Review: Hooked

HOOKED
Catherine Greenman
Delacorte Books for Young Readers

When Thea Galehouse meets Will Weston, she falls headlong into love with the quirky, handsome, and smart senior. Their relationship becomes serious, surviving Will meeting her parents (hard-nosed part-time-realtor mother and success-obsessed father) and starting college. When Thea ends up pregnant she finds herself unable to go through with the abortion that everyone expected. Her and Will's parents help them financially so that Will can continue to go to school and later, when a fight with Will shakes her to her core, she finds herself accepting help from the one person she never expected: her distant, workaholic father. The plot here is one that covers a large amount of time (three or four years, I think) in relatively few words (the book clocks in at less than 300 pages).

The fact that this book does cover so much time, and not all of it during Thea's teenage years, reminded me quite a bit of both Other Words for Love and I Now Pronounce You Someone Else. The similarities between the three books may be few, but they certainly stand out. Thea's family situation at the start of the book is an unenviable one; since her parents' divorce years ago her dad has remained "married to" his job and weekends with him consist of waiting for him to come home for dinner and enduring discussions about her less-than-stellar GPA and college aspirations. Her mother, on the other hand, is a bit of a free-spirit, but a stubborn and opinionated one. She expects her daughter to share her very firm opinions on family, work, sex, and appearances. Since Thea and her mother are close, I tried hard to empathize with or even like her mom, but just couldn't do it. She was off-putting. Her tactless judgements of others (from Thea's best friend Vanessa to her father) were startling and made me wonder how on earth she didn't get into more fights with Thea, who seems to almost-but-not-quite agree with her, at least in the beginning.

The secondary characters, even when I didn't like them, had unique and strong personalities. But Thea was a mystery. It's easy to see what she values, what she loves, and later on what she wants, but at the end of the novel I still had no idea who she was. At one point Will tells her that she's "weird" (in a good, smart, quirky way, apparently), but there's little evidence of this. There's not much evidence to point in any direction as far as personality is concerned and while I'd expect that to make this book a Did Not Finish, her story was heartfelt and entertaining enough to keep me reading. Thea's love for her even-unborn son, Ian, is obvious and overwhelming. She constantly worries about losing him, doing that very Mom-ish thing of imagining all the worst scenarios. Yet when he is hurt, she's incredibly level-headed and capable, doing what she needs to do to help him. Thea may not be the most fleshed-out character, but even as a teenager she's a great mother.

Much of this book is predicated on the basis of a fight Thea has with her boyfriend, Will. And while it would be a spoiler to discuss the specifics, I will say this: it seemed unrealistic. Not the fight itself, but Thea and Will's response to it afterward. An comment that seemed very obviously prompted by anger and worry set a chasm between the two, sending Thea back to her surprisingly helpful father. It seemed unrealistic, but then at other times I could clearly understand Thea's responce. If not her actions, at least the feelings behind them. Her father, who is set up as a distance, workaholic who doesn't care what his daughter wants if it's not in line with his expectations of her, turns out to be not only more helpful than her mother, but also more concerned and loving - sometimes in a way Thea doesn't quite understand - than I would have imagined. Their rocky relationship is one of the things that makes this book one I thoroughly enjoyed.

Other relationships are less explored. I wanted more from Thea's changing friendship with her best friend Vanessa and sometimes wasn't sure what to think of the romance between Will and Thea. Though it's obvious they love each other,  the lack of personality on Thea's part (and sometimes Will's as well) makes the relationship one that isn't felt as strongly as I would have liked. I would recommend this to readers looking for a YA that tackles some traditionally non-YA topics (motherhood, for instance).

YA and Age

One of the main marks of a Young Adult novel is the age of the protagonist - somewhere between 13 and 18. Sometimes, but rarely, is the main character as young as 12 (these books often fall into the Middle Grade genre). But what about those YAs with protagonists who are older than 18, either at the book's start or by its end. I can think of three books off the top of my head where this happens.

Hooked, by Catherine Greenman - Though not out yet, this book follows Thea Galehouse as she becomes pregnant as a teenager (18) and moves in with her college boyfriend to raise the baby. A mother's love for her child is one of the biggest themes here and, let's face it, this isn't a teenage theme. Thea's identity becomes that of a mom before she really has a chance to develop her own identity as a person. A few times during the course of the book I wondered if it really fit as a YA novel or if the story is better suited to that broad category of general fiction. While some of the themes are the adolescent issues of first love and relationships with parents as well as changing friendships, others - like the motherhood issue - are more adult. Thea starts the story as an eighteen year old but ends years later as a young 20-ish woman.

Other Words for Love, by Lorraine Zago Rosenthal - This novel, in most ways, fits age and theme-wise into the loose guidelines of YA. It covers first love, friendships, and identity. Still, by the end of the story Ari is looking back on her teen years and the events that helped change her, which is decidedly different from most YA novels that take place in the present, not past, of a character's life.

I Now Pronounce You Someone Else, by Erin McCahan - Like Hooked this book also tackles themes and events that aren't typically teenage. Bronwen doesn't have a baby, but she does get engaged during her senior year of high school. Marriage, or at least the time leading up to marriage, isn't something most YA novels tackle. (Because, really, why would they?) And, like Other Words for Love, it ends by giving us a glimpse of Bronwen's life post-high school. Tying up the loose ends, if you will.

Are these novels YA?

Yes. And no. Really it depends on how we're defining YA (which is a conversation I find endlessly fascinating). Hooked takes the most liberty with the protagonist's age, which is often the guideline most talked about when it comes to "defining" the genre. But I think it's more complicated than just age. Or even than age and themes discussed. There's a certain feeling to YA stories that, though impossible to explain, is very different from general fiction. There's an immediacy, no matter what tense or person the story is told in. Even Other Words for Love, with its hazy atmosphere and post-teenage ending has that kind of feeling throughout Ari's story.

So are these books YA? In some ways they aren't, maybe, but overall... yes. I think so. But, if you've read either of these books... what do you think? Do you think there are YA novels that really aren't YA? Why? What's your "definition" of YA? (My own definition - of sorts - is over here.)