Dairy Queen

Dairy Queen
Author: Catherine Gilbert Murdock
Publisher: Graphia
Release Date: June, 2007

Series: Book 1 of 2 to date

D.J. Schwenk is only 15 years old, but she has the work load of three adults. When her father injures his hip, the work of running a small, family dairy farm falls on D.J. Her older brothers, Win and Bill, have left home to play football in college, and even if they could come back, a falling out with their father makes that impossible. So D.J. must sacrifice the things she enjoys in order to spend her days doing the endless chores necessary to keep the farm operating. She quits the sports teams where she is the star player, and she even flunks her English class when her work keeps her from completing assignments.

Non-communicative and un-complaining, D.J. does what's asked of her without a word of refusal. When the quarterback from rival high school Hawley's football team shows up on the farm with instructions to offer a helping hand in exchange for training by D.J., she wants to refuse. But she agrees, and in between milking and haying and maintaining the farm, she spends her time with Brian Nelson coaching him to be a better player. Over the course of the summer, she realizes that the skills she has that allow her to be a trainer to Brian - hours of playing football with her older brothers - would also allow her to play on her own school's football team. The idea of for once doing something she wants to do and chooses to do for herself rather than all of the things people expect her to do is very appealing.

However, she's sure no one in her life would share this enthusiasm. Not her father, who's inability to show any appreciation for the work that D.J. does or the sacrifices she's made don't indicate a willingness to embrace such an unconventional concept as a girl playing on the football team. Certainly not Brian, who would become her competition and might view their time spent together as her way of spying on him rather than an attempt to make him a better player. Maybe not even the school's coach, who admits that he has no idea if a girl can play on the team, and even if so, not one who has flunked her English class.

Meanwhile, D.J. struggles to understand why the relationship with her long-time best friend, Amber, has grown so tense of late. She despairs at the feelings she's developing for Brian, a guy she's certain would never be interested in a stupid farm girl like herself. And she silently rages against her tight-lipped family that never talks about problems but rather shuts each other out so that they resemble a group of strangers living in the same house.

D.J. is a fascinating character. She's so unlike the normal girly-girl protagonists you find in so many young adult novels aimed at girls. Despite her advanced maturity and the adult-like burdens she carries, she's amazingly lacking in confidence. She truly views herself as nothing more than a hick farmer who will never fit in, so stupid she can't pass English despite knowing that it was not her lack of smarts but her lack of time for schoolwork that caused the problem. The idea of someone like Brian ever finding her in any way interesting is completely foreign to D.J., and when he does show interest, she sees it as fleeting at best.
Too, D.J. is unusual in that she does not speak often. While as readers we are fully aware of what she is thinking and feeling at a given moment, Murdock makes it clear that D.J. is unable to articulate these thoughts and feelings. While we want D.J. to scream and shout against the unfairness of her situation, D.J. herself never views things this way. Nor would it occur to her to say anything about it even if she did. She accepts her burdens stoically. Too, her inability to communicate causes rifts with Brian that are very realistic.

While I appreciated the fact that D.J. was not a whiner, I did grow increasingly frustrated with what I viewed was a certain level of child abuse that I thought her parents were engaging in. The idea that parents would allow working on a farm to interfere with their child's grades - to the point that D.J. flunks English despite many written warnings to her parents - is despicable at the best. They take advantage of D.J. to the degree that I would think a call to Child Welfare wouldn't be out of line. The amount of physical labor alone is horrific.

Too, I found it highly reprehensible that D.J. was expected to give up the things she loved to do - play on the basketball team, run track - in order to run the farm virtually alone. That her parents would not consider other options is unbelievable. Granted, I'm sure in such a situation options are very limited, but it was hard for me to read about D.J.'s experience without fuming at the unfairness of it all.

Murdock does an amazing job conveying D.J.'s feelings in such a way as you can believe D.J. is really describing them. She maintains D.J.'s voice throughout, and I wanted very much to know how things would work out for this girl. At times I wanted her to tell everyone around her that they are all jerks - especially D.J.'s father whom I found very hard to like or sympathize with - and at one point, D.J. does allow all of that low-simmering rage to come to the surface in her own way.

As a character, Brian Nelson is very three-dimensional. He's got both faults and virtues that make him real - he's a spoiled boy quarterback who's aware of it and doesn't necessarily like the fact. His feelings for D.J. remain undefined and uncertain, which is in line for what D.J. perceives to be the case. We're never quite sure how he feels about her, because neither is she.

