I like to branch out and read books that are outside of what I normally read. This is one of those books. There was some interesting results.
An amazon summary, "Jenna Watson is a cheerleader. And she wants you to know it’s not some Hollywood crap: they are not every guy’s fantasy. They are not the “mean girls” of Marsen High School. They’re literally just human females trying to live their lives and do a perfect toe touch. And their team is at the top of their game. They’re a family.
But all that changes when Jenna’s best friend stops talking to her. Suddenly, she’s not getting invited out with the rest of the squad. She’s always a step behind. And she has no idea why.
While grappling with post-cheer life, Jenna explores things she never allowed herself to like, including LARPing (live action role playing) and a relationship with a trans guy that feels a lot like love.
When Jenna loses the sport and the friends she’s always loved, she has to ask herself: What else is left?" AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE
Jenna is a cheerleader who has been best friends with Raejean since forever, until one day they just seem to be not. Jenna tries not to worry, but she's terrified, and she's trying not to come across as clingy, and relives the trauma of when Raejean calls Jenna a ditz in front of her crush, Jenna dumped water on Raejean's head. She reasons this wasn't a crazy big deal since they had just been swimming, so everyone is kind of damp, but it marks the day that Raejean started to create some distance between herself and Jenna. Or so Jenna thinks.
Jenna kind of goes into a spiral, and she begins to resent Raejean for abandoning her, and devises a way to get back at her.
That's enough summary.
I found this book very problematic. Jenna tries to paint weed, alcohol, and the cult-ish like culture of cheerleaders are all very normal high school experiences. She also seems to constantly be down on herself or think she's stupid when she also points out how much she tries at school to get As and Bs.
I also found the depiction of Jenna's mental health to be extra problematic since at no point did she seek help, or was help found her. It all seemed to just be rolled into this weird lull of this is a normal high school experience.
There's also a moment where Jenna decides to go on a date with a transman, which would be really cool, if Jenna hadn't been one hundred percent okay with it when she had problems with everything else. It really felt posturing. It really felt like a presentation of a different situation, which would have been great if it hadn't been piled on top of everything else.
Jenna also had issues with her mother (which gets an arc), issues with her father, issues with her brother (which she kind of comes to terms with), she is also a writer, just went through a hell of a break up with her best friend, thinking about colleges, she's also dabbling in LARP, she's had alcohol and weed in different scenes (with like zero pondering on this which bothers me a surprising amount), and there's also the arc with the dating of the transman. This book had SO MUCH GOING ON. Which, if you think of it kind of like a depiction of life, that's fine, but everything felt too chaotic that it didn't feel like I could learn anything from it.
This book was a very quick read though, I'll give it that.
But.... there was so much more this book could have been. I want to root for it, but I can't. :\
Happy reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment