American Born Chinese and Thoughts on Graphic Novels

I had never read a graphic novel before this book. So far, I don’t think that this genre is really for me. I have always gotten kind of frustrated with really quick reads and short novels. I am always wanting there to be more. I am a really fast reader too, so that probably is a factor. It’s kind of a novelty for me when it takes a while for me to get through a good story. Another note is that I am not really loving the stories either so that might be factoring itself into my thoughts on the genre. I just feel like I’m not really reading - even though I understand that graphic novels are a valid literary choice, I just feel like I’m cheating the system. Also, with the addition of illustrations, I don’t use my imagination as much as I normally do. It doesn’t take any effort to visualize what is happening when it is literally right in front of your eyes. When I read The Hobbit, for example, I have to picture Bilbo’s hole, not being damp and murky but also not sandy. The image must come from my mind which makes it feel much more personal.

This all seems very backwards compared to my rant about descriptions in Feed but in my mind, they are very different scenarios. In one, there is no substance for me to work off of to create the world the characters are in, and the other has far, far more visual detail which doesn’t allow me to make the universe my own. I’m not trying to nitpick, but I feel that you need a healthy dose of each of these styles to successfully create an engaging story.

Brown Girl Dreaming Might be Growing on Me (But not by Much)

The format of this book isn’t growing on me, exactly, but I’m starting to try to understand the reasons why you would want to write a book like this one in the format of a verse novel. Jackie lives her life in chunks of time. She lived in the North, then the South, then back to the North and these constant changes and fluctuations can be related through verse. I still  think it could have been just as effective as prose, with just different styles or inflections to simulate these changes. I also think that the verse format gives jackie a very different voice. I went on Jacqueline Woodson’s website and she said that BGD shows her learning to love creating stories, even though she had trouble reading when she was younger and I think that can also be reflected in the verse by the very simplistic feel of using so few words at a time. They tell a story but are almost adverse to the idea of being loquacious.

I still don’t like verse in general, but I think I have to change my perceptions from the last post: If you are going to write poetry, tell a story. Don’t just make an anthology, make a story that can be made sense fo by people other than yourself. Tell a comprehensive story that is easily connected and put in order. I find it pretentious when people write a poem on an apple then a poem on a wagon wheel and say they are connected and flow so well together and show true thought. Nope. That is what I call forcing a square peg into a round hole. Don’t draw connections just because you feel that you are supposed to, do it because they are there and I think that Ms. Woodson has done this the correct way… for verse.

Link to Jacqueline's Website:

http://www.jacquelinewoodson.com/category/books-ive-written/middle-grade-titles/

Brown Girl Dreaming is..... Different

I have never been a fan of poetry. I can tolerate The Road Less Travelled and Shakespearean Sonnets and I have recently gotten to translate some latin poetry from Catullus and Martial, but other than that, I do not enjoy it. I don’t like looking for symbolism and I don’t like the meter or weird line breaks and i can’t really find a plot well in a poem. I truly wish i did like poetry. I think it is a fascinating concept to make musical art out of words, but my brain just does not like to think that hard about words, I think.

So, going into this, I knew it was going to be a struggle for me. I was not wrong. Why would you want to write a life story through short bites of words that neither give the full picture or explicitly give the reader important details of the plot? If you are going to write a novel, write a novel. If you are going to write a series of poems, write poems. Just, please, don’t try to morph the two and call it a novel. Just like in Feed, I become very very distracted when reading Brown Girl Dreaming simply because of the format. I can’t just read it cover to cover, but I must read a page, then think about what they are trying to say, then repeat for the next hundred pages and my brain gets tired. Verse novels are a very concentrated niche, I understand, but it is not one I really plan on giving another go. I prefer to immerse myself in my reading instead of analyzing every single word, or line, or sentence.

It's an Old and Tired Argument, But it Surely is Efficient: School Vs. Prison

I’m glad that Piddy got the help she deserved. I also completely understand the mentality that she had - the authorities (the administration) won’t actually be able to help, that it’s just a joke to them - red tape to jump over. It’s a very similar concept to that of prison. I know that the metaphor of public school vs. prison is long and drawn-out, but humor me. What evidence would Piddy have to trust her teachers or counselors? The only role she has ever seen them fill is that of the opposition. All day long, the teachers and administration hold positions of power of the kids, telling them where they are and aren’t allowed to be, what homework they have, disciplining them for being late, making too much noise, having an attitude, wearing the wrong clothes, etc. These children are, to a point, being punished for trying to be individual beings in a system that really just wants them to be mindless robots of complacency and obedience. In what scenario are the adults of DJ on her side? Whenever teachers have told me that they are on “our side” and that they are our “friends” just makes me laugh…

Piddy, who has strong women in her life - always believing in her and letting her make her own decisions and right her own wrongs, wouldn’t let the thought of being a tattle-tale cross her mind. Even the resolution the administration comes up with is in no way backing Piddy. It is just shipping her off to a different. No discipline for Yaqui, just Piddy.

