Book Review: 23:27 by H.L. Roberts

Title: 23:27
Author: H.L. Roberts

Lilith and Alec are members of a band United Misfits. Theirs was a whirlwind romance, not too popular with the music executive high ups or, apparently, many of their fans. The novel begins with a depressed Lilith livestreaming to her fans, telling them about the anger and pain she still feels over her and Alec’s breakup. The livestream confession takes a terrifying turn when it is revealed that Lilith plans to kill herself. Now it is a race against time to save her. And Alec, understanding the truth about his and Lilith’s breakup, wants to rekindle the past. The question is, will they be able to come together to make their happy ending, or will the problems of the past continue to rear their ugly heads and keep true love apart?

It was unique the way the book switched between present and the past. The author tried to make these switches easy to discern by putting the times with the chapter numbers and titles. I only wish that this was more consistent. Sometimes, when chapters continued I feel like the placement of a timestamp would amp up the suspense and tension, letting us count down the minutes to the inevitable end. Perspective switches between Lilith and Alec, giving us both perspectives. The two distinct stories show two different sides of a complex relationship. Secrets are revealed, and we know the personal feelings of both the confessor and the confessed to. Full of description, detail, and exposition, a rather short and simple story is drawn out into a full novella. Certainly not a story lacking emotion, as each feeling and revelation is presented in expansive detail.

Book Review: Dancing With Ana by Nicole Barker

Title: Dancing With Ana 

Author: Nicole Barker 

Genre: Fiction - Young Adult 

Finished: August 5, 2009

Beth and her three friends Jenny, Rachel, and Melanie decide to go on a diet together. They are your typical high school girls, interested in boys, looking pretty, and each with their own troubles as everyone has. The girls go in on a diet pact in order to give support to one another, and each one has a goal weight that she wants to achieve. Beth, the novel’s main character, first begins the diet with exercise and a minimal healthy diet. But soon into the diet, it becomes an obsession for her. The diet is then about more than just losing weight and being healthy, and Beth doesn’t know why she is doing it, only that she has to. Every morning when she discovers more weight lost, she feels triumphant. After the chaos of her family breaking apart, this is finally some measure of control restored to her. Beth doesn’t stop when she reaches her target weight. Her mother has noticed something wrong, and her boyfriend/friend Jeremy sees the change in her as her clothing begins to hang off of her and her bones protrude. Despite his attempts to get her to open up about her diet, she won’t. Her three friends finally find happiness and drop out of the diet, but Beth can’t seem to stop. Instead of eating healthy and within proportion, she is starving herself to the point of passing out. Beth has no energy left, her skin is pale, and she is no longer happy. Beth is undoubtedly anorexic. Anger and sadness trigger something in her that sets her off on a food binge. Naturally, her binge upsets her to the point where she engages in bulimia. As the book description says, Beth has every reason to be happy with her life, yet she is not. But we all know how teenagers are: every second is a second closer to the world ending for them. Some always fell prey to social pressures and expectations because they are so weighted and obvious. 

This book was personal for me because I have struggled with an eating disorder for over half my life. I have been anorexic since I was a teenager, and I did it for no other reasons but pure vanity and a need to control something in my life. And I continue to do so. No, I am not proud of myself, I am only disclosing this to say that I understand what Beth and her friends go through. I certainly know what it is like to be a teenage girl succumbing to all of the pressures of that age. There is tremendous stress on teenage girls to look perfect, and perfect is hard to achieve. After a while, it takes you over. I applaud author Nicole Barker for taking on such a serious and sensitive topic. It’s not something a lot of people talk about. That Barker shows us the progression of eating disorder, how it can quickly get out of control, helps people understand that sometimes it’s not always rational. Sometimes you cannot apply logic and expect that to fix the problem. Through Beth, we see the humanity behind eating disorders, and as such they are more than, “oh no, that’s bad, you should stop.” A lot of people see eating disorder as a cause-effect issue. And while there is a cause, sometimes it is so complex that it cannot be easily pinpointed and reasoned out. Therefore, it is hard to cure. Barker portrayed that accurately in giving Beth’s problem so much complication and depth. I don’t know if Barker herself has ever had a problem with anorexia, but she got a lot of the body issues and emotions involved correct. You do get weak, you do end up losing the energy that you once had, and you do end up getting depressed from lack of nutrition and body unhappiness. Of course, there are other things not experienced by Beth in the book that are true to anorexia. For example, you become very intolerant to the heat and to the cold, you get shaky, you start to breathe heavily when doing the smallest thing. I very much enjoyed this quick read. The book is 170 pages, which means you can read it in one day if you have nothing else to do. Beth’s character is compelling and honest, and it really does reflect the difficulties of being a teenager girl. Barker captured the voice of youth nicely and convincingly.

Book Review: Testimony by Anita Shreve

Title: Testimony 

Author: Anita Shreve 

Genre: Fiction - Drama 

Finished: August 4, 2009

In Testimony, Avery Academy is an elite private school for some of the smartest young people and most promising athletes. Three of these students, Silas, Rob, and J.Dot are popular, athletic, and intelligent, all with bright futures ahead of them. But all of that is destroyed by the events of a few minutes one night when drinking at a party gets out of hand. Caught on tape is the three boys having drunken sexual relations with a 14 year old girl who also attends the academy. Soon after being made, the tape falls into the hands of school Headmaster, Mike, who must decide what to do with the boys. It’s pretty clear from the start what sort of difficulties he is going to face. The story of the party and the aftermath is told through a variety of perspective. Everyone involved from students to parents to lunch ladies give their side, all except Rob, who is given one very significant part at the end of the novel. As the events unfold, you are witness to a number of different viewpoints, which all show different sides to how people deal with anger, fear, and sexuality. 

Testimony is about more than just the three boys, though, because the storyline exposes multiple relationships and secrets beyond the tape and the boys. The way the story is written is unique. Some of the chapters are in first person, some in second person, and some in third person. This is a bit hard to get used to, but after a while you get into the pace of the book and the switching of person throws you off less. And sometimes, like with the second person scenes of Rob’s mother Ellen, it feels surreal and dreamlike. Since she is in a state of shock throughout, I believe that this was intentional. For others, you are meant to put yourself in their shoes, and others, to watch and judge. This is a book that will leave you at war with yourself, as I did with me. You will question innocence and guilt, law and the nature of humans. You see that the boys are just boys, fallible and ultimately good. Do they deserve to have their entire lives ruined with a sexual assault charge? Do they deserve to lose their entire future for the events of one night? Is the girl to blame at least in part for wanting it; does this excuse what the boys did? Or should she be blameless because she is so young? Does the fact that she was consenting matter at all? You want to protect the child, but... who is the child? They are all children and you want to protect them all, even the girl, who comes across through her parts as very superficial and flighty. It didn’t help that the victim cried rape at first and accused the boys of giving her a date rape drug, an excuse she cooked up to keep from getting in trouble with her parents when the tape was discovered. Naturally, putting the blame on the girl makes you feel guilty as the reader, as it did with me, and the thought of a girl so young being involved with boys so much older is frightening. After all, Silas, Rob, and J.Dot should have known better. They should have. But even good people sometimes make mistakes. Yet a mistake like this is, quite honestly, unforgivable? Or is it? You see? You will be at war with yourself. It is a hard one to think about. In the end, you sort of just wish that none of it had ever happened because it’s impossible to know who to blame, who to hate, and who to pity. I obviously very much enjoyed this book because it is very poignant, and it doesn’t shy away from a subject that is sensitive.