Looks
Looks by Madeleine George is brilliant.
Meghan Ball is the fattest girl at Valley Regional High School; Aimee Zorn is probably the thinnest. They are both, in their different ways, invisible: Meghan because of her fatness, Aimee because she’s new this year, as a sophomore. They meet on the very first day–although by high school rules of engagement they do not speak–at the nurse’s office, each of them there as a way of escaping her classroom. They have nothing in common but their outcast status, and as anyone who has ever survived high school knows, the last thing an outcast should do is make friends with another outcast.
And at first it looks as if Aimee is going to be accepted. She writes poetry, and she joins the group which produced the award-winning literary magazine last year, and is taken up by the charismatic leader of the group. Cara and Aimee meet at Cara’s house and read each other’s poetry and discover in each other the tone-perfect ear, the perfectly understanding heart. . . . And then it all goes terribly, horribly wrong . . . in a way that Meghan tried to warn Aimee it would, but Aimee didn’t want to hear it, especially from fat outcast Meghan.
There’s so much to praise in this book it’s hard to know where to start. Perhaps with the fact that George can write. I’ve just finished a book which is a clever piece of alternate history, with a scary and intriguing plot and interesting characters, which I read as fast as I could because I had to know what happened: but the writer also gave you nothing to linger over; the prose existed to heave the story along and grace is strictly superfluous. LOOKS however is so beautifully written you can flip through it at random–when, say, you’re trying to write about how wonderful it is for your blog–and pick up lovely throwaway lines like these: Reluctantly Meghan breaks away from the wall, like an ice shelf breaking off the Antarctic. . . . A small, flattered smile detonates like a tiny bomb across the lower half of Aimee’s face, then clears again quickly, like smoke. . . . He’s gazing calmly at Mr Handsley, leaning back comfortably in his chair, his face as serene as a field of wheat. . . . “Yeah, and I really like the rhymes,” offers Laurie, a girl so boring even her voice is as bland as a dairy product.
And speaking of food, George is masterly* about both Aimee’s and Meghan’s very different yet strangely similar obsessions with it. During the first literary magazine meeting, while the rest of the group are discussing the poem Aimee has (anonymously) submitted: . . . . The carrots begin to thump like drums at her feet, and Aimee feels a surge of electricity come off them, a staticky pulse of carrot energy that shoots out of the backpack and through her legs . . . Aimee needs to make the carrots shut up somehow, maybe shove the backpack away from her with her foot, or bring the Ziploc bag into her lap where she can stick it up her shirt and muffle it . . . The carrots begin emitting a tiny high-pitched whoop, like a miniature siren going off by her feet. Surely the other girls can hear it. Surely any second now she’ll get up helplessly from the circle . . . and cram a whole carrot stick into her mouth, bite down on it and explode the beautiful hunger she’s been building like a glass palace in her body all day long. . . .
And Meghan at the end of a binge: . . . . The tingling has spread up her arms and legs now–a buzzing blankness, like a staticky TV channel. Soon it will swirl up through her gut, slip up over her heart and lungs like lukewarm water, flood through her throat and mouth and head–drown her in nothingness. Meghan slows down–she can coast to the end now. . . . .The final collapse into oblivion that accompanies the last mouthful. Bursting–the pressure of her gut against the waistband of her pants the only feeling left in her body. Meghan undoes the button of her fly and unzips it . . . Surrounded by the wreckage of the binge, eviscerated wrappers like the husks of dead insects all around her, Meghan leans her head against the wall and blacks out.
I particularly admire the way George presents Aimee as a member of her family: Aimee unreachably spiky and hostile and her well-meaning mom a little too well meaning and a little too earnest–and yet what should or even can her mom do? . . . ”Look,” her mother says, a tiny bit desperately. “Obviously I want to respect your body, and its needs, and its innate, ah, wisdom, about what belongs in it and what doesn’t. But I also feel like, sweetheart . . . what’s left for you to eat?” . . . “String cheese is left,” says Aimee. “And carrots and yogurt. And peppers and broccoli and kale. And Jell-O–is there any?”
