Paper Covers Rock [Hardcover]

Jenny Hubbard (Author)

Book Description

Release date: June 14, 2011

"In the tradition of John Knowles's A Separate Peace."--Publisher Weekly, Starred
"One of the best young adult books I've read in years."--Pat Conroy
William C. Morris Debut Award Finalist

At the beginning of his junior year at a boys' boarding school, 16-year-old Alex is devastated when he fails to save a drowning friend. When questioned, Alex and his friend Glenn, who was also at the river, begin weaving their web of lies. Plagued by guilt, Alex takes refuge in the library, telling his tale in a journal he hides behind Moby-Dick. Caught in the web with Alex and Glenn is their English teacher, Miss Dovecott, fresh out of Princeton, who suspects there's more to what happened at the river when she perceives guilt in Alex's writing for class. She also sees poetic talent in Alex, which she encourages. As Alex responds to her attention, he discovers his true voice, one that goes against the boarding school bravado that Glenn embraces. When Glenn becomes convinced that Miss Dovecott is out to get them, Alex must choose between them.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Starred Review, Publishers Weekly, April 25, 2011:
"Hubbard has a superb handle on her boarding school setting...A powerful, ambitious debut."

Starred Review, School Library Journal, June 2011:
"The story builds to a climax that will have readers on edge. It could be read alongside many of the classics that deal with friendship and loyalty, as well as deceit...Those who are looking for something to ponder will enjoy this compelling read."

Starred Review, The Horn Book Magazine, July/August 2011:
"Hubbard’s characters are confounding and intriguing...The traditional, buttoned-up boarding school setting makes the perfect backdrop to this tense dictation of secrets, lies, manipulation, and the ambiguity of honor."

Starred Review, Booklist, July 1, 2011:
"Both plotting and characters are thoroughly crafted in this stellar first novel. The poetry that Hubbard produces from Alex’s pen is brilliant, and the prose throughout is elegant in its simplicity. Reminiscent of John Knowles’ classic coming-of-age story, A Separate Peace (1959), this novel introduces Hubbard as a bright light to watch on the YA literary scene."

About the Author

JENNY HUBBARD is a poet and playwright, and has taught English in both high school and college for many years. This is her first novel.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Delacorte Press (June 14, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385740557
• ISBN-13: 978-0385740555
• Product Dimensions: 5.7 x 0.8 x 8.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #777,887 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic in the making - a worthy companion to The Catcher in the Rye and A Separate Peace June 23, 2011

By John Wetterholt

Format:Hardcover

Wow. Just plain old unfiltered, felt-from-the-seat-of-the-soul WOW!

I read this brilliant book last night. One sitting. The four most enthralling hours I've spent with a book in a long, long time.

A group of students at a boys' boarding school cope with the aftermath of a drowning death. How much do they tell? Who else knows what happened? What did they see? These questions form the wellspring of a stopry filled with tension, guilt, betrayal, as well as an assurance the life goes on after a tragedy.

Comparisons to "A Separate Peace" are apt. The author has clearly read (numerously) and come to intellectually own John Knowles' story, and while she borrows pretty broadly from the earlier novel's motif, her tale is wholly her own. I guess one of the reasons I found "Paper Covers Rock" so compelling is the time setting, 1982. I was a freshman in college that fall, living, for the first time, the kind of residential academic life portrayed in the book. The cultural references (down to Alex's father's love for Simon & Garfunkel) bespoke my cultural sensibility at the time and gave an air of ivy-covered familiarity to it all.

The structure of the novel fascinated me. The sub-headings were all consistently married to certain aspects of the narrative: variations on the title headed sections describing Thomas' death, sections headed by a student's name focused on their part of the tapestry, and I'm sure that had I ever read "Moby-Dick" the chapter headings would have rung out to me. The story was easy to follow despite the back-and-forth of its placement in time.

And the characters. Oh, how well-drawn they are! I really got into Alex's head and felt that, after just 181 pages, I really knew him. Glenn was nearly perfect.... I was initially wanting him to be just a tad closer to "too good to be true," like Phineas in "A Separate Peace," but thinking on it, doing so would have lessened his authenticity and made him just a xerox of Finny, and not his own man. The interplay between him and Alex during the implementation of "The Plan" was beautiful, and the fact that they each have measurable self confidence, couched in the peer-awareness and, yes, fear that can easily stifle a teen at boarding school, makes them both believable, sympathetic, three-dimensional, and entirely real.

One of the ironies overlaying some analyses of "A Separate Peace" is the interpretation (which I have not decided whether or not I share, even after 40 readings) of the novel as a gay romance, given the almost asexual presentation of the characters, setting, and plot. Perhaps John Knowles, writing in the relatively innocent 1950s about the unapologetically traditional 1940s, felt that incorporating such elements would somehow be inappropriate and/or complicate an already complex problem. "Paper Covers Rock" meets the nature of young men head-on, and adds nice depth to the story. Of course 1982 is a far cry from 1942, and frankness among kids of my generation was much more common and accepted than among those of Gene and Finny's. Miss Dovecott, thus, enjoys a realistic fullness I was not originally expecting her to possess. Measured in her official dealings with the students, yet slightly edgy, being only 5 years their senior, she rises above the status of plot device to become a fully realized Juliet to Alex's Romeo.

