Dramarama

Tremendous YA book tells of a teenage girl & her experiences in a summer boarding drama school. Lockhart creates exceptional characters and situations that fly against cliches and shimmer with life and are wholly believable. I had a great time reading and caring about these people, and was not expecting such top-notch writing in what seemed to be an unassuming YA novel

E(mily) Prescott has clearly been to drama camp. She gets that part of the book right-on. The rest of the book is quite a disappointment, though. The characters are flat; our narrator, Sadye, is set up to learn a lot through the people she meets, the criticisms she gets, and the experiences she has at drama camp, but she doesn't. She makes a grand sacrifice that gets her kicked out of camp, but not because she's really learned anything, except that her best friend, Demi, has more talent than she does. She returns to her boring small town and continues to be the same person she was before camp, although we don't really get any details about it. Nor do we get much closure for Sadye. We learn where the future is taking Demi (NYU), but all show more we know about Sadye is that she has a summer internship in New York City after she graduates high school. There being every indication that Sadye is reasonably intelligent, it felt odd that there was no discussion of where she wanted to go to college, or where she applied or was accepted, even though we learn about Demi's college-choice process.

Not that I could really bring myself to care that much about what happened to her. I never found her to be a compelling character. Although she has thoughts and ideas, too often they seemed to come from nowhere, and every time someone tried to tell her something or teach her something, she got resentful, and failed to come even close to apprehending the lesson (which is not to say she was always wrong, but just that her continued failure to get the point became annoying).

I think this story would have been much more interesting if told from Demi's point of view. Here we had a character with some actual talent, as well as substantial issues to face. He's a black, gay teenager who comes from a primarily white world with parents who only pretend to be ok with his sexual orientation. When he gets to camp, we're given hints that, although he's still a minority by far (we're told there are fewer than 10 black campers), he's pleased to be with people with whom he feels like he can be black (this is the topic of a very disappointing scene between Demi and Sadye where he tries to talk to her about how he feels that she's trying to deny the fact that he's black, and she tries to explain that it just wasn't important to her, and wasn't that better than acting like it's a big deal -- but like most of the rest of the book, that scene just fizzled into nothing). More importantly, though, he can truly "come out" for the first time. He forms a crush, gets betrayed, and finds love, all in the span of a few weeks. This is the story I would have enjoyed reading, along with the entertaining stories about rehearsals and the like. show less

One of the most important quests in our lives, for just about each and every one of us, is to find a place, a group of people, where we belong. For many of us, this quest is complicated by the fact that whatever groups of people are easy to find nearby, we just don’t click with them. And we latch on to whomever is around us that actually fits the same way. So it can be exciting to get out there and find a whole bunch of new people who actually like the same things you do… but then, things might just not work out the way you expect with them when you get there.

Such is our story here in Dramarama, which tells us of a summer-long trip to a drama camp undertaken by two teenagers, a boy and a girl, from boring Brenton, Ohio. Sadye show more (because Sarah was too plain) and Demi (because he’s Douglas, Jr, and half of what his father is) go to the same high school, but only really meet up at the auditions for this camp, and then after they get in, bond over their love of musicals and their upcoming escape from normalcy. The two are pretty different superficially – straight white girl with a less-standard voice, gay black boy with a voice that breaks the rules of the audition – and yet, they become great friends, because they’re the only people that understand each other’s love of theater.

It might be predicted, then, that problems might occur once they get to a place where the defining feature of everyone in attendance is that they’re in the same age group and love the same things to the same ends. As you might expect at a drama camp, there is indeed drama, and it comes in the intended and unintended varieties. We do have some romances for both our lead characters, and some budding friendships, and a whole lot of growth as they take classes, prepare for performing in different plays, and try to find new niches for themselves when the previous niches are taken away. Like acting, in some ways, this is a story about trying to find your identity, along your connections.

That said… here’s the SPOILER ZONE. I think what I liked best about this book is the approach to Sadye’s character. A lot of her growth comes from her not really being as good at singing and performance as she thought she was, something that’s hinted from the beginning of the story, and her desire to push back against what she’s being told, which is not exactly standard operating procedure at the camp. It’s shown that she has a lot of talent, though; it’s just not where she thought it was, more in dancing and conceptualization, direction. It also is a lot of the source of her tension with others in the story. She’s so sure she’s right about how to do things, she’s not open to what people are trying to tell her, or different approaches to relationships, which causes strife for her with just about everyone. Hers is a neat arc, well-handled, and rather bold to take with the lead character of the story. END SPOILERS!

