Book Review: 'The Dangerous Art of Blending In' by Angelo Surmelis

"Maybe I'm not so ugly after all. Maybe no one is really ugly, and maybe no one has the right to call someone that or tell them that they are. Maybe the only real ugliness is what lives inside some people."

Usually, I am not a fan of LGBTQ books—mostly for young adults—that are horror stories of homophobia and/or a teenager going through extensive and damaging obstacles to figure out who they are in a homophobic, misunderstanding and heteronormative society. I have mentioned this in several other book reviews of mine. I like to call them painful coming-out stories. I don't intend to delegitimize the validity of coming-out stories, however: in some contexts, they are very important. But if I am going to sit down and pick up a YA book with LGBTQ main characters, I would just prefer to read stories about gay people living happily and finding themselves, without focusing too much on coming out. I wholeheartedly understand that this is not everyone's reality. I understand that teenagers who are struggling to come out may take solace in certain some coming-out stories. I get we don't yet live in a world where coming out is unnecessary, but if I'm going to read an LGBTQ book for young adults, I want to stick my head in the sand and pretend we do. 

Anyway. All of this to say that, based on my general dislike of painful coming-out stories, one would have thought that The Dangerous Art of Blending In would not have been for me. But what made me enjoy it was that it was more of a family drama than a painful coming-out story. Seventeen-year-old Evan Panos doesn't know where he fits in. His strict Greek mother refuses to see him as anything but a disappointment. His quiet, workaholic father is a staunch believer in avoiding any kind of conflict. And his best friend Henry has somehow become distractingly attractive over the summer. Tired, isolated, scared—Evan's only escape is drawing in an abandoned church that feels as lonely as he is. And, yes, he kissed one guy over the summer. But it's his best friend Henry who's now proving to be irresistible. It's Henry who suddenly seems interested in being more than friends. And it's Henry who makes him believe that he's more than his mother's harsh words and terrifying abuse. But as things with Henry heat up, and his mother's abuse escalates, Evan has to decide how to find his voice in a world where he has survived so long by avoiding attention at all costs.

There were a lot of strong points in The Dangerous Art of Blending In. First and foremost, Evan is a strong character. You can tell through his point of view that he has internalized his mother's abuse so much that it has made him isolated and deeply introverted. As a fellow introvert, a lot of Evan's thoughts and feelings are part of introversion, so he was pretty relatable in that regard. Also, y'know, the fact that he's gay and a huge introvert was also super relatable. Another strong point, in a more depressing way, was his mother's abuse. A lot of reviews on Goodreads point out that Evan's mother is obviously struggling with some sort of untreated mental illness, but I think it's more untreated demons from her rough upbringing in Greece that she is taking out on her own child, which is so so not okay. That being said, Evan's mother is seriously disturbed, so there very well might be some mental illness in there. The systematic abuse Evan endures from her—physical, psychological and emotional—is very well played out. She has such dramatic highs and lows, going from loving her son to telling him he is ugly, will never be anything but a disappointment, or that if being gay is who he is, he should die. There was also a distinctive ethnic perspective here, one that I think Greek readers will recognize. Maybe minus the intense amounts of abuse. That woman is messed up in ways her precious God would not even be able to begin to fix. His father was also written pretty realistically as someone who wants to avoid any kind of conflict, even when the abuse intensified.

The only issue I had with The Dangerous Art of Blending In is that it felt...underdeveloped? Not underdeveloped in terms of plot or characters, but more in the writing style. In other words, it's clear that this book is the author's debut. Not to say that it's badly written, but it felt like the author was spelling too many things out for the reader at times. Like how Evan was super closed off with Henry because that's how he's had to make himself to survive the abuse in his household. Or clichés like, "The person who was supposed to love me the hardest—the most unconditionally—has always wanted me gone. No matter how hard I tried to be perfect. Now, this boy—who knows all my imperfections and has seen all my hurt laid bare—wants me to stay." Not to say this is bad writing. It's well written. I just think the author should have evoked "show don't tell" with moments like this. Show me in more explicit ways how Evan is feeling, through his actions with others. I just felt the author spelled out too much for the reader in a lot of instances, which is what I mean when I say you can tell this is his debut novel. But I won't criticize the author too much. He includes an author's note at the end explaining how deeply personal Evan's story is to him and he was initially told by his friends to write a memoir, which he couldn't bring himself to do. So in that regard, The Dangerous Art of Blending In is a personal and very emotionally charged that I recommend to anyone who likes YA and LGBTQ narratives. 4/5 stars.

