Beige [Hardcover]

Cecil Castellucci (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 8, 2007

Dad’s an aging L.A. punk rocker known as the Rat. Daughter’s a buttoned-up neat freak who’d rather be anywhere else. Can this summer be saved?

Now that she’s exiled from Canada to sunny Los Angeles, Katy figures she’ll bury her nose in a book and ignore the fact that she’s spending two weeks with her father — punk name: the Rat — a recovered addict and drummer for the famously infamous band Suck. Even though Katy doesn’t want to be there, even though she feels abandoned by her mom, even though the Rat’s place is a mess and he’s not like anything she’d call a father, Katy won’t make a fuss. After all, she is a nice girl, a girl who is quiet and polite, a girl who smiles, a girl who is, well, beige. Or is she? From the author of BOY PROOF and THE QUEEN OF COOL comes an edgy new L.A. novel full of humor, heart, and music.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

While her mother is off on an archaeological dig, Katy is forced to leave Montreal and go to Los Angeles to visit her long-lost father. Her father, The Rat, is a drummer for the punk band Suck, and his apartment is a mess—even the soap is dirty. When he asks what Katy might like to do in L.A., she thinks, There is nothing I want to do in L.A. Not one thing. Except leave. Castellucci gives a fresh spin to the familiar exiled-teen plot by mixing details of the L.A. punk scene with memorable characters and witty dialogue. Nicknamed Beige for her bland personality by Lake (a girl bribed to befriend her), Katy becomes the merch girl, selling T-shirts for Lake's band, even though she hates its music. But by the end of the story, Katy has lost some of her Beige ways, and the lessons she has learned will help her deal with a sudden change in her mother's plans. Chapter titles of punk songs and band names will give readers a starting point for learning more about the music. Consider this pure Nirvana. Dobrez, Cindy

About the Author

Cecil Castellucci is an author, filmmaker, actress, and singer-songwriter. She says, "When I first moved to Los Angeles from Montreal, I wrote in a café owned by Eric Melvin from NOFX, had Thanksgiving dinner with Tim Armstrong from Rancid, and had my taxes done by a guy who was in the Circle Jerks. Everyone was So-Cal Punk crazy and I felt so . . . beige. I wondered what it would be like to grow up around adults that cool, especially if you were plopped into that scene when it wasn’t yours." She lives in Los Angeles.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Hardcover: 307 pages
• Publisher: Candlewick (May 8, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0763630667
• ISBN-13: 978-0763630669
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.2 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,468,884 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Small Girl. Big Party. Author of the novels Boy Proof, The Queen of Cool, Beige and The Plain Janes. Former indie rocker known as Nerdy Girl and Cecil Seaskull. DIY filmmaker. enfant terrible. modern 21st century flapper.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You'll love these characters!, May 15, 2007

By 

Mette Ivie Harrison (Layton, UT USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beige (Hardcover)

Beige/Katy is dumped into the Punk rock scene with her father in L.A. and is a fish out of water. But she figures it out. That was the fun part. The really great stuff, though, is the characters and their relationships with each other. I fell in love with Rat, despite his weird hair and inability to dress himself. I liked Lake Suck in the end, which is a trick because at the beginning she is very unlikeable. Cecil is so good at this, making you love characters you think you must hate. She did the same thing in Queen of Cool.

Buy this book! You'll be glad you did.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, June 1, 2007

By 

TeensReadToo "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beige (Hardcover)

When Katy is shipped off to Los Angeles to live with her father for the summer, she is less than pleased. Why couldn't she stay in Canada, or go with her sensible mother on her trip? After all, her father is Beau Ratner, the aging punk rocker known by his fans as "The Rat."

Katy is not a punk rock kind of girl. She's not even a music kind of girl. Katy's a good girl. Even if that means keeping it all inside. Even if that means hating everything to do with music--everything that, all those years ago, made her mother run off, do drugs, sleep with "The Rat," and get pregnant with Katy.

BEIGE is a fantastic novel, and Cecil Castellucci is a very talented writer. Her characters are wonderfully real and fresh. Her story is absorbing enough to be read all in one sitting (so start this one on an empty Saturday!). BEIGE is an honest, real, intelligent, and very well-written book for music lovers and those of us who can't tell the difference between the great and the popular alike!

It's a good music story, sure, but, more than that, it's a wonderful and amazingly good life story. BEIGE is one of my top picks for 2007 so far, and I'm definitely moving Cecil Castellucci's other two teen novels (Boy Proof and The Queen of Cool) up on my to-read list.

Reviewed by: Jocelyn Pearce

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Beige is her own kind of punk, January 16, 2008

By 

ZeeSays "zeesays.blogspot.com" (Raleigh, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beige (Hardcover)

Beige is an amazing read. When I started reading the book, I didn't think I was going to be able to relate to any of the characters. The roster contains Katy, our narrator, who let's face it, is one of those typical teen girls who never sticks up for herself and represses all her feelings, keeping them bottled up until she explodes. I hate characters like that. Then there's the free-spirited mom, totally oblivious to her daughter's pain. There's the father who never grew up. And then we have Lake, who is one of those people that thinks "really original" can only mean one thing. That goes around insulting everyone who isn't punk.

But Castellucci treats her characters with a velvet glove. You get inside their heads and see the true heart through the rough edges.

Katy is going to spend the summer with the RAT, her punk rocker father who is the drummer for a once infamous band named Suck. She would much rather be in Peru with her free-spirited mother, excavating caves and stuff.

The Rat lives in a hovel hole of an apartment and is totally wrapped up in making Suck live again. He bribes the daughter of Sam Suck, Lake, into "baby-sitting" Katy during the day. Lake thinks Katy is totally boring and beige. Katy quietly goes about her business, biding her time until her Mom might call and say it's time to go home. But when that call gets delayed, Katy has to survive on her own in a world that feels foreign. Katy spends her days listening to the musical hopes of Lake and being schooled in the way of the punk.

The book is about Katy creating her own version of original and sticking to it. I was very happy that she didn't just become punk. She learns the Sam Suck punk mantra, but she doesn't just jump on the bandwagon. And she comes up with her own way of making music.

The best think about Beige is that you could hand this book to so many teens. Your razor-edged teens will enjoy the punk scene, while more conservative minded teens will relate to Katy's feelings of being an outsider in this environment. I think guys will enjoy it, too. Each chapter lists the name of a band and song that teens could listen to while they are reading the book.