4.5

Original de: El Extraño Gato del Cuento

Una cosa curiosa del libro es que al inicio, antes del primer capítulo te dice que es un libro con spoilers, el problema, y como lo mencioné en unos de actualizaciones en GoodReads es que no te dice exactamente sobre cuál libro y/o película será los spoilers. Felizmente, para mí, fue sobre X-Files, serie que me encanta y vi casi completa así que no fue tan traumático y quise quemar el libro luego. Así que si quieres leer el libro, aviso desde ahora:

ESTÁ LLENO DE SPOILER DE X-FILES

Me gusta cuando un libro te dice que los protagonistas son fanáticos de algo y en realidad lo incluyen en la historia, y no como algo "mira, son raritos, que lindos" y ya, sino que la amistad de Rory y Lula está muy involucrada con su pasión por esta serie de televisión, tanto así que no solo tienen una colección grande de figuras de acción, póster y demás. Sumándole a todo eso, escriben un blog y participan en foros, han acordado ver la serie como si fuera su transmisión original (todos los viernes en la noche, a la misma hora y en el mismo canal). Siendo la serieholica que soy, que de verdad sientan esta pasión por una serie y no solo usarlo para nerdizar a los personajes, me parece sumamente genial.

LULA & RORY

Estaba un poco preocupada por ese asunto del romance con el jefe, tenía miedo que esto se convirtiera en una novela oscura, donde todos terminarán muertos o algo así, suerte que no, tiene drama sí, no puedo dejarme de sentir muy conectada a Lula más que a Rory, a pesar de que le tengo mucho cariño a él. Al igual que Lula tengo la sensación de que algo falta y no es raro para mí desaparecer (las personas se molestan mucho luego).

UNA FRASE

En Weird Girl and What's His Name hay una frase que me conmovió mucho, teniendo los pequeños problemas emocionales que tengo, recordar que vales, suele ser difícil, y la manera tan cruda, tan sincera y directa con la que Jay lo dice, me gustó bastante.

“Lula. [...] You exist. Okay? That’s really important. You’re here now, and you’re the one who gets to say what’s a mistake and what isn’t. Your parents not loving each other doesn’t negate you as a human being. This is your life, and it fucking matters, okay? Are you hearing me? You are here, and it fucking matters. You’re the one setting the intentions now [...] Kiddo. Don’t despair.”

Weird Girl and What's His Namees un libro que me gustó bastante a excepción por uno de los capítulos finales en donde se hace referencia a la religión, no digo que esté mal, solo que personalmente no estoy muy involucrada con ella y prefiero evitar todo tipo de contacto, más allá de eso un buen libro con buen contenido LGBT

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Dear Author,

You had me at The X-Files. Then, Rory's favorite non-mythology episode being "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose," which just so happens to be in my Top 10, sealed the deal.

Sincerely,
A lifelong Weird Girl and frequent What's Her Name

P.S. "Bad Blood" is my favorite non-mythology episode.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Seriously though, I freely admit that both my reading and rating of Weird Girl and What's His Name are most likely skewed by 1) my obsession with The X-Files and 2) my life experience, having been called "weird" a time or fifty, and also frequently known as "you look familiar" or "what's her name" to a lot of people in school.

When I first read the blurb for this book, I was worried that Lula and Rory's obsession with The X-Files would be window dressing, but it's really the glue of their friendship. (Bonus points because the author is actually a fan. I had so much fun naming the episodes only referred to by premise or quotes. Plus, both Lula and Rory are sci-fi and fantasy geeks, so there's other references, not just The X-Files.) Bonding over their mutual interests allowed them to find someone with whom they could identify at a time when who they are only seems to isolate them from classmates, family and society.

Ultimately, the story is about two friends who discover that while they have a lot in common and tell each other "everything," they're also very different and have their own secrets. And that revealing those secrets and differences doesn't have to mean they're not soul mates, and being soul mates doesn't necessarily mean they have to be "in love" or have romantic feelings for one another.

