Oh, I remember 1977 and this hit song, written by Peter Yarrow (of the folk music trio Peter, Paul & Mary) and Phillip Jarrell, and recorded by Mary MacGregor. The song was Ms. MacGregor’s only hit, and if you listen you’ll know that that’s a shame because she has a lovely voice.

I hated that song. I used to talk to the radio and say, “Yes, you feel like a fool! You are are a fool! Make a choice!” Then I’d switch to another radio station. I really hated that song.

So, now I’m caught in a quandary because I just read two YA books that I didn’t hate, but both of them have that same plot line: torn between two lovers, feeling like a fool. Is this fantasy of two wonderful guys both madly in love with one girl something I missed out on? I would have settled for one, as a teen. I don’t remember ever thinking about how exciting it would be to have two guys on a string or how difficult, and flattering, it would be to have them fighting over me, to have to choose between them. Why is this conflict popping up all over in the books I’m reading and the TV I’m watching?

Examples:
The first book I read last week was The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan. If I had known it was a zombie book (the zombies are called The Unconsecrated, but they’re zombies), I probably wouldn’t have picked it up. However, for a zombie book it was O.K.—except that the female protagonist, Mary, can’t decide whether she loves Travis or Harry, who happen to be brothers and about the only available guys around. If you’ve read this far, you’re not worried about spoilers, so I’ll give you a heads up: she never does really make up her mind.

Then, I read Catching Fire by Suzanne Colllins, the sequel to last year’s hit, The Hunger Games. I loved it, and I’m looking forward to the third and final installment in the trilogy. However, Katniss in this novel is again “torn between two lovers,” Peeta and Gale. All sorts of developments make this choice a difficult one for Miss Katniss, but heckfire, why can’t she just fish or cut bait, at least in her own mind? No, she loves Gale, but she has some kind of feeling for Peeta, too; she’s just not sure what that feeling is. I hope in the third book she grows up and makes a choice, and the author doesn’t feel the need to kill one of the male leads to resolve the dilemma.

I started thinking about how many popular books and TV shows have this premise: in the Twilight series, Bella is torn between Jacob and Edward. She really knows which one she wants to spend her life with, but she strings the other guy along for two books, just in case. Cut him loose, for Pete’s sake!

On LOST (you knew I’d bring LOST into this rant somehow, didn’t you?), Kate’s been torn between Jack and Sawyer for five seasons. I’m sure there’s are bets being placed somewhere on which guy she’ll end up with.

I’m sure these are only the tip of the iceberg. Can you think of any other books movies, or TV show with the girl torn-between-two-lovers device? I do think it’s a device to create and maintain romantic/dramatic tension. After all, what did the character Jacob really add to Twilight, other than another pretty face?

And did Jane Austen’s heroines have this issue?

Sicilians in Louisiana? I knew about Cajuns, from Arcadia, Evangeline and all that jazz, French Creoles, and the French influence in New Orleans, even some Spanish culture and influence thrown in there, but Sicilians? Apparently,

“During the mid to late 1800’s large numbers of Sicilians came to the United States and settled in New Orleans where there were the most opportunities for work in the cotton, vegetable and fish markets. New Orleans had the largest population of Sicilians at this time.”

According to this website on Sicilian culture, the events that form a background for this novel of a Sicilian boy in southern Louisiana in the late 1800’s are true. In 1890, the chief of of police in New Orleans, David Hennessey, was assassinated. SInce he was investigating the Sicilian Mafia before he was killed, hundreds of Italian immigrants were arrested in connection with his death, and six men were indicted, tried . . . and acquitted. However, some of them, at least, were still in jail after their acquittal, and eleven Italian immigrants were pulled from the jailhouse, beaten, shot, and two of them lynched, one hung from a lamppost in the streets of New Orleans.

And I never heard anything about this episode in American history. Alligator Bayou takes place in 1899, after the Crescent CIty lynchings as they’re called, and in the strory a group of Sicilian immigrants are living in a small town trying to make a new life for themselves after fleeing the violence in New Orleans. One of these Sicilians is fourteen year old Calogero Scalise, who works in his uncle’s grocery store, takes lessons from a white man named Frank Raymond, and has a crush on a beautiful girl named Patricia.

I was fascinated with this story, mostly because I’d never heard anything about Sicilians in Louisiana, much less all the Mafia scare-induced prejudice toward Italians in the South. When I think Italian Americans, I’m thinking of New Jersey. Anyway, good story, sad, but well-written with a good portrayal of what it was like too be non-white, caught between cultures in the Deep South around the turn of the century.

