Notes from BookCrossing: I'm very excited to read this one especially, as I just recently "read" my first audiobook -- an Elizabeth Berg! And I really enjoyed it, so I'm sure this will be equally fun to curl up with (with which to curl. . .oh heck, with which to up curl. . . you know, to read in a comfy chair in the corner!).I started this book today at the Post Office, and I had to run home to check the name of the audiobook (referenced in my previous journal entry) to make sure it wasn't the same story! Phew! It's not. But they start so similarly I was concerned. I'm happy to know I've embarked on a new (to me) Elizabeth Berg!what a fun book! It's official -- I'm a huge Elizabeth Berg fan :) Although I'll admit to confusion about all the similarities between this book and True to Form, I still liked it. Perhaps even better than that one, but it's hard to compare as one was audio and one I held in my hand.I'm going to write more in a bit, but I've had this window open on my computer all day and need to reboot this machine :)Update 3/30/2006: oh dear! I've waited too long to write this! You'd think I'd learn my lesson . . .OK so first I have to say that I really was confused by the beginning of this book! Off the top of my head, I can't remember the main character's name in True to Form, but I think it might have also been Katie! And I know for sure her new friend was Cynthia. Both had a Southern friend they wrote letters to, both were missing a mom. It was very odd that they would be so similar, and not another book about the same character or something.However, once I got past that, I enjoyed this book as much as the other Bergs I've read. This author totally gets people! I just love the way she writes about Katie's crush -- it's so completely believable, I could actually feel how she felt :)I find that as a BookCrosser, I'm always noticing when a book talks about books. I loved this passage:I take a look at Ginger's living room, off to the side of the hall. She is not a wealthy woman, I can tell. But she has fixed up what she has so comfortably it makes you want to stay there awhile. There is a jewel-colored afghan draped over the back of an old sofa, books neatly lined up in the cases along the walls, plants along the top shelf. She has a lot of books. I can see from here that they're nearly all paperbacks so they don't look quite as pretty as what you see in magazine pictures, but they do their job just fine, which is to make you feel satisfied. It's a cozy thing to know you have so many books, that you can at any moment walk over and browse in your own house.Here is one of those passages where she is right on the money -- at least my money, anyway: 'How have you been?' he asks, after a swallow of coffee, which always smells so good but then when you taste it you get a bitter surprise. And you always want to taste it again because how could your nose be so wrong? but it is.I really did enjoy this book -- she's so easy to read, but also makes you think about yourself in ways you might not have preferred to investigate too deeply.
I was looking for a quick and enjoyable read so when I spied this book of just over 200 pages with rather short chapters AND by an author I follow, I plucked this one from the shelf. However, I had no idea that it would be SUCH a quick read--I read it in one short afternoon; not just because of its length but because it was so engaging.This was the story of 12 year old Katie. She is older than her years in some ways and only wants to be older than her years in others. It is her sometimes painful, often embarrassing, and always touching story of trying to fit in with her new school in a new town while trying to deal with a stern but aloof widowed father. With no one to actually guide her, she grasps at any friendship straw that she can find and finds herself with only Ginger, (the housekeeper), Cynthia, (a pimply, over-supervised schoolmate who is also a misfit), Taylor, (a beautiful store model with a penchant for shoplifting), and Jim, ( a young and handsome gas station attendant), as her circle of friends.Told entirely by Katie, this story brought back many memories to me. The actual year was never stated, but I remember being that age and wearing mohair sweaters and weejuns. I remember drive-in movies and I remember riding bike wherever I needed to go. I remember gas stations where attendants filled the gas tank, checked the oil and tires, and cleaned the windshield. And yet, the story of being 12 and wanting so badly to fit in, to find a "best friend", to grow up more quickly than you should is all timeless. In fact, I was surprised that my library had this book shelved in the adult reading section with no copies for the Young Adults. What a disservice to those young teens! This is not just Katie's story, but if not every young girl's story; then certainly many young girls' stories and they would perhaps take comfort in knowing that they are not alone in their feelings and that, yes, someday, they will grow up--it just takes time.The only thing I did not like about the book was how quickly it ended. Would love to follow Katie's story as she grows.
What do You think about Joy School (2003)?
I've read several Elizabeth Berg books and they are always goodish sort of books. Like 'em, like 'em enough to read another one from time to time, but don't really remember or think about them when I'm done reading them.Joy School is a little bit of an exception. At first I thought it was just goodish like Berg's other's, but there were a couple of passages that truly resonated with me. One was when a brand new friend wanted to go shopping with the 13 year old protagonist, Katie. Katie is told to be home by 6:00, but that her friend can come to dinner. Here is what Katie thinks (and what struck a deep, true chord with me): "One thing I know is that I'll be worn out by four-thirty or five. I'll need a break. When it's new and important, your have to rest in between times. And anyway, even when I like a person there is a weariness that comes. I can be with someone and everything is fine and then all of a sudden it can wash over me like a sickness, that I need the quiet of my own self. I need to unload my head and look at what I've got in there so far. See it. Think what it means. I always need to come back to being alone for awhile."Wow, that could be the introvert's anthem.Then later in the book, the older, married and honorable man she is in (unrequited) love with is trying to explain to her that true love will eventually come her way and is trying to console her about an icky experience she had with a boy who tried to take liberties with her. He said: "When you have sex the real way, the way it's supposed to be, it's like. . .Well like taking and giving at the same time. It's this fierce thing, it's. . .God it's like your whole soul gets snatched away from you and then returned, better."That seemed like a profound and true way of describing it.The whole book is full of these pithy little passages that ring true and brought it from the realm of goodishness up to the realm of good.
—Adrienne
The kind of y/a adults will gobble up as eagerly. Not quite as moving as its prequel, Durable Goods, Joy School is nonetheless wrenching and engaging. Katie, now living in Missouri with her father and their housekeeper/nanny, is about to turn 13. She has trouble making friends at her new school for a while, then makes some dubious ones (all while reminding me strongly of Haven Kimmel's child self-portait in A Girl Called Zippy), while half-maintaining correspondence with the ever delightful Cherylanne and with Katie's sister in Mexico, whose marriage is not going so well. A bit Cherylannish herself with her new tween sophistication and make-up, Katie is still young and awkward, and sweetly idealistic in matters of the heart. This is beautifully illustrated in her descriptions of the various romantic (and pseudo-romantic) relationships in the story: between the married housekeeper and Katie's father; between her shoplifting model friend Taylor and the boys she goes to drive-ins with, dragging Katie along as an unwitting and unwilling double-date partner; between Cherylanne and her high school boyfriends; and most tenderly, in the love triangle Katie believes she is caught in with a gentle 23-year-old gas station owner and his wife. I love Berg's work in general, but the Katie books are an especial treasure.
—Kate
Katie's army father has moved her to Missouri, far from her familiar school, her best friend, and her older sister. Katie struggles to fit in in her new home and becomes friends with a rag-tag group of people--the most beautiful girl in school, a classmate's ailing Italian grandmother, and an all too handsome gas station attendant. This book was laugh-out-loud funny. The protagonist, an introverted 13 year old, whose thoughts are loud and precocious and almost too honest, is wildly loveable. She's hilarious and adorable but also so broken. Occasionally, she lets readers all the way in to her heart to learn about her mother's death and her struggle to move on. I just loved this book. It combines a classic coming of age tale with a tale of healing with a tale of father-daughter struggles. It was poignant but also lighthearted. I learned after finishing it that it's part of a series. The best part of the novel? It could stand on its own without any other book. Such a memorable read!
—Katie
