My Invented Life

Roz is a character that will not be silenced. She has a personality that rushes into things head first without understanding the consequences. Her kooky attitude shows no restraint in her ‘Invented Life’ or in the real life. She has a good will, one that may be blinded at times by her sense of karma. Her over-exuberance may be her downfall though when the reader thinks that enough is enough yet she still pushes forward.

Eva has a conflicting opinion by me. Either you can understand her or you just wish she would stop hiding. Eva has a secret that she herself wasn’t aware of until much later in her life. Roz has a clue and in an impulsive dare she decides to make Eva realize and come out with her secret. On one hand you can show more sympathize with Eva. On the other hand you want to take that hand and slap her silly. Her fear creates a hostile personality; one takes it mostly to Roz (though not something I can’t entirely blame her for, but can still be irking). She can be the sweet older sister or the sister you wish just pack up and leave for college already. You can’t always take and never give back and I feel that Eva doesn’t give back enough half the time.

The supporting characters are just as conflicting. While I love many of them—Andie, Nico, and Jonathan—some I had to grow to love or shove out of the way (Carman, Bryan, and Aunt Sapphire). Each has a quirky personality from flamboyancy to the weird, shy, yet cute/intense sometimes, and the divaesque type.

My Invented Life is a LGBT novel that I have yet to come across where the protagonist isn’t the one trying to find herself but does in the end. Created in two worlds, one in the mind filled with hopeful desires, and the hard cold factual life. In the end they meet eventually to get the happily ever after paint gun and all.

Overall: Humorous, annoying, a tad ridiculous, benevolent but always, always loud. show less

My Invented Life is a modern retelling of Shakespeare's "As You Like It," but instead of mistaken genders, we have mistaken sexualities. In case you don't get that similarity right away, the characters are also auditioning and rehearsing for a school showing of the play. Much of the book takes place in the big barn behind the school where the theatre geeks hang out and practice. The characterizations of the drama club crowd are pitch-perfect. The major players range from Eva, popular cheerleader who always gets the lead, to Eyeliner Andie, the showy goth chick with the super-skinny, shy boy toy. Amazingly, up until Roz decides to pretend to be queer, there doesn't appear to be any other non-hetero folks in the group.

Right before show more auditions, this tight-knit group (which also includes Roz and her arch-nemesis Carmen) is joined by the drama teacher's nephew, Jonathon. He's new (read: automatically crush-worthy for most of the group), has done something that has gotten him kicked out of his parents house (mysterious bad boy with a serious chip on his shoulder), and African-American (a fact which seems to surprise only Roz). Roz lays claim to him on the basis that he's her next door neighbor, she's the drama teacher's favorite, and she could use a friend. Coming out does not go as she hoped. She gets attention, RoZ iZ a leZ on the bathroom wall, but not the outpouring of love and support she was hoping for, so Roz starts a campaign to educate her classmates about the Kinsey Scale and to make them accept her as a lesbian. For Eva's sake, of course. Even though Eva still won't admit that she's queer (no matter how much Roz tactlessly badgers her about it), Roz keeps up the facade. She and Eva begin to bond again over The L Report (Roz's nightly updates on her "experiment" with lesbianism), Roz gains some new friends (including Jonathon and Eyeliner Andie) and a new understanding of what all those people online mean when they say "sexuality is fluid."

This is a cute story with an engaging and memorable cast of characters and a predictably happy ending (if you're familiar with "As You Like It"). It's also a great book about being the only "one" in a crowd, whether by "one" you mean POC, queer, poor kid, goth, whatever.

Book source: Philly Free Library show less

While I suspect some of the humour either went over or under my head (it’s been a while since my high school days), and I have a few issues with the basic premise, My Invented Life was still a fun, crazy read.

While there’s a bit more to their relationship that drives the story, things really begin when Roz becomes convinced her sister is really a closet lesbian, after finding a suspicious book in Eva’s room. When Eva denies being a lesbian, Roz pretends to come out of the closet herself, all in an effort to convince her sister that it’s okay to be a lesbian . . . so she’ll dump her boyfriend, and leave Roz to swoop in to catch him on the rebound.

While it’s handled respectfully, and is ultimately supportive, the very idea of show more the fake-lesbian storyline bothered me. It just doesn’t seem like something I could imagine a teenager really doing, no matter how much more accepting her peers might be than when I was in school. Of course, humour is most often borne out of absurdity, so I forced myself to just go with the flow . . . and enjoyed it.