4 stars

"Like, why do any of us become obsessed with the stuff we become obsessed with? The stuff that kind of defines who we are. Is it some kind of destiny, or more like a flash of inspiration? Like was it a series of unavoidable events..."

Note to self: The second YA book I've picked this month in which a mother abandoned her daughter. However, the first book I read has a much different reason for abandonment and a different resolution than Weird Girl. ( )

Full disclosure: if you're the type of person who gets wrapped up in the lives of fictional characters, you might not want to read this one in public. You can only "have something in my eye" so many times.

Getting wrapped up in the lives of fictional characters-- and extracting yourself from their world into the real world-- is how Brothers chooses to tell this coming-of-age story. Set in 2008, the main characters, Lula and Rory, are already inhabiting a a fictional world as viewed through a glass darkly: they're recreating the experience of watching The X-Files as if it were still airing on Fridays at 9 PM, and both struggle with attempting to reconcile their own identities within a TV mythology: Lula, attempting to understand relationships in general, tries to use Mulder and Scully's unresolved romantic tension as a way to interpret her feelings for Rory, who is gay. Rory, fatherless, involved with a much older man, and closeted in their North Carolina town, dreams that Agent Mulder could somehow rescue him from an increasingly intolerable situation.

The first part of the book is from Rory's perspective, a linear first-person narrative. It's an ideal beginning to a novel that quickly begins to defy easy genre classification: like The X-Files, it draws on elements from multiple genres, and it's not possible to trace a single, A to Z plot trajectory. Lula's half of the novel is less linear, alternating between North Carolina and her disappearance destinations. Though these transitions can sometimes read as jarring, it is an effective way to portray the mind of a young teen who's realized she really doesn't fit in anywhere: her mind ping-pongs as a result.

Anyone who's guilty of overindulging in Southern Gothic literature may think of the search for the "we of me" in Member of the Wedding (a queer novel by Carson-- Lula-- McCullers); I did when I read Lula's heartbreaking confession that "I thought we were in this thing together." "This thing" is "being alone" (p. 73). What's interesting is that Brothers has envisioned what solitude looks like in a reasonably populated town, where one character has a (pseudo-romantic) relationship, one character has relatively cool grandparents, and there is a set routine of school-work. Supposedly, these two are in this together in the (if far from perfect) modern world, but the tropes of isolation and uncertain identity are articulated through media, online fandom, and flickering instant messages. What this novel does is dodge the Gothic pervasive sense of tragedy by holding out hope that, while a sense of isolation and alienation may be a painful rite of passage, there is still enough love in the world not to view this stage as final. It's formative but not shattering.

The many strands of the plot form a beautiful knot, however, and part of what is fulfilling in reading this is that there are still plenty of snarls when you reach the last page. The end is not at all hopeless, but it refuses to give any sense of finality in the sense that two very young people have ended up who, what, where, how they always will be-- and that may be the most hopeful ending possible.

It's been awhile since I was Rory's and Lula's age, but, by the final pages, I wanted to whisper, "show me how you got to where you are now." And then I realized: this novel has been telling me all along that there is no instruction manual, no TV show or book that lists the steps. The point is to resist inserting yourself into the narrative; instead, you stand close by and take notes, observing, learning, and maybe getting things in your eye quite a few times. If I learned any lessons, it's not to lock yourself into a narrative and that past narratives do not dictate the present or the future: definitely pass this one on to any teens you can track down, but don't write it off because it says "young adult" on the back: this one is for anyone who is looking for the truth that must be out there. ( )

Lula and Rory have been best friends, sharing everything from secrets to The X-Files. However, Rory has a few secrets that he hasn't shared with Lula, including the fact that he's sleeping with his divorced boss. The language is smart and the characters are flawed, great, stupid, clever, and everything in between. ( )

Mulder, it's me.

(Full disclosure: I received an electronic ARC for review though Edelweiss. Trigger warning for rape.)

