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In Zanesville
From the acclaimed author of The Boys of My Youth and Festival Days , a “mesmerizing… beautifully written” debut novel that evokes the wrenching, exquisite moment just before we step into adulthood (Ann Patchett).
The fourteen-year-old narrator of In Zanesville is a late bloomer. She flies under the radar — a sidekick, a marching-band dropout, a disastrous babysitter. Luckily, she has a best friend with whom she shares the everyday adventures of a 1970s American girlhood, incidents through which a world is revealed and character is forged.
In time, the two girls' friendship is tested — by their families' claims on them, by a clique of popular girls who stumble upon them, and by their first startling, subversive intimations of womanhood.
With dry wit and piercing observation, Jo Ann Beard shows us that in the seemingly quiet streets of America's innumerable Zanesvilles is a universe of wonders, and that within the souls of the awkward and the overlooked often burns something radiant.
"Probably my favorite novel of the year...A marvelous reading experience...I don't think I'll ever forget the unnamed, perfectly realized narrator of In Zanesville ." —Nancy Pearl, NPR
The fourteen-year-old narrator of In Zanesville is a late bloomer. She flies under the radar — a sidekick, a marching-band dropout, a disastrous babysitter. Luckily, she has a best friend with whom she shares the everyday adventures of a 1970s American girlhood, incidents through which a world is revealed and character is forged.
In time, the two girls' friendship is tested — by their families' claims on them, by a clique of popular girls who stumble upon them, and by their first startling, subversive intimations of womanhood.
With dry wit and piercing observation, Jo Ann Beard shows us that in the seemingly quiet streets of America's innumerable Zanesvilles is a universe of wonders, and that within the souls of the awkward and the overlooked often burns something radiant.
"Probably my favorite novel of the year...A marvelous reading experience...I don't think I'll ever forget the unnamed, perfectly realized narrator of In Zanesville ." —Nancy Pearl, NPR
320 pages, Paperback
First published April 25, 2011
229 people are currently reading
5046 people want to read
About the author
Jo Ann Beard
12 books380 followersJo Ann Beard is the author of a collection of autobiographical essays, The Boys of My Youth. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, Best American Essays, and other magazines and anthologies. She received a Whiting Foundation Award and nonfiction fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 745 reviews
January 18, 2013
One of my Facebook pals is a school librarian, so her postings are pithier than some I could mention, that is, she doesn't share glorified chain letters, urban legends masquerading as real events, nor quotes attributed to the wrong people. A couple of months ago, she posted a link to a Publishers' Weekly item entitled "The Top 10 Essays Since 1950".
I had a look and the one that really got under my skin was by Jo Ann Beard, a description of a day no one should have involving a dying pet, a dead relationship, and an incident that resulted in the deaths of half a dozen of her co-workers. It originally appeared in The New Yorker in 1996 and it's called "The Fourth State of Matter". I really recommend that you follow the link and read it; it's clear, engrossing, heart-breaking.
I recognized a voice I wanted to hear again, so I immediately checked the catalogue of my local public library and put a hold on In Zanesville, a novel Beard published in 2011, about that terrifying time when a girl feels her way over the chasm between childhood and adolescence.
There are three Zanesvilles in the United States; this one appears to be a tiny community south of Springfield, Illinois. (The towns of Heyworth and Waynesville are mentioned.) The time covers the months between the summer of 1972 and the following winter. ("Ooh Child" is called an "old" song and "Ben" [released the summer of 1972] is quoted.) Our heroine, whose name may be "Jan", is definitely not "Joan", and is in all likelihood Jo Ann, is fourteen, gifted, and a late-bloomer. In 1972's small-town America, this means she is still a little girl emotionally when the book opens. We follow her through a series of seemingly unimportant adolescent incidents which are, of course, life-changing to her, and by the end, we are hearing the thoughts and ideas of a teenager.
This is not a Young Adult novel. This is closer to being a memoir from someone who remembers exactly what it was like to be no longer pre-adolescent, but only barely -- and to have no idea what to do about it. Beard writes skillfully and truthfully. It may be lacking in sex and violence, but it is, nevertheless, a book for grown-ups.
The audio-book is inventively read by Jo Anna Perrin.
I had a look and the one that really got under my skin was by Jo Ann Beard, a description of a day no one should have involving a dying pet, a dead relationship, and an incident that resulted in the deaths of half a dozen of her co-workers. It originally appeared in The New Yorker in 1996 and it's called "The Fourth State of Matter". I really recommend that you follow the link and read it; it's clear, engrossing, heart-breaking.
I recognized a voice I wanted to hear again, so I immediately checked the catalogue of my local public library and put a hold on In Zanesville, a novel Beard published in 2011, about that terrifying time when a girl feels her way over the chasm between childhood and adolescence.
There are three Zanesvilles in the United States; this one appears to be a tiny community south of Springfield, Illinois. (The towns of Heyworth and Waynesville are mentioned.) The time covers the months between the summer of 1972 and the following winter. ("Ooh Child" is called an "old" song and "Ben" [released the summer of 1972] is quoted.) Our heroine, whose name may be "Jan", is definitely not "Joan", and is in all likelihood Jo Ann, is fourteen, gifted, and a late-bloomer. In 1972's small-town America, this means she is still a little girl emotionally when the book opens. We follow her through a series of seemingly unimportant adolescent incidents which are, of course, life-changing to her, and by the end, we are hearing the thoughts and ideas of a teenager.
This is not a Young Adult novel. This is closer to being a memoir from someone who remembers exactly what it was like to be no longer pre-adolescent, but only barely -- and to have no idea what to do about it. Beard writes skillfully and truthfully. It may be lacking in sex and violence, but it is, nevertheless, a book for grown-ups.
The audio-book is inventively read by Jo Anna Perrin.
March 24, 2012
Despite the age of the narrator, this book seems less a book for teenagers and more of a novel for the 14 year old in all of us. Set in the 1970s, In Zanesville perfectly captures (in hilarious detail) that awkward push-and-pull time between being a kid and becoming a full blown teenager. From the first paragraph about an ill-fated turn at babysitting a local family of hoodlums, the writing is smart and funny, and makes you wish you were friends with the narrator and her best friend Felicia (aka "Flea"). This book made me laugh out loud, I can't help but share:
"I hadn't realized before, but now I do: We've made a terrible mistake. Band is weird. I'd like to be the kind of person who can do something weird and not become weird because of it, but that's out of reach for me -- I am what I do at this point, and if I do this I'm done for. Once I march in their parade, I will be in it forever, uniform or not."
"I wish my mother wouldn't mention bras in front of my father; I don't know how much he knows or doesn't know about certain matters. My mother's own bras are large quilted things that I used to think were funny. Now when I see them on the laundry table, one cup folded into the other, I have a sense of impending doom. It's like being on your way to the Alps and knowing that when you get there you'll have to wear lederhosen."
She's so right. I love her, and her anguish, and her "nameless yearning that has boys attached to it."
"I hadn't realized before, but now I do: We've made a terrible mistake. Band is weird. I'd like to be the kind of person who can do something weird and not become weird because of it, but that's out of reach for me -- I am what I do at this point, and if I do this I'm done for. Once I march in their parade, I will be in it forever, uniform or not."
"I wish my mother wouldn't mention bras in front of my father; I don't know how much he knows or doesn't know about certain matters. My mother's own bras are large quilted things that I used to think were funny. Now when I see them on the laundry table, one cup folded into the other, I have a sense of impending doom. It's like being on your way to the Alps and knowing that when you get there you'll have to wear lederhosen."
She's so right. I love her, and her anguish, and her "nameless yearning that has boys attached to it."
