Title: Cycler
Author: Lauren McLaughlin
Publisher: Random House
Rating: WARTY!
This is a story about Jill and Jack, and yes, I know I said I'd sworn off novels which feature a main character named Jack because it's such an abysmally clichéd name, this one was different enough that I let it under the wire.
The deal is that Jill and Jack are the same person, and no, it's not what you think. Jill McTeague isn't transgendered - not in the way you normally think of it. Whereas most females eventually begin undergoing an inconvenience, or a highly troublesome, or even a downright painful "time of the month", none of them have anything on Jill. Once a month, for four days, she literally turns into a male - who has taken the name Jack.
Yes, I hadn't read anything quite like this before, either, which is why I took it on, despite it being both first person PoV, usually a no-no for me, and had a main character named Jack, also a no-no for me.
I have to say, though, that I had some really mixed feelings about this novel, loving some of it and hating other parts. The book hasn't been a particularly big seller, but it has already been optioned for a movie, believe it or not. It just goes to show that you never really know where your novel may end up no matter how oddball or idiosyncratic you might think it is. WRITE IT ANYWAY!
Even though I didn't like Jack, I felt bad for him because he's confined to the house for the four days he shows up, and he lives in fear of being somehow erased by Jill, so his initial unsavory character softens slightly over time, especially when he realizes he's fallen for Jill's best friend. The problem is that he turns out to be precisely the kind of 'Jack' I detest in novels, particularly YA novels.
The hope I had for how this novel might play was quickly dashed. It went in a different, although initially interesting direction. On that score - on having a very rare bisexual character in a YA novel - major kudos to the author. The problem was that the author really blew it on handling how this character was dealt with - and she blew it in several different directions. More like vomited it really.
Jill and her friend Daria Benedetti, and best friend Ramie Boulieaux (yeah, I know) are working on Jill's plan to get Tommy Knutson (or Tommy Knutsack as Jack refers to him - Jack can access Jill memories, but not the other way around) to ask her to the prom. Her plan is completely stupid, so this was a bit of a downer for me. I don't like female main characters to be dumb-asses or shallow - unless, of course, they rise above it as the novel progresses. Nor do I like stories which repeatedly tell us how smart the female character is, yet consistently depict her as being boning-fido stupid! Jill obsessed more and more on the shallow as the story went along instead of wise-ing-up, unfortunately.
I really like the author's writing style, so it was hard to actually drop the novel. Usually when something starts going downhill like this, I have no problem dropping it and moving on to something else, but the more this went on, the more curious I became about where the author thought she was trying to take it. The writing itself wasn't god-awful, only the main characters, and since it was short and I could already see some changes dawning in Jack's personality, I decided to run with it, but in doing so, I really felt betrayed by the author.
My first really big problem (other than how stereotypically gross Jack was depicted as being), was when Jill and Tommy had their first real conversation. Right up front, Tommy brought up the fact that he is bi. Yes, you can argue that it's commendable he wanted her to know the truth and was being up front with her, but it was out of place and for more than one reason.
First of all, it's not like they were in imminent danger of having sex at that moment - far from it, so it didn't seem like his honesty fit the requirement. They were not even dating, nor was it certain that they would, so sexual history was hardly on the cards. Jill wasn't even looking for a date per se, only for an escort to the prom.
Let's look at it this way for a moment: suppose instead of telling her he was bisexual, he had told her that he liked girls with different colored hair from Jill. Suppose he said, "I usually like brunettes, but a lot of the time I like blondes, too!"? See how nonsensical that sounds? Who cares? And why raise this?
The way it was brought up here was that it made it sound like Tommy was going to date Jill, but he also wanted to be free to date guys at the same time. Who would countenance that? Well, some people might, but typically not. If he was going to be faithful to her during the time they dated, then who gives a shit who he liked to date before, or who he might date afterwards?
This whole thing made it sound like, yeah, I really want to go steady with you, but occasionally I plan on popping out and having a guy on the side. Seriously? It was just so badly-handled, which actually made it stand out like a sore thumb given that the rest of the writing was entertaining (if a bit dumb here and a bit gross there).
In some ways this made the whole thing homophobic: like, hey, I'm bi, so I might have aids. Well guess what, anyone might have aids, straight, gay or bi. It's irrelevant in and of itself! And it would remain irrelevant until and unless they planned on having sex, in which case their sexual history is important regardless of whether they're gay, straight, or anywhere in between.
So I did not get this approach at all. It was rendered in an especially bad light when Jill was grossed out by Tommy's revelation! If Jill had been a prudish, closed-minded person, then I could see her reacting like this, but she was not, and this Jill, recall, was someone who changed into a horny guy for four days a month - a guy for whom she had talked her mother into procuring porn. Why wouldn't she be completely thrilled to find a potential partner who was bi?! It made no sense at all.
One other issue with the writing was the aggravating over-use of two words: "deeply", and "mal". It was like at least one appeared on every page, and sometimes the same one would appear two or three times in as many lines. It was really annoying. Please don't try to be hip unless you're cool!
Jack, as I mentioned, was a disappointment. At first I thought he couldn't be as bad as Jill painted him. The novel opens as she "returns" from a four-day spell as Jack, and she makes him sound atrociously bad. He was actually worse than she makes him sound. Once he decides he has the hots for her best friend, he sneaks out of the house and stalks Ramie, spying on her in her room (from up on the roof, through her dormer window), and at one point is preparing to masturbate while spying on her, until he falls off the roof. He gets rewarded for this by Ramie inviting him into her room soon after, for a kissing and feel-up session on her bed. This was not acceptable to me. I had the hope, initially, that he would really turn himself around, but he just got worse, and he was obnoxious to begin with.
So what the heck was it that appealed to me about the writing, if I found so much to dislike? I'm glad you asked, but I'm not sure I can give you a satisfactory answer! The writing style was just my kind of style. It was a comfortable an easy read for me, with some amusing situations and some hilarious observations scattered through it, all of which really hit my funny bone, but that was canceled out, I'm sorry to say, by the extreme dumb-assery going on.
It was this, the general tone and pace, and the banter and dialog, which appealed to me and made me continue with this much longer than I would have done had this same story had a poorer way with words. Plus, as I mentioned, I was really curious to know how this author was going to handle this story, especially given where she'd taken it so far. Maybe I just wanted to know how she would dig herself out of the holes she had so blithely opened up! The problem is that the author didn't go anywhere with it. It turns out this is just the prologue. The second act comes in volume two. I felt robbed at that point.
In the end, it was the stark gender segregation and utterly insensitive stereotyping which killed this for me: that Jill is the ultimate in mindless, girlie-girl femininity, whereas Jack is the sex-crazed closet rapist, and neither has the first clue about the other despite quite literally sharing mind and body. I cannot in good conscience recommend this, and I shall not be reading the sequel, 'hilariously' titled (re) cycler.