. . . “There are three batches in the fridge,” her mother says.
“Sugar-free?”. . .
Aimee is furious with her boring, earnest, well-meaning mother for breaking up with Bill, boyfriend number four, by far the best of them, English professor and poetry nut, who had lived with them since Aimee was nine, and first turned Aimee on to poetry. Aimee is sure the break-up is all her boring mother’s fault, her mother who only cares that things look right . . . but you the reader see at once what a charming weasel Bill is. And yet, and yet: there’s substance and virtue to all three of them, in their different ways, and Aimee, by the end, has begun to see the cocky, careless side of Bill as she has perhaps even also begun to see the love and intelligence in her mother.
There’s the awful humour of the awfulness of high school here too. LOOKS has a running gag about Ms Champoux, head secretary, who reads the morning announcements over the PA system: ” . . .our principal Dr. Dempsey. Has decided to institute a new meditation period as part of morning announcements. Every morning we will share eh. Short inspirational poem by eh. Well-known writer followed by eh thirty-second silent meditation period during which students and staff are invited to think about what. Thee poem means to them. . . .” Oh, gods, and remember gym class? You don’t have to have been the fattest girl in the school to remember gym class with horror and loathing. I went to this high school.
I went to this high school forty years ago, and I don’t read high school novels any more (unless they have witches or dragons in them). The last high school novel I read with this kind of rapt attention was Laurie Halse Anderson’s SPEAK. The two books are nothing alike except in excellence; perhaps there’s a similar kind of vivid urgency; and perhaps similar too is the wretchedness, the world-endingness of betrayal. Some people manage to have enchanted childhoods, where the sun almost always shone and your parents almost always understood you and your friends remained your friends. I don’t think many people manage to have an enchanted adolescence. Adolescence is, I think, when most people find out about betrayal, and all the things that inevitably come with it: the great lumbering structure of society that doesn’t want to know, the people who think you shouldn’t make a fuss, the political scapegoating of the powerless so that the powerful can remain powerful.
SPEAK was also forced on me by someone who insisted that I’d find it worthwhile. It’s a high school novel! I said. I’m not interested! Merrilee gave me LOOKS. I am hopelessly unplugged in to the happening literary scene, and mostly I’d rather stay that way, but I do occasionally bleat at Merrilee about wishing I knew anything at all about new books. I was bleating a year or so ago and she interrupted me to say, I have a book for you. It’s about . . . she paused. It’s about a fat girl who befriends a thin girl . . . . Is it a high school novel? I said suspiciously. Well, yes, she said, but I think you’ll like it. She was right. I read it the first time in typescript, losing pages off the side of the bed as I read, and having to fish for them when I wanted to go back and savour a paragraph or a scene. A month or two ago when I decided it was time I started writing about other people’s books on the blog I asked her if it was out yet, and she asked George’s editor to send me a copy. I’ve been rereading it now as I type (and trying to keep chocolate fingerprints off the pages and my keyboard). And I recommend it to you, whether or not you read high school novels any more either.
* Mistressly, if you prefer
comments
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I’m off out to the bookshop tomorrow! This sounds nice substantial reading which leaves you feeling satisfied. Not like some books which dazzle but leave you feeling as if it was all style and lacked substance.
And thank you again for Diana Wynne Jones – i’m working my way thro her books, and just today finished witch week, which together with American Gods are my two favourite books this month – thank you for having a dog, food, horse, book blog with extra interesting bits mixed in
… and of course only 3 weeks to Chalice – Yaay!