"Sometimes you can't see how the stuff you do spirals out, like octopus arms, destroying everything in its path and ... okay, that's a crappy metaphor. Octopuses don't really destroy anything. I had to do a report on octopuses once. Octopi. Anyway, they're actually really smart, loving animals, even if they do look like blobs. I'm no octopus. I'm more like a ... like a big dumb puppy. Whipping around with its tail and its giant paws, making a mess, destroying everything without even meaning to, just trying to jump on everybody's lap and see who loves me best."

"You've seen one unrequited white hetero love story, you've seen 'em all."

Tallulah "Lula" Monroe and Theodore "Rory" Callahan have been best friends for as long as they can (or care to) remember. Fellow misfits at Hawthorne High - she's the "weird girl" to his "what's-his-name?" - they bond over their absentee fathers, mediocre mothers, shared appreciation for the male form, general bookishness, and - of course - their unadulterated love of The X-Files, which originally aired when they were just toddlers. Every Friday night at 9PM, they get together at Lula's grandparents' retirement condo to watch exactly one episode - their best effort to replicate the original viewing experience - and then dissect it on their shared blog, SpookyKid and BloomOrphan's Incomplete Guide to The X-Files.

Their seemingly rock-solid friendship is upended, however, when Lula discovers that Rory's been having an "affair" with his boss, the much-older (and still mostly-closeted) Andy Barnett. Scare quotes because Rory is seventeen and the relationship is described multiple times as statutory rape. Angry that her best friend has been keeping secrets from her (and maybe a little in love with Rory herself), Lula confronts him...only to go missing the next day.

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Did Lula run away to find her long-lost mother, who abandoned her more than a decade ago - or did she meet a more sinister fate? As Rory searches for the answers, he finds that he wasn't the only one with secrets.

Lula finally resurfaces, only to find her friendship with Rory in disrepair. Can the two friends and X-Philes find their way back to each other?

My love for this book, you guys? Might just surpass that of Fox Mulder in Kevlar.

First things first: The X-Files. As in, "Meagan Brothers had me at." When I saw The X-Files name-dropped in the synopsis, I assumed that its role in the story would be minor, or at least smaller than I would have liked. NOT SO! While Lula and Rory (and their larger group of friends and acquaintances) do indeed bond over a wide variety of pop culture phenomenon - obscure college radio DJs, Lord of the Rings, mix tapes (cassettes, no less!), Jane Austen, Guided by Voices - The X-Files looms large. Large enough that you might even consider it a character unto itself; the third MC, even.

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For Lula and Rory, The X-Files isn't just a bonding experience. They use it as a way of relating to one another, and the world around them. Both teenagers come from "broken" homes: Rory's dad left when he was young, and his mother is a barely-functioning alcoholic who throws him out of the house when she discovers that he's gay. Likewise, Lula can't remember her father or her mother: her mom Christine left Lula with her parents, Janet and Leo, when Lula was only three in order to pursue her acting career. Leo refuses to speak of his daughter, which only fuels Lula's curiosity; all Lula has of her mother is an old bag of trinkets, forgotten at the back of her closet. She knows even less about her bio dad. (To Janet and Leo's credit, they're quite accepting of their granddaughter when they begin to suspect that she's into girls.)

One of Rory's long-running daydreams is that Fox Mulder will pull him out of class, only to reveal that he's William: Mulder and Scully's long-lost son. Once Lula goes missing, the dream shifts: it is Lula who is their love child, and the agents need Rory's help finding her. Whether he's in need of a father figure or an ace detective, it is - sadly - a fictional character who fills the void.

Confronted with Mrs. Lidell's midterm just a few days after Lula's disappearance, Rory experiences a massive brain fart and resorts to waxing poetic about The X-Files in his essay question (which is most definitely not properly answered with a treatise on a television show). Mrs. Lidell, who earned that girl crush and then some, lets him retake it - but returns his composition books so that he can give them to Lula when she finally returns. The essay? So freaking beautiful.

