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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
the hardships of being 13, June 6, 2003
This review is from: Special: A Novel (Paperback)
After reading a review in EW I picked up this book out of curiosity and was not disappointed. Special follows a group of English school girls who in between tests and the end of the school year are dropped off at a manor. Bella Bathurst quickly lays down the caste system of the girls. There's the three popular girls, Hen a sick Scottish girl, Jules desperate for love, and Caz, a girl who seems void of any kind of feelings or conscience. There are the wannabes, and then there are the outcasts; Izzy a sickly fat girl and Ally, who's role is summed up in the first chapter when she extends her hand for a man to shake and he walks by her, unaware of her existence. A lot happens in the week that the girls are at the manor. The girls get drunk, fight, excercise, meet boys (some men) and are taken advantaged and take advantage. Bathurst has a way with description, noting people and surroundings down to the last detail without overburdening us. When the girls talk to each other it seems like something real 13 year olds would say to each other. The end is jarring, completly coming out of left field. It's comparisons to LORD OF THE FLIES is justified. I thought about this book for days after finishing it. Highly recommended.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not That Special, November 26, 2003
This review is from: Special: A Novel (Paperback)
The back of this book promises "a fierce, subversive, darkly probing exploration of female adolescence", and while it might be considered fierce, only the very naive reader is going to find it subversive or darkly probing. Instead, this story of a two week school trip by a group of 13-year-old English schoolgirls, is more of a catalogue of female teen issues, such as anorexia, cutting, drinking, date rape, divorced parents, absent parents, running away, anger, sexual identity confusion, and so on. The core protagonists of the book are all set up as types: Caz is the beautiful alpha female, Jules is her jealous and caustic sidekick, Hen is the Scottish outsider trying to join the A-list, Ali is the quiet wallflower , Izzy is the gross fat and annoying hypochondriac, Mel and Vicky hang out in the background, Ms. Naylor is the sadistic spinster school marm, and Jaws is the understanding younger teacher. Unless one believes that girls heading into teenagerdom are sweet little angels, there's little new here: They are cruel to each other-some more than others. They are jealous of each other-some more than others. They are terrified of being cast out-some more than others. And so on. Although Bathurst does a decent job of bringing the characters to life, none ever really rises above the level of cliché. More problematically, they often display levels of introspection and sophistication beyond their years. I had to keep reminding myself that these girls were supposed to be thirteen and not sixteen or seventeen. Some have likened it to Lord of the Flies, which is a rather lazy analysis, since the only theme the two books share is the ability of children to be cruel to one another. But while Lord of the Flies was making a much larger point above the nature of man, Bathurst's book is about the banal horror of everyday life as a teenage girl with no strong role models or support systems. In short, nothing special.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
American Prose(3*):::Book Chat:::, October 16, 2003
~In the book, Special, by Bella Bathurst she expresses the reality of the life of teenage girls. She also focuses on the physical and emotional struggles that teenage girls go through in this day and age. A group of high school girls and a few of their teachers go off on a two-week overnight field trip to the countryside of England. Each day of the two weeks the stories about each girl are told. Their emotions, concerns, and thought processes are expressed each day. The girls are Izzy, Hen,~~ Jules, Mina, Caz and Mel. They all have different personalities on this trip and express them in very different ways. Throughout their two-week stay at the house, which was once an Insane Asylum, they learn the little problems about themselves and the big problems they have with one another. Daily they are fighting and putting each other down but at the same time they are experiencing the peer pressure of being a teenager with drugs, alcohol and sex. A few of the girls already smoke and~~ find out that at a town nearby they have easy access to other types of drugs and such things. So they are easily tempted to sneak out of their house and go around the town to explore the different pressures and activities that are set before them. They are really just problematic girls who are very depressed and have nowhere to turn to, not even each other because they don~{!/~}t rely on each other. I think this book truly does express the typical teenage girls life and the author does a~~ very good job of describing the lifestyle. It was an interesting book to read.~
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