YOU DIDN’T KNOW DIANA WYNNE JONES? Where have you been living all these years? A KENNELS? :)
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See what I get for being polite? It was a very SMART kennel OK? and I’ve read all the BEST dog books lol
Okay, so what are the best dog books? :)
My favourite dog books – this has to be in the top ten (How hard to be definitive – I’m sticking to my lovely familiar fence again :))
Bones would rain from the sky – Suzanne clothier
and on Suzannes site is this great article which I think I sent you before, but every now and then I make copies and take them with me on walks to educate labrador owners (OK, I own a lab, forgive me!)
http://www.flyingdogpress.com/artlibreg.htm
HE JUST WANTS TO SAY “HI!”
and this –
http://www.amazon.com/When-Pigs-Fly-Training-Impossible/dp/1929242441/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219966377&sr=1-2
– is what I’ve just bought from amazon – I’ll let you know!
http://www.flyingdogpress.com/artlibreg.htm
HE JUST WANTS TO SAY “HI!”
*********** Yes. But I personally am a lot more preoccupied with the genuinely aggressive *offlead* dog that genuinely attacks my *on lead* hellhounds: especially because Darkness is beginning to show some signs of defensive aggression and IT IS NOT HIS FAULT. The only reason Chaos isn’t is because he’d rather get bitten than miss out on another dog. Sigh.
****** because Darkness is beginning to show some signs of defensive aggression and IT IS NOT HIS FAULT.
Yes. This has always been my biggest fear with the bullies – they won’t start anything, but they would defend themselves, and after a couple of attacks any sensible dog starts to anticipate, so… (of course I’m not suggesting in any way. shape or form that Chaos is NOT sensible lol)
I have heard that the best thing you can use is an air horn, which stops strong dogs in their tracks according to various sources – if you did try this I’d recommend taping it, then playing it quietly to the hellhounds, and very gradually over a couple of weeks increasing the volume – or it might stop hellhouds in their tracks as well!
another alternative is citronella spray…
… and this is assuming you have enough hands in an emergency…
Oooh, this sounds like a high school novel I could get behind.
And I just fell in love with “eviscerated wrappers.” Gloooorious. I must have this book.
I must have this book.
******** Do it. and the cover is PINK. :)
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*****Looks by Madeleine George is brilliant.*****
Based on your description, it certainly sounds like a book I could enjoy. I’ve no objection to high school books.
*****Reluctantly Meghan breaks away from the wall, like an ice shelf breaking off the Antarctic. . . . A small, flattered smile detonates like a tiny bomb across the lower half of Aimee’s face, then clears again quickly, like smoke. . . . He’s gazing calmly at Mr Handsley, leaning back comfortably in his chair, his face as serene as a field of wheat. . . . “Yeah, and I really like the rhymes,” offers Laurie, a girl so boring even her voice is as bland as a dairy product.*****
(*wince*) Is it ALL in present tense? That would really grate on me. It’s not a show-stopper, but it’s a definite negative.
*****There’s the awful humour of the awfulness of high school here too. … I went to this high school.*****
I remember junior high school (grades 7 through 9) that way. By high school, people had grown up enough that they were pretty much beyond all that stuff (and there were 2100 students and it was a well-funded public school), but junior high school (which was also large and public, but probably more like 1500 students) was just like all the books describe it.
*****Adolescence is, I think, when most people find out about betrayal, and all the things that inevitably come with it: the great lumbering structure of society that doesn’t want to know, the people who think you shouldn’t make a fuss, the political scapegoating of the powerless so that the powerful can remain powerful.*****
One of the most traumatic experiences of my adolescence was learning about the graduated income tax. I was 14, almost 15, and I learned about it in my American Government class. I’d heard my parents say that the more you earned, the more you paid, and I assumed that it was a flat tax, so of course the more you earned the more you paid. When I learned that the more you earned, the higher the PERCENTAGE you paid, and when I learned just how high those percentages could GET, I went ballistic. It was so unfair on its face I couldn’t see how any individual or any society could stand for it. I went around practically grabbing people by the lapels and telling them about it. And then I got my second shock: my fellow students didn’t give a damn. They said it was only rich people that it hurt. Like (1) rich people aren’t the same as other people and have rights too, (2) middle income people aren’t also hurt by it, and (3) fair is fair and an unfair system hurts everyone. I was completely disillusioned by my fellow man/woman, willing to turn their backs on people who worked hard, or even got lucky and won the lottery or inherited money. You know what? I never got over it, to this day.