Besides, there are more than enough LGBT supporting characters in the book to provide a welcome balance. After all, this is a story built around a drama club . . . not that I’m trying to stereotype anyone. (grin)
Roz is such a drama queen, with her Shakespearean insults and odd habit of rehearsing conversations (a quirk I share), it was hard not to like her. She’s ridiculously boy-crazy, going to extreme lengths to get her man, and crazily competitive as a sister, but she’s also a good person at heart. In the end, once the challenge has gone too far, all she wants is to have her best-friend back in Eva.

Eva I found much harder to like, especially since she seemed to spend much of the novel sulking. It would have been a very different novel had she been allowed to take the lead, but as curious as I am how things would have looked through her eyes, it would have robbed us much of the fun.

Overall, a good book (even if it’s not one I would normally read), and one that kept me smiling, even as I shook my head in wonder! show less

Sisters Roz and Eva used to be close, until cheerleading, competition over school theater roles, and boys drove them apart. Now, however, Roz believes she has a chance to win Eva back: some evidence supports Roz’s hypothesis that Eva is a lesbian who has trouble admitting it, even to herself. In an attempt to make Eva more comfortable with coming out, Roz declares herself a lesbian, right as the drama club begins rehearsing for a Shakespearean play.

Little does Roz realize the consequences that would result from her announcement. As she and her friends/fellow drama geeks exchange insults and pranks, Roz realizes that the application of “labels” is more complicated than she thought, and she may be quite blind to the workings of the show more human heart.

MY INVENTED LIFE is a spunky and witty GLBTQ book that deals with the fluidity of sexual identity, and the complexities of placing labels on people. The fantastic narrative voice and the unique premise will make this a delightful read for nearly anyone.

This book’s strongest point is its protagonist. Roz is a feisty girl with a good blend of sass, passion, and self-delusions. Her witty, laugh-out-loud narration—always direct, never dully over-eloquent—will draw you into the story even if you may cringe at some of her behavior and want to shake some insight into her. For the most part, the secondary characters are also well-drawn: they’re people with endearing quirks, people who you’d like to hang out with. They’re complicated and funny, occasionally bitchy and selfish. In other words, they could’ve been our high school friends.

Because MY INVENTED LIFE is so energetic and fast-paced, it occasionally runs the risk of getting annoying. Every once in a while I felt like I had gotten too much of Roz’s snarky mentality, and her secret desires—her invented life—sometimes gets repetitive, in an “okay we get it already” way. Similarly, I had trouble understand the sisterly dynamic between Roz and Eva. Sibling relationships are especially difficult to write about, since they contain the requisite family love as well as voluntary platonic devotion, and I felt that Roz and Eva’s relationship—particularly Roz’s almost grovel-like approach to her sister—pinged around in all directions in a way that jarred me and made me the slightest bit skeptical of the believability of their relationship.

That being said, MY INVENTED LIFE is a fresh approach to homosexuality. In this story, the characters’ sexual orientations are rather fluid, defying categorization. You can never completely say that this one’s a lesbian, that one’s totally gay, and so on and so forth. This is admirable because labels regarding sexual orientation are hardly ever direct in real life: there is a huge amount of gray area between heterosexuality and homosexuality, an area that many people unknowingly dwell in. I thought that MY INVENTED LIFE did an exceptional job of capturing the complexities of labels; readers will think twice about when it means to assign people to strict categories.

All in all, readers can take MY INVENTED LIFE at two levels. It can be read as a witty romp through the intertwined lives of theater geeks, or one can consider the usage and flexibility of homosexuality in the story. Either way, it makes for a satisfying read without being offensive to any kind of readers. show less

There is a lot to like here, not the least of which is the Shakespearean flavor (both a high school production of As You Like It and a heroine with a penchant for quoting The Bard). It starts out as it goes on, and I'll confess it took me a good hundred pages to begin to love it, but at the end I was a believer. The characters are complex, fluid, authentic teens- many of whom are trying to find out where exactly they fit on Kinsey's scale. There're also sibling dynamics to contend with, and oddments of history which float through. I didn't think the world was particularly solid, even though it's contemporary- there didn't seem to be enough grounding, somehow. There were some false notes for me (the dog, for one), but overall I show more thoroughly enjoyed this once I warmed up to it. I'm looking forward to Bjorkman's next book. show less

This is fun realistic teen fiction and I enjoyed it. The main character, Roz, is a quirky, funny and somewhat self absorbed girl who is just looking to find her place in her family, with her group of friends, with boys (or girls?) and eventually learns to be comfortable in her own skin.