January 2, 2021
This book starts out like a house on fire--really. The first chapter begins with the 14 yr old narrator (who is never named by the author) and her best friend babysitting an unruly group of siblings when one of the children sets the bathroom trash can on fire. Felicia ("Flea") and her friend panic and respond to the smoke by herding all the kids outside, and then by removing all the animals (snakes, Tarantulas, mice) to the front lawn. Then they decide whose mother to call because mothers are the ones with the answers: "Forget fathers, forget teachers: our mothers are the ones with the answers, the only people who know something about everything, although it's true that the answers are never that great and that both mothers are incredibly bossy and both have at least one disturbing trait." They decide to call the narrator's mother (from the smoking house) and the girls argue about exactly how much smoke there actually is in the house until the mother gets irritated, yells at her daughter to call the fire station, and leaves work to go to the house herself to take charge.
This is a wonderful book, one of my better impulse buys at B&N. The writing is superb. The author accurately captures early teenage feelings of angst, anger, disappointment, and sadness. The girls talk exactly the way I remember talking at that age (although these teenagers are growing up in the 70s; I am a child of the 80s)and the relationship between girls is spot-on. Neither of these girls (Felicia and her friend the unnamed narrator) are angels; they lie, get into trouble, and are usually doing the opposite of what they told their parents they'd be doing. But they are likeable, funny, and a pleasure to spend almost 300 pages with.
Felicia likes to eat at her friend's house but her friend prefers to eat at her house and they often compare the previous evening's menus. The narrator generally eats Jell-O for dinner, no matter what her mother fixes. This small exchange between them makes me laugh every time:
"What did you have?"
"Jello-O," I tell her.
"I know, but what did they have?"
"Some kind of Transylvanian meat," I say. My grandmother's second husband is a butcher, as crabby as he is bald. A tongue isn't even the worst thing he's given us.
"Lucky," she says. "We had pork and beans and green beans. I said to my mother, 'These are both beans,' but she didn't care."
Another scene I particularly love is the moment that the narrator realizes (with horror) that being in the school's marching band is the most detrimental social activity she could engage in and decides to quit (with her friend Flea) in the middle of the parade ("I hadn't realized before, but now I do: We've made a terrible mistake. Band is weird.") I sometimes cringe at the situations they get into or the dumb decisions they make (they being Flea and the narrator), but I understand why they do what they do and can sympathize.
The dialogue is very well-written and natural and often quite funny. I highly recommend this book. It is often humorous, but the narrator and her friend also have to deal with the adult problems of alcoholism and death, along with surviving the teenage problems of popularity and boys and what to do when your face is asymmetrical.
This is a wonderful book, one of my better impulse buys at B&N. The writing is superb. The author accurately captures early teenage feelings of angst, anger, disappointment, and sadness. The girls talk exactly the way I remember talking at that age (although these teenagers are growing up in the 70s; I am a child of the 80s)and the relationship between girls is spot-on. Neither of these girls (Felicia and her friend the unnamed narrator) are angels; they lie, get into trouble, and are usually doing the opposite of what they told their parents they'd be doing. But they are likeable, funny, and a pleasure to spend almost 300 pages with.
Felicia likes to eat at her friend's house but her friend prefers to eat at her house and they often compare the previous evening's menus. The narrator generally eats Jell-O for dinner, no matter what her mother fixes. This small exchange between them makes me laugh every time:
"What did you have?"
"Jello-O," I tell her.
"I know, but what did they have?"
"Some kind of Transylvanian meat," I say. My grandmother's second husband is a butcher, as crabby as he is bald. A tongue isn't even the worst thing he's given us.
"Lucky," she says. "We had pork and beans and green beans. I said to my mother, 'These are both beans,' but she didn't care."
Another scene I particularly love is the moment that the narrator realizes (with horror) that being in the school's marching band is the most detrimental social activity she could engage in and decides to quit (with her friend Flea) in the middle of the parade ("I hadn't realized before, but now I do: We've made a terrible mistake. Band is weird.") I sometimes cringe at the situations they get into or the dumb decisions they make (they being Flea and the narrator), but I understand why they do what they do and can sympathize.
The dialogue is very well-written and natural and often quite funny. I highly recommend this book. It is often humorous, but the narrator and her friend also have to deal with the adult problems of alcoholism and death, along with surviving the teenage problems of popularity and boys and what to do when your face is asymmetrical.
January 2, 2016
I want to take this book to the movies. I want to set a place for it at the table. I want to sew a special pocket for it in my purse.
October 14, 2011
OMG I CANNOT EVEN. I MEAN SERIOUSLY. THIS BOOK. JUST READ THE FIRST TWO SENTENCES AND YOU WILL KNOW WHY.
Though I have to admit I wonder a lot about why Beard called this a novel: the characters are clearly the people from The Boys of My Youth. I've read a lot on-line about her "unnamed" narrator, but, at one point, she pretty clearly states that her name is Jo (when she's talking about Little Women, she says one of the characters has her name and she's the one who shows up for another book -- which would be Jo's Boys). Perhaps this is just wishful thinking, as in "I wish I could teach this in my nonfiction class next semester."
I don't even understand how Beard knows how to write the way she does. Parts of this book are so incredible that I actually had to write them out and graph them to figure out how it was put together. Her hand is subtle but strong.
I'm going to stop typing now before I start to talk about how much I wish I was hanging out with Jo Ann Beard RIGHT NOW and drinking beer and talking about Oprah and boys, which is what I would like to happen if I really were to hang out with Jo Ann Beard. In reality, I'd probably just try to pretend I'm not staring at her, say "um" a lot, and tell her how much I love her books like twelve trillion times.
Though I have to admit I wonder a lot about why Beard called this a novel: the characters are clearly the people from The Boys of My Youth. I've read a lot on-line about her "unnamed" narrator, but, at one point, she pretty clearly states that her name is Jo (when she's talking about Little Women, she says one of the characters has her name and she's the one who shows up for another book -- which would be Jo's Boys). Perhaps this is just wishful thinking, as in "I wish I could teach this in my nonfiction class next semester."
I don't even understand how Beard knows how to write the way she does. Parts of this book are so incredible that I actually had to write them out and graph them to figure out how it was put together. Her hand is subtle but strong.
I'm going to stop typing now before I start to talk about how much I wish I was hanging out with Jo Ann Beard RIGHT NOW and drinking beer and talking about Oprah and boys, which is what I would like to happen if I really were to hang out with Jo Ann Beard. In reality, I'd probably just try to pretend I'm not staring at her, say "um" a lot, and tell her how much I love her books like twelve trillion times.
September 5, 2014
I'll say this about that. Beautiful dysfunction. Reminded me of Lynda Barry. I loved it.
October 28, 2018
I love this novel with my whole heart and teach it in class every chance I get. Beard is a master of tension, of language, of weirdness, of getting to the heart of what really matters to humans. I come back to this novel again and again for inspiration in my own writing. It's not just a book about girlhood--For me, the experience of reading it is about cultivating curiosity and that childlike sensibility of being in constant awe of the world.
May 3, 2018
I can understand why someone may not like this book, as it was more scenes in a life of a young teenager in the 1970s than a traditional novel, but I for one enjoyed it very much.
Though cultural touchstones firmly establish a time and date, this book could have taken place at any point before the Internet and cell phones became a constant accessory to everyday life. The author expertly captures the confusion and struggles of growing up—and gets inside the mindset of a young person so well. Throughout the book, I was hearkening back to my own experiences at the protagonist’s age, although I had to marvel at the sheer freedom she enjoyed. (I didn’t run around like that until I was in my 20s! And this girl thinks she’s a late bloomer.) So many elements are rendered in such detail that I did wonder how much of the book was autobiographical.