Now I want to see the 1999 movie that I found while researching the background for this novel: Vendetta starring Christopher Walken. Has anyone seen it? Is it any good?

It could be just another YA “problem novel”: girl with a birthmark on her face and a domineering, verbally abusive father learns to accept herself. End of story.

However, North of Beautiful transcends the problem-of-the-week genre, and it’s a truly beautiful novel. The strength of the book is in its treatment of relationships and family dynamics. Terra Cooper, the protagonist of the novel, isn’t just a girl with low self esteem because of her facial disfigurement and her controlling dad. Although she is that, Terra is much more complicated than that stereotype would indicate. She’s her mom’s rescuer, until she realizes that her mom has been rescuing Terra all her life. She’s a teenage girl in love, but she’s not sure which guy she’s in love with. She’s an artist if she can figure out what True Beauty really is. She’s a mapmaker, and a world traveller, and a master of camouflage.

The only problem I had with this novel, and it may be a reader problem rather than an issue with the novel itself, is that I got lost a few times with some transitions that seemed a bit abrupt. Sometimes I had to re-read a few paragraphs to see whether I was in the past or the present because I didn’t get enough clues to know when the transitions were taking place. This disorientation happened to me mostly in the first part of the novel, so maybe I just wasn’t paying enough attention and my focus improved later.

Even if the writing was really uneven at the beginning of the novel, it’s worth the effort. Terra’s continuing insights into herself and her family members and her friends are worthy of an artist. I wanted to see one of Terra’s collages, buy one, because they became so real to me while reading the story. I recommend this one for young adults and adults who are interested in thinking about our society’s concepts of beauty and the value of physical beauty. There’s some mild sexual content, but it’s not gratuitous, but rather integral to the character development.

Other bloggers review North of Beautiful:

Becky’s Book Reviews: “The book is complex–so many layers of life, of interests, of passions, of intense relationships. And life is complex. So it’s authentic enough there. And the plot–in its details–isn’t typical at all. Terra’s mother and Jacob’s mother are two of the main characters of the book. How often does one mom–let alone two moms–play an important role in book? (This emphasis on moms was something I liked about the book, too, probably because I am the age of those moms in the book.)

Heather at What Was I Reading?: “I liked the plot of this story, and that’s what kept me reading. Although I’d read reviews of this book and pretty much knew straight away (knowing what I knew of the long-distance trip that happened with Terra and some other peeps), I still liked where the story was going well enough to keep reading. I guess I’m kind of a sucker for stories of self-discovery, even when the self-discovery is over-wrought and you see it coming a mile away.”

Tarie interviews Justina Chen Headley at Into the Wardrobe.

Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson. Viking, 2007.

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson. Viking, 2009.

Ms. Anderson is a skilled writer. Her contemporary YA novel Speak was “haunting and memorable.” (Semicolon review here.) Twisted, written from a male protagonist’s point of view is, well, rather twisted, but also thought-provoking even now, three weeks after I’ve read the book and returned it to the library. Wintergirls, Ms. Anderson’s newest novel, is twisted, haunting, and memorable and eventually crosses the line into downright disturbing.

Put it this way: I let my fourteen year old read Speak because I thought it dealt with a subject she should know about and be on guard against. I let her read Twisted because I thought she was naive about teenage boys and the fact that even “nice” boys think about sex . . . a lot, especially when confronted with immodestly and skimpily clad teenage girls. Ms. Anderson did an excellent job of getting inside the mind of a fairly typical teenage boy without making him into a saint or a hero or a total scumbag.

However, I don’t want Brown Bear Daughter to read Wintergirls. I’m not saying that the book is poorly written or pornographic, but do I really want my dancer daughter who already deals with body image issues (as do most teen girls) to read, to become immersed in, the seriously disturbed thoughts of a suicidal anorexic teenage girl? To read WIntergirls is to become immersed in an alternative universe in which thin is fat, eating is evil, and the self is to be annihilated. It’s scary and dark and very real. The book does hold out some hope, but not much.

So what I’m saying that it’s so well written that I don’t want impressionable teens to read it. Forget impressionable teens, impressionable anyage should beware. Enter at your own risk. Parental guidance suggested for both books, but there is some worthwhile stuff here.

Reading Wintergirls made me pray for those I know who have dealt with eating disorders or who are still living in the thrall of anorexia or bulimia. Reading Twisted reminded me of what a dangerous and twisted world we live in.