Surgery in Teen Fiction

Trigger warning: Cutting and self-injury are discussed at the end of this post. If this is not a topic you are comfortable reading about, maybe you should wait and come back tomorrow for our review of Unwind by Neal Shusterman. Or just stop reading after the image of the Feed cover.

Tomorrow's review book, Unwind by Neal Shusterman, deals very centrally with surgery. This is a topic that comes up often in teen fiction, and today I'm going to explore why.

Surgery is a scary thing, but it's also something most of us actually experience. This makes it a relatable fear in fiction for any age. (Allow me to divert your attention for a brief moment to the short story "Autopsy Room Four" by Stephen King, found in Everything's Eventual. The only surgery I've ever had, I was terrified when they put me asleep because I thought I would wind up like that character: totally lucid and about to be operated on.)

SCARY.

But we're talking specifically about teen fiction. One of the major themes found in teen fiction is a power struggle, particularly with adults. As a teen, you've been a child your whole life so far, and all you know is being treated like a child. But you're getting smarter. Your brain is developing like crazy in ways that allow you to use logic and reasoning better than you could before; however, you're still leaps and bounds away from having a fully developed brain, like an adult.

This is your brain on adolescence

So you aren't a kid, and you don't want to be treated like one anymore. But the adults around you - particularly the ones directly in charge of you - know that you also aren't an adult. So you're stuck in this weird limbo where you can make some decisions for yourself, but not all of them.

You can see why someone in this situation would relate very easily to a fictional situation where adults want to perform surgery on teens - especially unwilling ones. Doctors are adults (Doogie Howser notwithstanding). Adults unfairly exercising power over teens is a widely relatable theme. And surgery is an easy way to demonstrate one group's power (the doctors) over another group (the teens).

Remember: SCARY.

A lot of the surgery you find in teen fiction is cosmetic, because teens are taught to be obsessed with image. Advertisements, media, peers: everything and everyone surrounding a teen emphasizes the importance of image, from the brand of their clothes to their haircut to the color of their shoelaces. This stuff is important in high school, and anyone who doesn't follow the arbitrary whims of the high school fashion world is an outcast. And you don't want to be an outcast, do you?

Ugh, normal pockets? How gauche.
It's all about impractically star-shaped pockets now, didn't you know?

Look no further than Uglies and its sequels by Scott Westerfeld for evidence of this. Uglies are kids who are desperate to turn sixteen and get their surgery to turn them into Pretties. Pretties all look basically the same: flawlessly gorgeous. It's how their society eliminates jealousy and other negative feelings that cause greater problems like war. Later in the series, there are a wide range of elective cosmetic surgeries, allowing anyone to get fancy moving tattoos, additions to their eyes (including jeweled clocks that run backwards, as Shay demonstrates for us) and nearly any other body modification you can imagine.

One example that combines these two facets of teen fiction surgery is The Bar Code Tattoo by Suzanne Weyn. (This is on my "to read" list, so my information is coming from summaries and reviews. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.) Everyone is getting bar code tattoos to make life easier (purchases, identification, etc.) and Kayla is suspicious. She doesn't want to get one, and this makes her an outcast. This combines the power trip the government has over its citizens by "requiring" the tattoo, and the fact that, due to a lack of some physical attribute, Kayla is a pariah, even to her family and friends.

Besides the inferiority complex that comes with being a teen in a world of adults, another very common theme for YA fiction is change. Because that's what being an adolescent is all about. You change from a kid into an adult during this time. You usually change schools (middle to high school, high school to college or into the workforce). Most people change friends... a lot. You build new interests and hobbies and talents and knowledge. That's not to say that children or adults don't do these things too, but it's a defining characteristic of adolescence.

Surgery is a catalyst for change, especially in a literary sense. The person who was put under before surgery is not the same person who wakes up groggy and talking nonsense while they work off the anesthesia.

Also? A little bit scary.

Remember our review book from two weeks ago, Starters by Lissa Price? Callie was desperate for money, so she went to a company that would install a microchip in her head and allow her to go to sleep while they put an Ender's (elderly person's) mind into her body. When she wakes up the first time, she finds it eerie to have no idea where her body went or what it did while she was out.

Referring back to Uglies, Uglies believe (correctly) that the Pretty-making surgery will change them entirely, for life. (I won't spoil the book by going into details, but it's a little... sinister.) One day - the day before your sixteenth birthday - you're a little kid, an Ugly, nothing. The next, you've had extensive surgery to make every bit of you absolutely perfect, and you're somebody: a Pretty, with influence and wealth and ability.

