Local Girls (1999)

http://www.monniblog.com/2008/08/local-girls/ ( )

I was really excited to read Local Girls because Alice Hoffman is one of my favorite authors. Unfortunately I didn't feel like this book was as good as the others I've read by her.

The Local Girls must be Gretel, the main character, and her best friend, Jill. They are teenage neighbors who exact revenge with vandalism on people who have wronged them. Gretel's brother is a science genius in high school, but when he graduates he becomes a drug addict. Gretel's mom and her mom's cousin Margot are best friends who open a catering business together after they have both been left by their husbands for other women. Each character was really tragic but other than divorce I didn't see the cause for everyone's dysfunction. It was a really choppy, disjointed story.

My favorite character was Margot because she made fun for herself in creative ways.

I recommend skipping Local Girls and instead reading Alice Hoffman's superior novels, The Probable Future, The River King, The Story Sisters, or Practical Magic. If you decide to read Local Girls anyway, the good thing is that, "All author profits from this edition are being donated to breast cancer research and breast cancer care centers."

I really love the cover, which was illustrated by Maggie Taylor. I am thankful I read Local Girls because it introduced me to an amazing artist! ( )

I just don't get the comparisons to Jane Smiley. I don't get the comparisons of Jane Hamilton with Smiley either, but Hamilton is in a league closer than Hoffman is.

(Does anyone else confuse Hamilton with Hoffman? Hoffman is the one that dabbles with the supernatural. Unfortunately, she doesn't do so here).

Maybe she has improved over time. I read something by Hoffman that wasn't this bad (Here on Earth? Seventh Heaven?) Although this was first published in 1999, it is a collection of short stories about the same characters, so perhaps these represent early efforts. They don't seem to be anchored in any particular time. Somewhere between the 1970s and the internet age, I guess.

It's that chatty. women's magazine style in which characters have quirks but you never sense they are attached to a genuine recognizable characters. So we have these stories about the neighbor girl friends over time. In the first one. where they are junior high age, we get this chatty, first-person narrative in a voice that wouldn't pass the ear test of any adolescent in the Western world. All right, not as silly as Zadie Smith's and Updike's blunt stabs, but not good.

I was making comparisons with the cheezy but edible snacks of chick lit, but she even failed abominably at that. So aforementioned narrator (forget her name already) embarks on her first heated sexual relationship with a dumber, slightly older drug dealer. Now, sure, this happens all the time to teenagers, including to otherwise smart girls. Hoffman doesn't even try to convey the nature of the attraction or what they do in bed. Could we have a few cool, witty remarks from this guy.

Also, her best friend has just been forced to dropout of high school on becoming pregnant; they've discussed abortion--and yet our primary doesn't even contemplate contraception? New boyfriend doesn't either? Didn't make sense in Dirty Dancing either. It's pretty evident that, yes, this could happen to narrator too.

I have similar objections to the perfunctory account of the brother's slide into drug addiction and doom. Does Hoffman even know what kind of drugs the boy is supposed to be taking? Sure, boys at the top of their classes can become enmeshed in addiction, etc. It's just that there is noting persuasive about this character or the sequence of events. ( )

This was one of those magical little books that you come across once in a blue moon.
Local Girls is a short novel divided into little snippets of stories. Each story builds on those before it, however they are each a captured moment in the life of a women from girlhood to adulthood.

Although the book says that it is all told through one perspective, there were a few stories told through the eyes of others. Regardless, these did not take away from the flow or tone of the story. For example, the snippet where Greta's brother battles his particular demons would not be nearly as poignant told from another view - it has to be from him.

I also loved the themes which were illustrated throughout the stories. How do we define growing up, or growing up too fast? When is the right time to let go? How should we cope with loss? How do you define family?

Each individual is flawed, and therefore very real. There is something very human about each of these characters which makes you want more and more. Unfortunately, the book is very short - that would have to be my only complaint! ( )

Alice Hoffman's prose floats and envelopes the reader - somewhere just this side of poetry ( )