Sharks & Boys by Kristen Tracy
My rating: 2/5 cats
i am the person who will happily be on the receiving end of the question “does this milk taste bad to you??” i mean, what do i have going on that i shouldn’t be drinking your spoiled-ass milk?
and wendy darling tried to warn me off with this negative review, but i just had to see for myself.
and she’s right, although i hated it less than she did. maybe because i read it in a couple of hours, when i was stranded on the subway platform, waiting for the trains to take me home. or maybe i just have a higher threshold for that which tastes bad.
but this is definitely one of the least sympathetic female leads to come out of YA fiction, ever, really. so this girl gets dumped by her boyfriend (well, he suggests they take a “break” just before going several states away to an all-guy party) she becomes suspicious, finds out where the party is, steals her mom’s car, and follows the guys (one of whom is her twin brother) to the party, eventually, jumping aboard the boat they are drunkenly sailing, and hiding out, hoping to catch him in the act of infidelity or of confronting him with her boldness and then they will fall in love forever again problems solved yayyyy.
this is a terrible game plan.
even if the boat hadn’t capsized into shark-filled waters leaving eight people (four sets of twins, actually – which already has me rooting for the sharks) with no food and a lotta resentment and bad blood (sharks looove bad blood) even if none of the tragic parts happened, really – your plan is to hide in the bathroom of a boat with seven teenaged boys who have been drinking?? you don’t anticipate one of them is going to need that particular room?? worst hiding place ever, seriously.
but even apart from that, ladies – do not follow a man to a party to which you have not been invited. it is not bold and unconventional, it is creepy and stalkery. you weren’t invited for a reason, trust me. this is totally a caro move, you lunatic.
and it’s not even the big decision to track him there that is her only irritatingly weak and slavish character trait; both before and after then stranded out on the ocean bit, this girl is just… a pain in the ass. i would have dumped her, too.
Is that really what my thighs look like” I ask.
Because Wick and I have been dating for a year, I have asked him questions about my body before, weight-related in particular. He’s used to it.
“Your thighs? I can’t even see them. You’re covered in mud,” he says.
“So you’re saying I look fat.”
sigh…nooooooooo don’t dooooooo that! just because you have made someone ‘used’ to something, doesn’t mean you should carry on doing it. bad girl, bad!
and that’s not even the entire scope of the insecurity: she needs constant reassurance that she is smart and brave and useful. and while i know i get into moods like this, where i need to be told i am good for something or whatever, and even though there is ample textual evidence for why she is the way she is, it is a real drag to read through this character’s eyes. really. all the small passive-aggressive pokes at other characters, all the point-gathering as she weighs her actions against the responses of other characters. DID I MENTION THERE WERE SHARKS?? once sharks enter, you gotta stop being petty- it is not relationship therapy time when there are six other people in the life raft, in several inches of bloody water, covered in sea-salt sores and dehydrated and hallucinating. no one wants to hear this shit. it annoys me to be in the same subway car as a fighting couple, and i have the opportunity to get into another car. these people do not want to listen to your whining, and these readers don’t want to read about how nothing you are without your man.
or maybe they do. this milk tasted bad to me and wendy, but it might be good for certain self-involved chicklets to see how annoying a character like this comes across to others, and maybe learn to grow a pair, find a hobby, and adapt to life without a man for, you know… a weekend.