Judith
Hmm. Well, I’ve never got over the fact that the wealthiest people effectively pay no taxes at all because they hire lawyers to get out of it.
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*****Hmm. Well, I’ve never got over the fact that the wealthiest people effectively pay no taxes at all because they hire lawyers to get out of it.*****
That’s because the present system caters to so many special interest groups with its deductions and loopholes. If it were a flat tax with no exceptions, everyone — and I mean EVERYONE — would pay the same percentage. Sounds fair to me. And then people might also realize how much governments are costing them and might start complaining more about it, too.
Judith
I used to be quite a sucker for a good teen book; among others, Cynthia Voigt’s A Solitary Blue knocked my socks off, sometime when I was in my middle 20′s, and hers are about the most beat-up books on my shelf even now. Will add this one to my to-do list.
And might I add a plug for Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid? This is more a grade school book, but I discovered it while we were working on the comic book exhibit–it melds words and pictures, not quite comic style, but bits of it made me laugh til I cried. :)
I agree about BLUE. Cynthia (who used to live near me in Maine) used to say that BLUE was the one that was supposed to win the Newbery. And isn’t WIMPY the one that was given away on the web for yonks and then some publisher published it out here in three dimensions and it *sold* like crazy? Thus making everyone change their minds about the relationship between web and paper?
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I agree about BLUE. Cynthia (who used to live near me in Maine) used to say that BLUE was the one that was supposed to win the Newbery. And isn’t WIMPY the one that was given away on the web for yonks and then some publisher published it out here in three dimensions and it *sold* like crazy? Thus making everyone change their minds about the relationship between web and paper?
Hmm, I actually thought it HAD won the Newbery. One moment… *rustle* *thud*… right, OK, that’s the one NEXT to it on the shelf. Well, hell, it should’ve.
I hadn’t heard that about Wimpy Kid releasing online first–I do know it kind of hit by storm, it was writ rather large at the Scholastic Book Fair at the museum this past spring and was an Everyone’s Talking About It sort of a thing. I’ve not bought the sequels, as I think it might kind of be a one-trick-pony in a way; but I might yet change my mind. They’re easy reads for my small bear brain. :)
I guess I’d better read it. And it’s always nice to have a rec for a Small Bear Brain Day. :)
*****Cynthia Voigt’s A Solitary Blue knocked my socks off*****
Me too. I picked it up because of the cover art, and when I finished it I went out and bought all of her other books. It impressed me because it dealt with the idea of a young person having to come to terms with the fact that his mother really IS a bad person. It’s not an issue that many writers will face, or that some parents want their kids reading about.
Judith
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Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t teach, teach gym.
Q, I am a teacher, as is my husband, and we most definitely *can*. I’m not going to go into full and exhaustive detail about how hard we try to help the kids that we come in contact with every day, nor am I going to tell you about all the stories of how we reached kids and helped them through some crisis, or just made them feel like they were important and useful.
I’m sorry you have had so many bad experiences with teachers that you have written the entire lot of us off. If you live in the States, I’d say that you have to pay enough for the good people to stick around. Otherwise, all you’re doing is setting yourselves up to fail. *You* fail your own children by only allowing the school district to hire the most bargain-basement talent (or lack of it). If you don’t like teachers, then maybe you should look into why it’s so difficult to keep the good ones around.
And. If you don’t like your teachers, maybe you should stop putting the onus on them to do all the connecting. Some people never realize that sometimes they need to meet others half way. I’ve seen children who have been given all the chances in the world, but refused to do anything with them, preferring instead to blame everyone for their own unhappiness. It’s so much easier to blame others.
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Gym class – brrr!
