But, um, I didn't.
And that brings me to what I want to talk about first before I delve into everything I want to explore about the book: negative opinions. I'm not really a fan of them. Well, actually, I do enjoy reading criticism of things I either don't like or haven't read yet and am not sure if I'll like. But mostly, I like hearing why books and other stories are important to people, and even if there's something I didn't really enjoy or thought was meh, I love reading about how it meant something to others.
Reviews of books I like are pretty easy. And even when there were a handful of books a year ago that I was expecting to like but didn't, I was confident about saying that. Usually, I felt very mixed and could understand why other liked it, but I knew there was something not for me (usually romance). The thing is, it's fairly easy to tell when you are not enjoying a book, but when you don't you are expected to justify that. And often, that is what I feel nervous about.
What makes me question my validity on this particular review is that a large part of what I didn't enjoy was on sort of ideological terms and, I suppose, I'm possibly "doing it wrong." I'm also not very comfortable discussing ideology because as far as I'm concerned, I'm still cooking. There's things I'd like to learn before making any sort of statement.
The first review of this sort was The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, which I had read a few months before blogging regularly and I wrote some general comments when I rated the book on Goodreads when I revived my old account. The book was not for me in some ways which contributed to the way I felt about it, but I had some gripes with it as well. It wasn't until someone my age who I followed on the site read the book and had a similar reaction that I tried to write a bit more and posted it here, although I've since reverted it to draft form because again, I'm afraid of being wrong. Basically, despite all the praise for the book being feminist, there were a few things the main character said that felt less than so, and the conflict seemed so inconsequential because it was so privileged. (I also took some personal offense to how she described her roommate's steady boyfriend--the only guy in the book who isn't a jerk--as sweet but not sexually attractive. But like the rest of this, here isn't the place to explain.)
The second not-too-positive review was Glory O'Brien's History of the Future by A.S. King, one of my favorite authors who also happens to be very good friends with Andrew Smith, another thing making me feel guilty (or possibly hypocritical?) about this post right here. This review I posted after some deliberation, but again I'm shaky in how I feel about it, calling the post "rambles" and deciding not to cross-post it to my Tumblr where most of my traffic comes through. I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as her other work and it didn't come together for me. But I also disputed this apparently feminist book on ideological terms, because I disliked the way Glory talked about other women (something that was never really resolved), and the futuristic aspects were very far-fetched to me--and even though they weren't really meant to be the truth, I think, the amount of reviews describing it as a chilling predication that you could see happening leaves me scratching my head. So once again, was I doing this wrong? Was I betraying other women? (And I actually do like what King has to say on feminism from what I've seen, especially the idea of harmful divides like "girl book" and "boy book.")
With Grasshopper Jungle the story is almost reversed (or so it seems, because why do I feel like these things are polar?), in that I agree with the feminist narrative that this isn't a great book for women, and that bothered me. Just like the above two books bothered me despite their apparent feminist credentials (though with Glory it was more the story as a whole). So I'm fearing backlash from a whole new set of people, I suppose. That, and to be called hypocritical because there are other feminist readings of things that I don't agree with, as pointed out above and with other things I've publicly said that aren't book related. (Yes, I know feminism is ideally a discussion but there have been many interpretations over the years and I don't know exactly where mine fits. And again, things change with experience.)
And this extends across other things I love, as well, and like to write about but am sometimes afraid to. It's something I really want to work on in the future. But right now, let me be honest. Just like Andrew Smith gets praised for. (Snark activated? I think so.) And like he talks about his books and characters not wanting to be put in a box, I also don't want to be put in a box ideologically, which is something I've been struggling with for a little while, and a lot of it goes back to my "words have no meaning" philosophy as well as my general anxiety over what people think. But unlike a lot of things in life, I'm comfortable taking sides on books, as I can tell how I feel about them, and even point out shortcomings of things I enjoyed.
This was not really one of those. Granted, I was enjoying the beginning more than I expected to, but after a while it started dragging and felt like it was going nowhere. I'm not sure where exactly my opinion of this book flipped around, but for the last 150 pages or more I was in the mindset of "ugh let's just get this over with."
(Spoilers from here on out.)
First of all, I'm fine with weird things. That was actually why I wanted to read this. And it disappointed me. It takes quite a while for everything to be set in motion and once it is, the characters are fairly far removed from it, there's a lot of backstory, and the giant bugs are just literally giant bugs. (I mean, I don't know what I expected, but bugs are not particularly interesting.) Also, the novel as a whole was slow going and repetitious, and I think I would have found the backstory more entertaining if I hadn't already read 200 pages talking about similar things. I don't mind repetition as a literary device, which is also used frequently here, but this just felt like it spun its wheels. And it was especially irritating that Austin had to recount what everyone in the town tangentially related to the story was doing before something important happened; this occurred too frequently and the technique lost its value. Some of the family history sections also repeated aspects already told.
I also don't mind the "boy stuff" that is so frequently discussed throughout the novel, although it does kind of bug me that girls who so freely talk about their bodies and sexuality are less frequent to nonexistent in YA. However, I think some things were not warranted, particularly the parts about the vice president, which just seemed overly gratuitous, and again the constant talk got repetitious and lost the effect. I also find generalizations such as "all boys..." or "Polish boys..." which are frequent throughout, to be tiresome and inevitably, wrong. (I even sent some of the quotes to my boyfriend, who disagreed with them.) I mean, I understand that Austin is not supposed to be correct in everything and its part of his character to make these sweeping statements, but he also never learns that much to the contrary. Furthermore, his brother who lost his testicles and a leg in war but is still alive is offhandedly described as "ruined." I understand the fear and some of the humor of losing balls, which is actually topic that comes up a lot, but that seemed a litle disrespectful.
