Customer Reviews

Diva

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

DIVA tells the story of Caitlin McCourt, a sixteen-year-old opera fan and singer, as she attempts to break out of her old life by transferring to a performing arts school. Among the things Caitlin is escaping are an abusive ex-boyfriend, vacuous "friends" who don't understand her interests, and the advice of her overbearing and superficial mother. However, her new school comes with its own share of difficulties. She has to learn to dance and act as well as sing, and she's afraid she's too "normal" to fit in with the artsy students.

Caitlin is an incredibly sympathetic character. Despite being burdened with a mother who's more interested in flirting with Caitlin's guy friends than supporting her daughter, and a father who's started a new family that rarely includes her, she manages to believe in and look after herself. Her voice is realistic and open, letting the readers in on all of her insecurities (which many teens will share). Her decisions make sense for her, even if readers don't always agree with them, and throughout the story she comes more and more into her own.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Caitlin's story is how her relationship with her mother evolves. Much of Caitlin's personality appears to be a product of her mother's hot-and-cold attitude toward her daughter. As Caitlin steps out from her mother's shadow, she sees not only her own needs and desires more clearly, but also her mother's. Caitlin's discovery that there's more to her mother than she realized is poignant and believable.

DIVA will be enjoyed by any teen, especially girls, struggling with the pressures of friends and family. With its colorful and well-developed characters, it's an easy story to get drawn into. The only criticism I could make is that the novel doesn't offer a great deal more than other good titles with similar subject matter, but what it does offer is so involving that it's hard to complain.

Reviewed by: Lynn Crow

I am compelled to read pretty much any and every fiction book about a hopeful singer, dancer, or actress. DIVA offers a realistic, contemporary look at one girl's performing arts school experience, intermingled with her personal life, her past, present, and future.

I thoroughly enjoyed DIVA. Not only is it a great companion piece to Alex Flinn's earlier story BREATHING UNDERWATER, but it can also be read as a stand-alone book.

DIVA is about following your heart, even if it leads you to something that others may not understand, and overcoming your fears. Caitlin's love and talent for opera is evident, as is her struggle to come to terms with the abuse she suffered at the hands of her ex-boyfriend. Though this is a book and not a live performance, her voice, as it is written on the page, rings true.

DIVA is also about relationships, not only romantic but also related (mother and daughter, in this case) and platonic, friendly and competitive. There are so many different ways to connect with and be connected to others. As Caitlin learns to use her voice both onstage and off, readers will applaud her.

This is one of the best young adult books I've read! Narrated by sixteen-year-old Caitlin, there is a ton of excellent dialogue to break up any pretentious adhesion to a stream of consciousness monologue. We are privy to Caitlin's online journal, as well as her thoughts in italics. This grrrl is real and funny--she thinks like I do. Aside from growing up, becoming one's own person, and `getting along with your mother', other issues brought to light include battering, dead-beat dads, and peer pressure bullying. Characters are realistic and well-developed, situations are believable everyday occurrences (if not often desirable), and although resolutions to the situations are somewhat too neat and tidy, it makes for a quick and very satisfying read. On the strength of this book, even on the first few pages, I would read anything that Alex Flinn has to offer.

These are some great books, I'm working towards gettting all of them. I know they are for teeangers but they are so good I just can't stop reading them.

Don't be fooled by this corny or superficial title. This book has depth and meaning. It deals with the very real struggle of a girl trying to lead her life the way she wants to after recovering from an abusive relationship with an ex boyfriend.

Caitlin wants to be a diva. That's not what it sounds like, though. She doesn't want to be a stuck-up rich girl or a pop star, but an opera singer--a real diva. Sure, it's an unusual dream for a high school girl, but Caitlin's not your average teenager. Opera as her main interest doesn't exactly help Caitlin to fit in at her preppy high school.

As if that isn't hard enough, Caitlin is having a difficult time dealing with the past. Painful memories are brought up every day at school when she sees her ex-boyfriend, Nick, who physically and emotionally abused her while they were together.

To escape her shallow friends and her ex-boyfriend, Caitlin auditions for the Miami High School of the Arts. She goes through a lot of trouble to get there, but it's what she wants. She's going to be a diva, no matter what she has to do to get there. Caitlin still isn't particularly confident, and she isn't sure she has what it takes.

DIVA is a brilliantly written and unpredictable book that readers are sure to love. Don't be put off by the cover of this book, which doesn't really represent the story. Caitlin is an awesome character to whom readers will be able to relate, and she is a great example in that she follows her dreams, even if the people around her aren't always supportive.

This novel is a companion to Alex Flinn's BREATHING UNDERWATER, but one doesn't need to have read that to enjoy DIVA. Alex Flinn does a great job of creating three-dimensional characters and telling an interesting, original story. Caitlin's love for opera is what sets her apart, and her original voice is what makes this story a hit, certain to capture readers' attention from the very first page.

Reviewed by Jocelyn Pearce
10/18/2006

High school is so often a one-size fits all world. This book shows something very different, a world that isn't easy, but the rewards it offers are huge. Self-satisfaction, creative expression, and the hope of a new challenge, all in an alternative high school for the arts. I wish my daughter had a chance to go to a school like this. She would love the chance to be valued for her talents rather than told to conform.