Album Review: 'Shawn Mendes'

When Shawn Mendes first broke on the scene around 2014, a cutie with potential and the latest Canadian youngster to be discovered on the Internet, I wasn’t really intrigued, but I knew very early on that teenage girls would be better off obsessing over him than Justin Bieber. Regardless of how he made his name, Shawn Mendes made it clear early on that he had talent and a passion for music—he just needed time to show us. Since we first met him almost 5 years ago, Mendes has grown into his voice (and quite the voice it is), become movie star handsome, and gotten himself a worldwide following which, as far as Canadian stars go, is the ultimate goal.

In his debut studio album Handwritten from 2015, Mendes treated us to some slow pop rock reminiscent of early Maroon 5, making it clear that even if he didn’t have everything in place yet to maintain his impending star status, he definitely had the vocal ability and a label who knew how to make the best of it. His second studio album Illuminate came along a year later (as Britney Spears’ management once said, get ‘em while they’re young), and continued a bit of the journey we saw on Handwritten in terms of young romance and budding adulthood, but above all his sound had matured as well—if songs like “Life of the Party” or “Kid in Love” from his first album made it clear he had the vocal ability to hold his own in the industry, hit singles like “Treat You Better,” “Mercy” or the contagiously catchy “There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back” from Illuminate reminded us even more that regardless of how long it took his music to grow up with him, the kid has talent. Unlike Handwritten, Illuminate was less pop rock and more of a matured soft rock sound, providing somewhat of a foreshadowing that Mendes may become the next John Mayer (who he has since worked with). The lyrical content of the album might have still left something to be desired for his listeners that aren’t teenage girls, but Illuminate provided Mendes with a matured sound and image that made clear he wasn’t going to become a teenage has-been star—his voice and his looks on the album said it all: Shawn Mendes was here to stay.

In his self-titled third studio album, released by Island Records worldwide today, Mendes continues to mature most certainly in his sound, but upon a few first listens, the album provides a few head-scratchers. The lead single from Shawn Mendes, “In My Blood,” was initially released in March and didn’t blow me away, mostly because it quite literally continues the journey we followed him on in several tracks on Illuminate: expressions of anxiety towards adulthood, figuring out life as it comes at you, and wanting to give up but he can’t—it’s not in his blood. All are legitimate feelings about the young adult experience, but the song in general, both lyrical content and sound, felt tired and a little been-there-done-that. Not to take away from the valid expressions of emotions on “In My Blood,” but it just felt like it could have been an unreleased track from Illuminate: I was craving something new and fresh from Mendes that continued to mature his sound, image and lyrics. Shawn Mendes is most definitely more pop-focused than Handwritten or Illuminate, which is a bit disappointing, considering I for one thought Mendes was really gelling with the soft rock sound he explored on Illuminate. I was hoping his third studio effort would be a more mature version of the sound and image from his second album, which would have felt like a natural progression for the singer. In countless interviews, Mendes has described his new record as the most involved and personal of all his albums, which leads one to believe that his somewhat new pop sound could be what he wanted to pursue all along—when a singer is so young, it can be hard to differentiate what the singers themselves want to pursue, and what is chosen/forced on them by their label and management to make money.