A smashing success. I'd be surprised if it garnered more than first-round Printz attention, given that the guilt-infused boarding school coming-of-age story is an entrenched subgenre, but that should not impede it from receiving broad attention (four starred reviews so far!) as well as numerous course adoptions once it becomes the backlist classic it is so clearly destined to be. Read more ›

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Captivating Read, a Classic in the Making June 14, 2011

By Daisy Whitney

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

PAPER COVERS ROCK is the story of a sixteen-year-old poet-in-the-making at a boys boarding school who harbors a secret and guilt. He and his buddies were goofing off by the river one fall day and one of them drowned. But was there more to the death than meets the eye? That's what PAPER COVERS ROCK unravels through poems, narrative and Alex's journalistic accounting of the events, all while our hero is falling deeply in love with his English teacher.

I had chills reading this novel. As I neared the end, I had the distinct feeling that I was in the presence of greatness, a book that will leave an indelible mark on literature for years to come. From the beautiful language, to the clever turns of phrase, to the deep exploration of classic issues like guilt, deceit and loyalty, PAPER COVERS ROCK truly has all the hallmarks of a classic.

This is a book that will stand the test of time and will stand alongside novels like THE CHOCOLATE WAR and A SEPARATE PEACE.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book! June 23, 2011

By NCProf

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Paper Covers Rock accurately captures many aspects of the boarding school culture of the 80's. There are enough twists in the story to make the reader want to find out what happens next. Alex's struggles to balance his loyalty and affection for his teacher with his friend's scheming and his own feelings of guilt are engrossing. I highly recommend this book for adults as well as teens.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Valuable Book January 25, 2012

By Jane L.

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I read this wonderful book in two sittings--would have been one were not for my small children to care for!

This book is a breath of fresh air in the YA genre that is so often a wasteland of trendy romance and/or bloodthirsty, amoral thrillers. It gives one heart to know that teen readers have an offering like this on the bookshelf. The story is told by Alex, a junior at a boys' boarding school. Alex has just witnessed the drowning death of a friend. The book is written as his purported journal as he struggles with what may have really happened that day, his feelings for his English teacher, Miss Dovecott, and the hidden agenda of his best friend who was there that day too.

Hubbard's young male hero is fully human in his range of emotions--he has his lusty moments, as well as his feelings of guilt. The reviewer in Kirkus doubts that the 16 year old could write with the eloquence which Hubbard gives him, but I don't. Teenagers are perhaps MORE in touch with their eloqent poet-selves than are older people, it seems to me. I believed Alex's every word. This book rang true. And it rang deep. I couldn't put it down--and--can you believe it, no one had to speak in valley-girl slang, have random sex, get bitten by a vampire, or burned to death. It is a character-driven book.

And it is also a thoroughly contemporary book in its structure--the short chapters and sub-chapters were non-intrusive and seem natural to the story, but also give it a very living, breathing, facebooking, twittering edge to the read.

John Gardner, that great critic who wrote On Moral Fiction, would be proud of this first novel by Jenny Hubbard. He would stand and cheer for her. He would say thanks for believing in the YA audience and not talking down to them.... Thanks for standing up for real literature, literature that shows us how to live, how to think deeply about write and wrong. Hubbard no doubt learned from writing this book, and we learn from her. To her, I'd say, keep teaching! Read more ›

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Confident storytelling and narrative ambiguity makes Hubbard's novel an ideal choice for school discussions August 17, 2011

By Teen Reads

Format:Hardcover

John Knowles's A SEPARATE PEACE is one of those novels that I enjoyed much more when I read it on my own than when I was assigned it for eighth grade English class. I still remember Knowles's emotional examination of boys' intense but guarded friendships, of accidental death and survivor's guilt, even though I've forgotten most of the details of plot, character and theme.

Jenny Hubbard's PAPER COVERS ROCK seems, in many ways, to be a direct descendent of Knowles's classic. There have been plenty of other boarding school novels published in the intervening years since its release (remember a little place called Hogwarts?), but Hubbard's book shares not only some basic plot points with Knowles's but also a certain atmosphere, a vibe, a willingness to dig deep into the cultures and contradictions of this insular world.

Sixteen-year-old Alex Stromm knows that attending boarding school at The Birches is his best chance to pursue the kind of life he hopes to find for himself. His parents are divorced, his mom largely absent and his dad preoccupied with his own teaching far away. Alex longs to write, poetry especially, and The Birches is a place where a boy who loves words as much as he loves running cross-country can feel at home. It doesn't hurt that his new English teacher is beautiful Miss Dovecott, a recent Princeton graduate who is only five years older than Alex and is the subject not only of his fantasies but also a whole lot of harassment on the part of his classmates.

The year is 1982, after all, and this is a boys' school in North Carolina. Cell phones don't exist, female teachers are a rarity, and homophobia runs rampant.... When one of Alex's friends drowns during a seemingly innocent outing, the fallout is immediate, but the real implications are complex and long-lasting, persisting through the school year --- and likely for the rest of Alex's life.

At the heart of Hubbard's impressive debut is a robust examination of the idea of "honor." What is more valuable? To support one's friends or uphold the truth? To pursue one's own passions or protect the status quo? Even as Alex is being challenged by Miss Dovecott to take his writing to new levels, he's being pressured by his best friend to cut ties with his beloved teacher in a particularly devastating way.

Hubbard, who has been a teacher and a poet, is able to confidently articulate the complex relationship between Alex and his teacher, and credibly render his nascent but promising forays into poetry. His voice elicits empathy, practically begs for it. But is it trustworthy?

Both the confident storytelling and narrative ambiguity of PAPER COVERS ROCK --- not to mention its school setting and essential exploration of some fairly hard-hitting contemporary and recent historical themes --- would make Hubbard's novel an ideal choice for school discussions. Here's hoping that teachers assign it, but also that students, just as the previous generation did with A SEPARATE PEACE, find it on their own and connect with it on both an emotional and a literary level.

--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl Read more ›