About a Girl by Sarah McCarry

Title: About a Girl
Author: Sarah McCarry
Publisher: MacMillan
Rating: WARTY!

This is apparently a companion novel to two others in what is called the Metamorphoses trilogy. The other books are stories about other members of the family, and I cannot ever see myself reading any more of these after my encounter with this one.

To begin with, it's a first person PoV story which is the most obnoxious voice. Some writers can carry it, but not this one, not with this character who is one of the most nauseating, self-obsessed, unappealing, and downright obnoxious Mary-Sues I've ever encountered in fiction.

This novel begins with Tally's endless - and I do mean endless - rambling about how brilliant she is. Some paragraphs occupy a whole page. Where was the editor? The doesn't show us how smart she is, she tells us. Over and over again. When she does one time show us her 'smarts', they ain't much, believe me. She actually does tell us a little about her family - in between showing us how utterly obnoxious she is to customers who come into the bookstore where she works and that was my next problem.

It's like the author sat down before she began to write this and wrote out a comprehensive list of every trope demographic and Nora Ephron button she could think of before cramming them brutally into this story. Work in a bookstore? Check. Transgender or gay person in her life? Check - and check! Quirky relatives and friends? Check. Everyone reads books or is an artist/poet? Check. Life-long super cool friend? Check. Quirky family adores one another? Check. Love interest comes in expectedly from left field? Check! Yep, all here. Let's get started.

First we have Tally's lifelong friend - met in a suitably cute manner. This friend is also transsexual, so we immediately have two categories covered in one fell swoop, yet despite being lifelong friends and intimate in every non-physical way imaginable, neither of them, can talk to each other about anything intimate.

This is how we end up with them being sexually one night and then not knowing how to behave the next day. This trope has been done to death and there's not a single thing that's new being brought to table here in any way.

Tally's essentially an orphan. Her mom is a completely irresponsible loser who left Tally on the doorstep of her sister's apartment and has never been seen since. None knows her whose dad is, not even, most likely, her mom. Tally has been without these non-parents literally her entire life.

Tally lives with an eccentric artist aunt and a poet uncle and his husband. Seriously? She also has a wealthy friend who has everything as defined by endless rare books, all of which are classics. God forbid he should have a first edition best seller. Tally is completely at home here in every single way imaginable,. She is spoiled rotten and has everything, but none of this keeps her from running off to "discover" her father and leaving paradise lost behind her. Evidently (from other reviews I've read, she never actually does discover anything except a girlfriend. I couldn't stand to read that far. I didn't have enough promethazine on hand. I applaud the fortitude of those who could finish it un-medicated.

I had sincerely hoped for much better than this. This is an awful novel. tediously and pretentiously written and in my opinion, not worth reading to the end. I cannot recommend it based on the part I did managed to stomach.

Dirty Wings by Sarah McCarry

Title: Dirty Wings
Author: Sarah McCarry
Publisher: Macmillan
Rating: WORTHY!

This is supposed to be a retelling of the myth of Persephone, although I saw no resemblance. I did, however, discover that it's the most pointless and boring story I've read in a long time. It's the second in the 'All Our Pretty Songs' series, which I didn't know when I picked it up since there is - yes, you've guessed it - absolutely no indication whatsoever on the cover that this is a sequel! Way to go Big Publishing™ - you screwed up yet again!

As it happens, and despite being number two - or perhaps because it was quite evidently a big number two - this novel goes nowhere and nothing of note happens. If you like reading about the drug-abusing and thievery conducted by a couple of boring lowlife's, then this one might please you. If you have taste and a desire for an interesting story, you might want to look elsewhere for your reading fulfillment.

The story is about Maia, a piano prodigy, an adoptee from Vietnam by white American parents. When her "mom" discovers that Maia can play the piano with exceptional dexterity, Maia ends up being all piano all the time which is pretty much child-abuse. She's also home-schooled (something she's forced to take care of herself since her parents are pretty much absent in in her life). In fact, her mother is a complete dick, so it's nothing more than a tired cliché that she would cut loose when she meets street urchin Cass(andra).

The two of them take off for a month traveling in a car that Maia stole form her parents. Nothing of what these two perpetrate has any consequence whatsoever. I do find it amusing when YA writers who are not actually YA themselves, put their own musical tastes into the hearts and minds of their YA characters, thereby rendering the characters completely unrealistic. Since when have seventeen-year-olds ever seen music videos on MTV, for example?! MTV hasn't routinely transmitted music videos in pretty much a decade - that's almost half of Cass and Maia's lifetime. It's hardly likely that it would be a point of reference for either Maia, who was effectively banned from watching TV, or Cass, who is living on the street and has been for some considerable time!

Like I said, this story goes nowhere and is boring as hell. It has nothing to offer, nothing interesting or new to say, and no point whatsoever to it. I rate it Wartius maximus.