Book Review: Clash
Feb. 17th, 2022 08:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerKayla Miller’s latest graphic novel, Clash, kicks off when Olive volunteers to show new girl Natasha around at school. Olive, wildly friendly child that she is, introduces Natasha to all her friends, by which I mean basically everyone at school - and Natasha responds with outward cordiality that barely masks an insidious desire to supplant Olive in all her friends’ affections.
NATASHA WHY. We never do learn exactly why, which I think is a strength of the book, actually. Sometimes people do things like this and you never DO learn where they picked up this bizarre and counterproductive way of relating to the world!
Anyway. Natasha’s attempted All about Eveing of Olive’s life culminates at Olive’s Halloween party, where Natasha absconds with half the guests for a little impromptu trick-or-treating. (To be fair, what did Olive expect when she planned a Halloween party on Halloween? She had her reasons, but still.) But then Natasha attempts to egg Olive’s house.
I’m not sure how Natasha expected THAT to go. Did she envision rallying all of Olive’s former friends to egg Olive’s house too, thus turning them into her own minions henceforth? But what actually happens is that Olive’s friends, still very much Olive’s friends even though they really like Natasha too, recoil in horror, and Olive sends Natasha home.
Readers, I cheered! Olive has been so nice to Natasha for so long, to an almost doormat-ty degree, I think not from lack of spunk but because she’s naturally a warm, friendly, easy-going person, and in the past this has always won people over so she’s just not sure what to do when she’s faced with someone on whom that strategy doesn’t work. Especially given that Natasha’s not in-your-face mean. She’s steadily, stealthily, just-below-the-surface mean, the kind of mean you think maybe you’re imagining, or maybe you’re not imagining it but she doesn’t mean it the way it comes across? And Olive has really been trying to give her the benefit of the doubt.
But in the aftermath everyone cold-shoulders Natasha at school, and when Olive sees Natasha sitting alone at her Lunch Table of Shame, Olive feels bad for her and goes to sit with her, and of course where Olive goes others follow. It’s very mature and generous of her I GUESS.
Afterward Olive and Natasha have a talk, and Olive is like “We don’t have to LIKE each other but we have a lot of the same friends so let’s at least be CIVIL,” and Natasha’s like, Sure, fine.
The reason I keep reading Miller’s graphic novels is that she’s really good at setting up these thorny interpersonal dilemmas… and the reason I keep getting frustrated is that I often think her books resolve these situations too easily. In this book, there’s an author’s note where Miller comments that she’s been in similar situations, and didn’t handle it as gracefully as Olive does, and wanted to model a healthy way to deal with such a situation…
And that’s great and all, and maybe! Perhaps! Natasha has seen the light and will keep her end of the bargain and NOT continue trying to undermine Olive with all her friends. But I have my doubts. She was planning to egg Olive’s house! She may not have the emotional maturity or the social skills or, perhaps most crucially, the desire to deal with this in a healthy manner. Was she chastened by her brief shunning, or did it just make her hate Olive more? What’s the next step if Olive does her darndest to deal with this situation in a healthy manner and Natasha refuses to play ball?
NATASHA WHY. We never do learn exactly why, which I think is a strength of the book, actually. Sometimes people do things like this and you never DO learn where they picked up this bizarre and counterproductive way of relating to the world!
Anyway. Natasha’s attempted All about Eveing of Olive’s life culminates at Olive’s Halloween party, where Natasha absconds with half the guests for a little impromptu trick-or-treating. (To be fair, what did Olive expect when she planned a Halloween party on Halloween? She had her reasons, but still.) But then Natasha attempts to egg Olive’s house.
I’m not sure how Natasha expected THAT to go. Did she envision rallying all of Olive’s former friends to egg Olive’s house too, thus turning them into her own minions henceforth? But what actually happens is that Olive’s friends, still very much Olive’s friends even though they really like Natasha too, recoil in horror, and Olive sends Natasha home.
Readers, I cheered! Olive has been so nice to Natasha for so long, to an almost doormat-ty degree, I think not from lack of spunk but because she’s naturally a warm, friendly, easy-going person, and in the past this has always won people over so she’s just not sure what to do when she’s faced with someone on whom that strategy doesn’t work. Especially given that Natasha’s not in-your-face mean. She’s steadily, stealthily, just-below-the-surface mean, the kind of mean you think maybe you’re imagining, or maybe you’re not imagining it but she doesn’t mean it the way it comes across? And Olive has really been trying to give her the benefit of the doubt.
