Customer Reviews

The Torn Skirt

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

For those who enjoy books about teenagers and coming-of-age stories, The Torn Skirt is just for you. Rebecca Godfrey's offering, however, is a very dark, edgy tale of drugs, prostitution, crime, and runaways. Very good and very scary.

Sara Shaw is tough. Abandoned by her mother at an early age, she lives with her hippie, drug-addict father and plays the role of caretaker and billpayer as best she can. Suddenly, once Sara turns 16, things in her life start changing. A form of rebellion heats up inside of her, made more flammable by her father's abrupt departure from her life and a strange and elusive girl named Justine whom she meets while skipping school. Now Sara is on her own and not sure where to go from there. However, the girl Justine has piqued her interest and Sara sets out to find her again. This journey will lead Sara into a world of all sorts of illegal, terrifying things -- a journey that ultimately comes to a horrible conclusion.

I enjoyed this book, but I believe it isn't for everybody. The writing style is a bit poetic, which at times can be sort of weird (and annoying) to read through. Rebecca Godrey is quite talented, though, and the foreshadowing of the ending was enough to keep me turning the pages to find out what happens. The Torn Skirt does open readers' eyes to a new world of teenage rebellion and all the scary things that hide around each corner. The character of Sara Shaw is both innocent and experienced, and I felt motherly and protective toward this girl while reading her story. The mark of a good book: one where the author has managed to make me truly care about a character. Sara Shaw, The Torn Skirt, and Rebecca Godfrey will remain in my mind for quite some time.

In a word--and there are quite a few that can describe this novel--stunning. I was simply floored by the power of Rebecca Godfrey's words and her control over them. The story of Sara Shaw is at once universal and singular. She could be anyone but she can't help but be completely herself. I was immediately drawn into the vivid, alternately fantastical and gritty world of The Torn Skirt. When forced to put this book down in order to sleep or work, I continued to wonder of Sara and her life. Until the very last lines, I had no clue what would come of Sara Shaw and even then, the possibilities are many. Godfrey's use of language borders on the poetic but it's never flowery. She is a bright and economical writer. The descriptions are sometimes sparse in length but the images and feelings they evoke are rich and authentic. This is the book I want to write.

"Torn Skirt" piqued my interested when I first learned of it while researching the tragic story of Reena Virk, a 14 year old girl that was savagely beaten and drowned by her peers. Apparently Godfrey has been writing "Under the Bridge," a true crime book about about Virk's case. When I found out that she had already released a novel called "Torn Skirt", I decided to pick it up as I enjoy well-written coming of age stories.

Basically, the premise is this: 16 year old Sarah Shaw is a bored suburban youth that has been recently abandonned by her father. With nothing better to do, she sets out accross Victoria's underworld to find Justine, a street kid that offered her the hope of a more exciting life.

I finished the book yesterday in less than 3 hours, and today I am left regretting ever having bought it. Truly, I should have listened to the significant but dissenting reviewers on amazon. The TYPE of negative reviews on the site should have served as a warning sign. These reviewers weren't writing outraged reviews because they were shocked by the strong content of the book; they were instead writing reviews because they were shocked by how bad the writing was, and how unrealistic the story was.

