gridly

Original review posted @ www.bookgoonie.com September 2011 http://wp.me/p1h3Ps-v5 All I knew before I started this book was funny, Lord of the Flies, and funny. It is definitely funny. But I didn't realize how much of a message punch this book was going to have. One, this book is smart. It definitely takes shots at the "dumb girl." It isn't really trying to be mean to the "dumb" girls, but pointing out that this unacceptable. Some of these girls aren't dumb, because they lack the ability to learn. They are dumb, because they have been told that it doesn't matter by the adults in their life. It is also smart, because you have to know a little to get all the jokes. I tell my history students that there is a greater reason to know your history, but on a basic level it is so you get the jokes. I used to stay up and watch late night TV...Benny Hill and David Letterman. (I totally laughed out loud when one of the pirates said he had a dog named Benny Hill.) I didn't get half of why anything Letterman said was funny and it was because I didn't know very much. Know who Che Guevara is and know where things are. Two, this book really attacks the mythology of being a girl. "Sugar and spice and everything nice." I love the Wild Girl and how she challenges what we've been told about our own sexuality...don't have it. Don't enjoy it, don't do it. Three, it really shows how screwed up parents can screw up their kids. If your parent makes you feel you have to be a certain way to be loved, don't listen to that person any more. There is more than one example of this, but I thought Libba did a great job with the black contestant. She was told to do all kinds of things to her hair and even to use bleaching cream by her mother. I am grateful that she had an aunt that told her different. There is so much more. Libba in one book took on just about every negative thing that is perpetrated on young adult girls. I thought I was going to be laughing at the girls through the whole book, but found I was laughing with them.

2022-11-14 16:50