No, I was not the fattest girl either (actually I was thin – THEN – cue old Indian film song: “Where did those days go—”["Jane kahan gayen woh din---] Anyway, I blame the cortezone, as I always say, it’s got to be good for something) – but I was one of the first “integrated” visually disabled children in a “normal” school – and I can blame quite a good deal of my inferiority complex on having to play ball games, slighty difficult to do well when you can’t actually see the ball! By the seventh grade I suppose they’d discovered it was no use, and I could do other gym-ie things instead; unfortunately I was not particularly good at the things I COULD do either, nor did I enjoy them.
Looking back I, on the whole, see both my childhood and adolescence as mostly happy – but with some moments/patches of real misery (in chilhood when one is sad/miserable one is REALLY sad/miserable, but luckily also when one is happy one is REALLY happy – and there doesn’t have to be much actual time between those two conditions!) My worst period was when I was 12-13 with a good deal of fairly continuous misery, but I won’t go into that – not because I mind, but because I don’t:)!
It sounds like a really interesting book – and I don’t mind if it is about high school. What years are those? In Sweden main – compulsory school – is from 1st-9th class and then there’s “gymnasiet”, three years, I think (they changed everything a few years after I’d graduated). I think/hope that things were different in our “gymnasium” and there were no terribly popular kids – but with my nose constantly in a book – novels, of course, not my school work more than I could possibly help! – I don’t know if I’d have noticed them if there were; but even so I hope the school-culture was slightly different from American high schools.
Goodness, what a dreadfully long post (I don’t suppose you had THIS in mind when you told me to write!) But there is something I actually think you might enjoy hearing – in my “gymnasie”-class we had only two boys (humanistic line!), who oddly enough had the same first name, but there should have been a third. On the first day of school his name was called up and it was – Gandalf! (The name meant nothing to the others, I’m sure, but I was curious – he never showed up, but may one guess that his parents were slightly, SLIGHTLY fond of the works of Professor Tolkien?!)
I, um, love high school books, even if I haven’t graced those doors in the 12 years since I left. And juvie books. Albeit, not always the kind they force on you in college prep classes. If I’m going to spend the time on reading the realistic type (versus the fantasy type I love best), it’s got to be “relatable” to life. I just put a hold on a copy at my favorite library. Thanks for sharing these little blips from the book- I always get suckered into books by the language, and this one has some doozies!
And I’d like to second the Yaay! above for the countdown to Chalice~
Thank you! :)
I always get suckered into books by the language,
******** Yes, *me too.* It’s not ONLY laziness that is the reason why all my book mumblings will have quotes from the book itself. :)
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Hmmm…That sounds worth a look (ha ha! I totally didn’t mean for that to be a pun, but I’m leaving it in ANYWAY).
I actually didn’t like SPEAK at all. I read it in my freshman year of high school, and it was part of a rash of books just like it (similar characters, subject matter, PLOTS even) all aimed at girls my age, and I thought it was kind of stupid, melodramatic, and unrealistic. Everyone else seems to love it, though, so maybe I’ll give it another shot.
In other news, you seemed to dig Amanda Palmer when I linked you to her (sometime last year, shortly after the blog began); she is touring solo around the UK, and she’s shooting a music video near London this Sunday, and they want volunteers. I can’t find mention of it on her myspace (www.myspace.com/whokilledamandapalmer), so here are the shooting details, if you or any of the other brits who read this blog think it’s something you want to be a part of:
“We need three sorts of folks to fill out our audience:
1. Folks who think Leigh Bowery is an icon of our times and that there is no such thing as too much. The truly avant-garde/performance art dressers will be put down right at the front of the stage in comfortable seats at tables with sugary food, like the court of Gormenghast, and get the best seats to watch Amanda strut her stuff mere feet away. Note: we heart drag, transgender, big, small, old, young – our church of beauty is very large and its doors are always wide, wide open.
2. Folks who like dressing up but, hmm, latex, no – you’ll be up on the balconies shouting and cheering and carrying on. Amanda and the Dolls have a reputation of having the best-looking fanbase/audience in indie music and we want to immortalize this (and you) in the video. If nothing else, to make other bands jealous.