Another example can be found in Feed by M. T. Anderson. The feed is like having the internet in your brain: it is a way to communicate with others who have the feed, learn lessons for school, shop, and look things up like you would online now. This example combines all three of our points: it is a way for higher governmental powers to control you (although this point isn't very strong, it is evident), anyone who doesn't have the feed is an outcast, and getting the feed causes big changes (good or bad).

Related to surgery and also prevalent in young adult fiction is the topic of self-injury, specifically cutting. Cutting - in a literary sense - is like a small surgery a character performs on himself or herself in order to bring about a change in how they feel (usually to get relief or release).

Cutting is relatable for a large percentage of the teen demographic, because it is a widespread problem with varying degrees of severity. It can also be viewed as an aesthetic issue, because of its visibility (in comparison to the inner turmoil it represents). It also serves as the opposite side to the power struggle issue you get when talk about surgery: cutting gives the teen character power over their body, where surgery would give someone else power over it. (Note: I'm not condoning cutting or any form of self-injury; I'm just making a point about literature.)

As undergraduates, Cassy and I had a wonderful professor who taught adolescent and children's literature. At the time, she was working on an article about cutting in adolescent literature (which you can read here), and she got me really interested in the topic (and first demonstrated the ties between cutting and surgery in literature to me, which is why this topic is being mentioned here). My personal recommendations are:

Cut by Patricia McCormick

How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
Impulse by Ellen Hopkins
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
The Burn Journals by Brent Runyon
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

(Not all of those deal specifically with cutting; there are some with other forms of self-injury. Also, two of them are autobiographical: Girl, Interrupted and The Burn Journals. The rest are fiction.)

Favorite Political Books

No! Don't run away! We promise not to get overly political. The reason we're talking about our favorite political books today is because this week's review book, Unwind by Neal Shusterman, has the (extremely politicized) issue of abortion at its core. "Unwind" refers to the compromise made between the two sides of the debate... but more about that on Friday.

My favorite political book is probably actually Wide Awake by David Levithan, but since it doubles as my favorite LGBT book and we've already covered those, I'm going with America: The Book by Jon Stewart. It was kind of a four-way tie, because I've read this, Earth: The Book by Jon Stewart, I Am America and So Can You by Stephen Colbert, and Colbert's children's book, I Am A Pole (and So Can You). Tough choices.

The best thing about this (and Earth) is the format. This book is in textbook format! I have thought for a long time that more books need to be written in textbook format. It's a convenient, effective way to present information that is improved by the perfect photo or infographic in just the right place.

The trouble with political humor books is that they can get outdated pretty quickly. Example: this book was published in 2004. Do you guys remember 2004? (Of course you do. If you didn't, you'd be either comatose or under nine years old, and neither of those groups are this blog's target demographic.) That was the year Cassy and I graduated high school and started college, so it seems like a lifetime ago to me. But even politically speaking, that was before a black American president was a thing. That was before Sarah Palin did... much of anything. That was the year Kerry ran against Bush Jr. That was only three years after 9/11. Okay, enough examples; it was almost a decade ago, you get it. My point was supposed to be, Jon Stewart is good at making jokes and commentary that aren't just timeless (or as close to timeless as you can get when your fodder is current events) but are also informative.

So what is Cassy's favorite political book, you may ask?  Cassy, who really has zero interest in politics and even less interest in reading about them?  Well, clearly my favorite political book is Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin.

Ok, before you get on my case say, "OMG, that's not political!  That's fantasy!" Well, ok, yes, technically this is a fantasy book.  BUT not all politics are necessarily American politics, or even real politics for that matter.

The general idea in GoT is that Cersei, the queen, wants to be in power.  She wants to control everything, which is pretty much the reason she marries her husband, King Robert, who controls all of the seven kingdoms.  Cersei's family, The Lannisters, are an extremely powerful and influential family, that is the power behind the power.  And none of them are really the people that you want to have dealings with.

Cut to the Starks, a good family who lives in Winterfell.  Eddard in the King of Winterfell and if Cersei is evil incarnate, Eddard doesn't seem to have an evil bone in his body.  He wants what's good for the kingdom and his family (all six of his kids and his wife) are just like him.  Working for the greater good.

There is intrigue and betrayal and everyone, everyone, is attempting to control the throne.  Control the throne, control the kingdom.  And as if the people IN the seven kingdoms trying to control it wasn't enough, let's add some Dragons.  Daenerys Targaryen is in the East, riding towards the seven kingdoms, ready to claim the birthright that was taken away from her.

This book, this series really, is all about who controls what.  It's all about manipulation and who holds the power and playing politics (after all, Cersei only married Robert so she would be queen, not because there was any actual love.)  It's all about who you know and who holds what position and who can and can't be trusted.  So if you think this book isn't about politics, you need to reread it.  You might have missed the point.

