Problem #1: Pregnancy

I think my next several posts are going to focus on a long-running standard of YA Lit--the problem novel.  The problem novel is one that tackles those juicy, scary situations that are much easier to think about in fiction than in reality.  One of the most common problem novel subjects is teen pregnancy, so let's start there.

 Teen pregnancy isn't anything new, and in the 1950s the slang term for it was to say a girl was "in trouble."  That's the title of Ellen Levine's novel about Jamie, a sixteen-year-old girl, whose best friend gets"in trouble." As Jamie tries to find a way to help her friend, she faces her own very serious problems.  It's supposed to be a big surprise but I could tell almost from the first page that something bad had happened to Jamie, and it was probably rape.  Indeed it was, and I hope I haven't spoiled anything for future readers, but really, it was very obvious.  Anyway, pregnancy and rape.  Problem novels are heavy, dear reader.

I've read a great many teen novels about teen pregnancy, and what I found different and interesting about this one was its historical setting.  In the 1950s, the options for pregnant teens were pretty grim.  Roe v. Wade hadn't happened yet, and medical alternatives were oftentimes downright scary.  For Jamie's friend, Elaine, the "option" is a home for pregnant girls where the girls are shamed (after all, the phrase used is "in trouble"), the baby daddy is totally absent, and the expectation is that the baby will be given up for adoption despite whether or not the teen mother wants to keep her baby.   I say "option" in quotes because Elaine isn't actually given a choice.  Her parents ship her off, and though she waits, trustingly, for her boyfriend to come for her, he seems not to be arriving in any particular hurry.

On the flip side, Jamie's family is incredibly supportive.  By the way, an added element to the novel is the return of Jamie's father from prison.  Hardened convict?  No, a victim of McCarthy-ism.  Jamie's father returns from prison a different man, but despite this, hers is a close knit family, which is quite unusual in problem novels.  Often the problem of a problem novel is one's hideous family.  Not so in Jamie's case.

Sometimes Jamie's narrative is a little clunky, and one character (Paul) seemed not to have much place in the novel (he petered out toward the end and his role in the book seemed to have been lost) but this is a brief glimpse into the 50s and what it might have been like to be a girl "in trouble."  Fun fact that the author makes very clear:  the boys in these teen pregnancy scenarios were never "in trouble."  All responsibility fell upon the shoulders of the girls---note Elaine's absentee boyfriend.  I think the author could have gone deeper still and I wish Jamie had been more focused at times, but I liked the story and the different perspective on teen pregnancy.  It's historical but it's also interesting to ask yourself what has changed and what hasn't changed from Jamie's time to our own?

After

This novel tells the tale of a teenage girl jailed after dumping her baby in a trash can. Deep in denial, soccer star, Devon, can barely even admit that she was pregnant at all. She refers to the baby as IT (a tactic that grows a little old throughout the course of the novel) and wants to know when she can go home. Charged with attempted murder, Devon enters the juvenile court system while her attorney fights to keep her client from being prosecuted as an adult.

It's an extremely interesting topic, torn from the headlines. How does this kind of situation happen? The author spends a great deal of time establishing Devon's denial. Too much for my taste. I think the book could have benefitted from some serious editing in the first half. I grew very impatient with Devon who I couldn't help but think was awfully dumb for a smart girl. I knew she was in denial, but I wanted the pace to pick up a bit. Devon's slowness to answer even the most rudimentary question ("here" is the proper response during a roll call, for example)instead delving into flashback wore on me after awhile. 100 pages into the novel I almost gave up on Devon, not because she'd committed the crime but because it was taking so long to move forward in the story. Right about the point I reached maxmimum frustration, more interesting characters saved the day (the defense attorney for one; Karma, a fellow juvenile offender with an eye-rollingly bad name, for another) and suddenly Devon got it together (or more together than she'd had it) and the story grew more compelling by leaps and bounds. I was definitely hooked by the time the trial began and most readers will be too.

The Lit Report

Two best friends go to Christian school, one the daughter of a hardcore fundamentalist preacher, the other the daughter of a divorced mother who came to Christianity later in life. Neither girl feels the same way their parents do about faith, and they have plans for a fabulous city life far away once they graduate high school. Then the preacher's daughter becomes pregnant. Her life seems to be over until our narrator, non-pregnant Julia, devises a plan--they'll hide the pregnancy and she will deliver her pal's baby at a cabin in the woods. Of course, the best-laid plans often go awry. . .

I don't want to give away too much here. I will say this definitely isn't Christian fiction. There's much swearing and little religious faith, at least from our main characters. I enjoyed the book, especially the humor. Julia--who always has a plan--has to face reality when life gets complicated, blowing her carefully constructed plans to pieces. The only thing that troubled me is this, and here I will warn you that there are. . .

Spoiler Alerts Below!!!!!!

When Julia's friend becomes attached to her new infant and decides to keep the baby, the two teens have to break the news to their respective parents. As expected, the fundamentalists lose it, but Julia's mom, dad and step-mom are so surprisingly laidback about the whole thing that I found it really stretched credulity. Then, the midwife from whom Julia has been slyly gatehring information, finds out and congratulates Julia on doing such a good job delivering an infant in the middle of the woods. I'm sorry, but what mystical adults are these? Where was the "hey, your friend could have died from labor complications" lecture? It never came. This troubled me.

Aside from that, I really liked the book. I expected that something disastrous would happen during the baby's birth but it didn't and in retrospect that would have been too predictable. The author doesn't glamorize pregnancy at all. She makes it clear that giving birth and caring for a child is a messy, messy business. Luckily, Julia and her friend have a strong support system in each other and in Julia's family. The relationships between people seemed real, and by the end of the book I felt like I knew everyone in the book.