Perfect Fifths - Megan McCafferty

I just finished reading Megan McCafferty's Perfect Fifths, the final book in her series starring the ever-abrasive and thoroughly relatable Jessica Darling.

Oh my.

I’ll begin at the beginning and try not to give too much away.
I first came across Jessica Darling in the introductory novel Sloppy Firsts in 2002. While the cover (which, I know, I know, we should not judge our books by) made me want to put the book right back where I'd found it, I really liked the title. And am I ever glad I opened the book.

The series starts with Jessica at 16, a self-appointed observer at a small, clique-y high school in New Jersey who tries to relegate her acid commentary to her journals (though rarely succeeds). While she’s not exactly queen bee, she’s not unpopular, either. While she knows the other kids at school (since she’s been in school with them for years), she’s feeling displaced because her closest friend just moved across the country. Into this teen angst walks Marcus Flutie (sigh), the clever and sweet bad boy to end all bad boys. And the rest needs to be read for yourself.

It’s true that, having now read all five books, this is somewhat of a love story, and while that element is actually pretty awesome, the books are mostly great because of McCafferty’s character development: Jessica is witty and clever and we get to know all her witty clever bits because we’re inside her brain. Marcus is the boy that all of our mothers warned us about and none of us listened to the warnings `cause he’s just too goldanged cool. And even though these descriptors sound clichéd, McCafferty provides a bunch of nice unexpected twists to keep her characters from becoming too caricaturish (like the queen bee mean girl who becomes a radical feminist pseudo-lesbian in one of the later books).

This is chicklit for the disaffected and slightly cynical – for the well-read, somewhat abashed romantic “highbrownnosers” I know are out there.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

Last books I read? Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Something a little sad? I’d never read either of them before.

Lately I’ve been feeling pretty drawn to Classics that, until now, I’d overlooked. Purposely. Why do I do this to myself? It was the same when I was in school and refused to read Shakespeare; the same when I got to University and rebelled against the prospect of reading Timothy Findley and Robertson Davies. It seems to be a lesson that I have to learn again and again: these authors, these books that are not only studied, but read and passed down from generation to generation have been passed down for a reason: they’re good!

The truth of it is that, generally, something that gets elevated to Classic status is basically a sure thing: Huck Finn has not been being read and re-read for over a hundred years only because of the hype, and Treasure Island still stands as the template for every good pirate/shipwreck/adventure story ever made because Long John Silver rules.

All this to say: I enjoyed following Alice into her dreams so much that I’ve extended my reading list: there’s the fantabulous Mr. Roald Dahl (anything by him, really); P.L. Travers’ Mary Poppins; Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz; Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie; Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstocking; and in the non-fiction section (j398.2, j398.21) in kids’ we have stories of King Arthur, Brer Rabbit, some of Hans Christian Anderson’s favorites, like Sleeping Beauty and The Princess and the Pea… and so much more that I plan on being buried under a mound of books for the foreseeable future.