I was also pleasantly surprised to observe the young protagonist’s sensitivity to animals. She always notices and comments upon the animals around her, and she is thoughtful of their treatment, even when others around her are indifferent. She is also, if not quite a vegetarian, a meat avoider—doing the best she can at her age in a household, time and place which would have made it difficult. The author’s highlighting of these issues makes me think she’s more aware than the average novelist regarding animal welfare.
As an avid fan of the 1970s, I’d also just like to note how much I enjoyed the detailed descriptions of outfits, music, furnishing, and so forth.
Though cultural touchstones firmly establish a time and date, this book could have taken place at any point before the Internet and cell phones became a constant accessory to everyday life. The author expertly captures the confusion and struggles of growing up—and gets inside the mindset of a young person so well. Throughout the book, I was hearkening back to my own experiences at the protagonist’s age, although I had to marvel at the sheer freedom she enjoyed. (I didn’t run around like that until I was in my 20s! And this girl thinks she’s a late bloomer.) So many elements are rendered in such detail that I did wonder how much of the book was autobiographical.
I was also pleasantly surprised to observe the young protagonist’s sensitivity to animals. She always notices and comments upon the animals around her, and she is thoughtful of their treatment, even when others around her are indifferent. She is also, if not quite a vegetarian, a meat avoider—doing the best she can at her age in a household, time and place which would have made it difficult. The author’s highlighting of these issues makes me think she’s more aware than the average novelist regarding animal welfare.
As an avid fan of the 1970s, I’d also just like to note how much I enjoyed the detailed descriptions of outfits, music, furnishing, and so forth.
May 17, 2011
Started out very strong, but petered out early. It's a very quick read, so I stuck with it to see how it would play out. Generally disappointing after such a big build-up -- great review by the usually reliable Chicago Tribune critic and something via Facebook (NPR or Huffington Post), plus jacket blurbs by authors I respect. I couldn't connect strongly enough with the narrator of this book and the lingering threat of animal violence/grave misfortune (sick, stray cats, myriad dogs tied outside and left to their own devices) cast a pall over the whole proceedings. Generally a 70s coming-of-age novel is a slam-dunk for me, but this didn't have enough going for it.
July 14, 2011
Jo Ann Beard writes beautifuly and her observations about family dynamics and being a teenager are impeccable. In Zanesville: A Novel is a must read for a few of the lines alone. She describes the oldest son (and terror) of her last babysitting job as follows: "We've always thought of Derek as a large, overbearing kid who shouts out words we've only seen in spray paint." That just rocks.
I would have loved to give this book five stars, but I couldn't bring myself to do it because, and I hate being someone who says this, but any other author who didn't have a Guggenheim tucked in her illustrious past never would have gotten this no-plot wonder past a literary agent, much less an editor. Not in YA, not today. Oh no.
In a way, that's sad because I think Beard captures the pain and strangeness of adolescence in a way that we don't usually see in young adult fiction. The teenage perspective in this book is so spot on, I get the same feeling I have when I see pictures I took as a little kid: excellent composition from a child's height.
I would have loved to give this book five stars, but I couldn't bring myself to do it because, and I hate being someone who says this, but any other author who didn't have a Guggenheim tucked in her illustrious past never would have gotten this no-plot wonder past a literary agent, much less an editor. Not in YA, not today. Oh no.
In a way, that's sad because I think Beard captures the pain and strangeness of adolescence in a way that we don't usually see in young adult fiction. The teenage perspective in this book is so spot on, I get the same feeling I have when I see pictures I took as a little kid: excellent composition from a child's height.
March 4, 2012
As a kid who did most of their crucial growing up in the dire time of the late eighties and early nineties, I've always felt a tremendous nostalgia for all things that came out of the late seventies. As anyone who does know me is already painfully aware, I've basically spent my whole life wanting to be Parker Posey's character in "Dazed and Confused".
So needless to say, Jo Ann Beard got me at the detailed list of clothing the nameless fourteen year old narrator and her friend Felicia put on layaway the summer before starting ninth grade.
I've read a few reviews bemoaning the fact that so little ever happens in the novel; however, I would insist that that is the very point Beard is trying to make. The novel is, in fact, about anxiety. The girls in the novel are waiting to be able to afford awesome clothes. They are waiting for their parents to finally completely screw-up and destroy their families for good. They are waiting to be old enough to get out of their town and do something.
And that anxiety rooted in suburban ennui seemed more exciting to me than the last fifty teen dystopian romances I've sludged through the past six months.
So needless to say, Jo Ann Beard got me at the detailed list of clothing the nameless fourteen year old narrator and her friend Felicia put on layaway the summer before starting ninth grade.
I've read a few reviews bemoaning the fact that so little ever happens in the novel; however, I would insist that that is the very point Beard is trying to make. The novel is, in fact, about anxiety. The girls in the novel are waiting to be able to afford awesome clothes. They are waiting for their parents to finally completely screw-up and destroy their families for good. They are waiting to be old enough to get out of their town and do something.
And that anxiety rooted in suburban ennui seemed more exciting to me than the last fifty teen dystopian romances I've sludged through the past six months.
May 21, 2011
Pitch-perfect evocation of adolescence, with language that is both stark and dreamy, In Zanesville paints a hurts-so-good landscape of lower middle class life and family relationships. Jo Ann Beard's young heroine displays both casual corruption and embarrassed nobility in her journey toward maturity and an uncertain future.
From the startling, smoky beginning scene to the introduction of a bowl of malted milk balls, the plot and setting zig just when you expect them to zag, and delightfully so. There's not a false note in this slice-of-life portrait. Indeed, I was left with a warm glow and soft hopes for many of the characters who dropped in and out of the story with lifelike unpredictability.
In early reviews, many noted the 1970s setting. Although occasional mentions of television shows, popular music and old school technology (like chunky, corded telephones) place the narrative squarely in the pre-Disco era, the attitudes and emotions shown by the young protagonist are as timeless as they are striking.
From the startling, smoky beginning scene to the introduction of a bowl of malted milk balls, the plot and setting zig just when you expect them to zag, and delightfully so. There's not a false note in this slice-of-life portrait. Indeed, I was left with a warm glow and soft hopes for many of the characters who dropped in and out of the story with lifelike unpredictability.
In early reviews, many noted the 1970s setting. Although occasional mentions of television shows, popular music and old school technology (like chunky, corded telephones) place the narrative squarely in the pre-Disco era, the attitudes and emotions shown by the young protagonist are as timeless as they are striking.
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September 17, 2023This might be perfect.
In the interview in the back, the author says her fiction process involves “imagining something until it feels like a memory,” and that comes through in the writing like whoa. This book is short but also a journey—the characters end up so far from where they began—and yet it’s a twisty-turny journey that takes the narrator not straight out from her place of origin but over and up and around herself, so that where she ends up is somehow the same physical space but on a different level of understanding/consciousness. (I think the gentlest way to grow up is by making a series of spirals that coil us around our former selves, letting us getting taller and take up more space but always stay centered on the kernel of who we’ve always been.) This book is funny and deep and precise in a way that somehow also feels broadly relevant (?; I don’t know!*), and for me it’s an understatedly brilliant snapshot of the time and place when the freedom of being a weird little kid gets stitched together with the mundane anguish of being a teen. Sublime.
*I just saw the author address this: “We’re privy to [the narrator’s] thoughts, which are so much of the time so incredibly personal that they don’t seem like they could have much relevance to other people. After all, she’s sort of every-girl. Both the main character and Flea, her best friend, are wise idiots.” That’s some magic, right there.
Read-alikes:
“Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?”
