Author: Judith Tewes
Publisher: Bloomsbury
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 the novel that killed my Kindle! Not really. The Kindle is ancient, but coincidentally, it seems to have gone on the fritz as I finished the very last screen (I assume it's the last screen - I couldn't progress beyond it because of aforesaid problem). If that was the last screen it was a rather odd ending.
This is the story of Charlotte Webb (yes named after that novel) a young teen who lives with her mom, and who is feisty and amusing, but who learns that she is to be dispatched to live with "that rat bastard who made her [mom's] childhood a living hell" when her mom has to go into rehab. Where she gets that idea about her grandfather is never explained, nor does it make any sense, because once she moves in with him, he's fine and they get on like a house on fire.
Charlotte also has a plan (for reasons unspecified) and an urgent deadline (again for reasons unspecified) to lose her virginity, and has created a list of possible "devirginizer" guys for this purpose. This girl needs someone to sit down and talk with her.
Charlie isn't a believer, bless her soul(!) but her best friend Rachel, whom she calls Roach, is a product of a supposedly Christian family, although they seem to espouse few Christian principles. Roach is a borderline kleptomaniac, for example.
This novel fails the Bechdel-Wallace test unashamedly since its entire focus is that of getting laid and the two main characters are both heterosexual, so what else would they talk about? Like it or not, the Bechdel-Wallace test is valid but limited in its scope.
I was ready to rate this novel as a worthy read based on Charlie and Roach, and their interaction, but there were some real issues with the writing which bothered me too much to let slide. At one point, for example, Grace (Charlie's single mom's best friend) is informed by Charlie's mom that Charlie has intimated that they're lesbians, to which Grace responds (referencing her beau Ian): " He's always hinting he'd be up for a little three-way action."
I'm sure he would, but no lesbian would be up for it unless Ian was a woman and the lesbians were very free and easy in their approach to fidelity. A pair of bisexual women might be interested, but that's a different thing. 'Bisexual' and 'lesbian' are not the same persuasion. What bothers me about this is not that a character made a bad joke, but that the author doesn't bother to have one of the other characters, Charlie in particular, correct this misunderstanding. This makes me think that the author either doesn't understand what lesbianism really means, or she doesn't care, which is sad, especially given that she's a woman. Characters are like everyday people: they can be as perverse, as gross, as politically incorrect, as wrong-headed, as obnoxious, as biased, as bigoted,as racist, and as whatever as people in real life can be, but, just as in real life, that doesn't mean they should be allowed to get away with it!
There were other issues with the review copy I had. Once again it appeared to be completely un-formatted for the Kindle screen. There were odd gaps in the text, and some words were paired with others without the usual space between the two. Any spell checker, even Microsoft's, would have caught this kind of error. I don't know if they have some software which is supposed to automatically morph the text into Kindle format, but whichever system it was that they employed, it failed here.
Moreover, there were other errors which can only be blamed on author inattention and editorial incompetence, such as at 51% in, near the end of chapter fifteen, where the author writes, "...John said, compiling with the conversation shift...". I think 'compiling' should have been 'complying'. No spell-checker is going to catch that. That's something which even a beta reader should catch, and for missing which, an editor has no excuse.
The problems came in all shapes and sizes. One was with the telegraphing of the true nature of a character named Morgan, who was such an obvious red-herring that even I saw it coming, which says something! Another problem is in the use of poor grammar, such as employing the term "her and Preston" (at 93% in for example) when it ought to be "she and Preston". You can see this for yourself if you put it into a sentence. Suppose, for example, that it read, "Her and Preston went to the cafe." This breaks down to "Preston went to the cafe" (which is fine) and "Her went to the cafe" which is clearly wrong. This is different from a use which might read, for example, "This affected both her and Preston" which is not the smoothest of reads, but which isn't technically incorrect.
At 57% in, the word 'grizzle' was used. This word means gray, or 'devoid of hue', but it wasn't used in that context. It was used where 'gristle' ought to have been used instead. Again, an editor ought to have caught this. At 89% in, the line "far from the maddening crowd" was used. This was presumably a reference to the Thomas Hardy novel Far From the Madding Crowd, but as you see, the title does not include the word 'maddening'. 'Madding' means moving around agitatedly. It does not mean anger-inducing. If the author had not made other mistakes of understanding, I might have let this go, but it seems like this is a mistake, also.
That said, the novel was very well-written in general terms, particularly so with regard to establishing, defining, and portraying the two main characters, both of whom I loved, but I cannot rate this novel as a worthy read based on that when there are so many other issues. Perhaps the worst of these was the bungled YA romance, which seemed idiotic at worst, and farcical at best. This was a central relationship, but instead of something warm and realistic which would have fit right into the relationship already established between Charlie and Roach, yet again we were asked to swallow a standard YA trope male with hair in his eyes and rippling muscles - like there is absolutely no other type of guy whatsoever which could possibly be worth liking. How insulting can you get? Charlie deserved better than this.
The relationship doesn't even work. There is no friendship here, no getting to know one another. Instead, it's instant lust, which cheapens and demeans the whole thing. Worse than this, however, is the fact that a resilient, strong, funny, and smart character became mushy Jell-O once this guy entered her life, and particularly if he was anywhere near her. I'm sorry but you just trashed your main character for me, and made me lose all respect for her. This was a character I really liked (despite her idiotic devirginizing plan), and then suddenly, what's to like? She became rather repulsive if not detestable. So much for a strong female character. I cannot honestly recommend this novel.
