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Young Adult Fiction. Young Adult Literature. HTML: IndieFab Young Adult Fiction Book of the Year 2015! Kirkus Reviews Best Teen Books 2015! In the podunk town of Hawthorne, North Carolina, seventeen-year-old geeks Lula and Rory share everything�??sci-fi and fantasy fandom, Friday night binge-watching of old X-Files episodes, and that feeling that they don't quite fit in. Lula knows she and Rory have no secrets from each other; after all, he came out to her years ago, and she's shared with him her �??sacred texts"�??the acting books her mother left behind after she walked out of Lula's life. But then Lula discovers that Rory�??her Rory, who maybe she's secretly had feelings for�??has not only tried out for the Hawthorne football team without telling her, but has also been having an affair with his middle-aged divorcee boss. With their friendship disrupted, Lula begins to question her identity and her own sexual orientation, and she runs away in the middle of the night on a journey to find her mother, who she hopes will have all the answers. Meagan Brother's piercing prose in this fresh LGBT YA novel speaks to anyone who has ever felt unwanted and alone, and who struggles to find their place in an isolating world. Age… (more)
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Getting wrapped up in the lives of fictional characters-- and extracting yourself from their
The first part of the book is from Rory's perspective, a linear first-person narrative. It's an ideal beginning to a novel that quickly begins to defy easy genre classification: like The X-Files, it draws on elements from multiple genres, and it's not possible to trace a single, A to Z plot trajectory. Lula's half of the novel is less linear, alternating between North Carolina and her disappearance destinations. Though these transitions can sometimes read as jarring, it is an effective way to portray the mind of a young teen who's realized she really doesn't fit in anywhere: her mind ping-pongs as a result.
Anyone who's guilty of overindulging in Southern Gothic literature may think of the search for the "we of me" in Member of the Wedding (a queer novel by Carson-- Lula-- McCullers); I did when I read Lula's heartbreaking confession that "I thought we were in this thing together." "This thing" is "being alone" (p. 73). What's interesting is that Brothers has envisioned what solitude looks like in a reasonably populated town, where one character has a (pseudo-romantic) relationship, one character has relatively cool grandparents, and there is a set routine of school-work. Supposedly, these two are in this together in the (if far from perfect) modern world, but the tropes of isolation and uncertain identity are articulated through media, online fandom, and flickering instant messages. What this novel does is dodge the Gothic pervasive sense of tragedy by holding out hope that, while a sense of isolation and alienation may be a painful rite of passage, there is still enough love in the world to view this stage as final. It's formative but not shattering.
The many strands of the plot form a beautiful knot, however, and part of what is fulfilling in reading this is that there are still plenty of snarls when you reach the last page. The end is not at all hopeless, but it refuses to give any sense of finality in the sense that two very young people have ended up who, what, where, how they always will be-- and that may be the most hopeful ending possible.
It's been awhile since I was Rory's and Lula's age, but, by the final pages, I wanted to whisper, "show me how you got to where you are now." And then I realized: this novel has been telling me all along that there is no instruction manual, no TV show or book that lists the steps. The point is to resist inserting yourself into the narrative; instead, you stand close by and take notes, observing, learning, and maybe getting things in your eye quite a few times. If I learned any lessons, it's not to lock yourself into a narrative and that past narratives do not dictate the present or the future: definitely pass this one on to any teens you can track down, but don't write it off because it says "young adult" on the back: this one is for anyone who is looking for the truth that must be out there.