“The Lying Life of Adults”
“The Burning Girl”
“The Last Life”
“Rain” (Gunn)
“Rain, Reign”
“The False Friend”
The series that starts with “Raymie Nightengale”
In the interview in the back, the author says her fiction process involves “imagining something until it feels like a memory,” and that comes through in the writing like whoa. This book is short but also a journey—the characters end up so far from where they began—and yet it’s a twisty-turny journey that takes the narrator not straight out from her place of origin but over and up and around herself, so that where she ends up is somehow the same physical space but on a different level of understanding/consciousness. (I think the gentlest way to grow up is by making a series of spirals that coil us around our former selves, letting us getting taller and take up more space but always stay centered on the kernel of who we’ve always been.) This book is funny and deep and precise in a way that somehow also feels broadly relevant (?; I don’t know!*), and for me it’s an understatedly brilliant snapshot of the time and place when the freedom of being a weird little kid gets stitched together with the mundane anguish of being a teen. Sublime.
*I just saw the author address this: “We’re privy to [the narrator’s] thoughts, which are so much of the time so incredibly personal that they don’t seem like they could have much relevance to other people. After all, she’s sort of every-girl. Both the main character and Flea, her best friend, are wise idiots.” That’s some magic, right there.
Read-alikes:
“Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?”
“The Lying Life of Adults”
“The Burning Girl”
“The Last Life”
“Rain” (Gunn)
“Rain, Reign”
“The False Friend”
The series that starts with “Raymie Nightengale”
July 9, 2018
A nice little book. Not something I'd recommend to others and say I'm happy to have read but not something I regret either; does a nice job of capturing the moment between childhood and growing up.
July 16, 2018
A lot of things happen in this one – it opens with two babysitters who discover their charges have lit the house on fire, and it chronicles most of an eighth grade year fraught with cliques and the discovery of boys – but the center of the book is our protagonist’s voice. Jo is distinct in her perspective and language, so insistent on making sense of the world changing around her, and so consistently funny, that she’s the star of the book even in the rare moments when nothing is happening to her.
Like the best adolescent characters – Tom Sawyer or Holden Caufield, for instance – Jo is neither a proto-adult nor an overgrown child. She’s trying to make sense of the world as it strikes her immediately, and the result is that she comes to conclusions that show up the hypocrisy (or silliness) of adults. She notices the way her teachers are both “weird” and human, how they leap at any chance to share their passions with students yet have so little sense of how to frame those passions. She watches as her mother does her best to deal with her alcoholic father, complaining about the problem but never quite rising to address it.
Such conclusions are only incidental, though. Jo’s real focus is on understanding her role as “sidekick” to her best and fellow not-quite-cool friend, Felicia. The two of them have depended on each other for years, babysitting as a team, backing each other up against one another’s mothers and older sisters, and standing as the hub of a clique of girls who rate somewhere below the self-confident cheerleaders.
At the beginning, Jo is happy to be the lesser light, the girl no one notices alongside the taller, prettier (at least in Jo’s own sweet appraisal), and more visible Felicia. As the year progresses, though, the girls discover the twin dangers of boys and cooler girls who seem intent on prying them apart. They assign one another crushes while they’re hanging out in detention, and then they begin getting invited to the cooler kids’ parties. Jo resents it when Felicia gets led away by a boy, and she reacts by pushing Felicia further away herself. It’s stuff that looks small, even quaint, when you look back on it as an adult, but it looms large and life-shaping in the moment. Beard, through Jo’s voice, captures that urgency without losing its simultaneous wonder and humor.
Jo is so drawn to making herself invisible that she never even reveals her name. There’s a brief passage late in the novel (p. 183) when she talks about sharing the name of a character in Little Women. It’s not Amy, she tells us, but rather someone who winds up as a character in another Alcott novel. Since “Jo” is the only major character to appear in both – and since the author is a Jo as well – it’s the reveal, so subtle that I’ve seen multiple reviewers claim our protagonist narrator is unnamed.
Beard manages to get a lot of balls in the air. There are three larger “chapters” each consisting of dozens of shorter, unnumbered sections, and the third of those, when the real danger of boys manifests itself, is more than half the novel. Within that, though, she ties most of the threads together in deeply satisfying fashion. Jo begins to understand herself as an artist, for instance and she envisions a bizarre sculpture – complete with her pet parakeet – that really does begin to make sense of her fractured world. Later, in a concluding scene that isn’t really a spoiler, she sees the moon in a way that begins to reconcile her to her father and that becomes an entree into the world of kissing and real boyfriends.
Again, though, it’s Jo’s voice that rings the loudest. As a coda to my thinking about this rich and fulfilling adolescent self-discovery, here are a few lines I particularly loved:
The abrupt transition: “In retrospect we probably should have quit band after the parade instead of during it.”
At a high school football game: “On the cinder track, a teetering hive of Zanesville cheerleaders forms – “Hey, hey, that’s okay, we’re gonna beat ’em anyway – and then collapses. One girl takes a running start and does a series of increasingly sagging backflips, spelling out Z-e-p-h-y-r-s. By the end she is nearly landing on her head.”
When a friend tries to help her deal with the cramps of her first period: “ ‘Not a uterus, a vagina,’ Maroni says. She pronounces it like her first name – Gina – shaking my confident.”
Or, in case you’re wavering about whether to give this a shot, the fabulous opening sentences: “We can’t believe the house is on fire. It’s so embarrassing first of all, and so dangerous second of all. Also, we’re supposed to be in charge here, so there’s a sense of somebody not doing their job.”
Like the best adolescent characters – Tom Sawyer or Holden Caufield, for instance – Jo is neither a proto-adult nor an overgrown child. She’s trying to make sense of the world as it strikes her immediately, and the result is that she comes to conclusions that show up the hypocrisy (or silliness) of adults. She notices the way her teachers are both “weird” and human, how they leap at any chance to share their passions with students yet have so little sense of how to frame those passions. She watches as her mother does her best to deal with her alcoholic father, complaining about the problem but never quite rising to address it.
Such conclusions are only incidental, though. Jo’s real focus is on understanding her role as “sidekick” to her best and fellow not-quite-cool friend, Felicia. The two of them have depended on each other for years, babysitting as a team, backing each other up against one another’s mothers and older sisters, and standing as the hub of a clique of girls who rate somewhere below the self-confident cheerleaders.
At the beginning, Jo is happy to be the lesser light, the girl no one notices alongside the taller, prettier (at least in Jo’s own sweet appraisal), and more visible Felicia. As the year progresses, though, the girls discover the twin dangers of boys and cooler girls who seem intent on prying them apart. They assign one another crushes while they’re hanging out in detention, and then they begin getting invited to the cooler kids’ parties. Jo resents it when Felicia gets led away by a boy, and she reacts by pushing Felicia further away herself. It’s stuff that looks small, even quaint, when you look back on it as an adult, but it looms large and life-shaping in the moment. Beard, through Jo’s voice, captures that urgency without losing its simultaneous wonder and humor.
Jo is so drawn to making herself invisible that she never even reveals her name. There’s a brief passage late in the novel (p. 183) when she talks about sharing the name of a character in Little Women. It’s not Amy, she tells us, but rather someone who winds up as a character in another Alcott novel. Since “Jo” is the only major character to appear in both – and since the author is a Jo as well – it’s the reveal, so subtle that I’ve seen multiple reviewers claim our protagonist narrator is unnamed.
Beard manages to get a lot of balls in the air. There are three larger “chapters” each consisting of dozens of shorter, unnumbered sections, and the third of those, when the real danger of boys manifests itself, is more than half the novel. Within that, though, she ties most of the threads together in deeply satisfying fashion. Jo begins to understand herself as an artist, for instance and she envisions a bizarre sculpture – complete with her pet parakeet – that really does begin to make sense of her fractured world. Later, in a concluding scene that isn’t really a spoiler, she sees the moon in a way that begins to reconcile her to her father and that becomes an entree into the world of kissing and real boyfriends.