All in all, I really loved this book. I expected something much lighter and more humorous when in truth, this book is rather dark in the way it portrays life on a family farm. There are no easy answers, and people are portrayed complete with some very serious flaws. Even so, I loved D.J. as a character and am anxious to read the next installment in the series.

Rating: Couldn't Put It Down
Status of Series: Outstanding first installment

Plan B

Plan B
Author: Jenny O'Connell
Publisher: Simon & Schuster/MTV
Release Date: March, 2006

Vanessa Carlisle is a planner, and the next year of her life has been plotted to the last second. Finish senior year at private high school Cabot Academy. Get acceptance into Yale. Spend the summer traveling around Europe with her best friend, Taylor. Then head to Yale, where she'll join her boyfriend, Patrick, who already attends as a freshman. She's dotted every i and crossed every T.

What Vanessa doesn't plan for, however, is learning that she has a half-brother who not only is coming to live with them and attend Cabot High, but just so happens to be a bad-boy TV star. Reed Vaughn has gotten into trouble one time too many, and his mother sends him to Chicago to gain some new perspective. Which means Vanessa must go from only child to sharing the spotlight with a Hollywood star.

From the outset, Vanessa resents Reed. She doesn't want him to come, she knows she isn't going to like him, and she determines she's not going to let his presence change one thing about her life. However, she soon finds that her carefully laid plans start to unravel.

The premise of this book - finding out you have a brother who happens to be a famous TV star - really drew me in. I couldn't wait to see how Vanessa handled the sudden fame, dealing with starstruck friends, and maybe even learning that Reed was just a normal teenage guy deep down.
However, Reed remained pretty much a background character throughout the entire story. We never get to know much about him or how he feels about moving to Chicago or what he thinks about being a star. In fact, Reed comes across as a pretty decent guy, and I felt rather sorry for him when nearly every guy at Cabot treats him like a threat and the only friend he seems to make is the one girl at school who doesn't own a television.

Too, Vanessa's immediate and inexplicable hatred toward Reed is never fully explained or justified. From the minute she learns about Reed, she determines that he will be nothing but a problem for her. She treats him rudely at best and is outright disloyal and cruel at other times. However, I never found Reed's behaviour towards Vanessa to be anything deserving of such hostility. In truth, she often comes across as a spoiled brat, far more of a diva than Reed. I can't say that I ever liked Vanessa or felt sorry for her situation because I never fully understood her problems to begin with.

A big part of the story focused on Vanessa's attempts to continue her relationship with boyfriend Patrick, who was attending Yale as a freshman. Unfortunately, every twist and turn this storyline followed was completely predictable.

Vanessa's journey throughout the story involves her ability to accept that sometimes things don't always go according to plan, and sometimes that opens doors for things to be better. While learning to live with an unexpected sibling requires Vanessa to adapt, I'm not sure that Reed was the catalyst to her changes. Over the course of the story, she experiences troubles with Patrick that had nothing to do with Reed. Ultimately, Vanessa fights against accepting Reed as a part of her life, and I would argue that she only barely concedes to this situation. She doesn't change because she's learned anything from Reed. She changes because she realizes she has no other choice. Ultimately, her Grand Plan is only affected slightly.

One question I had after reading the story was why O'Connell chose to make Reed a famous TV star rather than just a normal guy who comes to live with Vanessa and her parents. Reed's fame added nothing to the story. Granted, he was immediately accepted at Cabot High because of his status. But because this aspect of Reed was never fully explored - the situation never examined from his point of view - and it never truly affected Vanessa in any direct way, I still don't know why O'Connell chose this particular direction. It left me feeling as if a great opportunity was missed.

This is the second book written by O'Connell that involved Chicago as a setting, with Boston playing a strong secondary role. (The first was The Book of Luke.) I know from the information given about O'Connell that she currently lives in Boston, thus I can see her focus on that area. While the Chicago portions of the book are written as if O'Connell has done thorough research, I do wonder if she's ever actually lived here. Something about her sense of setting is a bit forced, as if she's relying on guidebooks rather than her own experience. I could be wrong about this.

O'Connell's saving grace is her ability to tell a story cleanly. Her voice is easy to read, and while her characters frustrated me, they were well written. The dialogue is natural and the narrative well paced. I only wish she'd do better in executing these wonderful premises that are promised on the back cover copy. With her books, I always feel like I've ordered a hot fudge sundae only to get served a fruit yogurt cup instead.

