Celine

Like "The Goats," this is a weird book, so I'm not sure who might read it, although I imagine that my adolescent self would have liked it as much as my adult self.

The protagonist is high school junior in Chicago where she lives with her absent father's new wife, a self-absorbed woman only 6 years her senior, while her mother is in South America and her father is lecturing in Europe. Celine, an artist, suffers the vicissitudes of high school (her reckless parents, a boorish boyfriend, the slings & arrows of outrageous fortune) with some level of poise, albeit, funny, snarky poise. That said, she does not dwell on the usual teengirl fodder--clothes, boys, parties, intoxication.

As part of her desire to graduate early, she must complete a show more paper on "The Catcher in the Rye" for an English class. As I read Cole's appealing book, it felt a bit like an apologia for "Catcher" or Cole's aspiring to a better troubled adolescent novel. In fact, Celine actually interacts with a little kid, her 8-year-old neighbor who is left in her care, and she does, in fact protect him from the corrupt adults.

I'm not sure which reader I'll recommend this to--it calls out for an arty reader with a sly sense of humor on the brink of disillusionment. show less

Like "The Goats," this is a weird book, so I'm not sure who might read it, although I imagine that my adolescent self would have liked it as much as my adult self.

The protagonist is high school junior in Chicago where she lives with her absent father's new wife, a self-absorbed woman only 6 years her senior, while her mother is in South America and her father is lecturing in Europe. Celine, an artist, suffers the vicissitudes of high school (her reckless parents, a boorish boyfriend, the slings & arrows of outrageous fortune) with some level of poise, albeit, funny, snarky poise. That said, she does not dwell on the usual teengirl fodder--clothes, boys, parties, intoxication.

As part of her desire to graduate early, she must complete a show more paper on "The Catcher in the Rye" for an English class. As I read Cole's appealing book, it felt a bit like an apologia for "Catcher" or Cole's aspiring to a better troubled adolescent novel. In fact, Celine actually interacts with a little kid, her 8-year-old neighbor who is left in her care, and she does, in fact protect him from the corrupt adults.

I'm not sure which reader I'll recommend this to--it calls out for an arty reader with a sly sense of humor on the brink of disillusionment. show less

My favorite YA book. I just find the narration of the protagonist Celine very funny. Celine is a sixteen year old high school student living in Chicago with her young stepmother while her father is traveling on a lecture tour of Europe. She basically just wants to make it to the end of the school year so that she can then head to Europe herself and be free of high school and travel with her friend Sybil and get on with being an artist. However, things in her life kind of get turned upside down as the people around her suffer their own crises and Celine is required to be the responsible one. But Celine holds it together, as best she can, and that's the beauty of the book, I think. She takes care of a young neighbor boy whose parents are show more going through a divorce, and both his parents are so frazzled they flake out on their son. Celine's own friends flake out on her as well, and so the boy, Jake, and Celine hang out, watch t.v., and they make a connection, because both have kind of been let down by the central people in their lives. This isn't a book that tries to be hip or edgy like much teen literature, and that makes it all the more authentic. But it is funny, and I've always related to the book and the idea that you can only do what you can do. The book acknowledges its debt to The Catcher in the Rye early on. Spoiler: Celine doesn't get around to revising her Catcher essay during the course of the book. Maybe she does eventually, but in the grand scheme of things, an essay on The Catcher in the Rye isn't all that important. Everyone has their own life to live. Celine Monrieval is not Holden Caulfield. She thought Holden Caulfield was a whiny punk. I don't know how many high school English teachers have read Brock Cole's Celine, but more should: decent essay papers could be written about this book, in relation to The Catcher in the Rye, or not. show less

Celine is compared to Holden in Catcher in the Rye. Well, I never liked Catcher in the Rye and a comparable female protagonist didn't do anything to change my mind.

Signed, dated 2-26-91

Signed, dated 2-26-91