Review: A Part to Play

Title: A Part to Play

Series:  N/A

Author: Jennifer L. Fry

Publisher: Rogue Phoenix Press

Published: August 10, 2012 

Genre: Young Adult

Format: Kindle

Pages: 261

Source: Received from author

Read: February 27-March 3, 2013

In A Few Words: Intriguing at first, but then loses momentum
My Rating: 3 Stars

Goodreads: Add To Your TBR Shelf

Synopsis:

When fifteen-year-old actress Lucy Carter loses her older sister in a car accident, her mother shuts down and her father can’t hold the family together. Their only choice is to ship Lucy off to the Edmond School for Performing Arts. But boarding school is no cure for Lucy’s grief. With failing grades, wooden stage performances, and curfew violations, Lucy is threatened with expulsion. For the once talented Lucy, it feels as though she has nowhere to turn.

One night, Lucy hears mysterious music drifting through the school’s old heating system. The music leads her to a troubled but passionate songwriter whose brilliance gives her the strength to perform like never before. Yet their intense relationship puts Lucy in a precarious position: if she follows her muse, will she lose herself? And if she breaks it off, can she stand on her own again?

Melissa's Musings:

This story started out a bit stiff, though the opening paragraph, comparing a storm to Lucy's mood was enough to draw me in. 

I did feel that the backstory was somewhat lacking. There are only brief snippets of explanation of Kate's accident and then Lucy ends up shuttled off by her parents to a music/drama boaridng school. I felt that there could have been a little more buildup here, maybe in the form of more flashbacks to life before the accident and right after, that would have helped to build the setup for her parents sending her away, that would have helped facilitate the transition. Without it, it just seems harsh and stilted, and the end doesn't seem quite as well rounded in terms of Lucy's relationship with her parents as it could have been.

In the beginning, Lucy's character is almost completely unfeeling. That in itself is fine, given the situation, but I was surprised with the fact that there was no real challenge to her behavior from her teacher's or her friends, until she gets in major trouble for sneaking out. 

While Isa's lack of pressure was concerning to the overall story, her easygoing nature was one of the things I loved about her the most. That and her semi-rebellious nature and her fiesty attitude. Isa's character had an edge to her that's quite likeable.  

I actually felt more connected to the secondary characters in the story than I did to Lucy. The secondary characters felt more fleshed out, and seemed to have more of a consistency to them. After a while Lucy's character just seemed to be inconsistent. She felt like she was running hot and cold. One second she was pissed off about her situation and angry at her parents, and the next she was thrown in to her romance with Chris and everything else became secondary to her including her friends. That bothered me because for someone who feels like they've been abandoned you'd think that she would understand and not put so much of her time into a relationship with a guy. And she does try to balance her friends and Chris, I will give Lucy that.

Chris makes things very difficult for her with his personality. As I was reading I became more and more put off by him. I found myself saying things like "what an asshole". while reading, that's how negative his character is. He has mood swings that to me bordered on being bipolar and a very controlling nature.  He started out all nice and sweet and things get progressively darker from there. I won't give away what happens between them, but lets just say there's a nice bit of growth on the part of one of the characters.

As for the story itself, I have to admit it was a lot more interesting in the beginning when Chris's character was a mystery man, possibly a ghost seranading Lucy with his music at night. I really liked the story up until the point of his introduction, but once Chris's character comes in, the story loses some of its' momentum, and it seems to become more about the trials and tribulations of dating than about Lucy coming to terms with her own demons and making her peace, which is what I felt was really at the heart of the story. The ending feels rushed and too wrapped up, which I feel conflicted about.

The reason I feel conflicted about the ending is because the author gives us a glimpse of Lucy's life after the end of her sophmore year. Most of the time, I love when an author gives us tiny glimpses like this. But in this case, it just doesn't feel right. It feels like it's wrapped up a little too neatly with the perfect happy ending. Especially the situation with Lucy's mom. They go from not talking at all, to one or two phone calls, to her being at Lucy's play, showering her with compliments. It felt like Lucy's mom got off too easily, the resolution wasn't quite as significant as it could have been.

Overall, this is a well thought out story, and the twist of having Lucy be sent away after the death of her sister is certainly a unique one in the subset of books that deal with family tragedy.

