boarding school

Review: Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer

| Tasha

belzhar

Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer

Jam has been taken by her family to The Wood Barn, a boarding school in Vermont for fragile teens.  After losing her British boyfriend, Reeve, Jam has been unable to function at all.  She just wants to be left alone with her grief and loss.  Jam spends her days sleeping and thinking about Reeve and how in only a few weeks their relationship grew into love only to have him die suddenly.  At her new school, Jam finds herself selected for a small and exclusive English class where they will read one author for the entire semester.  They are also given journals to record their feelings and ideas, old books that look ancient and valuable.  As Jam starts to write in hers for the first time, she is transported to a world where Reeve is still alive, where they can spend a brief time together, and where they can relive their experiences with one another.  All of the students in the class are having this experience and together they decide to only write in the journals twice a week to make them last, because no one knows what happens to this strange world of the journal when the pages run out.  By the end of their experiences in the place they call Belzhar, Jam must face the truths of her loss and her grief.

Wolitzer has earned acclaim as the author of adult literary novels and her short works of fiction.  Those skills really show here as she turns what could have been a novel about teenage love and loss into a beautiful and compelling work of magical realism.  When I started the novel, I had not expected the journals to be anything more than paper, so that inclusion of a fantasy element thoroughly changed the novel for me.  It made it richer, more of an allegory, and lifted it to another level. 

Jam, the protagonist, is a girl who does not open up readily.  The book is told in her voice and yet readers will not know her thoroughly until the end of the book.  It is because of Wolitzer’s skill as a writer that readers may not even realize until the twist comes that the book has even more to reveal.  Jam is also not particularly likeable, and I appreciate that.  Instead she is lonely, prickly, eager to please and complex.  That is what makes the novel work.

This is a particularly deep and unique novel for teens that reveals itself slowly and wondrously on the page.  Appropriate for ages 14-17.

Reviewed from copy received from Dutton.

Review: And We Stay by Jenny Hubbard

| Tasha

and we stay

And We Stay by Jenny Hubbard

Emily has been sent to a private board school in Amherst so that she doesn’t have to face all of the questions at her public high school.  Her boyfriend, Paul, brought a gun to school.  Emily is sure that Paul never meant to hurt her, though he did threaten her with the gun.  She is also sure that he never planned to kill himself with it, though that is what he did.  At her private school, she doesn’t quite fit in.  She doesn’t wear the right shoes and her reluctance to talk about what happened and why she is there mid-term doesn’t lead others to get closer to her.  Emily finds herself more and more interested in Emily Dickinson whose home is in Amherst.  She starts writing poems herself, putting her grief and confusion on the page in poems that she plans to never share with anyone.  But as the days go by, she becomes closer with her room mate and other girls on campus, including one of the teachers.  It is now up to Emily to figure out how much she is willing to share of her own role in Paul’s death.

Hubbard’s writing is crystalline and brilliant.  She captures the stunned nature of sudden loss with clarity and understanding.  Emily could easily have become and inaccessible character to readers as well since she is prickly and shut down.  Instead though, Hubbard creates a space around Emily for readers to understand her and feel her pain.

A large part of this is through her poems which honor Dickinson, follow her structure and voice closely at times, and other times reveal Emily’s soul in brief lines that shine.  These poems serve as islands in a sea of pain and grief.  They are concrete and dazzlingly good.  They are bright with hope as one can see in each one Emily moving forward toward the future after putting her pain on the page. 

Beautiful writing, a strong heroine, and plenty of poetry make this a very unique and exceptional book about loss and suicide.  Appropriate for ages 14-16.

Reviewed from digital galley received from Edelweiss and NetGalley.

Anna and the French Kiss: Romance in Paris

| Tasha

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Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Anna is not happy that she’s been sent to boarding school in Paris just because her bestselling author father decided it.  She doesn’t speak any French at all, is missing out on her senior year in Atlanta, and just connected with a cute boy who works with her.  Anna quickly meets a group of kids at the school who have been attending it for years.  Most of them are American seniors, but one boy is part French, part English, part American and entirely perfect.  Unfortunately, he is in a serious long-term relationship and Anna does have that boy back in Atlanta.  So Anna and Etienne become good friends, watch movies together, and struggle to make sure that their relationship stays just friendly.  Filled with lots of romance and plenty of romantic tension, this book is hot, never heavy, and pure bliss.

Perkins has captured the streets of Paris, creating the vibe and feel of a European city seen through the eyes of an American teen.  Readers will enjoy discovering the city with Anna and will love living vicariously through her adventures.  Perkins has also created teens who talk like teenagers, tease like bright teens, get drunk, get angry, lose control, but don’t destroy their lives.  She has written authentic teens who react to real life as real people.  Add to this mix of breathtaking setting and authentic voice, a beautiful love story and you have a winning read.  Perkins has managed to avoid the cliché of the love triangle, instead focusing on two people who are drawn to one another but aren’t available. 

Anna is a protagonist who grows throughout the book in many ways.  She becomes more confident as she leaves her dorm room and walks the streets of Paris.  She also becomes a lot more honest with herself, about the boy back in the states, her best friend in Atlanta, and her true feelings for Etienne.  She is a wonderfully drawn protagonist who is filled with emotions but also plenty of self control.  It makes for a dynamic and fascinating character.  Etienne is equally well drawn with his great hair and handsomeness.  He is not perfect though, he tends to be overly cautious, is desperately scared of heights, and is a tad short. 

Highly recommended, this romance is much more than fluff but has plenty of heady romantic moments too.  Appropriate for ages 15-18. 

Reviewed from ARC received from Penguin.