The book is written in first-person from Roz's perspective so the reader gets full view of her. She's funny and smart and a little bit nosy. Ok, she's a lot nosy, but she always has good intentions. Seeing from her point of view is quite entertaining as there are these little asides inside her head. She imagines the way a scene will go - and then tells how it actually went. These asides are, of course, overly dramatic and always go her way and are really show more funny. I found Roz to be a little bit manic and crazy at times which kind of made me exhausted reading her. I don't know if everyone will enjoy the first-person perspective but it definitely gives a comical slant to the whole story.

The supporting cast of characters is varied and important to the story. They are all fellow drama geeks and have unique personalities. Since the book is from Roz's perspective, we meet them all through Roz's sometimes biased opinions of each. I would have loved to learn even more about each of them but I don't think

Roz and the rest of the drama geeks are performing Shakespeare's As You Like It as their school play. It's a humorous parallel to the teenage drama of Roz's life. Each character is in love with someone who is, in turn, in love with someone else. The main character is pretending to be someone she is not. By the end of the book - and the play - the truth is revealed and each person has found happiness with the person they are meant to be with.

Overall, this book takes a truthful look at the issues of teenage sexuality and identity in a humorous way through the eyes of an amusing young girl. It's a fun and quick read and will appeal to fans of lighter realistic fiction. It's not "heavy" or serious enough to be on par with other realistic teen reads (John Green's work, for example) but it's not meant to be.

Note: I received a copy of this book for free from the author through Crossroads Reviews and Tours. All opinions are 100% honest and my own. show less

I have a sister (nah, you don’t say). I also have a best friend. The subject in those two statements are one in the same. In that way I can relate to much of what Roz is feeling with her sister. At some point, although it’s easy to remain close, you also grow apart, it’s simply a part of life. You go from stuffed animals and movies to boyfriends and… movies. Now, we’re not the huggy-huggy tell-you-anything type family, but I know without a doubt if there was something I had to tell someone, or needed to trust someone with, I could go to her. Which is what completely breaks my heart about My Invented Life: The fact that Eva doesn’t think she can trust Roz.

The beginning of My Invented Life is cute, sarcastic, and filling to show more the brim with sibling rivalry. The middle is full of mystery and Shakespeare. And the end is a tear jerking conclusion full of sibling revelations and self-discovery (and more Shakespeare). The plot was a tiny bit confusing at some points, and when Roz and Eva are talking to each other I got lost in who was saying what. Speaking of Roz and Eva, I love them so much. They are such believable teenagers, as well as believable sisters. I loved most of the side characters as well, and one thing I can say that everyone will get once they read it: I did not expect Bryan to be that way. I also absolutely LOVED the Shakespearean insults. They’re so ridiculous sounding, it makes it even better and even funnier, and makes it easy to turn a heavier scene into a lighter one. It’s weird to hear (read?) someone insult someone else and want to laugh.

The only problem with My Invented Life is that there doesn’t seem to be one clear shot of conscious plot. There is the main story line, which is Roz trying to figure out if her sister is in fact a lesbian. Other then that though the story is all over the place. It’s hard sometimes to realize when something is taking place, as it switches between being at home one day to being at school the next a lot through the paragraphs. Without a divider or a bigger break between those paragraphs the days get jumbled together.

I also was surprised to see a mentioning of Matthew Shepard in My Invented Life. I am glad that people are not forgetting what happened to him, and that they’re still (somewhat, even inadvertently) raising awareness for the absolute horrid things that happened, and that things like that can be prevented. I grew up with a ton of gay/lesbian/bi friends -guys and girls- and I am SO glad I was raised in a family, and in a town where I am free to be who I am no matter what that might be.

Over all though it was a fun story with plenty of twist and turns, I loved the characters, the plot -although sometimes confusing- was interesting and the writing was great. Lauren Bjorkman definitely has a new fan, and I absolutely can’t wait until her next book, Miss Fortune Cookie, in 2011. show less