thelizabeth's reviews
590 reviews

A reread. I neared the end on the ride home today and finished it on the couch and sniffled. Also, yesterday in the laundromat.

I read this when it was published in 2005 because I read an interview with Alicia Erian that I liked the sound of. She talked briskly about writing. I was interested in rereading because of Alan Ball's film adaptation being released.

My favorite thing about the book is the strength of the tension in the entire narration. You are basically as stressed out as Jasira is, being 13 and sorting through the fuzzy line between sensitive feelings and actual offenses, feeling watched and being watched, being petrified of embarrassment and disapproval then getting embarrassed and disrespected, trying bold things and lying. It feels exactly like being a young teenager in a freaky environment feels, with a story at extremes.

My second favorite thing about the book is how it manages to produce a lot of explicit shock without pissing me off like kids in first-year fiction classes showing off their deep twistedness. This can't be easy to pull off, or so many people wouldn't write like jerks all the time.

Basically the book goes like this: everything is really awful, then suddenly everything is nice, and you'll cry maybe.

Three years ago when I was reading it, my sister who was 15 then visited and read the whole book in one day. This week when I was reading it, she visited from college and read the whole book in one day.

Chris bought this last year and when we were moving he put it in the to-Strand pile, from which I rescued it. Amy loves this book! I said. You can't sell books Amy loves til I read them!

It was an interesting way to read it, doing the detective work the whole time of why Amy loves this book and Chris disliked this book. I thought it was very nice. In the memoir comic genre, it's a smart one. I liked the thoughtful threads of symbolism and memory. Those are good ingredients in stories.

Early on, I wondered if it might be that someone might need to have shared a complicated childhood to attach to the narration of the book. But that's dumb. What's ultimately relatable is not the discomfort but what I think is a quite universal intrigue for one's parents. How did they happen?

That question's powerful enough to draw me through a book about it, so that's good. It's also a really caring look back for the author at herself, and that's meaningful too. And instead of sending it off to the Strand I gave the book to my little sister to read the next day I saw her.

I got this book from the Strand for my first semester of college in 2000. I was supposed to read it during a writing class about memoir. I didn't read it, but I read an additional essay by Dorothy Allison and I liked that, so I always kept the book. In retrospect that was my best class that term. My sister is at the same point in college now, so it seemed fitting to work this one out finally. When I finally opened the book I discovered a receipt for its purchase tucked inside, from a Brentano's in Connecticut in December 1995, along with the ISBN's for Jane Smiley's Duplicate Keys and Tim O'Brien's In the Lake of the Woods, $50 cash.

This book falls squarely into the category of things I avoided because I worried there wasn't time, that turn out to take no time at all. It's so slight, which surprised me the whole time until I got to the last page where the author notes that it was written as a performance piece and modified for publication. The prose is so fluidly voiced, but it seems somewhat unreal that it could be performed aloud. Though, that might explain why the framing device of the title looks a little hokey on the page, which is too bad because most of the rest of it is vivid and warm.

Sometimes the lesson of my bookshelf is to stop waiting.

Essentially, this is a young-adult blend of the Salem witch trials and a fantasy-creatures book. (In England, not Salem, but a Puritan witch hunt all the same.) Since it begins as a straightforward-seeming historical novel, I was really surprised when the fantasy element was introduced, when it became clear that the mentions of "piskies" and "fairymenchildren" were real and not just excuses for old-timey dialogue. At first this was exciting, but ultimately I think the blend is really really awkward. I wouldn't guess that, for example, a scene in which a teenage midwife attends to the delivery of a fairy birth could be so boring. Maybe this is just because by chance I read this book immediately after Elske, but I saw the main drive of the plot coming as soon as I read the dustjacket. I'd put forth a theory that midwives should soon be off-limits subjects for historical fiction, in the "not trying hard enough" category, except that it was one of my favorites as a young adult reader (Karen Cushman anyone?) and also it can be quite powerful when utilized well for plot or atmosphere.

HEY LET'S TALK ABOUT THAT. I have to explain something. Here's a synopsis of part of the story: There's a pregnant girl. Her family's Puritan. So the pregnant girl comes to the midwife protagonist to say, I really need this to stop and I think you can help. And the midwife is like, ok I believe you, and yes I have "old ways" that will help you out of this, let me do that right now. And the girl says, OMG thank you. And the midwife says, wait a minute, is there a small chance that this conception occurred on this particular day that is special to my pagan beliefs? And the girl is like, I have no freaking clue which day it was, so maybe yes. And the midwife is like, well, I have to change my mind now, because my traditional religion prevents me from harming this child if it is sacred in this way, as ending the pregnancy would go against nature. EVEN THOUGH I truly think that your father might murder you as soon as he realizes you've shamed him, I've gotta rescind this offer. And since I am the NICE character and you are the MEAN character, the story indicates this is 100% the right thing to happen!

Because then, for the remainder of the story, this pregnant girl is the villain. The midwife protagonist continues to enjoy her magical pagan beliefs, they are portrayed to the reader as sweet and natural and earthy and we learn more about them. We hear things like "Whatever is set in motion once ... the Powers [are] summoned is meant to be... I knew that your coming was inevitable." Their description of their faith in their customs sounds exactly like how contemporary fundamentalist Christians describe their beliefs, but here it is meant to be lovely and folksy -- and factual. The story rewards the midwife's decision because when the baby is born, it is indeed a sacred child as suspected and given special mystical treatment by "the Powers" just like she said. See, isn't it good she didn't help the girl get an abortion? THAT BABY COULD END UP PRESIDENT.

How do your free-spirited non-Christian protagonists end up more conservative than THE PURITANS? What's most frustrating is that I think this is all completely accidental on Julie Hearn's part. Biographical facts seem to indicate she's not intentionally putting across an anti-abortion screed; she has a masters degree in women's studies from Oxford, and references her research of feminist criticism. And I don't think she meant to portray an informative, cautionary story of how all types of ideologies can lead to suppression of women's freedom. MOST LIKELY, she is just an author who is simply thoughtless in her pursuit of style. I think Julie Hearn just likes fairies. What a disappointing reason to let girls down.

Oh this is the cutest thing. So silly I never read this as a kid. I can tell you exactly why I would have liked it: because I used to pretend to live at the Milwaukee Public Museum in the European Village and/or Streets of Old Milwaukee exhibits. (I, uh, thought they were kind of the same thing. They're right next to each other!) This plan, like Claudia's, also would have worked. I'm just saying.

I didn't realize that Frankweiler herself was present later in the book (that it's not just a remote narrative of what the kids do.) This gives it a really sweet perspective for adults reading the book, I think. And while Claudia's more fastidious feelings are poked fun at a little (but only a little) her big feelings at the end, when she starts to realize she can name what she needs in her life, are really great for all readers to watch her have.

Meg lent me her used copy that has someone else's marks in it. At the end, all of Claudia's lessons are highlighted. But I like to think I MIGHT HAVE sorted them out on my own.