Again, though, it’s Jo’s voice that rings the loudest. As a coda to my thinking about this rich and fulfilling adolescent self-discovery, here are a few lines I particularly loved:
The abrupt transition: “In retrospect we probably should have quit band after the parade instead of during it.”
At a high school football game: “On the cinder track, a teetering hive of Zanesville cheerleaders forms – “Hey, hey, that’s okay, we’re gonna beat ’em anyway – and then collapses. One girl takes a running start and does a series of increasingly sagging backflips, spelling out Z-e-p-h-y-r-s. By the end she is nearly landing on her head.”
When a friend tries to help her deal with the cramps of her first period: “ ‘Not a uterus, a vagina,’ Maroni says. She pronounces it like her first name – Gina – shaking my confident.”
Or, in case you’re wavering about whether to give this a shot, the fabulous opening sentences: “We can’t believe the house is on fire. It’s so embarrassing first of all, and so dangerous second of all. Also, we’re supposed to be in charge here, so there’s a sense of somebody not doing their job.”
May 29, 2011
Jo Ann Beard's debut novel In Zanesville landed in my lap during just the right fit of nostalgia.
The previous night I'd watched the teen-aged girl next door waiting to get picked up by a carload of friends. She and her mom and her mom's boyfriend had all busted out of the house with this contagious giddy Friday fever. The girl needed a couple flashlights. Her mom gave her one, she clicked it on and off, made swirls of light. Her mom's boyfriend went to his truck to get another.
"Don't lose it," her mom said. "It was expensive."
"I'm going to throw it away when I'm done with it," the girl joked.
Everyone was in a really good mood. Practically dancing out of their skin.
It had started to drizzle and her mom commented on the rain.
"I'm wearing water-proof lip gloss," the girl said. Then off she went.
What was I doing 20 years ago on this night, I wondered. Cramming my friends into my Chevy Celebrity with its magic radio that could pick up Minneapolis stations, my wrists instinctively twisting left and right to land on every possible awesome frequency. Lips blue from a Mister Misty Freeze. Stopping by the community college to watch summer league boys basketball, waiting afterward in the parking lot for the right shaped boy-shadow to lope from the gym doors. Buying $15 worth of toilet paper to chuck into trees and wrap around cars.
Beard's unnamed protagonist, presumably named Jo, could be any of us in the 1970s. She's a 14-year-old, inseparable from her best friend Felicia. When the story opens they are co-babysitting a handful of rowdy tots whose parents belong to a motorcycle gang. One of the kids has set the bathroom wastebasket on fire and the duo is collecting kids and pet reptiles and vermin and considering what this job loss will mean for the clothes they have on layaway at a local store. The protagonist's mom shows up, so does the fire department. Later, the police.
The girls are "late bloomers," according to Felicia's mom and "weird" according to themselves. They're tight. Neither popular nor not. Hyper-aware enough to know that if they don't ditch out on marching band in the seconds before the big parade, they will be associated with these uniforms for the rest of their lives. And so there they sit on the grassy knoll overlooking the parade and earning detention.
The story covers a few pivotal months during which they dabble in dudes and crushes, develop new interests and negotiate the downside of popularity. The narrator, animal sensitive, bookish, funny and self-described as looking like an abstract painting, has a casually employed father who spends most of his time getting hammered, observing birds and repeating "I'll say this about that." Things get a little tense between her and Felicia when they are randomly invited to a cheerleader's slumber party, boys show up, Felicia gets paired up and the narrator plays 11th wheel.
Beard's story isn't my story, per se, but the essence is there in a way that reminded me of Tom Perrotta's "Bad Haircut." There were parts of this story -- a pleasure read that probably won't make my Top Ten but kept me entertained enough to bust through it in a single sitting -- where I knew exactly what Beard was talking about. The self-consciousness of walking into a stadium with plans to meet a boy in Section C, feeling that all eyes are on you and your frumpy shuffle.
When her mother mentions bras in front of her father:
"I don't know how much he knows or doesn't know about certain matters. My mother's own bras are large quilted things that I used to think were funny. Now when I see them on the laundry table, once cup folded into the other, I have a sense of doom. It's like being on your way to the Alps and knowing that when you get there you'll have to wear lederhosen."
When the main character and Felicia spend the night in Felicia's family's camper:
"We sleep in the popped-out ends, on wide bunks covered with foam pads, outfitted with sleeping bags and pillows that smell like rain."
On being in the school's marching band as a mediocre musician:
"I'd like to be the kind of person who can do something weird and not become weird because of it, but that's out of reach for me -- I am what I am at this point, and if I do this I'm done for. Once I march in their parade, I will be in it forever, uniform or not."
The previous night I'd watched the teen-aged girl next door waiting to get picked up by a carload of friends. She and her mom and her mom's boyfriend had all busted out of the house with this contagious giddy Friday fever. The girl needed a couple flashlights. Her mom gave her one, she clicked it on and off, made swirls of light. Her mom's boyfriend went to his truck to get another.
"Don't lose it," her mom said. "It was expensive."
"I'm going to throw it away when I'm done with it," the girl joked.
Everyone was in a really good mood. Practically dancing out of their skin.
It had started to drizzle and her mom commented on the rain.
"I'm wearing water-proof lip gloss," the girl said. Then off she went.
What was I doing 20 years ago on this night, I wondered. Cramming my friends into my Chevy Celebrity with its magic radio that could pick up Minneapolis stations, my wrists instinctively twisting left and right to land on every possible awesome frequency. Lips blue from a Mister Misty Freeze. Stopping by the community college to watch summer league boys basketball, waiting afterward in the parking lot for the right shaped boy-shadow to lope from the gym doors. Buying $15 worth of toilet paper to chuck into trees and wrap around cars.
Beard's unnamed protagonist, presumably named Jo, could be any of us in the 1970s. She's a 14-year-old, inseparable from her best friend Felicia. When the story opens they are co-babysitting a handful of rowdy tots whose parents belong to a motorcycle gang. One of the kids has set the bathroom wastebasket on fire and the duo is collecting kids and pet reptiles and vermin and considering what this job loss will mean for the clothes they have on layaway at a local store. The protagonist's mom shows up, so does the fire department. Later, the police.
The girls are "late bloomers," according to Felicia's mom and "weird" according to themselves. They're tight. Neither popular nor not. Hyper-aware enough to know that if they don't ditch out on marching band in the seconds before the big parade, they will be associated with these uniforms for the rest of their lives. And so there they sit on the grassy knoll overlooking the parade and earning detention.
The story covers a few pivotal months during which they dabble in dudes and crushes, develop new interests and negotiate the downside of popularity. The narrator, animal sensitive, bookish, funny and self-described as looking like an abstract painting, has a casually employed father who spends most of his time getting hammered, observing birds and repeating "I'll say this about that." Things get a little tense between her and Felicia when they are randomly invited to a cheerleader's slumber party, boys show up, Felicia gets paired up and the narrator plays 11th wheel.
Beard's story isn't my story, per se, but the essence is there in a way that reminded me of Tom Perrotta's "Bad Haircut." There were parts of this story -- a pleasure read that probably won't make my Top Ten but kept me entertained enough to bust through it in a single sitting -- where I knew exactly what Beard was talking about. The self-consciousness of walking into a stadium with plans to meet a boy in Section C, feeling that all eyes are on you and your frumpy shuffle.
When her mother mentions bras in front of her father:
"I don't know how much he knows or doesn't know about certain matters. My mother's own bras are large quilted things that I used to think were funny. Now when I see them on the laundry table, once cup folded into the other, I have a sense of doom. It's like being on your way to the Alps and knowing that when you get there you'll have to wear lederhosen."
