Author: Maureen Johnson
Publisher: Point
Rating: WORTHY!
This novel is adorable, which likely as not means I'll end up hating it by the last page, but until then, I can dream! Suite Scarlett was not only not on my radar, it wasn't even in my universe until happenstance led me to it sitting innocently upon a shelf at the library. On a point of order, I think it’s important to clarify that I wasn't sitting on a shelf at the library, and if I were, I can guarantee you that it would certainly not be with any pretense of innocence. I'm not that good of an actor! (Is this a sly comment on the content of this novel or what?). No, it was the book which sat upon the shelf, as books are wont to do, whether they want to or not; it won’t make a difference….
Ebooks have an amazing number of advantages over traditional format books, but browsing along the shelf until you happen upon a book which jumps out at you for whatever reason, is something you'll never be able to do with an ebook. Nor will you ever be able to buy an ebook at a used book store (unless some entrepreneur out there figures out a method, in which case, said entrepreneur will undoubtedly become a millionaire!). The less well-off amongst us view the ominous oncoming demise of cut-price hard-backs with a depressing degree of barely-disguised panic.
Sooooo, the Martin family live in the hotel which they own - an hotel which at one time was the place to stay, but which is now long past its best: slightly shabby and falling into obsolescence. The family has had to slowly let all of their staff go, which means the young children are press-ganged into servitude in their place. Thus was born the tradition which is child labor disguised as a birthday present, whereby on their fifteenth birthday, each Martin child is 'given' a room of which they must, from that point on, take charge. They have to clean and maintain it and take personal charge of any guest who might stay there. From that perspective alone, it's fortunate that guests are rare.
Spencer is the oldest child and the only boy. He wants to be an actor. His parents want him to go to culinary school so he can sell his life down the river in their service as the hotel cook rather than living it for himself. Lola is the next in line in age, and she seems to have no ties to the hotel. She recently started seriously dating Chip, a kid who isn't bad per se, but in the smarts department, he's a voting block short of a takeover and he's supposed to eventually assume the helm of his father's business empire! Lola seems to be spoiled rotten and I had little respect for her to begin with; however, this was tempered by the fact that she loves her siblings, particularly the youngest girl in the family. OTOH, Lola is seriously trying to get her own life on the rails, and I can’t blame her for that! Her story does turn around in this novel, and it was a real heart-warmer to see how it unfolded. Lola is arguably more intriguing than the title character, but I often fall into that trap!
The youngest child is Marlene, also spoiled rotten and a brat. She has the excuse of being a cancer survivor and gets to do all kinds of things with a group of fellow survivors called 'Powerkids' which, when you look at it, is really just another way of saying that if you're a kid and you don’t have cancer, you’re not going to get a decent shake, and you should probably go screw yourself. I don’t really see how a cancer survivor (or any other type of survivor, for that matter), is a child any more deserving of love and attention than is, for example, a street survivor, but we rarely hear of telethons for those children, do we? I wonder why?
Scarlett is fifteen and the main character in this story which mercifully isn't told from the first person PoV. She's very retiring and easily induced to do things which she might rail against doing were she more assertive. Thus she ends up having to stand in for Lola in taking a very resentful Marlene to a Powerkids event (a morning TV cooking show). She later finds herself with a guest in the room she just inherited with her birthday: the lavishly titled 'Empire Suite' which is a bit too down-at-the-heel to quite merit the name, but the engaging Amy ("Mrs Amberson"), a retired actress, doesn’t seem to mind, and moreover seems to really take to Scarlett almost to the point of adopting her. And this is only the start of the magnificent Amberson's calculated intrusion into the lives of the Martin family. She hands Scarlett five hundred dollars without even asking for a receipt, and tells her to hang onto it, because Scarlett will be required to run errands and will need the money. To her credit, Scarlett handles this maturely and doesn't abuse the 'contract'. Amy deserves her own novel, as does Lola, and probably Spencer, too.
The first thing I didn’t like about his novel was when Eric came into the picture. He's an acting acquaintance of Spencer's and is such a trope YA male that it almost made me vomit to read how "muscular" he is and well well his T-shirts fit him. Here's a description of his eyes: "...misty shifting blue marbled with gray, like smoke rising through an early morning sky." Seriously? Why is it that we’re teaching young women than anything less than a Greek god is totally unacceptable as a partner? Why is it that we’re teaching young girls to look no further than the shallow and the physical?
As if that's not bad enough, this is an unfair and unwarranted assault on young men, to boot (with the emphasis on boot and groin). It’s a detestable trend that needs to stop. Having registered my protest, I'm going to let that slide for the sake of reading the rest of the story which, apart from the disgusting trope, really is well written and very entertaining. However, if Johnson insists on endless repetitions of how perfect Eric is in every way, I will have to start calling him Eric Poppins and puke on the pages of this novel to permanently imprint both the stain and the smell. Try doing that with an ebook...!
So anyway, let's pretend I never said that. Ahem! Scarlett spends more and more time with Amy and almost no time with Eric, so that's all right then isn't it? Amy almost gets her arrested for shoplifting when she deposits three cans of tuna into Scarlett's bag without her noticing, but Amy talks their way out of it and thinks it was great fun as they ride home. Scarlett isn't so sure and demands to be let out of the cab before they get back to the hotel, so she can walk and do some thinking. The next thing Scarlett knows, Amy wants the two of them to write Amberson's biography! Of course, this is just a flash in the pan, because Amy next comes up with an idea which engrosses her far more effectively than a biography could ever hope to do, and this is where the novel gets really interesting. I'm not kidding. It takes off and flies at this point and it's quite stunning to see. In order not to spoil this any more, I shall refrain from divulging further details. Mwahh-ha-ha!
In conclusion, this book is excellent! It's very entertaining, extraordinarily well-written, populated with interesting and diverse characters who behave very much like real people. I recommend it and I'm immediately proceeding on to volume two in this series, or duet, or trilogy or whatever it is! You know there is no equivalent of 'trilogy' for two novels? The Greek word for two is dio, but it's pronounced thee-oh, so to use that would create 'theology', which would be really confusing. I'm going to coin dilogy, so there!
