You know how Amazon lists the "key phrases" in each book it displays? Well, #3 on the list for Carol Plum-Ucci's The Body of Christopher Creed is "turboslut." Besides being a tasty piece of 90s slang, "Turboslut" tells us something about Plum-Ucci: she loves to endear us to the bad girls.
The Body of Christopher Creed has shown up on a number of summer reading lists in Providence, because educators think it's a quick-pick-with-issues. The plot revolves around a boy who is tortured by his classmates for 11 years until he suddenly disappears, leaving a mysterious e-mail that's either a suicide note or just a dig at his mom.
But forget Chris, because the truly interesting character is Ali, a.k.a. class slut. She's the cheerleader who can't keep her skirt down, and just being seen with her can get a boy in trouble with his girlfriend. But by the end of the novel, we're sympathizing with Ali, to the point where we want to tear out the hair (and earrings) of the girls who gossip about her.
In The She, which I liked even better, Plum-Ucci gets us to like Grey, a Queen Bee who drugs unsuspecting freshmen at parties and take cracks at the one-legged girl in class. Seriously.
That's Plum-Ucci's real claim to fame: she teaches readers that even turbosluts and bitches have backstories. Now I'm looking forward to checking out What Happened to Lani Garver. Who will Plum-Ucci trick me into liking next? The girl who sits on a toilet with asprin and vodka, calling her friends, threatening suicide? The girl who started the petition to kick me out of our lunch table? Or will I recognize myself this time?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment