#CBR9 Book 125: "Not Now, Not Ever" by Lily Anderson

Page count: 320 pages
Rating: 4 stars

From Goodreads:

Elliot Gabaroche is very clear on what she isn't going to do this summer. 

1. She isn't going to stay home in Sacramento, where she'd have to sit through her stepmother's sixth community theater production of The Importance of Being Earnest.
2. She isn't going to mock trial camp at UCLA.
3. And she certainly isn't going to to the Air Force summer program at her mom's base in Colorado Springs. As cool as it would be to live-action-role-play Ender's Game, Ellie's seen three generations of her family go through USAF boot camp up close, and she knows it's much less Luke/Yoda/"Feel the Force" and much more one hundred push-ups on three days of no sleep. And that just isn't appealing, no matter how many Xenomorphs from Alien
she'd be able to defeat afterwards.

What she is going to do is pack up her determination, her favorite Octavia Butler novels, and her Jordans, and run away to summer camp. Specifically, a cut-throat academic-decathlon-like competition for a full scholarship to Rayevich College - the only college with a Science Fiction Literature program, and her dream school. She's also going to start over as Ever Lawrence: a new name for her new beginning. She's even excited to spend her summer with the other nerds and weirdos in the competition, like her socially-awkward roommate with neon-yellow hair, and a boy who seriously writes on a typewriter and is way cuter than is comfortable or acceptable.

The only problem with her excellent plan to secretly win the scholarship and a ticket to her future: her golden-child, super-genius cousin Isaiah has had the same idea, and has shown up at Rayevich smugly ready to steal her dreams and expose her as a fraud in the process. 

This summer's going to be great. 

Last year, I read the rather excellent The Only Thing Worse Than Me is You, a modernised YA take on Much Ado About Nothing, set in a prep school for especially gifted students. So when I discovered that Lily Anderson had written a companion novel, with very gifted students competing with each other at a summer camp, as a modern YA retelling of sorts of the Oscar Wilde play The Importance of Being Earnest, I knew I was going to have to read it. Now while I absolutely adore the Shakespeare play, honesty forces me to admit that I haven't actually ever read the Wilde play (nor even seen a movie version - shameful, I'm sure). I did read a summary, and while the previous book was fairly loosely based on the Shakespeare, this book is an even more loosely inspired retelling.

This book is clearly set some time after TOTWTMIS, with the protagonists of that now college-age, with some of them helping out as advisors at the summer camp. Because Elliot/Ever is terrible with remembering names, she gives pretty much everyone, especially the counsellors, nicknames, so they're "Perfect Nerd Girl" and "Lumberjack Beard", even having read the previous book, it took me a while to place familiar characters. Brandon, one of the supporting characters from that book, is the mysterious young man who carries around and works mainly on a typewriter (it has a fairly logical explanation, he's not just a hipster). He's one of the members on Ever's decathlon team, and as the weeks pass, it's clear that there's a lot of chemistry between them.

Isaiah, Ever's cousin, has promised mutually assured destruction if she lets anyone know that they are not in fact twins (he's technically too young to compete, and has lied about his age to get in - and told one of the counselors that they were brother and sister before Ever could intervene) or if anyone in their families finds out where they are. To begin with, some of the other campers are worried that Ever and Isaiah are going to go easy on each other because they're related, but Ever soon proves that she is utterly ruthless and willing to crush her "twin", should the need arise. Having her obnoxious relative close by isn't the only problem facing Ever, though. As the camp progresses, it's clear that someone is stealing important items from the campers, and trying to sabotage the competition. Things get increasingly more tense as the weeks pass and the frustration among the various competitors starts building.

As in the previous book (which you in no way need to read to enjoy this, but possibly should check out just because it really is such a fun read), there's tons of nerd references throughout the book. As science fiction is Ever's passion, there were a lot more references to that here, and as I myself am not as big a fan of the genre (certainly not in book form - I keep trying), I think more possibly went over my head, but it in no way took away from my enjoyment of the book as a whole.

I liked the various friendships that built as well as the romance between Ever and Brandon. Leigh, Ever's strange and wonderfully oddly behaved roommate is a delight and the camp seems a pretty awesome place to spend the summer (even if I'm not vaguely smart enough to qualify). While I think I liked last year's book a tiny bit better, this was still a very fast and fun read, and I will be waiting eagerly for whatever Lily Anderson writes next.