When the main character and Felicia spend the night in Felicia's family's camper:
"We sleep in the popped-out ends, on wide bunks covered with foam pads, outfitted with sleeping bags and pillows that smell like rain."
On being in the school's marching band as a mediocre musician:
"I'd like to be the kind of person who can do something weird and not become weird because of it, but that's out of reach for me -- I am what I am at this point, and if I do this I'm done for. Once I march in their parade, I will be in it forever, uniform or not."
June 26, 2012
This was my 23rd book for the YALSA's Best Books Reading Challenge. This was one of the Alex Awards...which is a book published for adults that young adults would enjoy reading.
This was a tough one for me to get through. And I fell asleep reading it multiple times. This could in part be due to the fact that I had just gotten home from vacation. But also because I just couldn't get into this book.
It starts off when the 14-year-old narrator and her friend are babysitting some kids who set the house on fire. After the firefighters leave and the girls have to explain what happened to the biker parents, the father burns his son's hand to punish him. Then it jumps to the family life of the girls. Covering everything from trying to save a few kittens to trying to survive themselves in 9th grade.
I liked bits and pieces of the story. But the fact that the story was made up of bits and pieces itself just meant that I kept losing the battle between reading and sleeping. The story has fragments of events and then jumps to another. And the chapters are long with many bits of stories put together. Sometimes I couldn't even tell how everything fit together until I sat back and thought it over. Sometimes I would stop at a break and come back to reading and think that I must have skipped ahead a few pages because it was a completely different part of the book. But no, I had just moved on to the next little episode of her life.
Like I said, this was interesting. Just not my favorite. I can see how since it is a 14-year-old trying to figure out who she is as she is growing up that it will relate to many teen readers. But it feels like an adult looking back on the teen years and the jumbled mess that being an adolecent is. Others will probably like it more than I did.
This was a tough one for me to get through. And I fell asleep reading it multiple times. This could in part be due to the fact that I had just gotten home from vacation. But also because I just couldn't get into this book.
It starts off when the 14-year-old narrator and her friend are babysitting some kids who set the house on fire. After the firefighters leave and the girls have to explain what happened to the biker parents, the father burns his son's hand to punish him. Then it jumps to the family life of the girls. Covering everything from trying to save a few kittens to trying to survive themselves in 9th grade.
I liked bits and pieces of the story. But the fact that the story was made up of bits and pieces itself just meant that I kept losing the battle between reading and sleeping. The story has fragments of events and then jumps to another. And the chapters are long with many bits of stories put together. Sometimes I couldn't even tell how everything fit together until I sat back and thought it over. Sometimes I would stop at a break and come back to reading and think that I must have skipped ahead a few pages because it was a completely different part of the book. But no, I had just moved on to the next little episode of her life.
Like I said, this was interesting. Just not my favorite. I can see how since it is a 14-year-old trying to figure out who she is as she is growing up that it will relate to many teen readers. But it feels like an adult looking back on the teen years and the jumbled mess that being an adolecent is. Others will probably like it more than I did.
December 31, 2011
This book was good but NOT worth the hype it's been receiving. I find it interesting that a novel with a 14 year-old protagonist and very much about friends, boys, and school, got such glowing reviews. Why is this? Well, my theory is that because this is being marketed to adults rather than teens, it's playing on the reminiscent/sentimental vibe; whereas if you gave this book to a teenager, they'd likely find it boring. Given how much YA I read, I can safely say there are SO MANY better teenage-protagonist books out there... this one is trading on the fact that most adult readers don't want to be seen reading a YA book, whereas this one is somehow an 'adult' book. (My verdict: it's not.)
I generally find the whole coming-of-age theme rather tired, and this one is no exception. The main character was likeable but I found the voice a bit flat, and because of the looking-back/sentimental perspective, I couldn't fully relate to her the way I do with many protagonists.
I also found the ending rather abrupt; not really a satisfying conclusion.
I generally find the whole coming-of-age theme rather tired, and this one is no exception. The main character was likeable but I found the voice a bit flat, and because of the looking-back/sentimental perspective, I couldn't fully relate to her the way I do with many protagonists.
I also found the ending rather abrupt; not really a satisfying conclusion.
July 2, 2011
The narrator's voice is strong and distinct in this coming of age story set in the 70's. She is about the same age as I was at the time the novel is set and the details about what the world was like (particularly the world of early adolescence) at that time are painfully accurate.
This is a solid 3.5 based on these two things alone, there just really is not much of a story. Jo (maybe, you aren't ever completely sure if that is her name) tells the tales of friendship, family, growing up and leaving things behind in a compelling way, just nothing happens.
In a lot of novels, I really don't mind if nothing happens, but this particular book feels incomplete somehow. Still, I enjoyed the time spent meandering through Jo's life with her. Sure makes me glad I am not 14 anymore!
This is a solid 3.5 based on these two things alone, there just really is not much of a story. Jo (maybe, you aren't ever completely sure if that is her name) tells the tales of friendship, family, growing up and leaving things behind in a compelling way, just nothing happens.
In a lot of novels, I really don't mind if nothing happens, but this particular book feels incomplete somehow. Still, I enjoyed the time spent meandering through Jo's life with her. Sure makes me glad I am not 14 anymore!
February 15, 2022
Two 14 year old girls growing up in the 1970s Midwest. Quite a well told tale of family life during that era, I think. This relies a lot on nostalgia for that time period which in my mind makes it a weaker narrative, but brings the reader in close. It reminds me of families I've known, and I enjoyed the mother's sarcastic wit (all while lighting up another smoke) and struggle to hold the family together while the father has gone on another bender.
I read this because I've recently read Beard's latest book and wanted to try an earlier one. She's still good.
I read this because I've recently read Beard's latest book and wanted to try an earlier one. She's still good.
May 6, 2011
In Zanesville is a coming-of-age story about an unnamed fourteen-year old protagonist who revels in being a sidekick. She stays with an over-stressed mother, a drunk father, an annoying elder sister and a helpful younger brother. Our protagonist and Felicia (or Flea, as she is sometimes known) are best friends who know each other really well, and they frequently sleepover at each others place. Felicia isn't too popular either, though relatively, she is. When the pair are together, people look at Felicia and ask stuff. For instance, when events get very out-of-control at babysitting one day, the mother looks at Felicia and demands an explanation. Our heroine is clearly very used to being ignored, and it suits her fine. Until, one party at a cheerleader's house leads to her being isolated even by Flea, causing her to realize that she took her time with her best friend for granted.
I really liked this book. A lot! The protagonist of In Zanesville doesn't have a name. In this NPR post, Jo Ann Beard mentions that she related so much to the narrator that it didn't occur to her that she had to name her. Of course, that makes it hard for me to review the book, but I feel it worked really well for the book. There was a stronger sense of "I" in this book as I read it - as the author says, it's hard not to relate to the narrator. After closing the book, it made me relive my teen years, remembering all the fun and the heartbreaks.
In Zanesville focuses on the early teenage years, but it's really not a young adult book. Think Finny, The Secret Life of Bees and Saving Ceecee Honeycutt. This book is set in junior high school - the time of some of the most wonderful discoveries in life, and also possibly the most angst-ridden ones. The narrator's life strongly reminded me of my own junior high school years - the fascination with dating, boys, girl-friends we like to consider our best friends forever, the cliques, the jocks, parties that are no longer frilly but more fun, sexy, and naughty. And then the downsides - the jealousy, the obsession with the looks department, the clash with parents, the fights with the best friends, the association with the cliques. All in all - a wonderful look at all the drama that's common in those years.