I really liked how this book took on this division of power and how twisted it really is. I appreciated how realistic Piddy’s actions were in that I could understand what decisions she made, why they had to make them, and how she handled each new situation. It made me appreciate the point of view we were given and the choice of Piddy as the main character. Having someone like, Joey - for example, take Piddy’s place would have had an entirely different story, not just because he is a guy, but also how he has been influenced by his parents as to how to take a hit - sadly I mean that just as literally as I do metaphorically. He would have made vastly different choices from Piddy specifically on his confidence in these situations.

Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass is Far Too Long of a Title, but I Can Get Over It

I know that all our books so far have dealt heavily with poverty, and I appreciate that. Giving a realistic sense of being without is important. Yes, Anne Hathaway in Les Mis did an amazing job, but that is a very dramatic sense of the concept. Reading these things, especially Eleanor & Park and now, this are really interesting to me. No, I’m not trying to look at poverty like you would a lion at the zoo, but it is interesting to me simply because I have never experienced anything like what is described. I have never really connected to the stereotypical “poor” character in a lot of books because they are only defined by their income. Eleanor, Violet, and Piddy - oh weird, they are all girls… - are shown as so much more than that. Most authors that I have read are very heavy-handed in their portrayal of poverty - it’s like Fox News’s description…

I really appreciate how this book flips what we have come to expect on its head - specifically with Mitzi. Eleanor and Violet are the odd-ones-out in their respective books. But in YDWTKYA, Mitzi is the odd-one-out. She got away, she - in the narrative - is defined by her wealth and how that affects Piddy.

Of the books we have read, this is the only one with a solely interior look at poverty. The other two were of an exterior view, only what Eleanor and Violet wanted Park and Titus - respectively - to see.

The Two Things I Hate Most in the World: Weak Main Characters and Blaming Technology for Your Own Failures

I hate Titus. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him. I hate everything he stands for too. He is a dumb, stereotypical frat boy, who turns a blind eye on anything and everything that could be important to him, and to the world. Titus doesn’t have an original bone in his body. He never makes a move that isn’t suggested by someone else. I don’t understand why Anderson would want to make HIM the main character. I would have loved to  see this whole travesty from Violet’s point of view.

I’m sure Anderson wanted to force the idea that we (Americans, specifically) are brainless and unaware of what is happening around us, but I have never been one to think that way. In fact, while I know a lot of people that really only look into the issues of American life instead of globally, but I have NEVER met someone that didn’t care about anything other than themselves. I live and grew up in the “technological age” and while the older generations wail that we don’t know how to have meaningful conversation and we have no idea of how to do things the old-fashioned way, I don’t believe that could possibly be true. If, for instance, we were all thrust into the 1920s I’m certain that - in a technological and social sense - we would all get along fine, ignoring possible slang barriers.

So what if I, as an adult, would prefer to buy my clothes or find christmas presents online instead of going into a store? Who cares if I would like to spend an evening Netflix-ing with my boyfriend and cheap take-out instead of going to the movies and dinner? Times are changing, yes but in no way are they changing for the worse. Parents like to argue that their kids just want to sit inside and play video games all day, but they have no right to blame technology for their inability to say no to their children. Yes, children want to do what is fun, not what is best for them, they are like dogs in some ways: If my dog wanted to eat a chocolate chip cookie, I wouldn’t give it to her just because she wants it. Chocolate could kill her, so I’ll give her dog food and be the responsible party. You can’t blame everything on technology, and I’m afraid that that was exactly what M.T. Anderson was trying to do.

Oh man, do I have strong feelings about Feed...

I have had a really difficult time trying to define the universe this story is placed in. No matter where they are and what they are doing, I can’t picture the setting. I KNOW Anderson knows how to describe the surroundings, but the concepts he is trying to create are not fully fleshed out and with things like this, I feel like we need a much more intricate and comprehensive description of these surroundings specifically because we don’t actually have anything to reference them off of. The characters can’t just say “It looked like the Empire State Building” because they probably don’t even know what that IS. There is no way for them to connect what they see and experience to what we know. And BECAUSE of that, we need way more contextual description. Or, maybe, even some flipping illustrations would be great!

Plenty of YA novels use illustrations at the beginnings of chapters or even partially through a scene whenever the author feels it is right. YA books don’t have to be strictly texts and those images, whatever Anderson saw would have made reading this book so much less confusing for me. I do believe that every reader deserves to have an individual experience, but at least having a common experience would be nice… people don’t need to know every exact detail, obviously, because that would just be tedious, but every reader should AT LEAST be able to connect on the majority of the story - even if it is a simple as hair color.

Which one is it?