3. Men who really can’t be bothered to dress up. You will be given a Leeds United shirt and get to act like a football hooligan. So, ladies and gentlemen, if you’re a big Dolls / Amanda fan but your male partner can’t really be bothered to dress, he can still be a part of this.
Anyway, it’ll be a laugh, from mid morning on Sunday 31st to about 5pm. If interested, please email ikilledamandapalmer@irresistiblefilms.com with your email and mobile numbers.”
Also, the video series she’s put out so far to support her new album is great. I strongly recommend seeing her live; the music is wonderful and the shows and film shoot promise to be a freak fest (in the best possible way). Here’s what happened the last time they filmed a video with an entirely volunteer cast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awnjw36mNEs
I wish I could be there, but Texas is too far to travel. WAY too far.
Sorry for such a long comment!
I like the dressing-up part . . . sigh . . . but no. Maybe someone else out there. . . .
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****Adolescence is, I think, when most people find out about betrayal, and all the things that inevitably come with it: the great lumbering structure of society that doesn’t want to know, the people who think you shouldn’t make a fuss, the political scapegoating of the powerless so that the powerful can remain powerful.****
Hmm…Deerskin, anyone?
I’ll have to read LOOKS, even though it will (already is) making my stomach churn with junior-high dread. By high-school, I’d grown a thicker skin. That ulcer-producing adolescent still lurks inside, though. I’ve learned to pacify her with chocolate. : )
****I’ve just finished a book which is a clever piece of alternate history, with a scary and intriguing plot and interesting characters, which I read as fast as I could because I had to know what happened: but the writer also gave you nothing to linger over; the prose existed to heave the story along and grace is strictly superfluous.****
OK, which one? – I’ve got one, too… THE HISTORIAN by Elizabeth Kostova. By the end I was galloping through it at a furious pace because I had to know what happened. It’s a vampire novel, a la Bram Stoker – not my favorite flavor of vampire. (This begs the question – am I some vampire’s favorite flavor of human?) HISTORIAN’s plot unfolds as a series of letters and documents, from four widely separate times. This might be confusing, but I think she pulls it off by not having any anachronistic feelings in the letters. I.e. the people from the 40′s behave like you’d expect.
What I can’t believe is that my mother handed me this one – not her usual at all!
Robin, I hope your weather’s dry-ish now. Ours is, finally, yea sun! – but Gustav is on his way!
No, not HISTORIAN–but I *did* have that reaction to H. when I read it a while back.
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Happily, I escaped a fate similar to LOOKS by changing high school. I left a horrible place, and went to an arts program where everyone was ‘weird’, and my brand of crazy was seriously appreciated. It was awesome(:
(Thankyouthankyouthankyou Eastwood arts package…)
A book that I really liked was ‘Another Kind of Cowboy’, by Susan Juby.
http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780060765170/Another_Kind_of_Cowboy/index.aspx
Not as much drama and trauma, but some good coming-of-age stuff anyways. I laughed in a couple places, and all the characters (even the bit-players) feel like real people.
Oh, cool! thank you!
Yeah, I kind of had that reaction to “Historian” as well, although I must confess that my reading of it already had two strikes against it anyway. 1) I’m not generally into vampire stories (I think Sunshine is the only vampire book I’m actually a fan of; not sure quite why), and 2) I lived in Romania for awhile. This was the reason I picked the book up in the first place (and I did get the sort of gratification I was looking for, getting to read part of a book [there are very few] set in Romania), but… Having heard plenty about Vlad Tepes as a real-life human being, it was harder to see him as this creepy vampire. And the town where his grave supposedly lies, Snagov, is one of the towns where I worked. At a transition house for young women who had grown up in orphanages, in fact. So each time I’d read about the lake with the island where he had been buried was, I’d think about going swimming in that lake with my transition house residents and getting water plants entwined (non-creepily) around my ankles. Each time there would be a creepy scene in the town itself, I would have flashbacks of our bright yellow house (let me tell you, there’s not much that’s less creepy than bright, cheerful dandelion yellow). And so on. So I can’t claim to having had the normal experience with that book.
