osprey_archer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
osprey_archer) wrote2011-10-24 07:58 pm
osprey_archer) wrote2011-10-24 07:58 pm
Fly on the Wall and The Ghosts of Ashbury High
I'm going to post about something other than books at some point, I swear, but I just keep READING things and then I have stuff to SAY about it and, well. Here be reviews!
First, E. Lockhart's Fly on the Wall, a slim novel about a girl who is transformed into a fly on the wall of the boy's locker room at her school.
Let us begin by admiring the brilliance of this premise. It makes absolutely no sense (and no explanation is ever offered), but it allows Lockhart to write a hundred pages thinly plotted pages about boys being naked. I bet this book enjoys a lot of covert popularity among junior high girls.
Unfortunately, the brilliant premise is undercut by the fact that our heroine - I use the word loosely - our heroine, Gretchen, is a horrible human being. She's epically insecure and therefore hates basically everyone.
The boys who don't fancy her.
The girls who are prettier than her (and doubtless have better personalities, too).
The art teacher who expects her to try new things rather than clinging to her beloved comic book style like a security blanket…Why did Gretchen even bother getting into a prestigious art high school? She clearly has no intention of learning anything from anyone.
Except possibly male anatomy, from unwitting naked boys in the locker room.
On a slightly different but still disappointed note, a review of Jaclyn Moriarty's The Ghosts of Ashbury High, the fourth of her Ashbury High companion novels.
I loved the earlier novels - especially The Murder of Bindi Mackenzie - and therefore approached this latest effort in a pitch of anticipation so fevered as to be deleterious to anything short of a tour de force. And, though Moriarty's characters are buoyant and beautifully realized as ever, The Ghosts of Ashbury High is hardly a tour de force.
For one thing: not nearly enough Bindi Mackenzie.
More seriously, though, The Ghosts of Ashbury High has pretty epic pacing issues.
Like Moriarty's other books, The Ghosts of Ashbury High is told through documents written by the characters. Previously, these documents were mostly letters and diary entries, which gave the story a sense of immediacy and intimacy, but in this book Moriarty has the characters tell this story in answer to a year-end exam question.
An exam question. This drains both the immediacy from the format - most of these events are being narrated months after they happen - but, more damningly, the intimacy. Why the heck would any of these kids write any of this (often quite personal) story as an answer to an exam question?
Moreover, the story is - at least to my mind - simply less interesting than the other stories Moriarty has told. The students at Ashbury High spend a lot of time wondering about the two new kids, Riley and Amelia, who are certainly mysterious but don't actually get around to doing much (beyond being mysteriously awesome at stuff) until three hundred pages in, give or take.
On the one hand, the fact that my interest flagged only slightly during three hundred pages devoid of either character growth or plot is testament to Moriarty's skill as a writer. On the other hand - well, honestly, how can you justify three hundred pages of set up?
I was not impressed by the ghost story aspect. It was too well foreshadowed to be surprising, but at the same time badly integrated into the rest of the story. It's as if Moriarty aimed for a tough of the numinous but ended up instead with something merely disconnected.
First, E. Lockhart's Fly on the Wall, a slim novel about a girl who is transformed into a fly on the wall of the boy's locker room at her school.
Let us begin by admiring the brilliance of this premise. It makes absolutely no sense (and no explanation is ever offered), but it allows Lockhart to write a hundred pages thinly plotted pages about boys being naked. I bet this book enjoys a lot of covert popularity among junior high girls.
Unfortunately, the brilliant premise is undercut by the fact that our heroine - I use the word loosely - our heroine, Gretchen, is a horrible human being. She's epically insecure and therefore hates basically everyone.
The boys who don't fancy her.
The girls who are prettier than her (and doubtless have better personalities, too).
The art teacher who expects her to try new things rather than clinging to her beloved comic book style like a security blanket…Why did Gretchen even bother getting into a prestigious art high school? She clearly has no intention of learning anything from anyone.
Except possibly male anatomy, from unwitting naked boys in the locker room.
On a slightly different but still disappointed note, a review of Jaclyn Moriarty's The Ghosts of Ashbury High, the fourth of her Ashbury High companion novels.
I loved the earlier novels - especially The Murder of Bindi Mackenzie - and therefore approached this latest effort in a pitch of anticipation so fevered as to be deleterious to anything short of a tour de force. And, though Moriarty's characters are buoyant and beautifully realized as ever, The Ghosts of Ashbury High is hardly a tour de force.
For one thing: not nearly enough Bindi Mackenzie.
More seriously, though, The Ghosts of Ashbury High has pretty epic pacing issues.
Like Moriarty's other books, The Ghosts of Ashbury High is told through documents written by the characters. Previously, these documents were mostly letters and diary entries, which gave the story a sense of immediacy and intimacy, but in this book Moriarty has the characters tell this story in answer to a year-end exam question.
An exam question. This drains both the immediacy from the format - most of these events are being narrated months after they happen - but, more damningly, the intimacy. Why the heck would any of these kids write any of this (often quite personal) story as an answer to an exam question?
Moreover, the story is - at least to my mind - simply less interesting than the other stories Moriarty has told. The students at Ashbury High spend a lot of time wondering about the two new kids, Riley and Amelia, who are certainly mysterious but don't actually get around to doing much (beyond being mysteriously awesome at stuff) until three hundred pages in, give or take.
On the one hand, the fact that my interest flagged only slightly during three hundred pages devoid of either character growth or plot is testament to Moriarty's skill as a writer. On the other hand - well, honestly, how can you justify three hundred pages of set up?
I was not impressed by the ghost story aspect. It was too well foreshadowed to be surprising, but at the same time badly integrated into the rest of the story. It's as if Moriarty aimed for a tough of the numinous but ended up instead with something merely disconnected.