Story for the Week
I learned of Kacey Musgraves when she sang a song at the 56th GRAMMY Awards about the impossible standards people face. Dennis and I watched together, and neither of us had heard of her because we didn’t typically listen to country music.
As she started singing her hit “Follow Your Arrow,” I remember thinking to myself that she was about to get bleeped because I could just hear where the second line was going. Dennis and I both kind of sat up with shock on our faces.
“If you save yourself for marriage, you’re a bore. If you don’t save yourself for marriage, you’re a….”
Now get your mind out of the gutter. The line is “you’re a horrible person.” The premise of the song, though, is to be yourself. Life is short, and you only live once. Ignore the haters, don’t worry about what others think because people are ridiculously judgmental, so “follow your arrow wherever it points.”
Even as adults, we can be snarky and judgmental (don’t deny it, you know you are even if it’s just a little), but I feel like the peak time for caring what everyone else thinks starts around middle school and goes through high school. In grade school, you’re all learning the same basics, playing together on the playground, inviting everyone in your class to every birthday party. You may not like everyone, but you all go about your day to day together.
By middle school, personalities start to really develop and clash, kids start to figure out what they’re interested in, and cliques start to form. When high school comes along, sure you have some classes with the same people over and over, but you have a lot more choice, a lot more extracurricular options, and you see yourself more aligned with one group over another. You’re a nerd (that was me), a cheerleader, a football player, a theater kid, a troublemaker, add your own clique here. And while you’re trying to navigate all of that, you have to try to figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life because…well, college, trade school, whatever you want to do once you graduate.
Corinne and I recently rewatched The Breakfast Club, a classic John Hughes high school story about five kids stuck in Saturday detention. Coming in from different social circles, they discover over the course of the day that they all have insecurities. They all have crap they’re dealing with at home. And as much as they are different, they are also very alike. The world will see them how it wants to see them, and that is not who they really are.
The vice principal in the movie wants all of the students to write an essay about who they think they are. At the beginning of the day, they see only their differences. In the final scene, however, they hit the point home that they have a lot in common.
“Dear Mr. Vernon, We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain…and an athlete…and a basket case…a princess…and a criminal. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, The Breakfast Club.”
I wholeheartedly believe that every single parent should watch (or rewatch) The Breakfast Club before their kids start high school because high school is hard, and kids can be vicious.😏 And maybe read a young adult novel like the one reviewed here once in a while. Because as much as kids can be the same, the way they handle one another has changed a lot since we were in high school. But if they play their cards right, it can also be the most amazing four years of their lives. 🥰
Book Review
⭐⭐⭐⭐
4 Stars for Cancelled by Farrah Penn
368 pages
Publisher: Viking Books
Publication Date: March 19, 2024
I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and Viking Books.
Publisher’s Description
Not to brag, but Brynn Whittaker is basically killing her senior year. She’s got the looks, the grades, and a thriving “flirt coach” business that will help pay for her ultimate dream school: Stanford University.
But when a highly incriminating video goes viral after the first rager of the year, Brynn finds herself at the center of a school-wide scandal of catastrophic proportions. She knows she’s not the girl in the video hooking up with her former best friend’s boyfriend (While wearing a banana costume, no less. Hey, points for style), but adding that to her reputation of being a serial dater, she quickly starts losing friends and customers. On top of that, the scorn she receives exposes the culture of misogyny that is rampant at her school…and Brynn and her three best friends are determined to take down all the haters.
But as she gets closer to identifying the person in the video that got her cancelled, Brynn must decide—is exposing the girl worth losing everything she’s worked so hard for?
************
Main Characters:
- Brynn Whitaker – a senior on scholarship at upscale Greenlough Academy, wants to study product design at Stanford, known around school as the Flirt Coach because she knows how to help other students talk to one another
- Tahlia Nasiff and Marlowe – Brynn’s best friends
- Cadence Frazenberg – Charlie’s twin, comes from an extremely wealthy family, ostracized once it was discovered she is pregnant
- Charlie Frazenberg – Cadence’s twin, an artist, stays out of the limelight
- Lenora Kahue – Brynn’s former best friend, the school sweetheart, Duncan’s girlfriend
- Faith Tobinson and Katie Delcavo – called “The Holy Crew,” started a club called Abstinence Angels, Katie went to “Jesus camp” with Faith one summer and then stopped being Brynn’s friend
- Duncan Rowe – Lenora’s (cheating) boyfriend, school jock, runs with the popular crowd
Farrah Penn’s sophomore novel tackles head-on the impossible double standards evident in any high school. I love young adult novels for the same reason I love watching teen shows on television with my daughter. They’re in-your-face honest and deal with situations every parent should be aware of because I think a lot of us forget how emotionally charged high school can be.
Set in California’s luxurious Pacific Palisades, this first-person narrative from Brynn’s point of view starts with her coaching someone about text flirting. She’s on an academic scholarship and the daughter of a divorced mom and an absent father, so Brynn earns extra money by helping students talk to their crushes. Her mother thinks she’s tutoring, which I suppose she is…just not the way her mom thinks.
Brynn’s client sees something on his phone and becomes extremely uncomfortable and takes off. As it turns out, someone posted a video from a recent Halloween party where it looks like Brynn is hooking up with Lenora’s boyfriend Duncan. And to make matters worse, someone sends a photo of Brynn from the Halloween dance drinking from a flask, and the Dean rethinks whether to send a letter of recommendation for Brynn to Stanford.
The entire book revolves around Brynn trying to find out who could be out to get her since she is not the person in the video. She makes a lot of missteps trying to defend her honor and really just ends up making things worse. Over the course of the school year, Brynn, Cadence, Tahlia, Marlowe, and Charlie are determined to get to the truth, and while they attempt to get there, they expose the double standards so prevalent in high school.
While people look down on Brynn for allegedly hooking up with Duncan, no one makes a peep about Duncan. Lenora doesn’t even break up with him. Cadence is ostracized for being a pregnant teenager, but the boy who got her pregnant goes about his senior year unscathed. Even the Dean doubts Brynn’s credibility because she’s historically kind of toed right up to the line. He accuses her of making a fake online profile to make it look like someone else Airdropped an old risqué picture of her to everyone in school, and he does nothing when someone trashes her uniform sweater and the books in her locker. The story lines are painfully realistic, and I was eager to see how the final months played out.
Each chapter starts with three comments that we assume are Snapchat or Instagram or some other social media and show attitudes changing. I’m not entirely sure they worked since they didn’t always relate to the chapters, and it was pretty obvious from the way things played out that attitudes were changing. I think the book would be fine without them. That said, I also like that Brynn’s happily ever after isn’t all puppies and rainbows. It’s not perfect, and that’s life.
I would read Farrah Penn in the future, and I might go back and read her debut the next time I’m in the mood for a good young adult novel.
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