Amazon Book Publishing

Amazon does a lot of great things for people who write books.  For instance, you can essential publish your own book with their self-publishing franchise, CreateSpace.  CreateSpace essentially gives you all the tools you would ever need to publish your book online.  No agents or Publishers required.  Of course, it's all electronic (they don't deal in hardcopies), but for people just looking to get their names out there, this is a great way to to.

Amazon is also all about the free books.  Now, I'll grant you that most of these books aren't really something most of us here at ReviewMeTwice would read, that doesn't change the fact that you find a rare gem every once in awhile.  Not to mention, if the book is out of copyright, there's probably a free eCopy of it on Amazon.

I think, probably the best of all though, is Amazon giving out free money to up and coming writers.  It's a contest they've been doing for six years now that gives new writers the opportunity to get not only a full publishing contract, but also a $50,000 advance.  Five runner ups will receive a $15,000 advance.  Not so shabby for a day's work.  You can visit Amazon's Prize Page for more details of the many things you could win!

At worst, nothing will happen but this at least forces you to get a real manuscript together.  At best, you could have $50,000. :)

Happy Writing!

Neal Shusterman

This week's review book, Unwind, was written by Neal Shusterman. If you've ever spent a sizable chunk of time in the young adult fiction section of a library or bookstore, you've probably seen his name.

Shusterman was born and raised in Brooklyn, and was an avid reader and writer from a young age. At eight years old, he sent a letter to E. B. White to tell him that he believed Charlotte's Web called for a sequel. (He received a response from White telling him that the book was fine as it was, sequel-less, but that Shusterman should continue to pursue writing.)

He attended UC Irvine, where he wrote a popular humor column for the school's paper. Less than a year after he graduated, he had a book deal, plus he was hired to write a movie script.

Shusterman has written a few dozen novels, so I won't cover all of them. If you want to know more about his work, check out his website.

Everlost was published in 2006 (and its sequels Everwild and Everfound were in 2009 and 2011, respectively). It is about Nick and Allie's souls, stuck in the limbo called Everlost, and their efforts to get out of there.

Unwind is the book we will be reviewing on Friday, and it was published in 2007. The rest of the series is UnStrung (2012), UnWholly (also 2012) and UnSouled (due in 2013). Unwind is about a society where, after a war, the agreement is settled that abortion will be illegal, but if, after a child reaches a certain age, there is reason to remove the child from society, they can be "unwound" and their organs will be harvested to help others.

The Schwa Was Here was published in 2004 and won lots of awards (like most of Shusterman's books do). It's one of those high-school-adventure books. I'm sure there's a trade term for it, but that's how I think of them. It's told from the point of view of Antsy Bonano (which partially explains the title of the sequel, Antsy Does Times) about Calvin Schwa, who was basically invisible, but Antsy noticed - and befriended - him.

The Eyes of Kid Midas came out in 1992. I am sorely disappointed that I didn't read it back then. (Or at least shortly after that; I was in first-second grade in 1992, and this is intended for 6-9th grade readers.) A downtrodden, bullied kid finds a magical pair of sunglasses that turn his desires into reality. I've heard that the story's resolution is a bit of a cop-out, but personally, I have no problems with deus ex machinas (machinae?). That's the beauty of fiction; those can exist.

Like I said before, that's not even half of Shusterman's work. Besides the dozens of novels besides those, he also wrote for the "Animorphs" and "Goosebumps" TV series, plus he wrote the Disney Channel movie "Pixel Perfect." If you're the kind of person who enjoys reading long lists of awards and accolades, here is his. Based on his website, it doesn't look like he's slowing down anytime soon.

By Its Cover: My Name Is Not Easy

And we're back for a second edition of By Its Cover, with yesterday's review book: My Name Is Not Easy by Debby Dahl Edwardson.

First Impressions

It seems fairly obvious to me that this book is not going to be incredibly uplifting, given the gray tones, the sad-looking facial expression on the boy writing on the mirror, and the feeling you get from seeing someone write anything not expressly cheery on a fogged-up mirror.

Afterwards

Called it... this is not a bright and cheery story. It's about the struggles of Native American and Eskimo children adapting to living at a Catholic boarding school in the 1960s. Absolutely not a delightful romp.

From reading the summary, it sounded to me like the boy on the cover was our protagonist, and we would hear everything from his point of view, but as I mentioned yesterday, the point of view and narrator is all over the place. If there is a single protagonist to be identified, you could easily argue that it is Luke, particularly since the title is clearly coming from him (he's the one who changes his name to make it easier for white people to pronounce) and he's likely the kid portrayed on the cover.

