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3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
This was a really touching and real book. I have felt the same way before.
This is a story about 2 friends who grow apart and you watch them change and grow through the story. You see the people act different, get new friends, and see differently.
This is a story about 2 friends who grow apart and you watch them change and grow through the story. You see the people act different, get new friends, and see differently.
can Kate and Marilyn be friends again or are their choices sending them farther apart? Get story of finding oneself in the maze of middle school
Small deviants aside, little kids are friendly folk. Catch `em young enough and you can turn them into friends if they both like making chocolate chip cookies and having sleepovers. They are discerning, but friendship often trumps their differences . . . for a time. Then puberty appears on the horizon and all bets are off. Suddenly kids have to form strategic alliances with their peers. And that friend you made in the second grade? Suddenly you're beginning to realize that you two have very little in common aside from some common history. A fair amount of middle grade fiction gets devoted to this subject every year. Boys and girls go through it, often with a whole messload of hurt feelings along the way. But though it's a sequel to [b:The Secret Language of Girls|490980|The Secret Language of Girls|Frances O'Roark Dowell|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175193668s/490980.jpg|479200], Frances O'Roark Dowell's The Kind of Friends We Used to Be stands on its own as an original understanding of what it means for a gal to navigate puberty without losing herself in the process. Startlingly fresh.
This time it began with shoes. Kate's shoes. Kate recently decided that she wants to become a girl guitar player who can wear really awesome shoes that say, "Don't mess with me". In the meantime her former best friend Marylin is trying to get in good with the cheerleader community of their school. Marylin and Kate used to be best friends, but after a nasty incident that happened to Kate the year before they've drifted apart. Now the two want to make up and be best buddies again, but it doesn't always work out that way. Kate's finding interests in some things, Marylin's finding interests in others, and ultimately the question is going to come down to whether or not they want to be themselves or the kinds of people other folks want them to be.
Okay. So in the first paragraph I said that this book stands on its own. And it does, insofar as the author catches you up on some of the details. There was one moment, however, where my confusion could probably be directly attributed to not having read the previous novel. Chapter Two begins (called here "the stars fall over") and I'm merrily reading to myself. I read and read and read, and it occurs to me that the book has taken an odd turn. Why does our main character Kate suddenly care what the cheerleaders think? Have I gotten confused about her personality? I flip back, reread, and veeeery slowly I come to the realization that the point of view has switched. This isn't a book that comes entirely from Kate's perspective. Suddenly at the start of the second chapter we're in Marylin's head. That took some adjusting. As a new reader I'm not going to instantly remember any character's name for at least a chapter or two. Felt like I needed a warning sign or something. A kid in a similar position would probably do what I did too.
Not that the dual p.o.v. isn't a big charm in this book. Often we'll read a losing-your-friend narrative and it comes entirely from the point of view of the loser, rather than the lose-ee. By switching between the two girls you get a more complex understanding of the situation. Plus I love the lack of a whine factor in this book. There is very little whining. Kate is losing Marylin as a friend and that hurts, but she doesn't spend this whole novel bending over backwards trying desperately to do whatever she can to win her friend back. It's funny but neither girl really wants to give up their friendship. But they're like an old married couple that's grown apart, had a big split, and want to find a way to make the relationship work again. Only they haven't a clue how. Where's the Emily Post book on making your old best friend your new best friend again? These gals would need it.
I don't want to call them one-liners, but Dowell also has a way of writing a sentence that punches you in the gut with the familiarity of a given situation. For example, there's the moment when Kate's at Marylin's sleepover, but she's not blending in with the other girls. "She was feeling left out by people she didn't even like. It was insulting." Been there. Had that experience. I bet a lot of other girls have too. I love the moment when Kate inwardly approves of Marylin not saying a word about her clunky boots. "In sixth grade she would have told Kate straight out how horrible she thought her boots were. Now she was trying to manipulate her. It was a big improvement, in Kate's opinion." Dowell loves a good descriptive sentence too. "She was skinny and pale, with the kind of milky white skin you could see the veins underneath, like the little blue highway lines on a map." Heck, Dowell's even good at identifying school types that all of us know/knew. Like the soccer player "with one of those outgoing personalities that made it impossible to know if she liked you or not, because she acted like everyone in the world was her best friend, and how could that be?"
There's a moment when Marylin realizes that she doesn't know where she fits anymore. The cheerleaders aren't quite right. "She wished she could fit in with Kate, and sometimes she still did, but Kate was changing shape, it seemed to Marylin, and it was hard to know exactly how to fit in with her anymore." And that, in a nutshell, is the fate of many a childhood friendship that has hit the tween and teen years. There aren't good guys or bad guys in these situations. Just kids who are growing up and figuring out that their personalities and interests are diverging. Nobody has quite tapped into that reality as well as Frances O'Roark Dowell either. This book looks like every other fluffy tween girly friendship book out there, but inside kids will find a thoughtful, reflective, and ultimately mature (not to mention funny) take on a difficult time. Looks like fluff. Has a brain.
