Outside Beauty; Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood

[sanguinity]

4. Cynthia Kadohata, Outside Beauty.

It looks like I may have stumbled across the single non-agony YA that Kadohata has written. (I don't know what her actual ratio is, but the books I see talked about most suggests that she's a master of the problem novel. Let's just say I'm scared to read the one about the dog.) Outside Beauty isn't uniformly kicky and upbeat -- there's a sad, lonely bit through the middle -- but it doesn't scream "Problem Novel" at me, either.

And just let me interject: oh, but Kadohata writes some beautiful prose.

So, in Helen Kimura's world, women exist to be beautiful and men exist to support them. Helen is raising her four daughters to that philosophy, and their lives are a whirlwind of boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, fathers (each of the girls has a different one), and staying one step ahead of whoever is pursuing them now. That comes to a crashing halt when Helen is in a Terrible Accident, and the four sisters are individually shopped out to their respective fathers while their mother recovers. (I know, it sounds like a Problem Novel...)

I love the portrayal of the four sisters. There's a deep and unselfconscious love and loyalty between them, and while they do view each other with envy -- Marilyn is stunning; Lakey has the best father -- they don't view each other with jealousy. That things are uneven is just the way things are. They're similarly non-judgemental about their mother, in a way that rings true to me. Everyone else judges their mother -- and our narrator, the one "plain" girl in the bunch, has her own private doubts about the "women exist to be beautiful" philosophy -- but she's their mother, and their loyalty lies with with her. Plus, it's a pretty good, if crazy, life.

Until the Terrible Accident, that is.

As to why I don't consider this a problem novel, *spoiler* the four girls decide to run away together the next time they meet up. Cue kick-ass (and successful!) road-trip. Awesome road-trip. And they don't have to drive off a cliff at the end to escape the police, either.


5. Benjamin Alire Saenz, Sammy & Juliana in Hollywod.

This novel, on the other hand, would be an excellent contender for rachelmanija's YA Agony Award.

The author kills off one of the title characters in the first paragraph -- total woman in the refrigerator -- and then proceeds to repeat a grinding cycle of introducing one of Sammy's BFFs in one chapter and killing off or otherwise disposing of the selfsame BFF in the next. (Always a tragic disposal, too: a near-fatal gay-bashing that requires moving to another city afterwards, or being drafted into the Vietnam war.) Sometimes it isn't a BFF; sometimes it's "just" the next-door-neighbor, who's been raising Sammy and his sister all these years since their mother died. After that's gone on for a while, the author starts going through the list of Tragic But Still Technically Alive BFFs again and starts killing them off for reals.

By this time, Sammy has become the Great Hope of his generation -- as each of his friends fall, they press on him the destiny of being the only one to make it out of Hollywood (not the Hollywood, but the name of their Las Cruces barrio). Every time someone reiterates that Sammy is Their Only Hope, I'm shaking my head: no WAY is this author is going to let Sammy go to Berkley.

And sure enough: Sammy's father has a Terrible Accident. Want to hear how Sammy breaks the sheer Terribleness of the Terrible Accident to his father, while Dad lies in his hospital bed? "Which is worse, Dad? Losing a leg, or losing a son?" After the father replies that losing a son is worse, Sammy responds, "Well, guess what? You still have a son!" Then Sammy continues, "Which is worse, Dad? Losing a kidney, or losing a daughter?"

So, Sammy doesn't get to go to Berkley, because now he's the sole breadwinner of the family and someone has to take care of his little sister while his father recovers. So Sammy gets his leatherbound copy of Great Expectations, inscribes it with a You're Our Only Hope message to one of his few remaining friends, and passes the Mantle of Hope on to her. And it is all very Tragic.

In the remaining few chapters, the author kills yet another character (but Sammy learns a Valuable Lesson along the way and paints his truck red to demonstrate so), and then in the final chapter, I swear to God, the author kills off something like five characters in a single paragraph. Pretty much anyone who ever had a name gets killed, at the rate of one character per sentence.

I'm pretty sure there was a clearly stated Moral to all this, but I got distracted by the carnage. Also, I, um, kinda forgot that this was a Serious Problem Novel and started regarding it as a Spectacle, and thus was too busy laughing at the predictability of the onslaught to pay attention to the Moral when it went by.

...it got really good reviews, though?

(Hm. Although I do see at least one reviewer likened it unto the Book of Job.)

But seriously, there was a lot of good stuff there. I liked the portrayal of the neighborhood, of the era, of the kids. I liked the way the characters played together, and I gained an abiding affection for Sammy. It's just, wow. If only the author had been a little less predictable, or if he hadn't tried to crowbar twenty Problem Novel plots into a single volume and had restrained himself to a respectably modest five Problem Novel plots. Or something. Just... wow.

Comments

Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood

[(Anonymous)]

My novel Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood is largely based on my growing up years. It makes me very sad you've found it fodder for your mean-spirited and shallow humor. Please have the decency to take me off your list.

Benjamin Alire Saenz

[malfeasanceses.livejournal.com]

"Which is worse, Dad? Losing a leg, or losing a son?" After the father replies that losing a son is worse, Sammy responds, "Well, guess what? You still have a son!" Then Sammy continues, "Which is worse, Dad? Losing a kidney, or losing a daughter?"

?!?!?!?