Review: Geography Club by Brent Hartinger

Geography Club
by Brent Hartinger
Published by HarperTeen
Publication Date February 17, 2004
Pages 240
Source: Library








(from Goodreads)
Russel Middlebrook is convinced he's the only gay kid at Goodkind High School.

Then his online gay chat buddy turns out to be none other than Kevin, the popular but closeted star of the school's baseball team. Soon Russel meets other gay students, too. There's his best friend Min, who reveals that she is bisexual, and her soccer-playing girlfriend Terese. Then there's Terese's politically active friend, Ike.

But how can kids this diverse get together without drawing attention to themselves?

"We just choose a club that's so boring, nobody in their right mind would ever in a million years join it. We could call it Geography Club!"

Brent Hartinger's debut novel is a fast-paced, funny, and trenchant portrait of contemporary teenagers who may not learn any actual geography in their latest club, but who learn plenty about the treacherous social terrain of high school and the even more dangerous landscape of the human heart.

My Thoughts

With this one book, Brent Hartinger has easily gained a fan in me. From the very beginning of Geography Club, with a semi-awkward locker room scene, I immediately adored the main character, Russel Middlebrook. His take on navigating high-school as a gay teenager is done with such heart and humor. And I love how Russel shares his story by talking directly to the reader - Ferris Bueller style.

Russel thinks that he is the only gay guy in his high school and he soon learns that he is one of a few - definitely more than he ever imagined. What I found really interesting is that most of the characters who are gay, admit to themselves and accept that they are gay, but it doesn't seem real until other people know that they are gay. Russel addresses this right as approaches another teenager he met in a gay chat-room:

This was stupid. I'd talked to dozens of gay teenagers on the Internet. I'd told them I was gay. What was the difference? But even as I thought this, I knew the difference, and it was big. This was real. (pg. 17)

Once he met someone else who was like him, it became easier for Russel to talk about his thoughts and his struggles and fears of rejection. When he finally shares his secret that he had kept from his friend, Min, he seemed lighter, free from the weight of this secret he had kept for so long. And Min admits that she is gay (this may just be one of my favorite scenes in the who book), or at least bi-sexual, too . But Min doesn't experience the same relief that Russel does. Instead it affects Min's relationship with her girlfriend - for her it has become too real. 

What I think is important part of the story is that Russel, Min, Kevin, and the others have found acceptance with each other, but they are still not out to the rest of the kids at school or to their families. They've found a friendship in their common-bond, but they are still unsure of how everyone else will respond to their being gay. But is this common-bond enough to make a friendship last?

Hartinger continues Russel's story in three more books. The final book The Elephant of Surprise will be reviewed in the coming weeks. I'm looking forward to reading more about the characters and see how they interact and change and which friendships last and which ones possibly become even more.

Stolen by Lucy Christopher

Stolen
by Lucy Christopher
Published by Chicken House Ltd.
Publication Date: May 4, 2009
Pages: 299
Source: Library









(from Goodreads)

It happened like this. I was stolen from an airport. Taken from everything I knew, everything I was used to. Taken to sand and heat, dirt and danger. And he expected me to love him. This is my story. A letter from nowhere.

Told in a letter to her captor by 16-year-old Gemma, Stolen explores the influence that a really wild and remote space can have on the inner development of a young woman.

Gemma, a British city-living teenager, is kidnapped while on holiday with her parents. Her kidnapper, Ty, takes her to the wild land of outback Australia. To Gemma’s city-eyes, the landscape is harsh and unforgiving and there are no other signs of human life for hundreds of kilometres in every direction. Here, there is no escape. Gemma must learn to deal with her predicament, or die trying to fight it.

Ty, a young man, has other ideas for her. His childhood experience of living in outback Australia has forever changed the way he sees things. But he too has been living in the city; Gemma’s city. Unlike Gemma, however, he has had enough. In outback Australia he sees an opportunity for a new kind of life; a life more connected to the earth. He has been watching and learning about Gemma for many years; when he kidnaps her, his plan finally begins to take shape.

But Ty is not a stereotypical kidnapper and, over time, Gemma comes to see Ty in a new light, a light in which he is something more sensitive. The mysteries of Ty, and the mystery of her new life, start to take hold. She begins to feel something for her kidnapper when he wakes screaming in the night. Over the time spent with her captor, Gemma’s appreciation of him develops …but is this real love, or Stockholm Syndrome?

My Thoughts 

This is another book that I almost let slip by me and I would have been a fool to let it. When Stolen was first published, it caught my attention briefly but it wasn’t until Heather from Buried in Books asked me about it that it became a book that I had to read. At the time, she hadn’t read it either but knew more about the premise than I did and she explained that it was written as a letter by the kidnapped to her captor. I thought that was an interesting way to tell this story and I was convinced that it is a book that I must read.

I had no idea how intense this book was going to be. And as I read it, I kept thinking to myself, I don’t know if I could have handled reading this story as a teenager. It was emotionally gripping and confusing because I could never get a handle on how I was supposed to feel about Gemma’s captor, Ty. Like Gemma, I hated him because he stole her away from her life, her family, everything that she knew. He was a creeper and a stalker. He drugged her to kidnap her, but once he had her, he didn’t harm her. He did what he could to take care of her. There wasn’t a time that I ever thought what he was doing was right, but I could understand he motives and justifications of wanting her with him.

Stolen is beautifully written with exquisite descriptions of the landscapes which depict a vastness of the desert. I could feel the heat of the hot blazing sun and the coolness of the desert nights. I also experienced the intensity in the moments when Gemma tries to fight back and escape her captor. It made me anxious and my heart pound. It felt like I was there witnessing those moments, not reading about them. I think that is a testament to the author’s ability to captivate the reader and make them believe in this story.
I didn’t know how the story was going to end until the very last pages, and I think Stolen ended perfectly. The story could have gone in many directions and been much more darker than it was. I like that the author didn’t take it there just because she could. Let someone else tell that story. 

Disclaimer: This review is based on the hard cover version which I checked out from my local library. I was not compensated in any way for providing this review. Thoughts and opinions are my own.