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A review by emleemay
Tease by Amanda Maciel
3.0
Ignore the rating.
This book was almost impossible to rate due to the amount of thoughts - both positive and negative - running through my head when I put it down. I say thoughts and not emotions because I sadly remained rather emotionally detached from the characters despite the strong subject matter. The fact is... Tease is an ambitious book that will likely piss off a lot of people because the author refuses to take sides, even when presenting us with a narrator that is increasingly difficult to like and relate to. But that wasn't a problem for me, I thought it was one of the book's better aspects.
The story is an old one from a new perspective. It's about high school bullies and cliques: the mean girls and their sidekicks, their boyfriends, and "the slut" who attempts to interfere with their reign. Emma Putnam is known as the school slut and this book starts where she has just committed suicide after being repeatedly targeted and harrassed by Brielle and Sara. Sara is our narrator and the sidekick of the meanest girl in school - Brielle. The thing is, she never really understood the consequences of her actions and she never meant for Emma Putnam to die... but at the same time, she isn't apologetic for her own actions either and believe she was justified in attacking Emma because she was a "boyfriend-stealing slut".
This book starts to do something really interesting by painting us a picture of a scene without judgement - I never got the impression that the author was trying to impart a negative view of anyone, and even characters like Brielle had deeper levels and were shown to be victims of school politics and cliquedom, rather than simply evil. It's true that bullies are often scared, lonely and insecure in themselves and this book shows that all teenagers are, but they choose to respond to it differently. Sara was not evil, but acting within the social structure she knew. She is sensitively portrayed as a confused young woman who worries about her image and sex - I think it offers a sad but realistic portrait of what runs through many teen girls' minds when thinking about sex.
There was a lot of potential and power lurking in the shadows of this book. It will anger so many people, I'm sure, because of Sara's unrepentant narrative and the implied message that bullies are not to blame for bullying (something I struggled to accept too). But where the book shines with intent, I think it is also let down by dry storytelling, characters it was hard to give a damn about (not even because they're mean), and a sometimes immature portrayal of the characters. Every now and then, the book would slip into language that felt like what you get when adults write the way they *think* teens speak. "Like, ohmigod, I need to instagram this! And, wow, Twilight!" You get the idea.
I will keep an eye out for more by this author because I like what Maciel was trying to do, but I think I'll wait for the reviews to roll in first.
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This book was almost impossible to rate due to the amount of thoughts - both positive and negative - running through my head when I put it down. I say thoughts and not emotions because I sadly remained rather emotionally detached from the characters despite the strong subject matter. The fact is... Tease is an ambitious book that will likely piss off a lot of people because the author refuses to take sides, even when presenting us with a narrator that is increasingly difficult to like and relate to. But that wasn't a problem for me, I thought it was one of the book's better aspects.
The story is an old one from a new perspective. It's about high school bullies and cliques: the mean girls and their sidekicks, their boyfriends, and "the slut" who attempts to interfere with their reign. Emma Putnam is known as the school slut and this book starts where she has just committed suicide after being repeatedly targeted and harrassed by Brielle and Sara. Sara is our narrator and the sidekick of the meanest girl in school - Brielle. The thing is, she never really understood the consequences of her actions and she never meant for Emma Putnam to die... but at the same time, she isn't apologetic for her own actions either and believe she was justified in attacking Emma because she was a "boyfriend-stealing slut".
This book starts to do something really interesting by painting us a picture of a scene without judgement - I never got the impression that the author was trying to impart a negative view of anyone, and even characters like Brielle had deeper levels and were shown to be victims of school politics and cliquedom, rather than simply evil. It's true that bullies are often scared, lonely and insecure in themselves and this book shows that all teenagers are, but they choose to respond to it differently. Sara was not evil, but acting within the social structure she knew. She is sensitively portrayed as a confused young woman who worries about her image and sex - I think it offers a sad but realistic portrait of what runs through many teen girls' minds when thinking about sex.
There was a lot of potential and power lurking in the shadows of this book. It will anger so many people, I'm sure, because of Sara's unrepentant narrative and the implied message that bullies are not to blame for bullying (something I struggled to accept too). But where the book shines with intent, I think it is also let down by dry storytelling, characters it was hard to give a damn about (not even because they're mean), and a sometimes immature portrayal of the characters. Every now and then, the book would slip into language that felt like what you get when adults write the way they *think* teens speak. "Like, ohmigod, I need to instagram this! And, wow, Twilight!" You get the idea.
I will keep an eye out for more by this author because I like what Maciel was trying to do, but I think I'll wait for the reviews to roll in first.
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