Shawn Mendes is not a bad album—in terms of lyrical content, Mendes has definitely matured beyond pulpy pop rock songs catered to his teenage girl listeners, but the direction in which he has matured is not something I would have predicted for him. Tracks like “Lost in Japan,” “Particular Taste,” “Nervous,” or “Mutual” are all very contagiously catchy—that is, catchy with a contagious energy you can’t deny—like his earlier hits, but they are more pop-focused than I would have envisioned for his vocal ability, reminiscent perhaps of Ed Sheeran or Bruno Mars. That is not to say that Mendes does not perform well on any of these tracks or the album as a whole; they work, and the production is well done. I just don’t think that Shawn Mendes is his best album vocally speaking. His lyrical content has definitely matured in a commendable direction (with the exception of “In My Blood” which, in my opinion, continues to trap him in the same predictable content of his earlier and widely successful work) but in terms of vocals, Illuminate is definitely his high point. It’s a shame he didn’t combine the sound and vocal high points from his second album with the matured lyrical content found on his third—as I said before, it would have presented a progression and maturation for the singer that would have seemed natural. Pop music sells, of this I am definitely aware, and it would be difficult to argue that much of Mendes’ earlier work is not considered “pop”: pop rock is still pop, and a lot of his hit singles cater to a pop-oriented sound (get ‘em while they’re young!), but the incorporation of soft rock on tracks like “Ruin,” “Mercy” or “Honest” on Illuminate made me believe that was the direction Mendes would pursue as he and his career grew, and who knows, maybe he still will in the future: after all, he’s only 19 going on 20, and if he’s going to be around for a while, he definitely has time to pursue several different directions.

Jeffrey’s favorite tracks from Shawn Mendes: “Lost in Japan,” “Nervous,” “Why,” “Where Were You in the Morning?,” “Particular Taste,” “Mutual,” and “Queen”

Book Reviews: 'The Hazel Wood' by Melissa Albert and 'Where the Heart Is' by Billie Letts

1. The Hazel Wood, by Melissa Albert:

This book was equal parts strong and weak. Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother have spent most of Alice's life on the road, always a step ahead of the uncanny bad luck biting at their heels. But when Alice's grandmother, the reclusive author of a cult-classic book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her estate, the Hazel Wood, Alice learns how bad her luck can really get: her mother is stolen away―by a figure who claims to come from the Hinterland, the cruel supernatural world where her grandmother's stories are set. Alice's only lead is the message her mother left behind: "Stay away from the Hazel Wood." Alice has long steered clear of her grandmother's cultish fans. But now she has no choice but to ally with classmate Ellery Finch, a Hinterland superfan who may have his own reasons for wanting to help her. To retrieve her mother, Alice must venture first to the Hazel Wood, then into the world where her grandmother's tales began―and where she might find out how her own story went so wrong. I was first interested in The Hazel Wood because, like a lot of bookworms, I love fairy tales. I once took a class all about fairy tales and got way too into it. A lot of readers seem to be divided about their opinions toward this book, and at first I just figured it was going to be one of those books that ended up getting negative reviews because it was so hyped up and people were bitter because it didn't live up to their expectations. But after reading it, I understand the mixed reviews. It's worth the read because it's very imaginative and brings fairy tales into the real-life realm (I especially liked the Vanity Fair articles about Alice's grandmother, as well as the eery fairy tale excerpts of hers), and it's especially good for people who like lyrical prose that is heavy on the metaphor. The pacing of the story, however, was very all over the place; the first half is very slow and longer than necessary and the ultimate climax felt very rushed, but after I found out that The Hazel Wood will be the first in a series, perhaps the author paced it that way because she wants to leave story to explore in future novels. It's also clear by the end that The Hazel Wood is a Wonderland retelling - didn't the main character's name fool you? - so if you don't like modern YA retellings of fairy tales, you should just avoid this one altogether. I would also avoid it if you aren't a fan of fantasy novels where strange and magical things happen only to go unexplained because those are just the rules of fairy tales, apparently. Not the best, not the worst. I'm not sure if I'll check out the sequel when it comes along. 3/5 stars.