As a teenage writer, I read fiction mainly for the beauty of words. Still, if an author possesses enough creativity and imagination, I'll read for the storytelling instead. This book lacks in both departments. The writing is incredibly bad, probably a result of the author's attempts to make this sound as if it really was written by a 16 year old girl. To achieve this, she regularly punctuates her run on sentences with uncessecary "f*cks" and "I really don't cares". 80 pages into the book, the book completely loses touch with reality, at which point I got fed up with the bad writing and stopped caring whether about when or how Sara would meet the "elusive Justine" again. Sara robs a john, drops out of school, breaks up with her boyfriend and her old crowd, leaves home, runs with a posse of teen prostitutes, moves in with a boyfriend and breaks up with him, is placed into a a group home, parties in a house of debauchery, is involved in a violent stabbing, and is put into juvenile detention, all seemingly over a few days. Please. What was Godfrey thinking? It doesn't help that all the teen girls in the book are all interchangeable. China, Amber, Justine, or even Sara - who cares? At one point in the book we are told that such girls are seen by the police as "bic lighters" - lost girls whose lives are seen as disposable. Ironically, the police are right about that, though not because they come from troubled families - these girls are disposeable because they are so one dimensional that it is difficult to care about any of them. Furthermore, another unrealistic element of this book is that it seems to cast the prostitutes and deliquents as young, fun loving girls having a blast while they make a few bucks. Basically, it emphasizes having a good time over the incredible hurt and pain that real life girls like these go through. Apparently, I wasn't the only person who picked up on this, because a series of teenagers left disturbing comments on Godfrey's site about how they wished that these girls really existed so that they could party with them or even BE them.

To be honest, the book seems like something I would write. I have known street kids, teen prostitutes and drug addicts, but I've never lived the life myself. Like Godfrey, I could take stabs at what that life must be like, but the end result would be underlined by a certain fakeness, a lack of sincerity.

I would recommend passing this one up, as there are far better books written on this general subject. The first - and you can bet that Miss Godfrey is familiar with it - is Evelyn Lau's real diary, Runaway. In it, Lau logs her experiences on the street in late 80s Vancouver as a teenage prostitute - and unlike Godfrey's Sara, that little girl really really, really could write.

The second book is White Oleander by Janet Fitch, which deals with an abandonned teenage girl who is shuffled from place to place through the foster care system. Unlike Runaway, White Oleander is really hit or miss. There are certain parts where it suffers from the same problem as Torn Skirt - it gets wrapped up in excessive teenage melodrama that doesn't come across as being quite real. At other times, White Oleander is so fresh and vividly painted that its characters and their problems are deeply touching. At all times, Fitch's writing is beautifully poetic, the mark of a woman that has mastered her craft.

As for Torn Skirt, it deserves 4 stars for the concept, and 0 for the excecution. Overall, 2 stars seems fair to me.

I'm still looking forward to the Reena Virk book, but admittedly less so after having read "Torn Skirt." Who knows, maybe fiction isn't Godfrey's forte and Under the Bridge will prove be a far superior work. One can only hope that will be the case.

The reviews I've seen of this book talk about drugs and wild nights--but believe me, folks, this ain't no ANIMAL HOUSE, nor Bret Easton Ellis neither. Sara Shaw is amazing, completely un-self-aware; you want to wrap her up tight till the storm passes, or shake her (a little) in hopes that maybe, just maybe, she could see about herself what YOU see in her; but you also know she wouldn't allow it.....This here's a literary gem, all the more powerful because it's not afraid to wear its heart on its sleeve.

This is definitely a quick read and I'm still undecided about whether I liked it or not. It is a very harsh, ugly story...and I read it on an exceptionally GORGEOUS day so it was a definite downer. At times I could identify with the protagonist, but often she was feeling much more lost and disenfranchised, almost, with the world than I ever felt as a teenager. A very accurate, and less commonly told, side to the coming-of-age novel. This book did stay with me for several days afterwards, so that's a good sign. I do love several of the quotes on the back, especially "Impressive...Godfrey writes with cool clarity and control that belie the out-of-control nature of the story itself...Copies will be passed from hand to hand in hallways, underlined in ink, defaced with graffitti." from the Vancouver Sun. I do think this book is very powerful, and were I to have encountered it 12 years ago (when I was 12 and obsessed with similar stories, such as "Go Ask Alice") I think it would have had a bigger impact on my life.

if you're looking for something wonderfully deep and significant, this book is not for you. in fact, if you are expecting some blindingly mundane example of a teenagers descent into corruption and ascent from said corruption, don't bother.

this book is important to me only because it is the most accurate description of what horrors can lie in the underbelly of teenage rebellion. And as a formerly rebellious teen, the descriptions and the situations are not much different from those I have encountered over the years. But more importantly even than the absolutely accurate (and if you don't find it accurate you've obviously missed out on the entire spectrum of teenage delinquency/criminality/addiction) depictions of what can happen when you've nowhere to go, is the emotions that are expressed throughout the book.... basically, anger turned to apathy. Love turned to Hate. And the beauty and wonderment one experiences when confronted by the strength of others; strength that so many of us lack as individuals.