Rock opera is about as close to opera as I usually get. But my lack of enthusiasm for the real thing wouldn't bother sixteen year old Opera_Grrrl, aka Caitlin McCourt. She is well aware that it is not everyone's cup of tea, but that does not at all diminish her passion for experiencing and singing opera. Furthermore, my own lack of interest in experiencing opera did not in any way diminish my becoming thoroughly and enthusiastically engaged in DIVA, the story that begins with Caitlin's successfully auditioning to become a student at Miami High School of the Arts, and leaving behind her old school in the wake of the serious events in her life that were chronicled in Alex Flinn's first book, BREATHING UNDERWATER.

(But don't worry about needing to read that book before reading DIVA. I still haven't gotten a chance to read BREATHING UNDERWATER. This is not like a fantasy trilogy where it's essential to go in order.)

"The thing about losing a lot of weight is that it feels temporary, like you're just a thin fatgirl, and one good Big Mac will send you exploding from your jeans again. I weighed a hundred and five when I left [the weight reduction] camp last year. Since then I've gained and lost the same fifteen pounds a dozen times. Right now, I weigh one-fifteen, which is what the weight charts say you're supposed to weigh at five-three. The guy who made the weight chart (and I'm sure it was a guy) didn't go to my school, though. At my school, the most you can weigh is one-ten, even if you're five-foot-nine."

Some may question the wisdom of Caitlin's ongoing struggle/obsession with her weight, and her incorporating the daily tale of the scale into her online journal. I found the teen's search for a consistent nutritional regime to be both realistic and admirable. In light of the horrifying estimates of childhood obesity and diabetes I discussed earlier this year in reviewing Eric Schlosser's CHEW ON THIS: EVERYTHING YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT FAST FOOD, I found a teen character here who has an ongoing investment in maintaining a healthy weight and who is not suffering from an eating disorder. Of course, getting away from her old school and her old friends aids in her being significantly more sane about it.

Another bit of sanity that I found in the story is the reality that it is not sufficient for Caitlin to have a gift for singing opera. She needs the commitment to work long and hard every day to achieve what she desires. Having been accepted into the performing arts school based upon her singing audition, she immediately struggles with the dancing that is required for class ensemble performances but, because of that commitment, she seeks assistance and does the work necessary to make the cut for the show. Most telling is a scene in which an older student with lots of initial promise but a preference for partying is informed after a mediocre performance that she should change majors.

"At lunch, I tell Gigi [about Mary]...
"Gigi rolls her eyes. 'You said yourself the girl wasn't very good. Rowena probably did her a huge favor. Why does it bother you?'
" 'But can you imagine not singing anymore? Why wake up in the morning?'
" 'But that's how you feel about it. If she felt that way, she'd have practiced more. Then she wouldn't be getting this news.'
" 'I guess.'
" 'Absolutely. It's like a reality show where they vote the weaklings off first. When you're five and dancing in your mom's dresses, everyone's a superstar. But then some people get picked to be "listeners" in music class, and others don't make the good chorus in middle school, and others don't get in here. And some people screw up. But that's not you, Cait. You can make it.'
" 'I guess,' I repeat.
"But that night and both days of the weekend, I sing scales for an extra hour."

I haven't even mentioned Caitlin's ongoing struggle to deal with the aftermath of having been the victim of physical abuse by the hands of her boyfriend in BREATHING UNDERWATER, or the struggle of Caitlin's dealing with a mother who resorts to making herself feel better at Caitlin's expense, and who becomes involved in a very questionable relationship herself. In fact, Alex Flinn packs an amazing amount of high-interest story into this book.

But for this oblivious-to-opera Deadhead, I was entranced, above all, by the aspects of the story involving a complex teen with a passion for a relatively unusual flavor of performing arts, who pays attention to priorities and is faced with overcoming a fear of failure while simultaneously dealing with the rest of her life.

First of all, my rating reflects the overall quality of the book. It was good and well-written, and it was a realistic portrayal of what teenagers face when growing up.

My only gripe is... the blog entries. The fact that Caitlin was a blogger didn't bother me, but I'm one myself, and the fact that she used '2' instead of 'to' and 'thx' instead of 'thanks' REALLY bothers me. Alex Flinn SAYS she talked to teenagers before writing this, but she must not have talked to a very wide variety of them, because there are many of us who would NEVER resort to this sort of laziness when writing. Honestly, how much longer does it take to type two characters instead of one, or six rather than three? And 'thx' looks to me like it should be an 'abbreviation' for 'thicks' rather than 'thanks'. Anyway, aside from the fact that these sorts of things are one of my pet peeves, it completely undermined the supposed intelligence of Caitlin's character for Ms. Flinn to use these 'words' when she was writing Caitlin's 'blog'. She didn't do this in BREATHING UNDERWATER when Nick kept a journal, and she shouldn't have done it for Caitlin either.

My fifteen year old daughter and I love to read YA books together and she did well with this pick. Caitlin used to be a fat girl who loved opera and didn't fit in. Now she fits in (barely, everyone at her school is 110 pounds max) but she's not sure she likes it. She slips off to Miami to try out for a performing arts school without telling anyone. When she's accepted the fun begins, like blackmailing her mother into letting her go and telling all her friends she's moving with her father, which would never happen. At her new school, things aren't a perfect fit either with the elusive, handsome Sean and his overbearing overweight girlfriend (is she really) and the outgoing artists doing conga in the lunchroom. The friend she does find changes hair color like clothes and has a pierced eyebrow, but Gigi also has a heart of gold. There are lots of twists with Caitlin and her mom and things to make you think about what it costs to go for your dreams...and what it costs not to. I'll have to go and get Caitlin's first book now too.