(danceswithpahis again)
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This is about your books, not others’, so it’s a bit off-topic.
I went to the library today to find Dragonhaven. It was on the shelf of ‘new arrivals’. I though it was so lovely that they had it displayed on a stand to show it off, along with 1 other book. I did a double take when I realized the other book was Angel Fire….by Peter.
Somebody out there knows what’s what.
:)
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Kind of off-topic, but in case you need a small grin/grimace…
Feeling in need of a read, and Sunshine being re-read too recently (I’m trying to avoid memorising it) I hauled out Blue Sword. An Orbit ’91 reprint in case it matters… and for some reason read this bit in the front:
“The right of Robin McKinley to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance…”
No WONDER I thought you were a boy for years.
I hope you are feeling much better and sitting with enough spoons to serve a small intimate party of 1000 of your closest friends…
What? Are you serious? I don’t have that one to hand; the UK BEAUTY reads ‘The right of Robin McKinley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance . . . ‘
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‘Fraid so. (It’s not my fave cover either, a weird blue circular pattern with vagruely dragon/monster/sword pattern and a disembodied woman’s head drifting on top)
It did make me laugh, though. I imagined some poor drone who’s paid to check in his/her brain on arrival, sitting in some windowless, airless cube, dashing out your assertion in the five minutes before going home.
But I appreciate that the humour is FAR less accessible from your perspective. Unless you’ve had to develop a laugh-automatically-muscle like I have, after being called “sir” too many times to mention even with hair down to my hips and -gasp- real boobs. Until I got used to it, I used to get *really* snotty.
Do PLEASE cut and paste some CLUE about what the conversation is about. Whimper.
Do PLEASE cut and paste some CLUE about what the conversation is about. Whimper.
*** oh dear. sorry.
“The right of Robin McKinley to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance…” – ’91 Orbit edition of SWORD
I imagined some poor drone who’s paid to check in his/her brain on arrival, sitting in some windowless, airless cube, dashing out your assertion in the five minutes before going home.
*** I promise to do my best to remember from now on.
Ah. Thank you. :)
I’m sure it’s a great book, from the review you’ve given it, but I still don’t want to be reminded about *anything* to do with my school days. I can still remember my happiness at leaving…
And I second Southdowner’s thanks to you and Pollyanna’s list for DWJ’s books. They hadn’t entered my life either, until this blog.
I hope you felt you had one or two spoons left unused at the end of today.
Yes, teen school was so horrible, so lucky to get out of that alive. Watching dearly beloved child going through the horror is also bad.
( Any parents in similar situation; highly recommend “Yes. your teen is crazy”. Which, retrospectively, explains even more of the horror – we were all temporarily insane because of our brains rewiring themselves, AND under the worst pressure to conform and excel in many areas of no interest to ourselves. It would be different if I ran society, I can tell you. Mutter, grumble.)
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***It would be different if I ran society, I can tell you. Mutter, grumble.***
Oh, very likely. But I think it would drive you crazy after only one day… ;p
On a slightly different note, have you read ‘The City of Words’ by Alberto Manguel?
http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/massey/massey2007.html
I seriously suggest reading it, or downloading the podcast of the lectures. His voice is amazing(: I think you’ll like it.
Have already ordered Looks. It sounds wonderful!
I was the very tall and very thin girl in a school in El Paso, where the average population was much shorter. It was hell.
But I did one thing–I never slumped. I wasn’t going to try and pretend I wasn’t 6’2″.
Say it loud–I’m tall and I’m proud.
Now if it were only easier to get cool clothes…
But I did one thing–I never slumped. I wasn’t going to try and pretend I wasn’t 6?2?.
******* GOOD for you.
Now if it were only easier to get cool clothes…
********* I sympathise, since even I have that problem at mingy 5’8″.
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