2. Where the Heart Is, by Billie Letts:
Much like me and What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Where the Heart Is is another older book that's also a movie and I hadn't read or seen either, so I figured I would start with the book and then see the movie. This is totally the kind of book I would expect Oprah to choose for her book club in the '90s. It's almost a cliché just because of that. Where the Heart Is follows pregnant seventeen-year-old Novalee Nation, who is abandoned by her boyfriend Willy Jack in a Walmart in Sequoyah, Oklahoma. Having nowhere else to go, she secretly moves into the Walmart where she eventually gives birth to a daughter named Americus. Novalee and her daughter receive significant media attention as the girl who delivered a baby in a Walmart, and having also been abandoned by her mother several times, Novalee is taken in by the town's colorful characters. For the most part, Where the Heart Is reminded me a lot of The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd...just a weaker, whiter version. The first half of the book is cute and sweet in an innocent, childlike kind of way; Novalee is so young and naive but still manages to give her daughter the best life she can. Ultimately, though, the book's plot is an absolute mess: not a lot happens in the second half, and the story's timeline goes all over the place. Some chapters also follow Willy Jack, who ends up in prison where he writes a country song that becomes a hit after he's released and he goes on to have a career as a country music star? That was just random. I feel like Where the Heart Is is an okay book that can stay nostalgically with the rest of our feels from the '90s, because it doesn't hold up with the classic books of today. The story is dated in so many little ways, most importantly with the fact that Novalee just lives in a Walmart unnoticed for months? I guess chain department stores didn't have alarm systems and security in '90s Sequoyah, Oklahoma? The writing style was also amateurish and immature, but I won't criticize Where the Heart Is too much more. For what it is and when it was popular, it's an okay book and I will happily leave it at that. 3/5 stars.

Book Review: 'History Is All You Left Me' by Adam Silvera

"People are complicated puzzles, always trying to piece together a complete picture, but sometimes we get it wrong and sometimes we’re left unfinished. Sometimes that’s for the best. Some pieces can’t be forced into a puzzle, or at least they shouldn’t be, because they won’t make sense."

Oh so many feelings I have about History Is All You Left Me.

I had wanted to read this book practically since before it came out, when it first popped up on Goodreads (which was in, uh, December 2016). I waited for my library to get it, since they had the author's first book, but they never got it, and I was really apprehensive about buying it because people on my Goodreads feed were giving it mostly 2 or 3 stars. Even if I really like a book's premise, I still think it's important to be choosy about which books one spends money on...because it can always go either way. When I found the paperback for a decent price about a month ago, I figured it was time to give it a shot.

History Is All You Left Me is told throughout two different periods of time, the present ("Today") and the past ("History"). In the past, Griffin begins dating his best friend Theo, who he has known since he was young. In the present, Griffin is grieving Theo, who has died in a drowning accident after moving away to California for school where he began dating Jackson, who Griffin is now meeting and connecting with. We soon learn that there is a complex web of relationships at play here, as we are introduced to Jackson and the third member of their friendship group, Wade. Theo was the group's anchor and they all find themselves confused and helpless without him - Griffin is especially torn between his dislike for Jackson and the feeling that he can relate to him most of all. Griffin also suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and we see his compulsions develop throughout the different periods of time. As a result, the story is sad almost immediately because not only are you reading an adorably cute saga of two boys falling in love for the first time, but you also know that they break up at one point and then he moves away, starts dating someone else and then dies, so y'know, it's a little depressing. For the first 100 pages, it felt like my heart was being torn from my chest with every chapter but I couldn't stop reading (thank you for that, Adam Silvera). The author manages to rip your heart out without seeming like he ever tries to. It's in the little ways he reveals that past relationships are not quite over, not really. It's in the inexplicable sadness of moving on. It's in all the things the characters don't say. It's in the pretending you're fine when you're not; you're really not.