[On a more nitpicky note, Austin tells us about how a chemistry class concoction "looked and felt just like sperm," but that's silly because sperm is microscopic and what he's really taking about is semen. Austin also says that all the boys understood because they masturbated, but only some of the girls saw the comparison. Girls masturbating is only mentioned in passing at once, when Austin thinks about his girlfriend doing it and it turns him on. Basically, I'm just annoyed that this sort of thing is so often the case in YA.]
The best part of Grasshopper Jungle was Austin's struggle with and exploration of his sexuality, but I still found that to be disappointing. To reference that article I linked above again, which based on a quick search the only place I've seen reference this (though Twitter might be a different story), apparently Andrew Smith was on a diversity panel at a conference with many diverse author (who are generally known for writing diversity) and he said he was surprised that Grasshopper Jungle was called a "bisexual book" and that he just wrote what came to him. And honestly, I think it shows. Through the majority of the book, Austin muses on his conflicted desires for his best friend Robby, who is gay, and his girlfriend, Shann. He repeatedly says he is "confused" and fantasizes about threesomes; I don't think these are done as distastefully as they could have been, but I do know that two negative stereotypes about bisexual people are that they are "just confused" or want/should be invited to threesomes. It turns out, just 50 pages from the end of the book, that he has known about the word "bisexual" all along, but he says he's not sure if that's right and he never really confronts it again. At the end, he tells us that he just wants to remain "confused." In other words, he never comes to terms with his identity, which I know is a huge comforting step for LGBT people. I am quite conflicted over this subplot. [An update: When I first published this post, I hadn't come to complete terms with the fact that I'm bi as well...and actually coming to terms with it and discussing it with others has made me feel a lot better. I'm not saying it's the same for everyone, but I still find that subplot very disappointing.]
And now...for the women. Or lack thereof. Aside from Shann, Austin's girlfriend, the only women who appear in the novel (including the history section) are a combination of: mothers who take Xanax (it is not known whether they need it for anxiety or anything like that; Austin tries it and remains ignorant as to its real purpose); women oogled by Austin or other men; women who need to make rules about when to shower for some reason; women having sex with men (usually described from the male POV); a woman turned into a giant praying mantis and, as the only woman, is used for procreation as well as preforming the eating-of-the-mate praying mantis function; prostitutes giving a teenage boy a blow job; an ancestor abused by her brother; an ancestor who was raped and then cheats on her husband and is promiscuous after her husband's death...and then we also learn about Wanda Mae, a sex partner of the guy who created the bug project and she actually has a hobby (water skiing)! His sperm were also defective and she moved on and married someone else (oh yeah, and she was good looking to boot and Austin suggests that's why she was on the project), but I can't help feeling she would have stayed if she had gotten pregnant. (This novel is obsessed with sperm and procreation, I swear.) Basically, all of these characters are tangential to the story and not fleshed out, especially when compared to Robby, Austin, the random people around town Austin talks about in his context-setting bits, and the historical (male) figures.
Shann also given much less to do and appeared less often than Robby in the story, and we don't know too much about her and her desires and lifestyle, despite Austin flat-out saying she's a "complex person." She seemed to genuinely like Austin for personality traits (such as how he tells stories), but although he says he's madly in love with her, he only seems to be focused on getting her to agree to sex. Aside from one little snippet, we don't know about her desires and they never have meaningful discussions about their relationship, which is fine and very teenager-y, but I really wanted to see Austin acknowledge that maybe she does want sex, or is curious, or basically anything outside of Austin's own desires in the relationship. (Like seriously, when he touches her breasts he narrates that she seemed to like he, but he thinks he likes it better. It's all about his pleasure.)
But then it gets worse. After she was initially upset because she found out that he and Robby had kissed (I can't blame her either, that is cheating), giant bug doomsday approaches and they end up having impromptu sex. It's unprotected and awkward and naturally, they both regret it without really saying that directly, though Shann does say how it hurt and she was upset he didn't use a condom. He says, in narration, that this is "unfair" because they hadn't talked about condoms that night and just did what they "needed to do." The thing is, even if she regrets their impulsive behavior that she could have done something about, it's not just her responsibility to make sure protection is used; it's also his. She had told him before that she wanted him to use a condom!
Anyway, even though Austin begins to realize how badly he's treated Robby and Shann, he doesn't get the opportunity to truly confront that. Shann winds up pregnant, prompting Austin to tell us how great his sperm is and that it produced a strong Polish boy (because of course it was a boy). Since they need to "breed" in wake of bugpocalypse anyway, Shann doesn't get much of a say about what she wants to do with the baby or with Austin. Well, presumably. Because it just jumps ahead four years, where the women hang out underground making rules about taking showers and "pouting" and Robby and Austin get to go out and have fun. Austin never brings Shann along for fun. (He also doesn't really have a relationship with either of them.) As you can probably tell after this much detail, the way Shann is treated by the narrative and the other characters is quite frustrating and almost insulting and disgusting, at least to me. She isn't allowed to participated in the same amount of adventure as the boys and her own feelings are hardly taken into account. Added together with the way all of the female characters are practically nonexistent or cast aside, it did not sit well with me.
To cap it all off, there is this quote very near the end: "All boys build roads that crisscross and carry us away." Previously, these roads referred to the various (male-centered) storylines that intertwined, related to Austin's historical outlook. So basically...it's the men tha m
And just to be clear, I don't think that Smith himself thinks of the world this way or treats anyone badly. I just think he didn't realize what he was doing. Some women and girls might enjoy his work, but personally I found it very off-putting.
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