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[ya-bookreview-blog]

Review: One Night (That Changes Everything) by Lauren Barnholdt

Book jacket blurb: Eliza is in a full-blown panic. Her notebook has been stolen--the one that lists everything she wants but is afraid to go after. And the absolute worst person in the world has it: her ex-boyfriend Cooper. Like it’s not bad enough that Cooper was lying to Eliza for their entire relationship--now he and his friends are blackmailing her. They’re giving her just one night to complete the most humiliating tasks on her list or they’ll post her secrets online--including the ones that aren’t just about her. Eliza’s sure of only one thing. She isn’t going down without a fight. Cooper may have what’s left of her dignity, but she’s not the only one with something to hide.

(Published by Simon Pulse, 2010)

Overall Rating:

Best line: “An asshole who sometimes pretends to be nice totally has the ability to suck you back in, making you think that you would give him another chance, or that maybe you had him all wrong.”

Worst line: “Marissa thinks Clarice is a little bit of an airhead and kind of a tease, and Clarice thinks Marissa is a little crazy and slightly slutty. They’re both kind of right.”

Recommended? No

What you should read instead: Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty

Read on, but beware of spoilers!

First of all, the title is a misnomer. The events of the book do, in fact, take place over the course of one night. But they don’t really change anything at all.

Do any of you remember the movie Sleepover? (Most notable at the time for the sister from Spy Kids skateboarding in a sparkly red dress; in retrospect, most notable for Jane Lynch playing the mother). This book has essentially that same plotline, but I’d have to do a rewatch of the movie to decide which is cheesier.

I wanted to like this book. I bought it at a second-hand book store after reading the first few pages. It gt my hopes up because it seemed to touch on a couple of feminist issues (the main character’s older sister stars a website where only girls have admin power over the boys’ profiles, for example), but I was to be sadly disappointed.

1. How well did the book keep my interest and engagement all the way through?

I made my way through to the end, and it was a quick read. But by the time I was about halfway through, I didn’t really care that much about the ending. It was a nice distraction to read on the train, but I wasn’t totally enthralled by it.

2. Was it well-written?

I’ve certainly read books that are much more poorly written than this one. The prose was realistic, unexceptional, and fairly easy to follow, but there were a few things that threw me off:

A. It’s written in present tense. This actually kind of worked with the pacing of the story, and I stopped noticing it after a while. But A Great and Terrible Beauty will always be the standard that I hold present-tense YA novels to, and this one was nothing special.

B. The thing that really kind of irked me about the writing was how the author would say something in narration, then repeat it immediately after in dialogue. Example:

I skip a few songs on Pandora until a Mr. Lif song comes on. Hmm. This is actually kind of catchy. You know, if you like that kind of thing.

“This is kind of catchy,” Marissa says, “if you like that kind of thing.”

The first couple of times, it seemed kitschy, but I could let it slide. By the sixth or seventh time it was annoying and distracting.

3. Diversity?

The only character that’s explicitly not entirely white is Isabella--the potential rival of the main character--who is described as “very exotic-looking, with long, straight dark hair, perfect almond-shaped eyes, and dark skin.” This description contains the double sin of stereotyping non-white characters as “exotic,” and comparing their features to food items. I had hopes for the MC’s friend Clarice at first, whose main characteristics turned out to be that she’s from the South and flirts with a lot of guys but doesn’t sleep with them (more on that later). She wasn’t physically described until 20 pages in, when my hopes for a more diverse character were dashed by her “long blond hair, curled perfectly.”

In fact, very few of the characters are physically described in any detail whatsoever. I could have appreciated that if I’d thought the author were intentional about it, but if you’re going to describe your MC’s outfit at length you should also probably say something about her physical appearance.

The other thing is, these kids are all clearly rich as balls. They’re living in nice suburbs of Boston, driving red BMWs, they have hot tubs in their houses and swanky apartments of their own in the city... I was somehow finding it pretty hard to commiserate with their trials and tribulations.

