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osprey_archerI started reading The Year of Secret Assignments this morning, sitting on the edge of the couch waiting for my toast to pop. Half the book later, I lifted my head and looked about in puzzlement, wondering why I was sitting in such an uncomfortable position and hadn't there been plans for breakfast?
That, my friends, is how engrossing Jaclyn Moriarty's The Year of Secret Assignments is. Unless you have a deep-seated revulsion to literature about high school students, you should read it.
(I note that Moriarty is Australian. All the best writers are Australian these days: Isobelle Carmody, Garth Nix, Michelle Cooper who wrote the Montmaray books. Possibly I should consider emigrating.)
The Year of Secret Assignments is a bit like I hoped John Tucker Must Die would be, if John Tucker Must Die wasn't a misogynistic piece of crap, as both of them involve taking vengeance on a sleazy jackass who jerks girls around for his own entertainment. But beyond that there's little point of comparison, as The Year of Secret Assignments has things like "female characters who actually like each other and have lives outside of their slowly burgeoning romances with their pen pals at the neighboring high school."
The story is told through the letters flying back and forth between pen pals, which means that Moriarty juggles six different first-person narrators. It's a bit confusing at first, but they differentiate eventually: Lydia is the crazy fun daredevil, Cassie is quiet and still trying to get over her father's death, and Emily is...Emily. And they have fun times together! They paint murals on the walls of Lydia's rooms and sneak out of school to watch a movie every Thursday and are generally awesome.
Emily is my favorite. She writes long letters sprinkled with malapropisms and peculiar grammatical constructions; one gets the feeling that, a) she wants to be smarter than she thinks she is, and b) she hasn't quite gotten the hang of written English yet. That this is charming rather than maddening is testament to Moriarty's skill.
Emily also has the most interesting and individual romance, which felt specific to these people, in this place, at this time. Her eventual boyfriend, Charley, is well-meaning but deeply awkward: geeky in a way that is light years removed from anything geek-chic.
(However, I suspect that the other boyfriend in the book is more popular with readers: he has most the stigmata of an appropriate book crush.)
Also, there's a sequel. It's called The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie (Bindy, a highly strung nerd, being my favorite secondary character - did I mention all the fun secondary characters? There are fun secondary characters. Given how many primary characters there are it's amazing there's room for anyone else) and I mean to get it out of the library tomorrow.
That, my friends, is how engrossing Jaclyn Moriarty's The Year of Secret Assignments is. Unless you have a deep-seated revulsion to literature about high school students, you should read it.
(I note that Moriarty is Australian. All the best writers are Australian these days: Isobelle Carmody, Garth Nix, Michelle Cooper who wrote the Montmaray books. Possibly I should consider emigrating.)
The Year of Secret Assignments is a bit like I hoped John Tucker Must Die would be, if John Tucker Must Die wasn't a misogynistic piece of crap, as both of them involve taking vengeance on a sleazy jackass who jerks girls around for his own entertainment. But beyond that there's little point of comparison, as The Year of Secret Assignments has things like "female characters who actually like each other and have lives outside of their slowly burgeoning romances with their pen pals at the neighboring high school."
The story is told through the letters flying back and forth between pen pals, which means that Moriarty juggles six different first-person narrators. It's a bit confusing at first, but they differentiate eventually: Lydia is the crazy fun daredevil, Cassie is quiet and still trying to get over her father's death, and Emily is...Emily. And they have fun times together! They paint murals on the walls of Lydia's rooms and sneak out of school to watch a movie every Thursday and are generally awesome.
Emily is my favorite. She writes long letters sprinkled with malapropisms and peculiar grammatical constructions; one gets the feeling that, a) she wants to be smarter than she thinks she is, and b) she hasn't quite gotten the hang of written English yet. That this is charming rather than maddening is testament to Moriarty's skill.
Emily also has the most interesting and individual romance, which felt specific to these people, in this place, at this time. Her eventual boyfriend, Charley, is well-meaning but deeply awkward: geeky in a way that is light years removed from anything geek-chic.
(However, I suspect that the other boyfriend in the book is more popular with readers: he has most the stigmata of an appropriate book crush.)
Also, there's a sequel. It's called The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie (Bindy, a highly strung nerd, being my favorite secondary character - did I mention all the fun secondary characters? There are fun secondary characters. Given how many primary characters there are it's amazing there's room for anyone else) and I mean to get it out of the library tomorrow.
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no subject
Date: 2011-08-03 12:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-03 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-03 12:56 pm (UTC)I reach for the ones I happen to own - Feeling Sorry for Celia (have you read that one?) and The Betrayal of Bindy Mackenzie - and reread them quite often. I love how secondary characters become main characters in later books, and vice versa. I particularly love Bindy. I'd be interested to hear what you think of her story...
no subject
Date: 2011-08-03 03:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-03 04:40 pm (UTC)This is one of the reasons I'm retroactively inclined to kind of like the Spice Girls, embarrassing as that is to admit. Because, okay, yes, their music was awful, banal pop, but they had this surprisingly healthy sisterhood vibe going on, and you always got the impression that their friendships with each other were as important as (if not more important than) any boys in their lives.
Anyway. I always get happy when you do a book review of sorts. I think you're becoming my go-to girl for modern YA lit. (meaning, like, from the past 10-15 years), because I realize that pretty much all the YA books on my to-read list have been ones you've mentioned/reviewed. XD
(As an aside, I'm slowing making my way back to LJ, and I just have to say that I LOOOVED reading about your travels, and kind of wish I had been around to comment on them when they were actually, yanno, happening. But I do so love hearing a person's individual account/impression of another country and culture--it's always more fun than simply reading an encyclopedia article about it.)
no subject
Date: 2011-08-04 05:34 am (UTC)Which is to say, sisterhood's a totally legit reason to like the Spice Girls.
(Of course The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants has lots of other things going for it, and when the girls are together they're a lot of fun, it's just that they mostly aren't.)
I'm kind of on a YA splurge now, so prepare your reading list for the deluge. I'd love to hear what you think of any of these books as you read them - reading can be such a solitary pleasure.
And I'm glad you enjoyed my travelogues!