4 out of 5 stars
The meat of the story and the small circle of friends Jam finds at her new school for emotionally fragile teens is a bit Breakfast Clubby, but I enjoyed it. (I also enjoyed the The Breakfast Club in its time.) Also, any book that can make me wish I had more time to ride a recumbent exercise bike? Bonus points.
Jam is a somewhat typical teenager experiencing her first love and loss, and Wolitzer really nails that all-consuming, obsessive feeling, followed by the numbing despair of losing it. I really felt Jam’s sadness and sighed for her out of both sympathy and empathy. Was Jam melodramatic and sometimes a little self-absorbed? Of course. But this is to be expected. She’s a nice kid with a good family and strong bonds to her parents and little brother. All that takes a back seat to her broken heart, which is also what happens in real life, so this is quite believable. I should add that it’s actually a little disturbing that reading about a nice, smart, normal girl with friends and a healthy home life is refreshing for a change. What’s not expected is Jam’s big reveal, which I felt was a total cop out; it so pisses me off when authors string you along SO FAR into the story as to be on the last few pages and then suddenly drop some new angle, character facet or revelation onto your skull. That is not clever or a plot twist, that is just a cheap, lazy ploy to shock the reader and, in this case, lose quite a bit of respect and caring for our troubled protagonist.
It’s difficult to explain without a spoiler, but suffice it to say, I felt Jam’s breakdown and subsequent "fragileness" that landed her at this verdant, rustic boarding school went from believable to ridiculous, and her conflict was absolutely petty compared to those of her classmates’. I don’t doubt that some teens in Jam’s (not uncommon) situation might experience the downward spiral of despair that Jam did – we know they do. But Jam’s social development up to that point gave no indication that she was that much of a mental hot mess to make her so vulnerable. I.e., there was, in literary terms, no foreshadowing to make the last chapters of this book even remotely believable.
So, there is a not-that-short list of things that I didn’t like about this book. However, I still enjoyed it and looked forward to escaping into Jam's world. And four stars for Wolitzer’s clever writing and her believable dialogue with not a hint of affectation. Love that. I didn’t love the "psychological magic" that came with this story (and normally I love that kind of stuff.) There was no explanation for its existence, where it came from, or why it touched Jam and her classmates whenever they wrote in their identical red diaries. Was the teacher a witch? Were the diaries enchanted? If so, by whom, and why? I also didn’t feel like any of the characters were adequately fleshed out, and some of Jam’s closest relationships just sort of happened without much depth to them. What happened to make Sierra Jam’s BFF? Where did that come from? By the same token, it’s understandable why Jam grabbed and kissed Griffin when she did, but where did the subsequent feelings come from that made her miss him? They never talked or even knew each other outside of class…when did this bond form? Chemistry is one thing, but jeeze. Toss the reader a bone here, cuz otherwise it’s just frustrating and makes our eyes roll.
I should repeat here that I still enjoyed this book. It’s easy to nitpick about the stuff you didn’t get or like without noting the thought and deliberateness that went into the storycrafting. And though I was wishing for more depth to the cast, I also wonder if Wolitzer’s depiction wasn’t intentional. The main character isn’t really a person, but that dark cloud of indifference and numbness that comes with deep depression. Even when the sun is shining, you can feel it, and even when you’re laughing, it’s hanging on your legs, waiting under your bed, or standing right behind you. All of the friends Jam makes in her Special Topics in English class are haunted by it -- experiencing life from under a bell jar, and Wolitzer captures that pretty well. There’s probably some kind of clever allegory within in allegory here that my tiny, distracted brain is missing, and there are undoubtedly additional nuances to the parallels of Plath’s work and this book that I’m not appreciating…but I still enjoyed the experience. Kind of like how you enjoy Bugs Bunny cartoons as a kid despite the fact that adults are getting a whole ‘nother level of humor and satire out of them. That would probably not be too gratifying for an author to hear, but there it is.
My list of gripes is just my opinions -- I still recommend the book, and I think anyone who enjoys this genre of fiction will enjoy it.