Ages 9-14.
This time it began with shoes. Kate's shoes. Kate recently decided that she wants to become a girl guitar player who can wear really awesome shoes that say, "Don't mess with me". In the meantime her former best friend Marylin is trying to get in good with the cheerleader community of their school. Marylin and Kate used to be best friends, but after a nasty incident that happened to Kate the year before they've drifted apart. Now the two want to make up and be best buddies again, but it doesn't always work out that way. Kate's finding interests in some things, Marylin's finding interests in others, and ultimately the question is going to come down to whether or not they want to be themselves or the kinds of people other folks want them to be.
Okay. So in the first paragraph I said that this book stands on its own. And it does, insofar as the author catches you up on some of the details. There was one moment, however, where my confusion could probably be directly attributed to not having read the previous novel. Chapter Two begins (called here "the stars fall over") and I'm merrily reading to myself. I read and read and read, and it occurs to me that the book has taken an odd turn. Why does our main character Kate suddenly care what the cheerleaders think? Have I gotten confused about her personality? I flip back, reread, and veeeery slowly I come to the realization that the point of view has switched. This isn't a book that comes entirely from Kate's perspective. Suddenly at the start of the second chapter we're in Marylin's head. That took some adjusting. As a new reader I'm not going to instantly remember any character's name for at least a chapter or two. Felt like I needed a warning sign or something. A kid in a similar position would probably do what I did too.
Not that the dual p.o.v. isn't a big charm in this book. Often we'll read a losing-your-friend narrative and it comes entirely from the point of view of the loser, rather than the lose-ee. By switching between the two girls you get a more complex understanding of the situation. Plus I love the lack of a whine factor in this book. There is very little whining. Kate is losing Marylin as a friend and that hurts, but she doesn't spend this whole novel bending over backwards trying desperately to do whatever she can to win her friend back. It's funny but neither girl really wants to give up their friendship. But they're like an old married couple that's grown apart, had a big split, and want to find a way to make the relationship work again. Only they haven't a clue how. Where's the Emily Post book on making your old best friend your new best friend again? These gals would need it.
I don't want to call them one-liners, but Dowell also has a way of writing a sentence that punches you in the gut with the familiarity of a given situation. For example, there's the moment when Kate's at Marylin's sleepover, but she's not blending in with the other girls. "She was feeling left out by people she didn't even like. It was insulting." Been there. Had that experience. I bet a lot of other girls have too. I love the moment when Kate inwardly approves of Marylin not saying a word about her clunky boots. "In sixth grade she would have told Kate straight out how horrible she thought her boots were. Now she was trying to manipulate her. It was a big improvement, in Kate's opinion." Dowell loves a good descriptive sentence too. "She was skinny and pale, with the kind of milky white skin you could see the veins underneath, like the little blue highway lines on a map." Heck, Dowell's even good at identifying school types that all of us know/knew. Like the soccer player "with one of those outgoing personalities that made it impossible to know if she liked you or not, because she acted like everyone in the world was her best friend, and how could that be?"
There's a moment when Marylin realizes that she doesn't know where she fits anymore. The cheerleaders aren't quite right. "She wished she could fit in with Kate, and sometimes she still did, but Kate was changing shape, it seemed to Marylin, and it was hard to know exactly how to fit in with her anymore." And that, in a nutshell, is the fate of many a childhood friendship that has hit the tween and teen years. There aren't good guys or bad guys in these situations. Just kids who are growing up and figuring out that their personalities and interests are diverging. Nobody has quite tapped into that reality as well as Frances O'Roark Dowell either. This book looks like every other fluffy tween girly friendship book out there, but inside kids will find a thoughtful, reflective, and ultimately mature (not to mention funny) take on a difficult time. Looks like fluff. Has a brain.
Ages 9-14.
Re-read April 2018: I had previously read this in 2011 but didn’t remember it at all! I loved it just as much this time as I did before. Friendships in middle school are so difficult to manage, and this book was a great look at how to be yourself and keep friends while making new ones.
Originally read in 2011: The sequel to The Secret Language of Girls is just as good as the original, if not more. Kate and Marylin are starting seventh grade and their friendship is still hanging on, but there are so many new facets brought in that it's exciting (and a little nerve-wracking) to follow them through this book. It's easy to feel like one of the characters' friends, or even like the characters themselves as you slip into their lives and get caught up in their hopes, dreams, and drama. It's a very touching book and a great show of how girls this age grow up and adjust to the world. Emotional, but not in a sentimental way, just very realistic and well-written.