On the whole, I did like this book, but it’s rather a step down from Frankie Landau-Banks, in my view. It’s a nice story, and well-handled, although the more tech-y aspect of a drama camp get rather short shrift here. I do like the characters, as well, but something about this left me more cold than the previous one, and I don’t think it’s just that it’s perhaps a less happy or exciting book. I think it’s that the breaks in on Sadye’s narration that are supposed to drive growth don’t feel as fleshed out as perhaps they needed to be, or perhaps that some of the secondary characters, particularly Sadye’s love interest, don’t feel super well fleshed out. Frankie’s story felt rather more assured than this one.

That said, it’s still a pretty enjoyable read, with some nice excited tones and some melancholy. Finding your place is never really quite a smooth road, and when things expand outward into new groups, establishing yourself can be even harder. And when you’re all acting, perhaps it’s even more so. A good read for your theater fans, but it’s probably not where I’d start with Lockhart’s books. It’s not a bad addition to her other ones, though, if you like her. show less

Upcoming high school seniors Sadye (pronounced Say-dee, formerly Sarah) and her gay best male friend Demi are finally escaping their bland Midwestern town of Brenton, Ohio to Wildewood, a top-notch drama summer camp. The two friends are beyond excited to feel like they finally belong, to make new friends with similar interests, and to prove that they have what it takes to make it in the big league.

And the summer goes well—at least for Demi. He, with his insuppressibly big personality, snags leading roles in the camp’s many musical productions and proves he’s a superstar. His love life is a little rocky, but finally Demi manages to land a wonderful boyfriend, with true love, vacations spent with one another, and the like.

As for show more Sadye, the narrator of DRAMARAMA, well, let’s just say Wildewood is a little more difficult for her. She wants to love it, but can’t help questioning the techniques of her directors, always trying to give suggestions to improve the performances. Not to mention she totally blew her auditions and got stuck in the Shakespearean play production, the totally unmusical performance no one wants to get stuck in. And finally, there’s her persistent crush on Theo, a cute and talented Asian-American piano player whom she can never figure out.

As Sadye’s summer goes from decent to progressively worse, it’s time for her to ask herself: does she really belong in this highly cutthroat world of acting? Or is she destined for a lifetime of blandness in the suburbs of the Midwest?

Like all of E. Lockhart’s books, DRAMARAMA features superb characters, right-on dialogue, and lots of genuine laughs. Wildewood is a world you’ll want to experience, whether you’re a theatre geek or not. Don’t miss this great book! show less

"In Brenton, Ohio where I'm from, committing suicide would be redundant. It's a nothing town, as lacking in character as Cream of Wheat"

"I was pizzazz when they were pretty; I was a big-nosed broad when they were all pint-size mommy trackers; I was a Great Dane and they were all Westies; I was mint chocolate chip when they were all vanilla..."

And those quotes are the most interesting part of the book. Seriously. It was all build-up to something that never happened.
I've read other reviews where the reader absolutely loved the characters, but I thought they were flat. They didn't know anything about themselves, so consequently, neither did I. And you know what? They never really learned, either, because nothing happened.
They go to the show more acting school, "Sadye" realizes she's a loser, and she goes home and never makes anything of herself.
The End.

I wouldn't even recommend it as an interesting piece of fluff for a rainy day.
Snap, Crackle, fizzz.
This book was Cream of Wheat. show less

When Sadye goes off to summer drama camp she expects to be the "queen" while her best friend, a half-in the closet gay Africa-American, will be "king." It doesn't work out that way at all. Demi becomes openly gay and falls in love for the first time. While Sayde doesn't fit in at all the way she thought she would.
There are a couple of plot holes toward the end but Lockhart tells the story in such a true and honest way that they are easily overlooked. The language and dialog are dead on and the end result is believable.

Easy-breezy-fun YA you can read in a couple of hours. This is the rare book where references to pop culture don't seem jarring and/or out of date. I was surprised by the ending, but not in a bad way. Maybe not in a good way, either? It was just kind of...there, which is probably the most honest way to go about a story like this.