Review: Confessions of a Teenage Hermaphrodite *Contains Some Spoilers*

Title: Confessions of a Teenage Hermaphrodite

Author: Lianne Simon

Publisher: Faie Miss Press

Published: September 18, 2012

Format: Kindle

Genre: Young Adult

Pages: 232  pages

Source: Received from the author

 in exchange for an honest review

Read: January 2-3, 2013

In A Few Words: Interesting take on a difficult subject

My Rating: 3 stars

Goodreads:  Add This to Your TBR List

Goodreads Synopsis:

From the heart of an intersex teen, one who must ultimately choose male or female—family or true love—comes the story of a deeply emotional and perilous journey home. This is a young adult novel unlike any other—an authentic portrayal of the issues faced by a child growing up with a sexually ambiguous body.

Jameson can be like other boys after minor surgery and a few years on testosterone Well, at least that’s what his parents always say. But Jamie sees an elfin princess in the mirror, and male hormones would only ruin her pretty face. For him to become the man his parents expect, Jameson must leave behind the hopes and dreams of a little girl. But what is so wrong with Jamie’s dreams that they can’t be her life?

Melissa's Musings:

The topic of a person being intersex is a very difficult one to breach as it is a sensitive topic in general. The author does a good job of discussing intersexuality in a mostly neutral way, although Jamie/Jameson's parents clearly want her to be something she's not, and it's obvious that they have issues with her condition. 

They raised her as a girl until she was 9, then moved, cut her hair and tried to raise Jamie as a boy named Jameson. From what I understand, they were told that it would be easier to raise Jamie as a boy, so that's what they decided to do. Also, they were raising Jamie without any doctor supervision for her condition, which seemed really odd.

I feel like a lot of the background is missing, and should have been structured differently. For one thing, Jamie's parents reactions to situations are really harsh. And you don't know their true feelings about when they first found out about Jamie's condition. I think that explaining those feelings would have set the reader up to better understand why Jamie's parents treat her the way they do. 

You also  find out that Jamie was born with one ovary and one testis. Then about halfway through the book, you find out that these were both removed because Jamie had cancer at one point. It seemed odd to just throw that in there and wasn't necessary to move the story forward.

There are some nice quotes about not being able to change who you are, that I found really positive.

The struggle that Jamie goes through with herself and who she wants to be is significant, and can be confusing at times. It was almost like Jamie had multiple personality disorder. There's Jameson, her boy "self" who she pretends to be for her father. Then there's Jamie, which is who she truly wants to be. Then, there's also her sort of third "personality" if you will, "The Elfin Princess". What made me think of Jamie having MPD is the fact that she talks about compartmentalizing Jameson, taking him apart and putting him away. Then she also talks to The Elfin Princess in the mirror, often. It would have been clearer to just have Jamie describing experiences as Jamie and her experiences as Jameson. The Elfin Princess adds an odd element to the story.

There are also a lot of elements in this book that felt somewhat forced. The first being the blatant Christianity. It isn't brought up in a natural manner, and seems to be thrown into almost all of the significant events, which I found unnecessary and distracting.

There's also the fact that several people are just  "okay" with Jamie being a girl. I don't have a problem with that at all personally, I wish more people would be open-minded like these characters. It's just that structurally it seemed like the author went to the two extremes in this respect. On the one hand, Jamie's parents have such a problem with her condition and who she wants to be, to the point that they control and manipulate her. On the other hand, there are several people who just accept her without so much as a word. There wasn't enough conflict to keep things progressing toward the resolution, so it wasn't as significant as it could have been.

There's also a "secret society" of people from the same university that Jamie attends who all have different gender disorders. While the thought of it was nice because it gave Jamie people to talk to, it's completely unrealistic. The fact that these 4 other girls all just happen to go to the same school and somehow found their way to each other just doesn't seem likely at all.

As a character, Jamie isn't very strong. She's easily influenced and manipulated, so it was somewhat hard to connect with her. She also says "you know" at the end of her sentences a lot, to the point where it is irritating. And these were things that were already stated, or implied, so it almost felt condescending. It was things like, "I'm not a boy, you know,"  "We've only kissed, you know"

Overall, the story itself is in need of a little more setup, but I think that for a subject as difficult to write about as this one can be, the author did a nice job.