TL;DR mermaids and what I imagine being in a trance feels like
(finished 6/1/15)
Guys, I learned! I made sure not to read reviews before I read the book! I only got so far as seeing that one blogger I followed rated it no stars, and another one rated it 5. That was really confusing. I avoided reading the reviews themselves until after I wrote all my own ideas down, so you can see my reaction to them further down in this post.
First up, the narration is really vulgar. It didn't really bother me that much, but it's definitely more than what I'm used to reading. Honestly, I think it's pretty realistic; I can tell you for a fact that the amount of vulgarity wasn't exaggerated for a 17 year old boy. There's only so much you can ignore from your peers. It drops off a little bit to just cursing (and what the plot requires) after a few chapters. As a disclaimer, though, I am not a 17 year old boy and I read very few books narrated by boys that this point, so I could be very wrong on how realistic Sam's inner monologue is.
Other than that, though, the narration itself is pretty lyrical, for lack of a better word. I liked it, but I doubt that it's very realistic for a teenage boy. There was some stuff in there that was so profound it was trying too hard to sound cool.
"Say there's this thing you want, this thing that seems more important than everything, this thing you've been waiting for because it will make you into something else. And then you get a chance at it and it's almost as if you don't want to change. Because you'll miss the person you were before." (pg 126)
That was the only example I sticky-noted. I know stuff like this isn't unheard of coming from a teenager's mouth, but to me, it just reminds me of that phase everyone goes through where they're all philosophical and big-picture thinkers before they realize that does them no good in the long run, that they just have to actually do things instead of pondering the mysteries of everything. (I have no idea if this is a universal thing. It could very well have just been my peer group. idk.)
I'm not really sure what I think about the characters. There's obvious character development, but I have pretty neutral feelings towards it. I'm kind of leaning towards the opinion that they aren't characterized realistically, but that didn't break the book for me.
I'm kind of divided on the worldbuilding, to be honest. Like, you can see almost from the very beginning what's going on, but it's never really explained. I was hoping for an actual explanation of the trance-like state of mind that I mentioned up in the TL;DR, but nope, nothing. The whole explanation about the girls was pretty weak, too, and I don't know if I was having trouble focusing or if their attempted explanations make no sense.
... I actually don't have much more to contribute than that;; I rated it three stars since I really loved the mood the narration created, and because it didn't suck, but the ending was a little more lackluster than I'd expected. At some point I had considered rating it four stars, but it never really reached the kind of excitement / tension I thought the kind of plot demanded of the climax.
Honestly, I can understand the low overall rating (2.99/5 last I checked) and the problems people have had with it. All the characters come off as sexist, but to me it felt more like the sexism promoted and ingrained in society rather than the characters purposefully coming to that decision. (If that makes sense. I'm sorry. I was a little tired when I wrote this.) Like, yeah, I hated the morals of all the characters, but it also came off as a characterization decision, because let's face it: there are inevitably guys (and girls!) that are so sexist it makes you question how they function in life.
I'm definitely not okay with the characters' overall sexism, but I understand where it could be coming from. We can't just pretend people like the September Girls characters don't exist, because they do.
Now that I've read through some other reviews, I have a better understanding of why people hate it with such intensity. Let me sum it up for you:
"Wow, look at this 17 year old male narrator unexposed to the concept of feminism! It's like he's only been exposed to the mainstream media and his peers! How dare he disrespect women in the only way he seems to understand how to treat them! How dare he not have a role model that would have taught him better!"
I'm sorry. That was way more sarcastic than I wanted. Anyway, my point is that most of these reviewers seem to be adult women; I completely understand where they stand and their issues, and I agree, but I don't think they're trying to understand the character at all. My male peers are often pretty sexist, but that's because it's perpetuated. Nobody tells them not to -- in fact, it's a never-ending cycle because this lack of "don't do that, you're stupid" constitutes an "okay", and by the time someone does say "stop, you're a dick", they're likely to blow your comment off. The same goes to the Girls: they are not taught any better.
So, yes, all the sexism in the book is terrible, but they literally have no other example to live by. The Girls literally base their entire image off the mainstream media.
In scrolling through the entire first page of reviews on goodreads, there was only one guy that contributed a review, and it was too short to really touch on anything. Everything else was written by women. Who, of course, are going to have a very different view than Sam or Bennett Madison because some of them have unfortunately been the victims of sexism.
ANYWAY. I got really carried away there. I'm sorry. I'm surprised I had so much to say, to be honest.
TL;DR it's a kind of mindless read. If you can get past the characters that reflect the sexism actually present in the world, and the lackluster plot and worldbuilding, it'll probably keep you occupied if you're bored.
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