Bibliofreakblog

Girl by Blake Nelson

Because there are so many books out there, it is rare for me to ever read a book more than once.  Girl, however, is an exception.  Starting when I was about 14, to sometime in college, I read it once every year or two, because when you are a teenager, a year goes by, and suddenly you look around and you are at a different point in your life.  You are a different person.  The 15 year old Andrea Marr we meet at the beginning of this book is not the Andrea Marr we send off to college, hoping we’ll keep in touch, but knowing we won’t.

Now, I know that sometimes I bitch about Gen X.  That doesn’t mean I hate all of Gen X.  And this coming of age tale may be mired in the grunge/indie/punk scene of early ’90’s Portland, but it’s still relatable.  In fact, while the music of today’s teens may have changed (arguably for the worst–I never said that there weren’t terrible things about my own generation, with emo being up there with high school shootings), the emotional attachment to music hasn’t changed that much.  

That sort of timelessness is why I continue to give Girl as a gift.  Andrea Marr goes through what everyone goes through, male or female, punk or prep.  

And I learned a few things from this book.  For instance: It’s O.K. to start sentences with the word “and”.  

More importantly, shaving your head is stupid, because only skinheads shave their heads, so why would you shave your head if you weren’t a skinhead?  (The not being a skinhead to begin with should be obvious).

Andrea Marr has been called a male Holden Caulfield, but I don’t know if that comparison is accurate.  While Nelson is a terrific writer, I don’t know if he plays with metaphor on the same level as Salinger.  But that’s part of Nelson’s straightforward writing style.  And through it all, Andrea is a little more sure of herself and her surroundings than Holden is.  And probably less crazy.  

Not to say that Andrea knows what she’s doing.  I mean, come one, she has sex with a guy for the first time, and what does he do?  He gives her a bullet.  She goes to the library downtown and stalks her crush (though if I knew Todd Sparrow, I might do the same).  

But she comes out all right.  In the end, you are dying for a sequel, even though you know deep down, that a sequel would ruin the magic of it.
Buy Girl on Amazon

If you like this book/author, you might like:

(my reviews in blue)

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time by Rob Sheffield
I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe
Prep by Curtis Simmons
Perfect from Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life by John Sellers
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
White Teethby Zadie Smith
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil And Gillian McCain 
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño 
Everything Sucks by Hannah Friedman
Drama Queers! by Frank Anthony Polito
Band Fags! by Frank Anthony Polito

Other works by Blake Nelson:

Paranoid Park
They Came From Below
Rock Star Superstar
The New Rules of High School
Prom Anonymous
Destroy All Cars
User
Exile
Gender Blender