Customer Reviews

Undercover

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Cantors were once a happy family, but now they are drifting apart. The mother and older daughter, Jilly, match, with their gleaming smiles and shiny blond hair. The father is often out of town on business, sending her postcards from other cities. The youngest daughter, Elisa, would rather be alone with her thoughts than gossiping with her classmates.

Elisa has a talent for writing and poetry. At school, she secretly writes love notes for boys to give to the girls they like - the kind of girl she will never be - the kind of girl she has no desire to be. After taking her mother's old skates down to a frozen pond, she discovers a new talent: ice skating. She tries to keep these talents hidden and stay undercover, but, bit by bit, a classmate, a teacher, and her family discover them - discover her.

Written in lyrical, descriptive prose with occasional poems and quotes from Cyrano de Bergerac, Undercover is like Elisa: quietly beautiful, artistic, and hopeful.

As the mom of a 'tween and a teen girl, I wanted to stand up and cheer for this story. The best thing I can say is that it's REAL. It feels like the real thoughts of a real girl living a real life, and in this world dominated by High School Musical I think that's something we desperately need. And FYI: Beth Kephart has a great blog at

http://beth-kephart.blogspot.com/

As a secondary level instructor, I am always seeking well written novels for my students to read. Undercover, by Beth Kephart, is written in a beautifully descriptive tone throughout. She never misses a beat. Elisa, the heroine, is a girl whom most students can easily admire and desire to emulate. This novel helped my students understand why it's necessary to work on their language skills in order to have the power to communicate their feelings, hopes and desires.

What I like most about this book is the smart but funky way the narrator talks. One of my favorite passages is this one: "It's interesting to me, what others cannot see. For example: The precursors of leaves on trees, which can be seen only just in front of dusk, in March, when the setting sun turns the branches pink or some primary shade of green. Then there's the glow of the eyes on bees, and also the way a gerbera daisy stars out thinking it's yellow before it turns pink." Highly recommended.

Because Kirkus, School Library Journal, Booklist, and Publishers' Weekly all gave UNDERCOVER starred reviews, I thought I should take a look myself, and I'm really glad I did. It's not just a story about a nature-loving aspiring poet and her English teacher. It's a book about what can happen when you dare to believe in yourself. UNDERCOVER manages to be funny and moving at the same time

This book is absolutely stunning. I highly recommend it as an XMAS gift for all mothers and young adult daughters to read together. It's uplifting, challenging and spot on in terms of how young adults deal with their hopes and aspirations.

Kephart has captured both the poetry and struggles of being a young teenage girl. Undercover (Laura Geringer Books)

The true gift of this luminous novel is its narrator, Elisa, a sensitive young woman who likes to take what she can find "and make it an equation. Like colors are flavors. Or seasons are stories. Or clouds are ideas." She takes up residence in your heart as she navigates the natural world she finds solace in and the high-school world she feels isolated from. Beth Kephart offers both young adult and adult readers an intimate portrayal of the ache of loneliness, the power of language and movement, and the strength of family and friendship.

The buzz about this book is lost on me. It's one of those highly anticipated books--because it's a National Book Award Nominee for the author--that turns out to be deeply dissatisfying and disappointing. I hate it when that happens. I should probably learn not to judge a book by its awards/nominations. And it's weird, because whenever I write a review about these books, it seems like I'm the only one who doesn't find it so flatteringly written. I guess it all depends on your tastes.

I'm not going to deal with a summary like I normally do, because I'll admit, I did not finish the book. I stopped on page 139. I read the book flap's summary, which makes the book sound more interesting than it is. That should be a sin. I just wasted time off of my Spring Break just so I could read a book that wasn't even good?

As far as I'm concerned, the only reason this isn't a total flop is because of the writing. The poetic lines are thoughtful and you can tell that the author has put a lot of effort and time to string those sentences together. Although I'm not a fan of serious poetry (I like funny poems like Shel Silverstein), nor do I really understand it, I'm kind of not too awed by this author. Yes, it's poetic, beautiful, and all that, but I get the sense that Beth Kephart is just trying too hard to fit them into her story. She devotes short chapters to figurative language that doesn't fit into the story or makes things sound so much more complicated than it really is. You do not need to have beautiful description in every single paragraph to get the essence of your character or let your voice be known on paper.