4. Believable?

There are... probably people whose junior year in high school was like this. Maybe? I can’t say that I’ve ever known any though. At any rate, I find it pretty hard to believe that a girl who’s afraid of singing karaoke at a hipster coffee shop is totally chill with drinking underage on the reg. She also casually mentions that her best friend got a nose job, got a tattoo, and removed said tattoo, all by the ripe old age of 16. Not to mention the small bit where her other best friend gets arrested for drug possession (presumably the first time this has happened to her), gets bailed out of jail by her parents, and then manages to sneak out an hour later and hardly mentions it again.

Like I said, someone somewhere has probably had this experience of high school, but it didn’t seem very believable to me in context, and didn’t really fit with the MC’s self-professed frightened/shy personality. It felt more like the author’s memories of college were shoe-horned into a high school story.

5. What message does the novel send?

Positives (what the author, presumably, was going for):

You should be brave and face the things that scare you. You should be honest and tell the truth to your loved ones.

Negatives:

A. GAH. Ok. FIrst and foremost, the thing that really pissed me off: there are characters that mention feminism, and going to political rallies, and carbon footprints. So you’d think the author would have at least a passing grasp on progressive thinking. But there is SO MUCH internalized misogyny that never gets addressed. Biggest thing: IT’S NOT OK TO CALL YOUR FRIENDS A ‘TEASE’ IF THEY FLIRT WITH PEOPLE AND DON’T SLEEP WITH THEM! This happens consistently with one of the MC’s best friends, and is never resolved. This perpetuates the (very, very false) notion that flirting with people means you owe them something. The guys constantly get pissed off when the girls don’t want to have sex, and then the girls just say, “Oh, yes, typical guy. You probably shouldn’t have been such a tease, though, Clarice, it’s kind of your fault that he acted that way” (That is not an actual quote; that one, I’m paraphrasing).

AAAUUUUGGGGHHH. In case there is a question in any of your minds: there is no such thing as a tease. You can tease people as part of consensual sexytimes, but IT IS ALWAYS OK TO BACK OUT AND CHANGE YOUR MIND. IT IS ALWAYS OK NOT TO SLEEP WITH ANYONE, NO MATTER WHAT YOU’VE DONE LEADING UP TO THAT POINT. GAAAHH.

B. Apparently, it’s ok to date jealous, emotionally manipulative men who lie to you (LIFE SPOILER ALERT: That’s not healthy. Don’t do that). At no point in the book does Cooper, the ex-boyfriend love interest, actually show that he cares about Eliza in a non-possessive way. He ignores her requests for him to give her space. He’s an accomplice to his baby-frat-brothers’ humiliation and degradation of her, on the very dubious grounds of playing the double agent. The book should have taken its own advice: “An asshole who sometimes pretends to be nice totally has the ability to suck you back in, making you think that you would give him another chance, or that maybe you had him all wrong.” That is almost textbook definition of a certain kind of abuser/abusive relationship, people. If that sounds familiar, please, get help and get out of that situation.

C. Also apparently, ditching your friends in a city in the middle of the night to hang out with questionably-intentioned boys and/or stealing your friends’ cars counts as “being there” for you (ANOTHER LIFE SPOILER ALERT: No. Just, no). One of the last lines of the book is the MC reflecting:

“I think about how [my friends] stood by my side tonight, how they were there for me, how they stuck by me and helped me through what’s probably been the hardest night of my life.”

This is all manifestly untrue. Between the two of them, her besties managed to ditch Eliza at least seven times during the night. Hell, one of them merrily drove off in the getaway car (which wasn’t hers, btw) while the other two were breaking into a house. Not exactly what I’d call conscientious and supportive friends.

Conclusion

What was changed in this “one night that changes everything?” Well, nothing. Eliza’s still stuck in an unhealthy relationship cycle with an emotionally manipulative dude. Her sister still loves her, her reputation is more or less undamaged, she hasn’t lost any limbs. And her friend will probably get off of her drug possession charges because she’s presumably white and rich.