But in the aftermath everyone cold-shoulders Natasha at school, and when Olive sees Natasha sitting alone at her Lunch Table of Shame, Olive feels bad for her and goes to sit with her, and of course where Olive goes others follow. It’s very mature and generous of her I GUESS.
Afterward Olive and Natasha have a talk, and Olive is like “We don’t have to LIKE each other but we have a lot of the same friends so let’s at least be CIVIL,” and Natasha’s like, Sure, fine.
The reason I keep reading Miller’s graphic novels is that she’s really good at setting up these thorny interpersonal dilemmas… and the reason I keep getting frustrated is that I often think her books resolve these situations too easily. In this book, there’s an author’s note where Miller comments that she’s been in similar situations, and didn’t handle it as gracefully as Olive does, and wanted to model a healthy way to deal with such a situation…
And that’s great and all, and maybe! Perhaps! Natasha has seen the light and will keep her end of the bargain and NOT continue trying to undermine Olive with all her friends. But I have my doubts. She was planning to egg Olive’s house! She may not have the emotional maturity or the social skills or, perhaps most crucially, the desire to deal with this in a healthy manner. Was she chastened by her brief shunning, or did it just make her hate Olive more? What’s the next step if Olive does her darndest to deal with this situation in a healthy manner and Natasha refuses to play ball?
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Date: 2022-02-17 01:52 pm (UTC)... Ok I guess I can see it. I can imagine (have met) people who are prickly and love drama/gossip. I can imagine a person like that coming to a new place and being befriended by someone gregarious and popular and finding that gregarious person annoying and wishing to have access to all the friends without having to put up with the gregarious person's annoyingness. And I can imagine that person wanting to be queen of the heap. So okay, I guess I can imagine it.
But from my memories of school (where I was always far, far in the outer orbit of any of this), that kind of drama-loving, gossipy mean girl alienated as many people as she was able to capture because her backstabbing nature would get the best of her. Also, coming new to a place, she just wouldn't be able to bribe/compel people to stay away from someone they actively liked. In other words, Natasha would have to have something to offer those friends to get them to ditch Olive.
I guess in real life, if Olive was the current queen of the heap, there'd be friends who had resentments or jealousies that Natasha could weaponize, but trying to get people to egg the house seems nuts.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-17 04:35 pm (UTC)I think she's jealous of Olive and believes that other people must be jealous too - that Olive's rise to popularity must have left behind resentments that would make Olive's "friends" happy to join Natasha in her anti-Olive house-egging. (She must figure that Olive must have risen using the same tactics Natasha is attempting to deploy.) But actually, Olive is popular because she's a fun, easy-going person who is nice to everyone, so no one feels house-egging levels of resentment, and they recoil from Natasha when they realize her plan.
I think Natasha has cast Olive as Queen Bee (who rules the school with an iron fist in a velvet glove, like a high school movie) when actually she's just well-liked.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-17 04:49 pm (UTC)I think a big life lesson is realizing that people who will talk trash with you about someone are highly likely to turn around and talk trash about you to someone else. I think at first we don't realize this because if we're doing the talking (egged on by the other person, or maybe the other person initiated it), we're thinking "Well *my* resentments are totally understandable and X person was insufferable/mean/rude/careless to me, and I'm just sharing that fact," and we don't realize that other people may feel that same way. "But how can they? I'm always kind; anyone who is hurt by *my* behavior must be making a mountain over a molehill." And in a way the merits of anyone's gripes or resentments aren't even the point; the point is that a person who listens to your complaints in order to stir up your resentment--someone who wants you to turn "I didn't like when Olive did this thing/failed to do this thing" into "Olive is a brat and I hate her"--is someone who is likely to find occasion to do that with someone else, about *you*.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-28 05:38 pm (UTC)That sounds very realistic and plausible, yeah.
Hopefully there'll be a Miller at one point where just... not interacting any more is the solution.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-01 12:48 am (UTC)