This book also turned out to be very hilarious! As in laugh-out-loud funny. There is an innocence in those years that makes the whole experience laughable on retrospection. Both Felicia and our narrator manage to lure a couple of guys they meet at detention, without the guys ever having been aware of the girls' existence previously - I realize now how dating was really easier then than now, but in those years, it was harder than a math exam. When this 14-year old reminisces over the time when she was "young", I realized that no matter what our age, we always consider ourselves as old. And yet, interlaced through the incredible humor, there is a quiet yearning that you could feel. Both Felicia and the narrator yearned for more. They looked to each other for support. So when Felicia does something perfectly normal but which ends up making the narrator lonely, there's a frisson that appears between the two. Even at this point, the book doesn't slacken in humor, and yet I never stopped feeling sad for what she was going through. My only complaint or rather jarring note was that this is the point where the eccentric art teacher comes in and where our heroine throws herself entirely into art. It reminded me of Speak, but that's an unfair comparison, because we do tend to throw ourselves into some form of art when we are emotional.
In short, this is a wonderful coming-of-age novel of a young girl and her friend, as their friendship is tested in a way neither of them foresaw. It is also about the fears that rattle any teen especially with respect to the fragility of her own family - there is that gun in our narrator's home which she is worried could end up in her father's hands in one moment of extreme emotion. In Zanesville also does amazing justice to the minor characters - I'm glad they weren't mere puppets but were crucial to the storyline. I loved that the author portrayed the mother and the sister strongly and put across the family dynamics really well. I was checking through my goodreads shelf, and one of my friends had shelved the book as "the good old days", which best describes the book. Through a very engaging writing style, the author managed to transport me to those good old days that I hated then but would love to relive all over again.
I really liked this book. A lot! The protagonist of In Zanesville doesn't have a name. In this NPR post, Jo Ann Beard mentions that she related so much to the narrator that it didn't occur to her that she had to name her. Of course, that makes it hard for me to review the book, but I feel it worked really well for the book. There was a stronger sense of "I" in this book as I read it - as the author says, it's hard not to relate to the narrator. After closing the book, it made me relive my teen years, remembering all the fun and the heartbreaks.
In Zanesville focuses on the early teenage years, but it's really not a young adult book. Think Finny, The Secret Life of Bees and Saving Ceecee Honeycutt. This book is set in junior high school - the time of some of the most wonderful discoveries in life, and also possibly the most angst-ridden ones. The narrator's life strongly reminded me of my own junior high school years - the fascination with dating, boys, girl-friends we like to consider our best friends forever, the cliques, the jocks, parties that are no longer frilly but more fun, sexy, and naughty. And then the downsides - the jealousy, the obsession with the looks department, the clash with parents, the fights with the best friends, the association with the cliques. All in all - a wonderful look at all the drama that's common in those years.
This book also turned out to be very hilarious! As in laugh-out-loud funny. There is an innocence in those years that makes the whole experience laughable on retrospection. Both Felicia and our narrator manage to lure a couple of guys they meet at detention, without the guys ever having been aware of the girls' existence previously - I realize now how dating was really easier then than now, but in those years, it was harder than a math exam. When this 14-year old reminisces over the time when she was "young", I realized that no matter what our age, we always consider ourselves as old. And yet, interlaced through the incredible humor, there is a quiet yearning that you could feel. Both Felicia and the narrator yearned for more. They looked to each other for support. So when Felicia does something perfectly normal but which ends up making the narrator lonely, there's a frisson that appears between the two. Even at this point, the book doesn't slacken in humor, and yet I never stopped feeling sad for what she was going through. My only complaint or rather jarring note was that this is the point where the eccentric art teacher comes in and where our heroine throws herself entirely into art. It reminded me of Speak, but that's an unfair comparison, because we do tend to throw ourselves into some form of art when we are emotional.
In short, this is a wonderful coming-of-age novel of a young girl and her friend, as their friendship is tested in a way neither of them foresaw. It is also about the fears that rattle any teen especially with respect to the fragility of her own family - there is that gun in our narrator's home which she is worried could end up in her father's hands in one moment of extreme emotion. In Zanesville also does amazing justice to the minor characters - I'm glad they weren't mere puppets but were crucial to the storyline. I loved that the author portrayed the mother and the sister strongly and put across the family dynamics really well. I was checking through my goodreads shelf, and one of my friends had shelved the book as "the good old days", which best describes the book. Through a very engaging writing style, the author managed to transport me to those good old days that I hated then but would love to relive all over again.
May 23, 2023
4.5
Jo Ann Beard is such a masterful writer. This was a treat!
Jo Ann Beard is such a masterful writer. This was a treat!
August 6, 2012
Nothing spectacular happens in Jo Ann Beard's debut novel, In Zanesville. There is no murder, no car crash, no divorce, no vampire, and no lightning strike. Rather, we get an unnamed ninth-grade narrator, on the border between being a kid and being a teenager, dealing with all the mundane aspects of a dysfunctional family amid small-town American life in the 1970s. And -- song screeches to a halt -- this is where this funny, awkward book reminds us to give thanks, every day, that we don't have to go back and relive our teenage years.
The main character is a completely regular girl, who babysits (mostly uneventfully, except when the house catches on fire), plays flute in the marching band (until she decides that she looks like a dork and drops out -- in the middle of a parade), whose dad drinks (probably uneventfully, except why do those shotgun shells keep reappearing in the story?), just like anyone else in a no-name, cornfield town, eighty miles from anything. This is hardly a slam against rural life. Rather, it is a geography of anywhere; the exact same dynamic occurs in a typical suburb or a big city. There is a defined social order in this anyplace; the narrator and her best friend Felicia ("Flea") aren't cool, and they know it.
The plot's pivotal point, if it can be called that, occurs after a funny interaction between our heroine and Patti Michaels, a new kid in town, in the girls' bathroom. Patti, a cheerleader, invites our heroine and Flea to a birthday party. Wait. Remember the rules from being a teenager? "Crap! The problem with Patti Michaels is that she not only doesn't know she isn't cheerleader material, but she doesn't know who should and shouldn't be invited to one of their parties. This is a disaster."
Beard, who previously wrote the deeply moving story collection The Boys of My Youth, has a pitch-perfect ear for dialogue, and she has perfectly captured the anxiety, sadness, and humor that lurks just beneath the surface of all of our lives. The crushes, the keg party, the art project, the silent treatment: Like a modern tarot deck, these are the events that shape us, and this novel helps us appreciate how we made it through.
Head to www.EverydayeBook.com for more eBook reviews
The main character is a completely regular girl, who babysits (mostly uneventfully, except when the house catches on fire), plays flute in the marching band (until she decides that she looks like a dork and drops out -- in the middle of a parade), whose dad drinks (probably uneventfully, except why do those shotgun shells keep reappearing in the story?), just like anyone else in a no-name, cornfield town, eighty miles from anything. This is hardly a slam against rural life. Rather, it is a geography of anywhere; the exact same dynamic occurs in a typical suburb or a big city. There is a defined social order in this anyplace; the narrator and her best friend Felicia ("Flea") aren't cool, and they know it.
The plot's pivotal point, if it can be called that, occurs after a funny interaction between our heroine and Patti Michaels, a new kid in town, in the girls' bathroom. Patti, a cheerleader, invites our heroine and Flea to a birthday party. Wait. Remember the rules from being a teenager? "Crap! The problem with Patti Michaels is that she not only doesn't know she isn't cheerleader material, but she doesn't know who should and shouldn't be invited to one of their parties. This is a disaster."
