Review of Dream School by Blake Nelson

Dream School picks up exactly where Girl left off, with Andrea Marr on a plane on the way to Wellington, her number one choice for college. Andrea has high hopes for the coming four years, and for the person they will turn her into. But at Wellington, Andrea finds a population of rich, majority white students, most of whom are not interested in her wild experiences as a part of the Portland alternative music scene.

The Sweet Valley High Project #1: Double Love

Did you know I once had another blog?  It's true.  And on this other blog, I made it my mission to reread all the Sweet Valley High books and try to figure out why I loved them so much.  As this is the YA Department, it seems only appropriate to repost these explorations here.  So without further ado, I present The Sweet Valley High Project:
In which I reread every Sweet Vally High book and provide thoughtful insight into and analysis of the various anecdotes of the Wakefields, Patmans, Fowlers, and other famed denizens of Sweet Valley, California.

The Annas

My library books aligned recently in such a way that I read Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake, immediately followed by Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins.  I have created a table that compares and contrasts the two Annas.

I Can't Wait To Read...

Dream School by Blake Nelson

Blake Nelson's 1994 novel Girl (which I spoke about yesterday) ends with main character Andrea Marr on the plane to college, imagining what her experience will be like, and then commenting on her musings thusly:

"...But of course that's not what happened. Not even close."

That's the last line of the book!  These words tantalized me.  I wanted more Andrea Marr!  For years, whenever I went to the bookstore I would pass by the N end of fiction to see if a sequel to Girl had miraculously appeared.  Eventually, I gave up hope.  But now....Blake Nelson is finally releasing Dream School, aka, Andrea Marr, the college years!

Will Andrea like college?  Will she hook up with another lead singer?  Will she become the lead singer of her own band?  I can't wait to find out on December 6.

Classic Covers: Girl

This is the edition of Blake Nelson's Girl that I purchased in 1997, the cover I stared at, willing my hair to get that long, the one I still pull down from my shelf and reread.

I first heard about Girl from Sassy magazine, which was excerpting the novel before it was even published.  I didn't realize a full-length novel had come out until I read a review in my friends’ ‘zine a few years later.

Opening Lines: Birthmarked

Some opening lines jump out of the book, grab you by the collar, and say "This book is different!  Here's how!"

For example, Birthmarked by Caragh O'Brien:

In the dim hovel, the mother clenched her body into one final, straining push, and the baby slithered out into Gaia's ready hands.

Whaaaaaat?  That's right: this book opens with our main character delivering a baby.  It turns out, she delivers babies all the time.  And right there, Caragh O'Brien hooked me; I can't say no to a book about a teenage mid-wife.

Impossible

I have had Scarborough Fair, by Simon and Garfunkel, stuck in my head ever since I finished Impossible by Nancy Werlin.  But thanks to Werlin, the song is no longer the benign pretty ballad I once thought it was; now it is deliciously chilling.  Werlin’s own realization about the creepy nature of the song—the man asking to the woman to complete impossible tasks in order to prove her love—inspired her to write Impossible.

Impossible focuses on the silent victim of Scarborough Fair: the woman who must somehow make a shirt without seam or needle work.  But this is a different version of the song than the one popularized by Simon and Garfunkel.  In Werlin’s variation, rather than the tasks winning the narrator’s love, the tasks are necessary if the woman wants to escape from being trapped as a true love of the narrator.  Instead of the refrain “Then she’ll be a true love of mine,” Werlin’s narrator says “Else she’ll be a true love of mine.”