I do have story details to nitpick, but I must commend a list of things first. For starters, History Is All You Left Me is the perfect LGBT book for people who are sick of gay books that are horror stories of homophobia and difficult coming-out tales. Griffin's parents are literally the most supportive parents I've ever seen; the fact that their son is dating a boy is literally not even a thought or an afterthought. They treat him no different than if he was dating a girl. Especially his father. I cannot get enough of how much his father cares about Griffin and his well-being, without any toxic masculinity thrown in there like most father-son relationships in YA books (and pretty much everything, basically). There's even a scene where Griffin and Theo run into his dad while buying condoms and any father in real-life would have been so uncomfortable - not only because there son is buying condoms, but buying condoms to use with his boyfriend (even the most of accepting fathers would have been uncomfortable, trust me) - but his dad treated it like any other awkward situation, said something supportive, and everyone soldiered through. If anything, this book is not a coming-out story. It's a story of first love and loss among four boys. However, I must point out that History Is All You Left Me is so accepting of being gay that it almost feels...not gay, at times. For example, Griffin, Theo and their friend Wade all use language like "dude" and "bro" with each other, even after Griffin and Theo start dating, which I find just a *little* hard to believe. I get that we shouldn't stereotype, but I do not know any gay guys who use words like bro and dude with each other, unless it's sarcasm or mimicry. I'm sure there are gay guys who could use such language with each other...but I just don't buy it. Also, I would've loved to have seen the gay characters watching RuPaul's Drag Race with each other instead of talking about superhero movies. Just saying. That would have made my gay soul a little happier. But at the same time, it's full of supportive parents and friends; positive representation of gay AND bisexual boys, so that's a positive...but that part still rubs me a bit the wrong way.

Aside from nitpicking smaller details, my main issue with History Is All You Left Me is that Griffin becomes a bit melodramatic towards the end and brings most of his issues on himself through his destructive choices. Also, the book is pretty liberal when it comes to the guys having sex, which was nice to see at first since it was without shame and with protection (you also can't really enforce heteronormative taboos about premarital sex on two guys, either), but by the end, it felt like all the gay characters were just banging each other like characters on a soap opera. After some thought, I have chosen to see this as the author showing gay characters having sex relentlessly just like straight characters do, because how many narratives have we suffered through with straight characters banging everything with a pulse, like on a soap opera? Too many. So I'm okay with that. But Griffin was just so unreasonable by the end - spoiler alert: he's the one who broke up with Theo when he was moving away, to make it easier on them both, but still felt like he was tied to Theo as "endgame" or some eye-roll worthy bullshit like that. They still spoke regularly after Theo left, even after they had broken up, and Griffin was hurt when he heard Theo referring to him as only a friend. He was even more hurt when he started dating Jackson, which I get, but it got out of hand. He used his grief to do stupid things, all because of his first love. And I get it. Losing your first love, especially when you're gay, before the age of 20 is some serious shit. But Griffin, darling, knock it off. Stuff like this is never easy, but we all have to learn how to move on...and he does in his own unique way.

As a whole, History Is All You Left Me is still a compelling narrative about gay characters grappling with first love and loss, and despite being heart-wrenchingly depressing for awhile there, it was still a smart and emotional read. It was even sadder because there was no judgment; no homophobia, no struggling-to-comes-to-terms-with-who-I-am depression. It is a tale of falling in love for the first time, and then having to learn how to move on when it all goes wrong. Griffin's OCD was also not exaggerated or just thrown in there for a little something extra - it was pretty well written. If you like LGBT books, I recommend. I definitely understand why some didn't like it and could only rate it 2 or 3 stars, but I still think it's worth the read. 4/5 stars.