Now, the storyline. I can only shake my head. I wanted to stop pretty early in the book, but I forced myself to continue. Since I read the summary, I kept waiting for something to happen, but nothing did. That's when I decided stopping halfway was enough. If there wasn't going to be action, did I really want to continue looking at poetic sentence structures? Nope. If I wanted to admire poems and metaphorical lines, I might as well pick up a book of assorted poems. But I didn't. I wanted to see how an author could write a book with awesome lines and still keep the essentials of the storyline. Failure. A good book does not make you contemplate whether to finish the remaining 150 + pages. A good book does not lose your concentration. I found my thoughts floating everywhere but on those pages sitting in front of me. And when I tried to focus, my eyes were doing their usual, "I'm going to skim now because this sucks and I want something juicy to happen already," look.

Moving on: Characters. I have no idea what Elisa is supposed to be. She's the kind of character that doesn't really exist on paper to me. She seems so unreal. The way the book starts doesn't give me much to infer about Elisa, and when her story progresses, I still just find her so bland. I don't understand why she doesn't have friends; don't understand how she's just supposedly great until the teacher tells her she's a genius, don't understand how she came to fall for Theo, don't understand what Lila has to do with it all. None of the characters here attract me, just boring, boring people who are sucked out of nowhere to be written into a book the get published.

I've no clue whether it gets better in the latter half, but I'm not about to force myself to try. I'll only get more irritated with every other chapter I have to read, so might as well save my time to pick up a better book.

Like a modern-day Cyrano de Bergerac, Elisa ghostwrites love notes for the boys in her school. But when Elisa falls for Theo Moses, things change fast. Theo asks for verses to court the lovely Lila--a girl known for her beauty, her popularity, and a cutting ability to remind Elisa that she has none of these. At home, Elisa's father, the one person she feels understands her, has left on an extended business trip. As the days grow shorter, Elisa worries that the increasingly urgent letters she sends her father won't bring him home. Like the undercover agent she feels she has become, Elisa retreats to a pond in the woods, where her talent for ice-skating gives her the confidence to come out from under cover and take center stage. But when Lila becomes jealous of Theo's friendship with Elisa, her revenge nearly destroys Elisa's ice-skating dreams and her plan to reunite her family.

Beth Kephart's debut is so beautifully written and her writing is so descriptive that you can see the book in your head like a movie. Elisa was a memorable character who has a unique way of seeing times.She was easy to relate to and was funny at times. The book was moving and it really captures your attention.You feel like the characters in the book could be people you go to school with. The poetry in the story, Elisa's great voice,and the amazing imagery will make it hard for readers to put this book down. I eagerly await Beth Kephart's future releases.

-Carol

www.bookluver-carol.blogspot.com

If UNDERCOVER were a movie, I would say it's a slice of life story. You both start and end in the middle of things, but it's still satisfying. Intelligent Elisa may not be conventionally pretty, but she walks in a world of beauty. She appreciates the outdoors and uses the nature around her to inspire poetry. In turn she gives this poetry to male classmates to aid them in attracting the girls they like. The person who taught her to pay such attention to nature, her father, is away in San Francisco. Her parents' marriage might be falling apart.

Elisa's at a crucial point in discovering who she is, but she's floundering. She's closer to her father and her sister is closer to their mother, but now her father isn't readily available. Her crush Theo is dating the possessive Lila, whom Elisa helped Theo woo. Luckily, she discovers those close to her are allies even when their relationships are strained. She's also encouraged by her English teacher, Dr. Charmin, who recognizes the potential in Elisa's poems.

As with any good slice of life story, UNDERCOVER works because reader's can see elements of their own life in Elisa's, even when the two diverge. I used to skate, although never outdoors and never over a permanently drowning girl. (I do live in Texas. Outdoor ice skating just doesn't work.) During my parents' divorce, my mother used skating to deal with her emotions. The scenes of Elisa skating on the pond, which are numerous, resonate with my own experience.

Likewise, I never had a teacher quite like Dr. Charmin. But I did have wonderful English teachers. I remember reading poetry and plays aloud in class. Of course, the only emotions I was ever overcome by were embarrasment and humor. (Deimyts and I read the two main characters of WAITING FOR GODOT. My character started asking his whether he ever hung himself, because it would give him a boner. Very startling. We also read two characters in a shorter Polish play titled THE UNVEILING. His character began to show another character how to properly seduce a woman - my character. This is the sort of stuff you need to be prepared for! These lines creep up on you!)

One of my biggest quibbles with most books set in high schools is the fact they never seem like any high school I ever attended. But Beth Kephart writes characters I could see myself knowing, in situations I could see happening. And she does it with beautiful language. Elisa's voice has a steady flow and Kephart uses elegant imagery. I hope UNDERCOVER not only pulls readers into Elisa's world, but pushes her world out into theirs and encourages them to read some of the prose and poetry mentioned within the story. (Believe me, it's worth reading.)

From In Bed With Books