In Which We Discuss Love Lessons

Jacqueline Wilson is famous for her children's books, and although Love Lessons is aimed at slightly older readers, it's still best suited to young adolescents, probably girls between twelve and sixteen.

Fourteen-year-old Prudence and eleven-year-old Grace have had a somewhat unique upbringing. From a young age, they've been home schooled by their controlling father. At first it was for religious reasons, although after a while, even the vicar disagreed with their father's extreme methods.

Both girls work in their father's failing bookstore in their spare time, and, to his mind, it's what they'll do all their lives. Insistent that his younger daughter has "no more brains than a donkey" he constantly heaps criticism on her, while his idea of praising Prue is to tell her that one day she can design the dust cover for his "Magnum Opus", a work oddly reminiscent of the one Kate's husband is writing at the beginning of Nick Hornby's How to be Good. In other words, it's an arrogant self-centred man's ideas of what exactly is wrong with the world.

Prue's father is clearly the villain of the piece. He's not necessarily a bad man, just one insistent that he is right, always and forever, no matter what the rest of the world thinks. To the misfortune of the rest of the world in general and his daughters in particular he's managed to find a wife who agrees with his opinion of himself and who, partly due to his constant criticism of her, fails to stand up to him.

As you can see, the book follows Wilson's normal theme of children's issues with their parents and growing up. The storyline is oddly reminiscent of Lola Rose, mostly in the dynamics of Prue's parents relationship.

Like most of Wilson's characters, Prue is creative, and, like Ellie from Girls in Love, enjoys artwork. Her one dream is to go to art college, although, as her father's opinion is that "they don't paint at art school now, they just faff around with blocks of concrete and dead animals and pretend all that crap is creative," she doesn't seem to have much chance of achieving this. Until, that is, a heart attack takes their father out of the equation, and Prue is suddenly plunged into the terrifying world of teenagers.

With her home-made clothes and lack of social skills, Prue immediately attracts all the wrong kinds of attention. Her natural skill with writing and art alienates her from her classmates, while her lack of experience in an official environment and the gaps in her knowledge cause some of her teachers to dislike or resent her. All except for her art teacher, Rax, who quickly becomes the only person she feels she can depend on.

The entire book is told in first person, from Prue's point of view, and this enables the reader to empathize with and understand more fully her growing feelings for Rax. From this point on, the book could easily be very predictable, but, somehow, Jacqueline Wilson manages to avoid that trap, and what's left is a sweet and unique look at a forbidden relationship.

Prue isn't the most likeable of Wilson's heroines, and this book probably isn't Wilson's most absorbing. Personally, I preferred Dustbin Baby, The Lottie Project, or even The Illustrated Mum, although those were aimed at younger readers. As for older readers, the Girls series is probably preferable. Still, the truly original way in which the relationship is handled makes it worth reading, particularly for people who are already fans of Jacqueline Wilson's work.

Anyone who enjoyed this book might like to look at Jodi Picoult's Salem Falls, which also deals with inappropriate student-teacher relationships, although the book is aimed at adults, and handles the subject in a very different manner.

In Which We Discuss Nineteen Minutes

Another repost, from that time I got really into Jodi Picoult. I'll be writing another post about her later, if I find the time.

Jodi Picoult is an immensely talented author, and she rarely disappoints her readers (note; I have since taken this back).

Nineteen Minutes, like all Picoult's other novels, demonstrates her established skill with dramatic wording, among other things. Take the opening paragraph after the prologue; after a litany of things that can be done in nineteen minutes, she ends with this chilling refrain;

"In nineteen minutes, you can stop the world or you can just jump off it.

In nineteen minutes, you can get revenge."

This kind of dramatic effect is seen in many other lines, as well as in the way Picoult's narrative moves quickly between various characters and plot lines, often ending on a dramatic line or semi-cliff-hanger, in a style similar to that of Terry Pratchett or Sheri Tepper.

However, these specific nineteen minutes are those that a teenage boy spends shooting his classmates, an idea which has roots in real life and has been explored in other books such as Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin. Picoult has used complex links between the characters in order to explore the childhood and origins of those people involved, in order to establish how someone could reach that state. Specifically, the daughter of the judge assigned to the trial is a classmate of the shooter, and his mother was her mother's midwife, meaning that, in a not entirely dissimilar way to Sara's role in Picoult's other work, My Sister's Keeper, flashbacks on the part of the mother enables the history to be explained.

Unlike in My Sister's Keeper, or many of Picoult's other novels the book is written in third person, rather than having different parts of the story told in first person by different characters. This does allow more viewpoints to be heard, and, surprisingly, doesn't hinder the ability to get inside a characters head as one might expect it would. At times, though, it seems like the sheer amount of character's might overwhelm the reader, but, as always, Picoult manages to hold the threads of the story together with consummate skill, and the ending is fresh, intriguing, and, despite the element of mystery, falls into place perfectly.

Many of Picoult's books focus on the way the world can change in just a moment, with the majority of mystery of the book being how, why and what happened in that moment. Surprisingly, this novel doesn't focus on what happened during those specific nineteen minutes; instead it focuses on the years which built up to them.

A major theme in the book is that of bullying, and there's a very powerful scene where one of the bullies in question is put on the witness stand. He defends himself by claiming that his actions were "just a joke". The defence lawyer – Jordan McAfee, a recurring character who also defended Jack St Bride in Salem Falls – then questions him about specific events that happened over the years, ending each time with the question "so that was just a joke?"

It's the kind of scene any victim of bullying would love to see; their tormentor put on the stand and forced to answer for their actions. And it has an interesting effect. Although throughout the novel, the reader knows that the shooter is in the wrong, that killing a number of people is wrong, at this point it becomes clear that he isn't a monster. His peers, his classmates, and everyone who looked the other way are, because of their actions over the years, in no way on the moral high ground. Although he's in the wrong, the reader sympathises with and likes the character a lot better than they do his rather lacklustre peers, and those who let him down over the years.

A number of comparisons can be drawn between this novel and that of Salem Falls, mostly due to the sheer unfairness of the way the defendant is treated and viewed within the small community in which he lives. This book doesn't elicit the same sympathy for the victim as Salem Falls did – I caught myself checking the ending of that novel, something I never do, just to check that everything worked out okay – but it's not entirely dissimilar.

In summary, the novel is a fascinating look at what can drive someone to such an extreme action, and manages to elicit sympathy for someone who commits a crime many people would consider monstrous. The victim culture and the underlying theme of the effects that bullying can have on someone is very well thought out and adds a lot of depth to the novel. Unfortunately, Picoult's portrayal of Peter, one of the main characters, as a very stereotypical "computer nerd" is one of the things I didn't enjoy about the novel. It's extremely clichéd, and considering Picoult's disparaging comments about Wonder Woman fans as "really scary people who live in their parents' basement" and the heat she took over the remark, you think she would have thought twice of using such an outdated concept.

Still, that tiny element is not enough to detract from my enjoyment of the novel as a whole, and I don't think any fans will be disappointed by this latest work.