Final Word

I wouldn't call the cover misleading, but I think it would make more sense to portray all the key children, or none of them. It does convey the general tone of the book very well, though.


So I'm going to give you a little aside.  I read the eBook version of it, not a hard copy.  And while I did know what the cover looked like, I didn't really think about it.  Covers have a certain effect on us.  I'm sure everyone has heard the phrase "Don't judge a book by its cover" and while that's true in applications to humans, it's a little different when we're talking books.  The fact is, we DO make judgements based on covers.  A shiny, interesting cover will jump out at us more.  Granted, usually we pick it up and read the summary to see if we would enjoy it, but I'm sure more than one of you out there has read a book solely because of its cover (I know I have.)

By having eBooks, we tend not to have this visceral response to covers and tend to pick a book based solely on the story.  But that isn't necessarily always a good thing.  The cover helps us make connections, it helps us describe a book when we can't remember the name.  We also look at the cover frequently, trying to figure out when the scenes on the cover happens or what it means or what it has to do with the story at all.  The cover gives us clues to what might happen in the book, or why that particular part is important.  By not having a cover to constantly refer to, it actually may hurt more than it helps.

So while eBooks are good, they rob you of a specific connection with your book.

ReviewMeTwice: My Name Is Not Easy by Debby Dahl Edwardson

This week, we did My Name Is Not Easy by Debby Dahl Edwardson.  It was a very depressing, but at the same time touching, book.

Though the first character we see is Luke (and, generally, I would consider him the main character.  After all, the book is named for him) the point of view shifts all over the place.  We go from first, to third limited, to third omnicient, sometimes in the same chapter.  Really, I don't think that this did much to add to the book.  If anything, it was incredibly confusing because one second, you were hearing Luke's inner montage and then the next you were hearing Sonny.  It got really confusing sometimes.

I really like how she portrayed the power dynamics.  It was interesting that both Indians and Eskimos are an underdog, races of people that hasn't been treated very well.  Yet, instead of banding together, then tended to fight, to have these deep seeded rivalries. 

This book also does very well with the whole language/power thing.  The kids at Sacred Heart are not allowed to speak anything but English, taking away their control.  In the very beginning, Issac is taken away from his brothers and family, shipped off to a "Christian" family, never to be seen again.  The idea that Eskimo children could just be taken is an unfathomable one.  But part of the reason it happens is because that Luke doesn't have any power.  He's too afraid to communicate or, just doesn't know how.  We see a lot of him not being able to vocalize what's happening around him TO the people around him.

The power shifts later to the kids at Sacred Heart, however.  And, interestingly enough, it's through language that it's done.  They write an editorial about the tests that are being done on Indians and Eskimo alike.  Amiq writes a missing person ad for Issac and Luke then sends it to a Texas newspaper.  It's through this act of mere language, they seem to take back their school and, inevitably, their lives.

While there are some great aspects to this book, the writing just wasn't that strong.  It didn't really grab me.  Edwardson has some really interesting and impressive themes in her book, but her writing style just wasn't quite up to the task of the topics she was writing.

My Bottom Line 3 out of 5

One of my favorite things about doing this blog with Cassy is that she sometimes picks a book I would never pick up and read on my own. This is one of those books.

I didn't love it. But I didn't dislike it. I enjoyed reading it while I was reading it, and then I was done reading it and I probably won't read it again.

The point of view really threw me off. Let's have a little lesson about narration. First-person narration is when the character tells you what's happening. "And then I ate an apple." Third-person narration is when some disembodied voice tells you what's happening to the characters. "And then Alex ate an apple." Third-person omniscient means that the narrator knows about everything that's going on, not just what's happening to one character. "And then Alex ate an apple, not knowing that Cassy had poisoned it."

So you can probably see why it would be confusing to bounce around between narration styles and points of view. My Name Is Not Easy has this problem. I think I understand the choices Debby Dahl Edwardson made in this regard (I'm fairly certain all the out-of-the-blue third-person narration is about the same character, making him seem more distant to the reader) but it was difficult to get used to.

Other than that, there was nothing particularly wrong with the book. It told a solid story with developed characters and real events. (By "real" I mean that they carry weight, not that they're necessarily non-fiction.) It feels important, and I'm glad I read it, but it is not quite my type of book, so I didn't rabidly devour it like I do with some books.

Names in Fiction

An important component (and the title) of the book we're reviewing this week (My Name Is Not Easy by Debby Dahl Edwardson) is about the protagonist's name and what it means to him (and others), so I wanted to talk about character names today. Let's get academic, shall we?

