Author: Esther Ehrlich
Publisher: Random House
Rating: WARTY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review.
This is a really odd novel because I felt like, despite some setbacks during the reading of it, I was ready to give this a favorable rating, but then I sat writing the review and the more I considered it dispassionately, the less reason I could find to support a positive rating.
This is a middle-grade novel set in the early 1970's about Naomi Orenstein, an eleven-year-old who lives by the coast and likes to watch birds. Naomi is commonly known as'Chirp' (which is actually a pretty cool nickname) amongst other names (including Chirpy and Chirps), and she lives with her family: an older sister named named Rachel, and their mom and dad. Chirp's mom used to be a dancer, but once she developed multiple sclerosis she started being a jerk, and not because of uncontrollable body movement.
I had a problem on page 20 when Chirp's mom tells her youngest daughter (one more time!) the story of how she first discovered that she wanted to spend her life dancing, and the sorry time she had of it when she revealed this desire to her own mother. The switching of stories from the current one to Chirp's mom's recollection wasn't handled very well. There were a couple of times when I wasn't sure who was speaking and to whom they spake, and this interrupted the flow of my reading. It could have been written better.
Other than that, this was technically well written. Once I started it, it was interesting and engaging enough to make me want to keep turning pages, and since this is such a short novel, it made for a very easy reading experience. I had repeated problems with it being all about mom, in a novel which was supposed to be about Naomi. I felt that Naomi's story was being derailed or undermined, which was a weird feeling to have.
I know it was awful the fate that befell the family, but it didn't imbue me with any sympathy after the despicable way Mom behaved. It didn't help either that her condition kept morphing into something else throughout the story. First it seemed like it was cancer, then maybe a brain tumor, then we get multiple sclerosis, then, suddenly, and without any warning, it's all about depression? I got whiplash trying to follow the litany of ills that befell her.
What really got to me in this novel, however, was how thoroughly obnoxious and uncompromising every adult in this entire story seemed to be. Naomi's mom and dad were both jerks. Her teacher at school was a jerk, as was the principal. Naomi's sister wasn't a complete jerk, but she dabbled in it, like she was practicing for when she was an adult herself. Fortunately, the rest of the time, she's endearingly sweet with Naomi. I would have liked to have read a story about her, actually.
Chirp's dad is a psychiatrist, yet still manages to be a complete dick when it comes to relationships. I'm guessing he's not a child psychiatrist because he evidently knows diddly about raising children. Either that or he actually is a child psychiatrist but he has his head so far up his child psychiatrist hat that he's forgotten that he's first and foremost a father. He makes one bad child-care decision after another. For example, when his wife abandons her family to go into hospital, he abandons his two young daughters to chase after her all the time, leaving the kids - 13 and 11 - quite literally to take care of themselves.
Despite all this, he's actually not quite as big of a jerk as their mom is. She uses her health as an excuse to abandon her family and flee to hide in an institution for months where she has a 'keeper' who coldly repels her family whenever mom doesn't want to acknowledge them. I found myself detesting both these kids' piss-poor excuses for parents in short order, as well as the bullying aid who controls their access to their own mother/wife. And yes, I know she's ill, but I wasn't willing to let her and her husband get away with using that as a cut-rate excuse for child-abuse. This just turned me off them both, and robbed me of any sympathy I might have been growing for mom.
The two guys across the street from where Naomi lives are jerks, but their kid brother isn't. He develops into quite a friend to Chirp although he's way too mature for his years. The only real friends that Naomi has, it seems, are her classmates, which was actually a refreshing change.
Here's a question to ponder: Is Mercedes the plural of Mercedes? Esther Ehrlich thinks so, but I think I disagree. I do agree that Mercedeses sounds really awkward, but so does awkward - and antidisestablishmentarianism for that matter, yet that doesn't automatically entail their non-use, does it?!
And now for the bad news: the tear-jerker ending seemed like it was trying way too hard. I mean it was just one thing after another and I'm sorry, but I began to find this a cause for amusement and then laughter rather than tears, because it started to feel far more like slapstick and burlesque than ever it did tragedy. I didn't find the children's reactions to be very realistic either, which seriously leeched any pathos from the story for me. Perhaps they found it as absurdist as did I?
I'm sorry, I know a writer puts a lot of effort into a novel - I know that first hand - but that alone is insufficient to persuade me to dish out awards to a novel just because it's a). set in the past and/or b). has tragedy in it and/or c). has young children in it and/or d). takes place near a beach. I need far more than just that and I felt I wasn't getting it from this novel.