Additionally, the will-they-or-won't-they, UST (unresolved sexual tension, duh!) in Mulder and Scully's relationship serves as a sort of barometer for Rory and Lula's friendship.

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Whereas Rory has absolutely zero desire to see them get it on - preferring Mulder and Scully Hand-Holding to Mulder and Scully Actually Kissing - Lula is a self-described shipper. Rory views his relationship with Lula as 110% platonic, whereas Lula wonders "what if?" What if I dye my hair Scully Red and prove to him that I'm his soul mate? (Don't worry, the story ultimately upends this trope.)

Speaking of thwarting expectations and smashing stereotypes, Brothers does a kickass job of it. The story's synopsis is vague enough that I didn't really know what to expect, plot-wise; and the story certainly kept me guessing. I even wondered at the genre when Lula disappeared: is this a simple coming-of-age story, or something darker? Murder mystery? Psychological thriller? A very special episode of Law & Order: SVU? Right before the narrative switch from Rory to Lula, I had the impression that this book could go just about anywhere.

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Brothers also does a masterful job crafting characters and allowing them room to grow and change and develop. Metamorphose, even. Rory and Lula are like butterflies emerging - slowly, cautiously, and not always peacefully - from their cocoons after a long, exhausting pupa. Rory's confident with his sexuality - to Lula's occasional detriment - whereas Lula spends much of the story struggling to define herself. With so few platonic friendships under her belt (either same-sex or otherwise), Lula has trouble distinguishing between "just friends" love (scare quotes because there's nothing "just" about a good, dependable friend) and lustful, "I wanna rip off all your clothes and maybe have your love child" love. Mrs. Lidell is too cool for school, but does that "crush" signal friendship - or something more? Just how much do Lula and Rory share in common, anyway?

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And Rory! Sweet, bookish Rory. Who woulda thought he'd ever try out for the football team - and make it? And be accepted by his teammates? And then move in with star quarterback and minister's son "Sexy" Seth Brock? And start dating the only other player bigger than him, good-natured but hardy-partying Speed Briggs? The culmination of Rory's story line makes me feel all warm and tingly inside.

Brothers deftly brings life and nuance to characters who could easily become one-dimensional: Lula's stepdad Walter isn't an evil monster who kept Lula and her mother apart; in fact, he's actually pretty rad, and way more understanding and nurturing than her bio mom ever was or could hope to be. The football players aren't all dumb jocks and social snobs; in fact, some are kind of nerdy, just like Rory. Mrs. Lidell might seem like she's got her shit together, but her life's nothing like she imagined it would be when she was Lula and Rory's age. Tracy's dad is crazy paranoid, but he means well, is high-functioning, and is preferable to her sane but uninterested mother.

There's so much to love about Weird Girl and What's His Name; The X-Files is just the icing on the cake. Or the ice cream? Tofutti, to be exact.

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(FYI, there is/was no such thing as a Tofutti Dreamsicle. Tofutti is a pretty rad brand of vegan ice cream - one of just a handful back in the '90s - but it has a soy milk base, not rice, and they never manufactured their own Dreamsicle. They do however make Drumsticks, which would be consistent with the ice cream cone Scully is holding. Low-fat, but not non-fat, for the record. Despite Mulder's apparent disgust, it's a party in your mouth, minus all the bovine suffering. YOU'RE WELCOME.)

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Definitely read this if you're an X-Phile, but also if you love a good coming-of-age story with characters that are as complex as they are diverse; a plot defined by its nuance and compassion; and prose that's both lyrical and cutting - and true to the narrators. Despite some early hitches - Rory tends to explain his pop culture references to death, thus sucking all the fun out of them - Weird Girl and What's His Name is a new favorite. The truth is in here.

http://www.easyvegan.info/2015/10/14/weird-girl-and-whats-his-name-by-meagan-bro... ( )