Rating: Held My Attention
Status of Series: This is a stand-alone title

The Book of Luke

The Book of Luke
Author: Jenny O'Connell
Publisher: Simon & Schuster/MTV
Release Date: April, 2007

"Nice Girl" Emily Abbott has really gotten handed a raw deal. Half-way through her senior year in high school, her parents decide to move the family from Chicago back to Boston. She's just received a letter from her first choice college, Brown, telling her she's been deferred. And on the morning that the family is scheduled to leave, her first real boyfriend, Sean, breaks up with her. Too add insult to injury, her father announces at the airport that, in fact, he's not moving with the rest of the family but rather staying behind in Chicago, to tie up some loose ends. Code for separation.

But when Emily arrives back at her old school, she finds that not much has changed. Her old best friends, Lucy and Josie, are there to welcome her back into the fold. And come to find out, they've been experiencing their fair share of boy troubles as well. In fact, Josie was just dumped - via e-mail - by hottest guy on campus, Luke Preston.

Fueled by their frustrations, the girls decide to write a guide-book for guys, a how-to-manual describing all the things boys do that drive girls crazy and how they can change for the better. Once this manual is done, the girls plan to put it in the senior class's time capsule so future generations can benefit from their knowledge.

But for some reason, Emily, Josie and Lucy determine that they need to test out their theories on a real live boy. And who better but the jerk Luke Preston? Emily is drafted into becoming Henry Higgins to Luke's Eliza Doolittle. Ostensibly, she will get Luke to fall in love with her, work her magic in changing him into the greatest boyfriend ever, then break up with him in order to add the humiliation cherry to the top of the cake.

As you can predict, this Grand Plan falls apart when Emily finds out that maybe Luke isn't so bad after all. In fact, he's actually kind of wonderful, and before she knows what's happening, Emily feels stuck between what she wants for herself and what she thinks she's supposed to be doing for the sake of her friends and for all girl-kind.
As a heroine, Emily had a great voice. She's easy to relate too, and despite all of the crap she's handed, she doesn't whine excessively. She constantly describes herself as a "nice girl", although other than spewing bits from her mother's etiquette books (her mother is a professional etiquette expert), I didn't find her any nicer or meaner than any other character.

My problem with this book is that the premise of the guide book is very flimsy. As it was described, this how-to manual the girls are writing is a list of observations of the things that boys do that drive girls crazy and suggestions to the boys on what not to do. When the threesome determine that the book needs to be "tested", I was thoroughly confused. The guide-book is not a how-to manual for girls, on things they can do to change the boys in their lives. So how was Emily supposed to "test" it on Luke?

Indeed, I never did see Emily testing Luke in any way. In fact, several times he did things she didn't like (standing her up for a dance, not calling her when he said he would), and she ignored her initial urges to call him out for acting like a jerk. Other than a handful of suggestions - like telling him to keep an umbrella in his car for rainy days and not sharing her french fries when he acted as if it were only natural that she would - it seemed Emily did most of the changing when she accepted Luke exactly as he was. In fact, the real test Emily seemed to engage in was to see if she could act in such a way as to get Luke to fall in love with her.

Too, the conflict in the book is based on a very weak base. Emily supposedly feels conflicted because 1) she's falling for Luke when she's supposed to be re-training him and 2) Luke used to date Josie and hurt Josie's feelings. If the focus of Emily's distress would have been on the fact that she'd developed real feelings for her best friend's ex-boyfriend, I would have been satisfied. As it stood, I never understood why, once she realized Luke was actually a pretty nice guy that she genuinely liked, Emily never put the brakes on and told her friends that it wasn't working.

So as the story continued, Emily's increasing conflict became more and more frustrating.

Additionally, in the end, Emily is left holding 100% of the blame when things spiral out of control. Despite the fact that the idea for the guidebook as well as the desire for Emily to be the one to test it out on Luke belonged to all three girls equally, everyone turns to Emily when it comes time to pass out blame and anger.

While this book kept me turning the pages, wondering how it would all work out, I did so with a lot of frustrations. Only Emily as a character kept me from not finishing it. I like her well enough even though I thought much of what she did towards the end of the book veered awfully close to Too Stupid Too Live behaviour. Add in a healthy dose of Big Mis that drives the conflict and I can't say that this was my favorite book ever.

Rating: Struggled to Finish
Status of Series: This is a stand-alone title