JJ Johnson (1973–)

I know that I truly truly love a book when it comes time to write the review and my head is all scrambly because there is just so much there I want to say and I can't get it written down fast enough or in a coherent way. So suffice it to say...I pretty much LOVED This Girl is Different by JJ Johnson. I am very cautious not to read any reviews of the books I receive to review because I want to be able to read the book without any external factors influencing what I think of it. After I show more finished reading this and checked out the GoodReads rating, I was completely shocked to see that people either absolutely hated it or loved it. But hopefully those negative reviews will not be enough to deter you from reading this book because really it is SO worth it.

The Good: Wow. There are so many good things to say about this novel. I loved that every chapter started with a famous quote that weaved itself nicely into the chapter. By the end of the chapter, you knew exactly why that quote was chosen and many of them happen to be my very favorite quotes. Very early on the main character, Evie says quite matter-of-factly to herself, "This girl is different," and she truly is. This is the YA adult novel that every teenager should read. Evie is type of girl that every young woman should aspire to be. She is insanely smart, well spoken, literate, interesting, witty, curvy, self-aware, confident, respectful yet rebellious. She is totally one of the coolest characters I've met. I want to be Evie Morningdew! I also thought the relationship between Evie and her mother, Martha was way awesome. Do many kids have a relationship like they do? No. Do most kids wish they did? Hell yeah. One of the BIGGEST reasons we read YA novels is to be reminded of both the things we can relate to AND the things that are abnormal. I love that this book mixes it up so nicely. The characters are in high school and the author does a great job of keeping the language, actions and culture of high schoolers in tact while maintaining the intelligence that many YA novelists seem to forget when writing about teenagers. I love that the author made it so cool to be different, to buck authority and to question everything. I think there are so many YA readers out there who view themselves as weird, misfits or outcasts and if they read this book they would see that embracing that part of yourself is SO MUCH BETTER than trying to hide it. The romance between the main characters was so real and palpable. I can remember feeling the exact same way about my first love that Evie does. I thought Rajas was a well rounded and pretty "real" male character. I would have dated him if I was in high school. I bounced back and forth with Evie's friend Jacinda. She definitely was the quintessential "High School Teenager" in this novel. What most people would view as a "normal" teenager. I liked her, but compared to Evie's sharp tongue and intelligence she just kind of seemed like she was jealous Evie was so cool. The book also highlights some of the scary things that happen in high school like teachers crossing boundaries...whether its verbal abuse, sexual harassment or intimidation. I read this book in one sitting because I absolutely could not get enough.

Bad: I really don't have anything bad to say about this novel. Again I'm shocked that it didn't receive as many great reviews because I loved it.

I don't even need to say it, but I'm giving this novel a A+. I would recommend this to any YA reader...especially those who are actually teenagers and want to feel like you can actually relate to the characters.

**I received this book free from the publisher through www.netgalley.com. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. show less

This girl is Different is a debut YA novel by JJ Johnson. I got it in the mail just yesterday and was delighted with the way it looked. The cover art is beautiful, well-thought-out and it relates to the story inside in many ways. The texture of the dust cover and the way the pages are numbered are very unique and truly different from other YA books I've read so far.

The heroin of this story, seventeen-year-old Evie, is anything but ordinary teenager. Being home schooled by her counterculture show more mother, she never really experienced how public schools work, never had to put herself out there and try to become part of society, never even had to pick up a textbook and study from it. She's different than other girls (and boys) her age, she doesn't wear make-up, she lives in perfect harmony with the surrounding nature, she draws snakes and other animals and she builds scale models of cities, communities, villages and buildings. Evie and her mom seem to be very environmentally conscious, they get their electricity from solar panels, they grow their own vegetables, keep their own chickens and a cow, and they even bake their own bread at home.Their house is a geodesic Dome Home, which they built themselves. Obviously, not your typical American (or any other for that matter) family. Evie is a well-read girl with a strong moral spine and a pretty good idea of what she wants to do with her life. And what she wants right now is to get a first-hand experience with the Public School system, so she enrolls in a local high school for her senior year.

Just when the school year is about to start, Evie goes for a hike in the nearby woods and sprains her ankle while trying to catch a snake. Stranded 5 miles deep into the wilderness and not being able to call for help, she's lucky enough to be found by two young hikers. Her "non-rescuers" (she does not perceive herself as a damsel in distress, and therefore does not feel the need to actually be rescued), are, as it turns out, her future school mates, Rajas and Jacinda. The three of them are very comfortable with each other from the very start and they quickly become close friends.