Book Reviews: 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape' by Peter Hedges and 'Mary Poppins Opens the Door' + 'Mary Poppins In the Park' by P.L. Travers

1. What's Eating Gilbert Grape, by Peter Hedges:
My interest in What's Eating Gilbert Grape was first peaked last summer when I found out the movie with Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio was in fact based off a book (like most movies tend to be). I'd never seen the movie nor did I really know what the story was about, so I decided to check out the book. What's Eating Gilbert Grape is about 24-year-old Gilbert Grape, a grocery store clerk in the small, dead end town of Endora, Iowa. He lives with his family, which includes his older sister Amy and younger brother and sister Arnie and Ellen, as well as their mother, who has become morbidly obese in the years following her husband's suicide, having not left their house in 7 years. Arnie, who is mentally challenged (or "retarded" as they say derogatorily in the book, *sigh* it was the 90s), is about to turn 18, when his doctor said he would be lucky to live past 10 and now he could "pass any day" (I don't really get this? I think it's just something doctors used to say to families of mentally challenged children because there weren't the resources to care for them that there are today? IDK. Anyway, Arnie doesn't die. This is unimportant.) Gilbert dreams only of leaving - the only somewhat thrill he has in life is his affair with Betty Carver, a desperate housewife in town. That all changes when Becky rides into town, and things for Gilbert Grape might be turning around. In all honesty? I enjoyed the movie more than the book. I know all bookworms are supposed to pledge allegiance to the rule that "the book is always better" but sometimes a movie can say what a book cannot. In the case of What's Eating Gilbert Grape, the book is more Gilbert's narrative about his struggle - his life that's headed nowhere in Endora, and his shitty family. The movie, however, feels more of a compelling saga about the Grape family. It focuses just as much on Gilbert as the book, but if you asked me I wouldn't necessarily describe him as the main character - the movie elaborates more on the family and specifically in regards to Arnie, who is brought to life remarkably by Leonardo DiCaprio, who most certainly should have won the Oscar he was nominated for. The movie made me appreciate the story much more, because the book started to feel excessively like an oh poor me narrative about Gilbert Grape because he's stuck in a dead end town in Iowa with a fat mother and isn't getting any action with girls like cry me a river, please. Anyway. If you are interested, I recommend the movie over the book. The book was just okay. 3.5/5 stars.

2. Mary Poppins Opens the Door + Mary Poppins In the Park, by P.L. Travers:

I read the first two books in the Mary Poppins series last year, Mary Poppins and Mary Poppins Comes Back (joint review here), because the movie is my all-time favorite and I also really love the movie about Disney getting the film rights from the author, Saving Mr. Banks, so I thought I should check out the book series. I was really taken aback at first in the first two books at how grumpy, arrogant and bitter Mary Poppins is in the books, which is a common complaint among readers of the book who fell in love with the movie first, and I actually learned to appreciate the character's personality in the books more in the third and fourth installments, Mary Poppins Opens the Door and Mary Poppins In the Park. Both contain extremely imaginative adventures that Mary Poppins and the children go on, and by this point in the series, you are typically used to the characters and their ways, so I had grown to accept that Mary Poppins' grumpy and often rude personality contributes to her mysterious nature - after all, we really don't know all that much about Mary Poppins, where she comes from or who sent her in the books. So I grew to accept her as she is. Mary Poppins Opens the Door also contains chapters with imaginative and strange fairy tales that she tells the children, which were interesting to read. The title comes from Mary Poppins' answer to the children asking her if she will ever leave them again (she tends to arrive and leave with no notice, angering Mr. and Mrs. Banks), where she says that she will leave when the door opens. The ending occurs in a rather fantastical setting where she opens a door and leaves, which reminded me a little of  A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. Mary Poppins In the Park is said to take place during any of Mary Poppins' previous visits, as explained by the author in a disclaimer at the beginning, because it would be unrealistic for her to constantly arrive and depart, and it is just as imaginative as the other books. There is a new Mary Poppins movie coming out from Disney later this year, Mary Poppins Returns, which is said to draw from adventures in the later books in the series. I'm more interested to see if the other Banks children will be in the new movie - in the books, Jane and Michael Banks are not the only children. There's also John and Barbara, who are twins, and Annabel. So I'm intrigued to see how that will play out, but I'm sure I will enjoy it nonetheless. 4/5 stars to both.