Originally read in 2011: The sequel to The Secret Language of Girls is just as good as the original, if not more. Kate and Marylin are starting seventh grade and their friendship is still hanging on, but there are so many new facets brought in that it's exciting (and a little nerve-wracking) to follow them through this book. It's easy to feel like one of the characters' friends, or even like the characters themselves as you slip into their lives and get caught up in their hopes, dreams, and drama. It's a very touching book and a great show of how girls this age grow up and adjust to the world. Emotional, but not in a sentimental way, just very realistic and well-written.
I liked this book! It definitely was not the greatest book ever, but it was nice. A nice refresher to remind us that friendship is important and we should cherise it. I love the way the characters grow in this book; with Kate finding herself, Marilyn realizing to be more herself and not what others think she should be. I like that the emotions felt real in this book rather than cliche. ((spoiler part) proceed with caution!!)
My favorite part of this story was the very end where we saw what everybody was doing for Christmas eve and then they all come together to Christmas carol. It really just warmed my heart.
My favorite part of this story was the very end where we saw what everybody was doing for Christmas eve and then they all come together to Christmas carol. It really just warmed my heart.
I've always disliked books that make me relive my middle school years, but this one I actually didn't mind. I think Dowell has crafted an immensely authentic and refreshingly simple portrait of those years when friendships become so unpredictable.
The story centers on Kate and Marylin, childhood best friends who are coming off of a tumultuous sixth grade year with Marylin becoming part of the popular in-crowd and leaving Kate behind. The girls have made up but are still separated by their difference in popularity and changing interests. Kate wants to learn guitar and relishes her differentness while Marylin works overtime to fit in but begins to feel herself pulled toward student government and other un-cheerleaderly activities.
I really appreciated how complex even the secondary characters are, with their own stories, insecurities, and voices. New girl Rhetta's goth exterior hides a passion for fairies and make-up, and a wholesome religious family. Though there's plenty of questions, there isn't loads of high school angst. These kids are still innocent in so many ways, more nervous about how they think they're supposed to feel about boys then how they actually feel.
Though Kate and Marylin are the main characters, this is a story about their whole seventh grade class and the confusion that comes with growing up: growing out of people, growing into new people you never expected to connect with, and starting to wonder where you fit in. Nothing is resolved and much is left in the early stages but that's as it should be. This is a story that's just beginning.
The story centers on Kate and Marylin, childhood best friends who are coming off of a tumultuous sixth grade year with Marylin becoming part of the popular in-crowd and leaving Kate behind. The girls have made up but are still separated by their difference in popularity and changing interests. Kate wants to learn guitar and relishes her differentness while Marylin works overtime to fit in but begins to feel herself pulled toward student government and other un-cheerleaderly activities.
I really appreciated how complex even the secondary characters are, with their own stories, insecurities, and voices. New girl Rhetta's goth exterior hides a passion for fairies and make-up, and a wholesome religious family. Though there's plenty of questions, there isn't loads of high school angst. These kids are still innocent in so many ways, more nervous about how they think they're supposed to feel about boys then how they actually feel.
Though Kate and Marylin are the main characters, this is a story about their whole seventh grade class and the confusion that comes with growing up: growing out of people, growing into new people you never expected to connect with, and starting to wonder where you fit in. Nothing is resolved and much is left in the early stages but that's as it should be. This is a story that's just beginning.
I think I'll buy this for my granddaughters.
Nice to balance out all the negative middle school stories out there.
Nice to balance out all the negative middle school stories out there.
This book fell flatter than the first installment, and not much happened. I did still get that wonderful nostalgic feeling though.
The continued story of Kate and Marylin, now in 7th grade. Kate is learning to play guitar and dressing the part, while Marylin continues her interest in cheerleading and fashion. Marylin has the chance to stretch herself and break free of evil-headcheerleader Mazie Calloway's grip when goth girl Rhetta Mayes asks if she wants to be the writer on the graphic novel she's drawing. Though tempted, Marylin lacks the courage to be her own person. However, the door is not closed on Marylin, but left open to the possibility that she might yet chart her own course.
Kate, meanwhile, cautiously edges into what might eventually be a relationship with fellow guitarist Matthew Holler. The book ends with a movement into the historical present at Christmas-time.
Kate, meanwhile, cautiously edges into what might eventually be a relationship with fellow guitarist Matthew Holler. The book ends with a movement into the historical present at Christmas-time.
It's unusual for a sequel to be better than the first book, but I enjoyed this much more than "The Secret Language of Girls." I found the different story lines of the characters more interesting.