I was so touched by this book that I bought three copies: One which I keep in my car, one for my collection, and one which I carry on me at all times. It continues to be a beautiful story no matter how many times I read it.

however, it is not a book for everyone. It is certainly not the right story for old people trying to regain their youth through literature. Nor is it for people with no sense of poetry; the writing style is odd, but certainly beautiful.
This book is a heart-wrenching must-read for anyone who has ever been abandoned, betrayed, disillusioned... or has lived through depravity and survived. It is for people who have cried watching everything fall apart, only to find solace in drugs, sex, criminality.

there is something terribly honest in the profane.

I picked up this book for two reasons: first of all, i work in a book store and since it came out, we've been selling tons of copies of the book off the display tables, which always makes me curious to read a book. And secondly, the author is compared to William S. Burroughs, and to compare any modern author to a great such as Burroughs, makes me skeptical, so i had to see for myself.

This book is very well written. The story is a flashback, so it keeps foreshadowing as to what may happen... but doesn't give away too much until the last few pages. She keeps hinting at what happened in little bits and pieces, which makes the reader very curious to put together. This makes the reader want to keep going - and for this reason i read the whole book in 3 or 4 days (while working full time and X-mas in between - so i didn't have much time!)

The story, is a little unbelievable though. It seems a little bit exaggerated that one little girl could have so many adventures in the course of a week.

But the author does depict the pettiness of high school well, and the boredom of kids growing up in small cities or suburbs.

I'd consider this a good read. Great to polish off in one weekend and feel accomplished... but then think about for days afterwards.

If you enjoy this... try also
Francesca Lia Block's "Dangerous Angels"
and
Douglas Coupland's "All Families Are Psychotic".

I have read various book of this sort -- a coming-of-age story of a teenager who learns the facts of life the hard way. However, Rebecca Godfrey's The Torn Skirt is written with a fresh approach to brutal honesty. The novel's language is beautiful and sinister at the same time.

After her father abandons her, Sara's journey is one of struggle and heartbreak. Her loss of innocence is gruesome and disturbing -- especially when she encounters various teenage prostitutes...

Few authors have dared to enter this uncharted territory in fiction. However, this book is so beautifully written it is to be savored over time, like an exceptional wine. One must open one's eyes and see that the real world -- especially when seen through the eyes of a child -- isn't sugarcoated. And that is why I love this sort of literature.

This is one of the best books that I have read in a long time. I have read many other teen drama stories and this is by far the best one. It has a realism and a feeling that this is like an actual story that has happened to a real girl. I loved the way in the story mad me feel like I was a witness and I was right there by Sara's side. But with the good also comes the bad the only thing I did not like about the book was the ending.

I really enjoyed this book, and thought of Sara Shaw as a girl in a fairy tale. She is constantly coming up agianst these shadowy figures. Wolves. Witches. (only they're real people) who are dangerous. Like Alice in Wonderland, she goes down into a crazy land. The writer is very good at creating atmosphere. The Red Room. The Blue House. These places all seemed real. Surreal. Beautiful. I could see Sara in her white uniform, or with her red hair, like one of those drawings of a girl in a fairy tale forest. There were many images that stayed with me, and continue to do so. I did find that often the chapters were too short. I would have appreciated more time in these places. Sara seemed to hurtle through everything. Always running. Never really taking the time to settle down or get close to anyone. The other girls also seemed dreamlike. Enchanting. China in her white fur coat. A princess or a witch? I hope they do not turn this into a movie and ruin it. All around, a book that stays with you. Makes you think about the world in a different way.