes seem high at first - it's been made abundantly, repeatedly clear that Hannah has nowhere else to go - but then she leaves and it's not actually that bad. This scenario quickly becomes thematic, as Hannah experiences frequent, turbulent plot twists, none of which have any real impact on her character. The book quickly becomes a standard escape story, and not a well-plotted one. First, Hannah seeks shelter with her abused, pregnant sister. Don't worry - this plot point will be dropped quickly. There is a significant arc when Hannah and her partner-in-flight are kidnapped for purposes of human trafficking - Hannah escapes at the last moment, her friend does not. It is mentioned again just once, briefly, on the last page of the book. The writer takes a similar nonstick approach to Hannah's startling u-turn on the subject of homosexuality - within the span of about ten minutes, she goes from 'it's an abomination' to 'oops, time to seduce my female rescuer!" No confusion, angst, or significant character development ensues.

The one plot point that isn't mercilessly abandoned like an unwanted accomplice is the love affair. Remember, the abortion that started it all? Of course there's an angsty love affair to back that up. Unfortunately, this is the one plot point that definitely, unquestionably should have been abandoned.

I mentioned earlier that the novel draws on The Scarlet Letter. This is most evident in the identity of Hannah's ex-lover - a prominent and charming (and married) pastor. Throughout the book, Hannah  never lets go of her certainty that the two of them are meant to be together; that his adultery was justified, and his cold wife brought his faithlessness on herself; that his blatant abuse of the power dynamic in their church was a blazing, timeless romance. They share a final assignation, and Hannah, feeling that she has accomplished some kind of journey of personal growth by returning to the man who refused to incriminate himself to save her from her carmine fate, escapes across the border to Canada.

Reader, as you know, I have been on the run before. I have fled unseen forces and relied on the hospitality of unsavory characters. It is an experience that changes everything about one's perspective and personality. When She Woke seems to claim that the impact of that journey would be to cause one to toy with bisexuality and agnosticism and peeing outside; clearly, the author has never had to wash the smell of blood and smoke out of her hair in a gas station restroom as sirens pealed in the distance. I was definitively underwhelmed.

Rating: Tiresome. 

Possible ratings: Magnificent, Divine, Satisfactory, Tiresome, Lamentable, Execrable. This is a blog about words, what rating system did you expect?

Hold Me Closer: The Tiny Cooper Story by David Levithan (Guest Post by Ashley S.)

Reader,

I am traveling this week, so I anonymously contacted a friend of a friend of an old colleague of an acquaintance of the doorman who used to be my best (only) friend at the company, before the building mysteriously burned down. Her name is Ashley and she is a delightful person with a passion for reading (and from what I have been told, writing) excellent Young Adult fiction. While I am traveling, she agreed to be a guest reviewer on Spoilers. I've added a few comments, in italics. I hope she doesn't mind.

The below review is cross-posted to Ashley's blog. Thank you for your help, Ashley.

-A

Today’s book:

Hold Me Closer: The Tiny Cooper Story by David Levithan



Tiny Cooper is anything but tiny. He’s big, loud, and incredibly, magnificently, proudly gay. You may know Tiny from another book with a title that features two names that aren’t his — Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan (A wonderful book which I highly recommend. -A) — so I probably don’t need to explain this to you. However, on the off chance you picked up this book because there was so much gold, beautiful glitter on it and the words Musical Novel intrigued you, then let me help you.

As previously stated, Tiny is not in fact Tiny. He’s a big, loyal best friend, a complicated, loving teenage boy who possibly has too much love to give and who, we will learn, has no real grasp on how to give it. And I absolutely love him.

Hold Me Closer is, in fact, a musical novel. This term is confusing (my husband bought this book for me as a surprise and one of the first things he asked was, “How is it a musical?”), but not so much when you know the basis for Hold Me Closer, which was first introduced in Will Grasyon, Will Grayson. It’s a musical that Tiny works on throughout the book and the reader gets to see for most of the ending. It’s emotional and flashy according to Will Grayson, but we don’t get to see the whole thing.

Now, we do.

The story of Tiny Cooper is big and flashy. It starts from his birth (and fantastic numbers, “I Was Born this Way” and “Oh! What A Big Gay Baby!”) and shows us his family life (kind and supportive) and how he makes friends and deals with bullies and navigating teenage life. It’s full of heart and raw emotion and is incredibly, unabashedly funny. At first glance, someone might think this is a story about coming out, but I disagree. Tiny has been sure of himself for so long (even if he wouldn't say it or fully realize it) that I think the story is about how to place love and navigate this world as your own individual self. Tiny’s story just has a few more dance numbers and spot lights.

Hold Me Closer comes with a mish-mash of emotions that I think will pull at different people in different ways.

A musical theater lover will enjoy it for the pure scripted form and big numbers. They will hear the songs in their heads and delight in the stage directions that aren't so run-of-the-mill (like proposing to fade to pink instead of black and something called “baby disco sounds”). They’ll love the production of it, and the feeling of excitement they might get, especially if they are actors or stage hands or costume designers, of something new and brilliant that they get to be part of.