But there's more to the story than just Evie's social experiment and her experiences at school. Things get more serious when our heroine witnesses teachers abusing their power and being unfair toward students. Evie being herself, she can't just ignore the social injustice and she takes it upon herself to do something to bring changes to her school. Together with Rajas and Jacinda they start PLUTO (People's Lightning to Undermine True Opposition), an anonymous organization, whose purpose is to fight for respect, freedom and student rights. To bring attention to the inequality in the school, PLUTOs post a lightning bolt on the person's door/locker, and then they discuss the reasons for being "stricken by the lightning" on PLUTO's blog. Unfortunately, despite PLUTO's best intentions, things quickly snowball out of control, as the lightning strikes are being posted no longer only by PLUTO members, and no longer only truly "deserving" people are being targeted. Things are about to go very, very wrong...

This Girls is Different is an amazingly refreshing and unique read. It deals with some important issues, like social injustice, power abuse, bullying, teacher-student relationships, etc., and yet it doesn't have the heaviness and slowness one would expect from a book like that. I was immersed in the story from the very opening words and wasn't able to put this book down, until 320 pages later, when I hit the back cover. I literally swallowed the book in one bite and, even though I was perfectly satisfied with the way the story played out, I still found myself wanting more. More of the world seen through Evie's eyes, more of JJ's excellent writing style, more of the fantastic chemistry between Rajas and Evie, more, more, more!

One of my favorite highlights of this book were the quotes at the beginning of every chapter. JJ Johnson did a great job picking them, they related to the chapters in a special way and made it so much more fun to read them.

Honestly, I find it very hard to believe that what I just read was a debut novel. I look at some writers who have been writing for years now and they still have no hope of reaching JJ Johnson's level of writing skills. Her storytelling is superb! I have no doubt that I will be re-reading this book many times in the future. Books like this one make me want to add a sixth star to my five star rating system! show less

I received an ARC copy in return for an honest review.

The story of a teen with an eating disorder doesn't seem like an original idea anymore after so many books have covered the topic. However, JJ Johnson takes you along for the ride of your life when she shows what it was like for her to live in an eating disorder unit as a teen, and it was really quite eye opening.
The characters are teens that can be found anywhere, trying to be accepted by others as well as themselves. They are the show more "every teen", if you will. I found the language to be realistic, and the experiences the teens share in the unit heart-wrenching. The reader is taken on a journey of the shock and surprise experiencing what the main character is going through in the facility.
I could feel the fear, uncertainty and self-consciousness of the characters. I could feel the cold floor, and the embarrassment in situations such as taking off her paper gown for weigh in, or the constant eyes that were upon her when she ate, used the bathroom and slept.
I don't find many books that keep me drawn to the page, and this one did just that. show less

There are some big, important questions here that YA doesn't address often enough: When is an internet-style profusion of free speech a social good, and when is it just an excuse to hurt people? How can you fight for social justice without being so obsessed with purity and righteousness that you alienate all your allies?

Evie (like a lot of my students) sees teachers as a handy stand-in for The Man, because we have authority -- but she's seeing from her own perspective, as a student who's show more used to having complete freedom all day, not from the perspective of those who have to think about the entire school and the choices they'd make with that freedom. She comes to high school to be both tourist and anthropologist, and thinks she knows what would be best for the whole system she's never experienced before. She has a rude awakening: it turns out that when you interact with more people than your mom all day, life gets infinitely more complicated, and other people are also smart with their own ideas and lives and you don't know what's best for them after all. (It's good that she has this experience before getting to Cornell.)

I found Evie frustrating, mostly because she reminded me so much of me at her age. I kept turning pages to find out what lessons she would learn and how. There's nuance here, but ultimately I was a bit disappointed by the movie-style ending. I'm not sure how middle schoolers will read this, or whether they'll even be interested in the questions the way I was. I'll booktalk it to the 7th and 8th grades and see how it goes over. (Note: there are a couple of scenes of explicit, shirts-off making out.)

Read-alikes: [b:Moxie|33163378|Moxie|Jennifer Mathieu|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1494950979s/33163378.jpg|46824140] is a much better written book. I don't remember [b:The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks|1629601|The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks|E. Lockhart|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1313980820s/1629601.jpg|1623714] well enough, but I seem to remember it deals with similar issues? This is most like a YA version of [b:Schooled|1025250|Schooled|Gordon Korman|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1439571775s/1025250.jpg|1846097] -- hippie kid goes to traditional school for the first time and shakes everything up with their naive misunderstanding of The System. show less