Beard, who previously wrote the deeply moving story collection The Boys of My Youth, has a pitch-perfect ear for dialogue, and she has perfectly captured the anxiety, sadness, and humor that lurks just beneath the surface of all of our lives. The crushes, the keg party, the art project, the silent treatment: Like a modern tarot deck, these are the events that shape us, and this novel helps us appreciate how we made it through.
Head to www.EverydayeBook.com for more eBook reviews
April 3, 2019
I loved this book! Love it! It was so nostalgic although I have never been a teenager in the 1970s. I have just been loving reading books narrated by kids but written for adults. Black Swan Green, The Lovely Bones, Room, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, and now In Zanesville are all top recommends!
I think what I appreciate about this format is the innocence and playfulness through which we get to see the world. It is a relief to read through the eyes of a child or teenager when so many contemporary adult books are 1) depressing, 2) graphic, or 3) both. I tend to gravitate toward the classics for this reason---they tend to be subtler and less depressing or hopeless? So many contemporary novels seem so hopeless? I want hope! Well, the occasional hopelessness is fine for a spell, but in general I want heroes, not a 100% despicable cast of characters behaving badly. -end rant-
Now that said, it isn't like any of the books mentioned above don't feature hardships or even horrors. The Lovely Bones and Room both center around violent crimes. Three of these books feature bad marriages. And the dramas of high school alone are enough to fill a book with nightmares. ;) But! Everything is still through that young perspective, so present and in the moment, offering a really unique point of view when as adults we're so caught up in our busy adulthoods!
This audiobook is narrated by the author and so gorgeous and pleasant to listen to. I've found that usually when books are read by the writer, the audio is fantastic. I had a similar experience with The Lovely Bones. If you need an audiobook recommendation, pick up one or both of these.
My one one one critique of this book is that, unlike Paddy Clarke or Black Swan Green, the language doesn't feel like the language a 14 year-old girl would speak or think. She uses an advanced vocabulary, and this was offputting to me at the start. I've been trying to stay in that teenage voice with my own project I'm working on for grad school, and it was jarring to see a teenage narrator using such an adult vocabulary. However, the situations and antics she found herself in, as well as all of the dialogue, felt very true to her age. Loved this book and recommend it x1000.
I think what I appreciate about this format is the innocence and playfulness through which we get to see the world. It is a relief to read through the eyes of a child or teenager when so many contemporary adult books are 1) depressing, 2) graphic, or 3) both. I tend to gravitate toward the classics for this reason---they tend to be subtler and less depressing or hopeless? So many contemporary novels seem so hopeless? I want hope! Well, the occasional hopelessness is fine for a spell, but in general I want heroes, not a 100% despicable cast of characters behaving badly. -end rant-
Now that said, it isn't like any of the books mentioned above don't feature hardships or even horrors. The Lovely Bones and Room both center around violent crimes. Three of these books feature bad marriages. And the dramas of high school alone are enough to fill a book with nightmares. ;) But! Everything is still through that young perspective, so present and in the moment, offering a really unique point of view when as adults we're so caught up in our busy adulthoods!
This audiobook is narrated by the author and so gorgeous and pleasant to listen to. I've found that usually when books are read by the writer, the audio is fantastic. I had a similar experience with The Lovely Bones. If you need an audiobook recommendation, pick up one or both of these.
My one one one critique of this book is that, unlike Paddy Clarke or Black Swan Green, the language doesn't feel like the language a 14 year-old girl would speak or think. She uses an advanced vocabulary, and this was offputting to me at the start. I've been trying to stay in that teenage voice with my own project I'm working on for grad school, and it was jarring to see a teenage narrator using such an adult vocabulary. However, the situations and antics she found herself in, as well as all of the dialogue, felt very true to her age. Loved this book and recommend it x1000.
September 5, 2011
This one was a little disapointing. I thought it would be better, but no luck. I like a book with a clear beginning and end and this one just didn't have that. The author jumped right in before you knew anything about the characters, and the ending wasn't satisfying at all. It just.....ended....with no real resolution of the issues in the book. Also, the beginning was a little disturbing. It opens with two teenage best friends babysitting for a family with five kids. The oldest boy starts a fire in the bathroom, and the girls have to call their mothers and the fire department. After the parents arrive home and find out what happened, the father holds the boy's hand over the gas stove and burns him. I thought that the girls would do something about it, maybe tell someone or stop him. However, they just go home and show up the next day to babysit for the monster couple again. The reader never hears about what happened to the family or the boy. The book remains the same in that nothing ever gets resolved and that includes the ending of the entire book. It just....stops.
June 6, 2011
I would probably read the ingredient list on a cake mix box if it was written by Jo Ann Beard - yeah, she's that good. That said, the 14 year old narrator of this fiction didn't ring true for me - what would ring true is the narrator at 40 looking backwards and interpreting how she felt at 14. By definition, middle school girls are coltish, painfully self-conscious and wear their hearts on the outside like bloody valentines but introspective? No. Oh wait, I've left out that huge percentage of 14 year old girls who could be served in any bar in America. The book takes place in the kinder, gentler 70s devoid of distractions like cell phones, texting and media bombardment. A testament to the innocence of that time was when I was asked by a boy if I liked oral sex and I said "sure" - I thought he meant kissing. I imagine 90% of 8 year olds today wouldn't make that mistake. Sad.
April 18, 2013
There were so many reasons I wanted to like this book: I know a little about growing up in the midwest in the 1970s, although the Zanesville of the book was not the Zanesville (of Ohio) near which I grew up. It was recommended by a highly trusted web site, too.
But the book felt like a merry-go-round. It begins brilliantly: with a fire and compelling secondary characters (snotty kids, biker/porno parents, etc.). Instead, these characters got off and didn't return to the narrative.
Neither did the perfectly drawn first crush of the narrator. He disappeared--moved away without a word the day after an awkward grope in the stands of a football game.
By the time I got to page 181, the library was ready for its book back, and I was ready to give up. Couldn't finish it. Didn't want to.
Please comment me if there was a plot that emerged in the last 90 pages.
But the book felt like a merry-go-round. It begins brilliantly: with a fire and compelling secondary characters (snotty kids, biker/porno parents, etc.). Instead, these characters got off and didn't return to the narrative.
Neither did the perfectly drawn first crush of the narrator. He disappeared--moved away without a word the day after an awkward grope in the stands of a football game.
By the time I got to page 181, the library was ready for its book back, and I was ready to give up. Couldn't finish it. Didn't want to.
Please comment me if there was a plot that emerged in the last 90 pages.
June 25, 2014
I wish YA fiction came with warning stickers so I could avoid it. BFFs Felicia and (Jessica?) are in 9th grade at John Deere High School, are oddball unpopular tropes. They're funny when they crack each other up with their fake British accents, but not funny when they let the kids they babysit set feces on fire or when they choose to cuddle up to sick kittens with oozing faces. I just don't understand what point there is to reading this, I don't see what good it does. Particularly with a "happy ending" where the main character gets in with the popular kids, gets removed from AP math, and her father is still a hopeless alcoholic everyone fears will kill himself.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 3, 2015
I really, really liked this book. Some reviewers seemed not to like it because they were expected a YA novel and it doesn't read as YA. And it really doesn't, but it read extremely well. Even if you weren't in high school in the 70s, this book may feel nostalgic for you because the writing is so wonderful. I actually laughed aloud at times and at other times was moved to near tears. Everyone is written so well and I agree with the blurb on the back; these are girls I would have counted myself lucky to be friends with in high school.
March 14, 2012
For me, this book totally captured what it was like to be that age and trying to figure out how things worked post-childhood in small town Illinois, where the only thing to do seems to be to rush into the adult behavior. Joanna didn't like how detached the narrator was, but I thought it was how she was going to get through the maze of high school and dysfunctional family.
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