Leaving Yesler-- Peter Bacho

This book was a gift from my friends D &P. Thanks, guys. For everything.

Bobby is unmoored and drifting. His protective older brother, Paulie, was killed in Vietnam. His mother died a few years before. His father is losing his grip after head trauma in the Korean War and too many bouts in the boxing ring, and has made it clear that he is dying too. Without an example to follow, Bobby decides he wants out of his neighborhood and housing project for good. Assistance come in the forms of boxing lessons from his father, life coaching from Paulie's ghost, and a vision of the future in the form of lovely Deena.

Bacho does a number of things very well here. His vibrant descriptions of Seattle neighborhoods in the 1960s make for amazing reading, as does his nuanced exploration of Filipino and masculine identities. What trips up the narrative are the developments that, like a fast right hook, we don't see coming: Bobby sees dead people? Deena is in love with him? There is some weirdness surrounding his early education in Catholic school? While these threads may have added richness to the narrative, they are abruptly introduced and woefully underdeveloped.

Deena's character, as a whole, is a disappointment... doesn't every well-developed male character deserve an equally three-dimensional female counterpart? That said, this book is remarkable in its portrayal of emotional relationships between men; the tenderness between Bobby and his father and tough-guy brother are touching, if seemingly uncomplicated.

New Goals

Thank you, precious handful of readers and followers! Your suggestions, comments, and support for this pet project have been wonderfully encouraging and made this blog even more fun for me.

It's now almost the end of October, and some of you have asked about my reading goals. I'm sure you've noticed that I'm posting a lot less. Some time in the spring, I started reading more like a high schooler than a middle schooler (that is to say, mostly adult books). It's mostly me posting these days, and I'm not ready to give up my other reading, so I've adjusted my reading goal to 100.

Still attainable? Not sure, but the weather is taking a turn and I have some more free time on my hands. There are still quite a few titles I want to tackle, and I don't anticipate abandoning this goal in 2011.

Thanks for reading this and, most especially, recommending those books you loved as kids... and as adults!

-S

The Friends-- Rosa Guy

Phyllisia Cathy moves from the West Indies to East Harlem in the early 60's. At first glance, her family appears to be doing well-- her father has a restaurant, they have an apartment full of nice things. Phyllisia is equipped to do well in school, but is not prepared for a place where students are mocked by their teacher and left to brutalize each other. Phyllisia doesn't think she can survive another day when she is befriended by scruffy and ever-truant classmate Edith. Even after Edith saves Phyllisia's life, Phyllisia is ashamed to be seen with her. Combined with messed-up homelife (Phyllisia's terminally ill mother and violent father; Edith's long-dead mom and deadbeat dad), you've got altogether Too Much Sadness.

I am all for books that are realistic in their portrayal of friendship in all its fickle immaturity, but this book is pretty heavy-handed. In scene after scene, Phyllisia is horrible and Edith forgives her--extreme even for an age where kids spiteful like that. Phyllisia also has a series of unbelievable confrontations with her father, especially at the end.

Overall, the book struck me as a rough first cut of a narrative and themes that have been handled much artfully as they have gone mainstream in later works of young adult literature. The Friends is admirable for the boundaries it crossed for young readers, but may be more at home in a literary survey class than a middle-school one.

Londonstani-- Guatam Malkani

I don't know about this one.

The first third of the book was almost unreadable. (And not because it's written in British-desi slang, innit.) After pages of pointless violence and generally intense negativity, the book starts to get clever. Then it gets too clever for its own good. By the last third, every chapter ends with a "gotcha"-- the last of these moments is so smug that I would have stopped reading, except it was the last line of the book.

Londonstani got fabulous press for being "multicultural" and "comic," but the ironic use of stereotype quickly becomes tedious. You can only follow around a bunch of desi rudeboy haterz for so long. By the end, the grating misogyny becomes almost unbearable.

If you decide to brave this one, the glossary in the back will give you a patronizing breakdown of the lingo, including "dis" (this), "dat" (that), and "dem" (they). Thanks for that, bruv.