Typically, named characters are more directly important than unnamed characters. This isn't to say that unnamed characters aren't important or necessary to the story, but they don't require the reader's immediate attention. Look at the Hunger Games series. Katniss is our heroic protagonist and catalyst for major changes in her society. Her parents are never referred to by name. However, they are extremely important to the story, because the choices they made shaped the person Katniss becomes (which, in turn, had enormous effect on the world in the form of all the events in the trilogy). In essence, unnamed characters who have any effect on the story tend to do so indirectly, and get none of the glory. If it makes it easier, think of Bambi's mom: nameless, but her role is vital to the story.

Unnamed parents are not uncommon in youth fiction. Having absent parents gives young protagonists more power (because they can do pretty much anything without adult interference). If a writer wants/needs to keep the parents present in the story, they can still get a lot of the effect of their absence by not naming them. But I'll talk about absent parents in YA fiction another time.

I got this from here

If your unnamed character is the protagonist, forget everything I just said. When you find this, it usually means you're supposed to be able to drop yourself into their place. It helps you identify with the character better, because you aren't distracted by the fact that they have a name that isn't yours. Some great examples include The Yellow Wallpaper (wherein a woman is kept locked up in her room - which happens to have yellow wallpaper - as a 'cure' for her insanity, but ironically, it causes it), Fight Club (which I have neither read nor watched, but the first-person narrator - the guy played by Ed Norton in the movie - is nameless), and The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe (our narrator never gives us a name - or even a self-referring pronoun - which has spurred the theory that the narrator could very well be a woman).

Assume your literature conforms to societal norms? Nevermore!

You'll notice that my examples of unnamed protagonists are all adult fiction. I have a theory about this: adolescents are egocentric. (I'm not trying to be rude; until the human brain has matured enough to build the right neural pathways, a person focuses  better on their own body, thoughts, feelings, and actions than anyone else's.) This means teens are already putting themselves in the protagonist's shoes, because it's easier for them to think of events on the book as happening to them than to the actual protagonist, regardless of his/her name. That's why Bella Swan is a perfect everyman for female teens: she has few clearly defined characteristics, and any physical descriptions focus on the object of her affections instead of herself. Any reader can easily pretend to be Bella while reading Twilight.

Tabula rasa.
(Which just sounds like insulting Kristen Stewart's emotional range, but in Latin.)

Then you have the named characters. The names authors choose for their characters are very important. Let's give Hunger Games another look. Katniss is named after a tuber (you know, like a potato). That's food. Her role is to feed her family, so this is a fitting (but not overly obvious) name. Her little sister's name is Prim, short for Primrose. I had to look it up, but primrose (the Primula genus) is used medicinally to strengthen nerves (the thought of saving/helping Prim is a driving force behind Katniss's brave actions) and many other uses such as fighting bronchitis, pneumonia, flu, sleeplessness, headache, etc, which emphasizes that Prim is gifted in the art of healing (like their mother). I can't speak to how much of this was intentional (that's Suzanne Collins' bailiwick) but it does all fit quite nicely.

Flower of a katniss plant

Some characters have multiple names: they choose titles or alternate names for themselves. The first example that comes to mind is Voldemort from the Harry Potter series. For the majority of the series, everyone calls him "He Who Must Not Be Named" because they are afraid to even speak the name he gave himself, because it is associated with such evil and unspeakable acts. The phrase "I am Lord Voldemort" is an anagram for "Tom Marvolo Riddle" which is his given name. He hates his family and wants to distance himself from his given name, so he creates a new, more respectable - and fearable - one for himself. Near the end of the series, when Harry has to face Voldemort face-to-face, he calls him "Tom" to demean him, taking away the name Voldemort chose and forcing his unwanted name on him, implying that Voldemort is nothing more than the little boy who used to go by Tom.

What did you call me?

Another great example is V (or Codename V) from V for Vendetta by Alan Moore. Instead of changing his name for prestige, like Voldemort, he changes it for anonymity. I suppose he also chooses "V" because it has ties to the camp that destroyed him, so it can be used to strike fear into his prey, if they pick up on who he is before he gets to them.

If you have other examples of anything discussed here (unnamed but important characters; unnamed protagonists serving as an everyman; particularly apt names for characters; or characters who change their names or assign alternate names to themselves) let us know about it in the comments!

If you'd like to read more about the topic of character names, check out some of these links:

This blog post from the Oxford University Press about names in literature (referring to the book Literary Names by Alastair Fowler, which is a pretty great name in itself)

This list from Mental Floss about 17 notable characters who were almost named something entirely different.

And for more fun, the real names that you may or may not know for the characters you definitely do!