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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Presented as a series of notebook entries by the mentally and physically abused Julian Drew, much of Deem's (How to Read Your Mother's Mind) erratic first YA novel is written in a simple but irritating code. Numbers replace letters in particularly loaded words or phrases: "1M155U" is the equivalent of "I miss you" and 543 is "she" (meaning the woman Julian's father has married following Julian's mother's death). Gradually the reader comes to understand that Julian's father and stepmother starve him for days, make him sleep in an unheated garage and otherwise mistreat him. As Julian confronts his vast grief about his mother, he uses less and less of his code, finally dropping it altogether-but not before the reader's patience has been taxed. Julian's voice is disturbing yet brilliant-however, aside from its almost surrealistic climax and improbably promising ending, this dark book rarely rises above the level of a moody character study. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up-A challenging and oddly compelling story of an abused teenager who fights a heroic battle to deal with his mother's death and to survive the mistreatment of one of the most vicious stepmothers in all of literature. NB, in Julian's shorthand, means notebook-the only means out of his profound loneliness and pain. His mother died when he was in the fifth grade, leaving him almost instantly in the hands of "stepnother." She locks him in his garage room, virtually starves him, and inflicts an endless string of verbal and physical abuses that drive him nearly to madness. NB1 expresses his complete isolation. In NB2, he begins to make contact with a girl in his Spanish class, his English teacher encourages his writing, and he gets a job. In NB3, it all falls apart and he runs away to Wheeling, WV, where his mother died. Here, his prophetic dreams of a letter from his mother, the book Portrait of Jennie, and his obsessive desire to go back in time to rejoin his mother converge. Instead, he nearly dies and is joined by Susan from Spanish class who has run away, pregnant, from her own destructive home to be with the "'weirdest, nicest person I've ever met and the biggest puzzle I've ever tried to solve.'" All of the characters, even the most minor, are surprisingly vivid and real. The plot structure and the parallels to Portrait of Jennie are consistent and logical, and they add an intriguing twist to Julian's search for his mother and his past. But best of all, Deem leaves enough literary space between dialogue and action for readers to infer character and emotion, which is a blessed relief from the heavy-handedness of so many YA novels. Overall, a well-written book about a character well worth knowing.
Kathy Fritts, Jesuit High School, Portland, OR
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
Presented as a series of notebook entries by the mentally and physically abused Julian Drew, much of Deem's (How to Read Your Mother's Mind) erratic first YA novel is written in a simple but irritating code. Numbers replace letters in particularly loaded words or phrases: "1M155U" is the equivalent of "I miss you" and 543 is "she" (meaning the woman Julian's father has married following Julian's mother's death). Gradually the reader comes to understand that Julian's father and stepmother starve him for days, make him sleep in an unheated garage and otherwise mistreat him. As Julian confronts his vast grief about his mother, he uses less and less of his code, finally dropping it altogether-but not before the reader's patience has been taxed. Julian's voice is disturbing yet brilliant-however, aside from its almost surrealistic climax and improbably promising ending, this dark book rarely rises above the level of a moody character study. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up-A challenging and oddly compelling story of an abused teenager who fights a heroic battle to deal with his mother's death and to survive the mistreatment of one of the most vicious stepmothers in all of literature. NB, in Julian's shorthand, means notebook-the only means out of his profound loneliness and pain. His mother died when he was in the fifth grade, leaving him almost instantly in the hands of "stepnother." She locks him in his garage room, virtually starves him, and inflicts an endless string of verbal and physical abuses that drive him nearly to madness. NB1 expresses his complete isolation. In NB2, he begins to make contact with a girl in his Spanish class, his English teacher encourages his writing, and he gets a job. In NB3, it all falls apart and he runs away to Wheeling, WV, where his mother died. Here, his prophetic dreams of a letter from his mother, the book Portrait of Jennie, and his obsessive desire to go back in time to rejoin his mother converge. Instead, he nearly dies and is joined by Susan from Spanish class who has run away, pregnant, from her own destructive home to be with the "'weirdest, nicest person I've ever met and the biggest puzzle I've ever tried to solve.'" All of the characters, even the most minor, are surprisingly vivid and real. The plot structure and the parallels to Portrait of Jennie are consistent and logical, and they add an intriguing twist to Julian's search for his mother and his past. But best of all, Deem leaves enough literary space between dialogue and action for readers to infer character and emotion, which is a blessed relief from the heavy-handedness of so many YA novels. Overall, a well-written book about a character well worth knowing.
Kathy Fritts, Jesuit High School, Portland, OR
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
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