It’s a perfect picture of what we musical devotees believe – that the right song at the right time can stop all the clocks, and gently make you see the world in a new way. We believe this because we have felt it. We believe this because ultimately this is what we have to offer. Music. Words. Songs. A little light choreography.

A writer will enjoy how the process of writing is woven into the script — you should know that it is more or less a script — and how one wishes that, as a writer, one could do the same with every piece of work you put your heart and soul into. This script is raw and emotional and crazy and a lot of that comes from the stage directions that are embedded with Tiny’s notes. He’s not just writing this script so it can be played on the stage (although that is a huge part of it), he’s also doing this therapeutically. He’s telling us how things should look and how Tiny should feel at moments even though he (the writer) now knows the difference. He tells us how fun it is to write one part, and how hard another part is. He literally tells the reader how hard it is to put something down on paper:

"This is hard to write. Please know this is hard to write."

It’s almost staggering and definitely maddening, because as a writer, I can’t just tell you how hard something is, how emotionally charged I am while I sit and write, but Tiny gets the luxury in the stage notes and directions and thank God or whoever is out there watching, because it is beautiful.

Tiny Cooper and YA lovers will rejoice at the nostalgia that YA often gives us, and Tiny’s unabashed optimism and joy and loudness will definitely leave a mark on anyone who reads this book. Writers, musical theater lovers, teenagers, adults, anyone can get behind a story of growing up and loving stupidly. The beautiful part is, Tiny figures some things out through this masterpiece, but like life, not every single thing will work itself out and maybe it’s the big, gay dance and song numbers, but I think that’s [sings] ooooooOOoookaaaay!

Black out.

The Dinner. Rating: Divine

"Yet there was something else, something different about her this time, like a room where someone has thrown out all the flowers while you were gone: a change in the interior you don’t even notice at first, not until you see the stems sticking out of the garbage."

I once spent a full three nights hiding in a cave during a manhunt. As men in uniforms flattened the grass fifty feet above my head, I learned about darkness. The darkness in the cave was absolute - my brain began sending twinkles of electricity through my optic nerves to entertain itself, and colorful stars blossomed in the incomprehensible blackness. I occasionally stretched out my fingertips and stumbled forward to seek out the walls of the cave, but the darkness was too thick for me to find the boundaries of the cavern I was in.

Reading The Dinner reminded me strongly of my descent into that cave. The darkness in the cave did not envelop me instantly. Instead, the light gradually seemed to leach out of the air, into the stone walls and the dampness on the edges of the cave floor until, without my realization, I was blanketed in that velvety black that frayed the borders of my awareness. I will never forget the cave, and I will never forget The Dinner.

The Dinner by the brilliantly villainous Herman Koch 

...magnificently explores the depths of human monstrosity. Beautifully translated from the original Dutch, the English version of the book (which is the one I read; the Dutch I learned as a child was lost to the fog of forgetting many years ago) follows two couples as they share a five-course meal. The narrator's malevolence increases steadily as the story is revealed, but he begins as a deliciously biting critic of humanity, observing much of the absurdity of sophistication with a crisp, merciless wit. I quite liked him. This is a brilliant maneuver by Koch, drawing the reader in by appealing to her sense of superiority and cleverness before revealing the true and villainous nature of the narrator.

The structure of the novel is exactly as beautiful as the writing demands. Each section is structured as a part of the incredibly high-end meal shared by the main characters, from aperitif to digestif. On reflection, this structure is so brilliant as to feel obvious - I found myself wondering why all stories weren't written this way. A great meal and a great story should be similarly structured to develop a sense of rising action, climax, and denouement. Koch does a lovely job of delicately pairing the development and motion of the story with the flow of the meal; it was not until the digestif that I realized exactly how skillfully this was done.

Now, for Spoilers.

Reader, I almost don't want to spoil this for you. The revelation of the true plot is done with exceeding finesse and I encourage you to skip this part of the review so that you can fully enjoy its development. At first, the story appears to be about the tension between our narrator, Paul, and his high-powered politician brother, Serge. Both are accompanied by their generally wise and patient wives. Soon, however, it becomes incredibly clear that the tension between them is related not to their familial sense of competition, but instead to their sons' mutual participation in an infamous atrocity. The sons have - stop reading, please, don't let me ruin this for you - they have burned a homeless woman alive, and they have been caught on film doing it. Their parents, of course, know that their sons are the monsters in the video; the rest of the world still wonders at the identity of the boys who gleefully light that trapped woman on fire.

All of the characters are invested in doing the right thing, and are willing to make tremendous sacrifices to do so. The narrator is certain that he will stop at nothing to protect his son's identity, but he has no idea how far his wife will go for the same purpose. I won't reveal everything, reader, because I care too deeply about you and the book to do so. It has actually truly pained me to reveal this much. I will tell you this, however: the deepest of evils in these characters lies not in those who are boorish and obtuse, and not in those who have malice in their hearts and blood and bones - it lies in the one who chooses evil because it is the most interesting of choices. In this, the character shares a trait with the reader, who has chosen the book in order to taste it's darkness.

Reader, do not shy away from that darkness. Sink in your teeth.

Rating: Divine.

Possible ratings: Magnificent, Divine, Satisfactory, Tiresome, Lamentable, Execrable. This is a blog about words, what rating system did you expect?