Judging a book by its cover: Not exactly the most exciting of covers, but they've managed to find a girl with pretty big hair (Ever is tall and her impressively large hair is mentioned several times in the book) and a guy who looks adorably scruffy enough to be Brandon. Not entirely sure I like the big font they've used, but the yellow background is very cheerful.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR8 Book 117: "The Only Thing Worse Than Me is You" by Lily Anderson

Page count: 352 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Beatrice "Trixie" Watson has two goals for her senior year. She wants to save enough money to buy the collectible Doctor Who figurines at the local comics shop and she intends to knock her nemesis, Benedict "Ben" West down to fourth place in their fancy prep school ranking. The two have always had a tense and antagonistic relationship, going all the way back to when Ben caused Trixie to break her arm on the monkey bars during first grade. This year, she is determined to do everything it takes to crush him academically.

Ben and Trixie's friends, however, are less than thrilled about their decade-long rivalry, which only seems to be getting more mean-spirited with every year. When Trixie's best friend Harper starts dating Ben's best friend, Cornell, they are forced to spend more time in each other's company and their group of friends is adamant that they need to stop the constant sniping, as it's getting on everyone's nerves. Once they start actually talking civilly to one another, they discover that they share many geeky interests and possibly they don't need to savage each other verbally every chance they get.

As the school year proceeds, several students get accused of cheating, an unforgivable offence at a competitive school like Messina Academy for the Gifted. The group think little of it until one day, it seems these people may have been framed, by none other than Harper, who is immediately expelled. Cornell seems to abandon her and Trixie is furious. Will Ben pick Cornell's side or help Trixie investigate and clear Harper's name?

Back in July, Caitlin gave this book 5 stars over on the Cannonball group blog. A clever YA retelling of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, where all the various characters are nerds of all varieties attending a prestigious prep school? They are deeply opinionated about Firefly and Doctor Who (more on that later) and flirt about Saga. How could I not love this? While Caitlin said that all the nerdy references didn't work for her, they were part of what made me really get into the story. It really is so well done, and the modernised take on how Harper/Hero is ruined is much better than ZOMG! She may not be pure as the driven snow! of the original play and they don't actually have to fake anyone's death to resolve things, I was amused and happy throughout the story, with one notable exception.

Lily Anderson is a school librarian and has clearly spent a huge amount of time around teenagers. That much is clear. She's probably done quite a lot of research into the various fandoms she has her characters geek out about. She cannot, however, have spoken to anyone sane about Doctor Who, because in a moment that pretty much felt like a nails down the chalkboard, abrupt record scratch sort of an incident, she has her two main characters discussing their favourite Doctor Who episodes. Trixie claims her favourite episode is the Neil Gaiman-scripted The Doctor's Wife. As this is also my favourite, so far, so identifiable. Then Ben proceeds to say that no, his favourite episode is Nightmare in Silver (also scripted by Gaiman).

And I almost had to throw my e-reader across the room. I interrupted my focused Read-a-thon reading to rant loudly at my husband (the biggest Doctor Who fan I know) about this for some time, and it made me so sad, because up until that point, this book was well on its way to becoming a five star read. But no one in the history of ever who has actually watched the show and knows anything about how the episodes are recieved would have a character claim Nightmare in Silver was their favourite episode. It may have been written by Neil Gaiman, but it's also acknowledged by Gaiman himself, and Steven Moffat, the current showrunner, as a failure of execution and it's frequently rated as one of the least popular in the show's fifty year history in fan polls. As well as ranting to the husband about it, I posted about my outrage on Goodreads, and got support from others that this wasn't just a plotline choice that bothered me, but seemed baffling to others, as well.

I did stick with the book, although more filled with scepticism and distrust than before. The various twists and turns of the original play really are very well modernised and while I'm not entirely sure about the motivation of the person who is eventually revealed to be behind framing Harper, as I said, no one had to fake their death and there was a lot less judgemental virtue-shaming. The book clearly takes inspiration from great movies like Mean Girls and 10 Things I Hate About You. Even two months later, the complete failure on the author's part to properly research Doctor Who still upsets me, though. To someone less nerdy than me, this will probably not be such a big deal. If you like Shakespeare and/or cleverly written YA, give this book a try.

Judging a book by its cover: With two characters whose lives revolve around nerdy and geeky things and their weekly visits to the local comics shop, and who fall in love while discussing Saga, it seems very appropriate to have a cover evoking comic book panels. The leg up pose while kissing is possibly a bit cheesy, but I'll let it slide. Unlike that thing with Nightmare in Silver. Which is unforgivable!

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.