Review: The Six Rules of Maybe

THE SIX RULES OF MAYBE
Deb Caletti
Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing

Scarlet's a Nice Person. The sort of girl who looks out for not only her family and friends, but also her neighbors and strangers. She's constantly doing good deeds to try and brighten other people's days, whether that means encouraging her best friend's crush on a guy she's never spoken to or warning her older neighbors about email scams. When her older sister, Juliet, comes home pregnant and married, Scarlet's way of living for everybody else is put to the test as she finds herself developing feelings for Juliet's husband Hayden, who is, like Scarlet herself, a Nice Person.

Upfront I should say that I'm a sucker for stories about sisters, so I was a bit predisposed to like this one. Scarlet and Juliet are, like many sisters, different in some important ways. Though they shared the same upbringing (single mother, absentee father), their mother has always been closer to Juliet, the star. While Scarlet's quiet, nice, and unselfish above all else, her older sister is a little bit rebellious and a lot selfish. When she enters a room, things quickly become all about her. Despite this, Juliet's husband is surprisingly solid and kind - more like Scarlet than Juliet. He, too, is incredibly unselfish and it's easy to see that he loves Juliet completely even while she holds him at arm's length.

At times The Six Rules of Maybe can be a difficult read to get through, no matter how wonderfully it's done. This is because Scarlet is such an insular character; she exists so deep in her own head that the distance between this character (who, yes, is narrating the book) and the actual events sometimes feels enormous and foggy. There were a few scenes where I honestly wasn't sure what had just happened until one of the other, more plain-spoken characters, mentioned something about it. This can be annoying and I'd guess even more annoying if you're not one for character-driven, literary, or slow-going stories, but it fits well with Scarlet's introspective and meek personality.

Scarlet wants to save everyone around her. She wants to save Juliet; she wants to save Hayden. She wants their baby to have an unbroken family. But she also wants to be with Hayden and is getting a little tired of constantly being the good one, the nice one. This book is a little heartbreaking sometimes; Scarlet, despite her feelings for Hayden, mostly does everything she can to help everyone around her. Yet when her good intentions have unintended consequences, the people she's tried to help turn on her - in some cases suddenly and meanly. The story here, the slow change in how Scarlet sees things and her journey over the course of the novel, is written so, so well, and so realistically. Scarlet, Hayden, Juliet, and the rest of the characters are complex; nobody in this novel is one-note. Juliet comes the closest, with her selfishness and the way she so obviously takes all the attention away from Scarlet, but the love between these two sister comes through loud and clear and, like Scarlet, Juliet has her own hidden scars to deal with.

There's some very interesting stuff here dealing with love, especially different types of romantic love both requited and unrequited. The story deals nicely with who these characters love, and why, and what happens when it isn't perfect. In the extended cast of characters (which includes Scarlet's friends and neighbors as well as her family) there are many relationships and almost-relationships, all of which are unique.

Caletti has a literary writing style and her imagery is often breathtakingly beautiful. This is an incredibly well-crafted book with complex characters and relationships. It's not for everyone, but it's definitely worth checking out if you're a contemporary YA fan.

Review - Stay

STAY
Deb Caletti
Simon Pulse

At first, everything is amazing. Christian is gorgeous and super-attentive, exactly the sort of guy Clara wants to be with. That is, until his devotion to her grows into something else and he becomes more possessive and jealous, eventually stalking her after she breaks it off with him. Now, Clara and her dad have rented a summer house on the beach just to get away from him. In this little town, completely cut off from her old life, Clara hopes Christian will stay away from her for good, but her overwhelming fear makes her wonder if the distance between them will really stop his obsession.

I felt like this book was the anti-thesis to all the my-boyfriend-loves-me-so-much-he-stalks-me, Twilight-esque books out there. Clara and Christian have an intense relationship right from the get; there's an instant connection and the word soul mates is tossed around almost carelessly. They "love" each other. They're completely wrapped up in each other. However, as their relationship grows, so does Christian's jealousy. He doesn't want Clara to talk to other guys, look at other guys. He checks up on her when they're not together, just to make sure she's where she said she would be and not cheating on him. He gets angry too easily and this anger fades into a desperate neediness too quickly. When they break up and he starts stalking her, the fear is palpable. He emails, calls, and shows up at her house uninvited.

The story switches between past and present, telling the story of their relationship simultaneously with what happens after Clara and her father move to the sea for the summer to get away from him. While I wished that the past/present sections were marked, the story flowed well enough that it wasn't jarring for me. There's a lot of descriptive language in this book and a lot of times I felt like it slowed the story down, but at the same time there was so much tension in the story and this balanced out the slowness of it to a good degree.

The setting of the sea plays a bit part of this book and it's written beautifully. Though the overriding symbolism of the ghosts seemed a bit overplayed at times, the actual setting and atmosphere of the seaside town Clara and her father come to is great, as is the various ways that this setting plays into the plot of the story.

Clara and her dad have exactly the sort of father-daughter relationship I've been waiting for in YA. There's an obvious love and ease between them; when Christian starts going crazy, Dad is right there for Clara; he even even changes their life around to give both his daughter and himself some peace of mind. The relationship between them is so easy and such a huge part of the book, which I absolutely loved this. While there were some revelations near the end that I was unprepared for and that at first felt out of place, these things came together and made perfect sense by the conclusion. Things here are, thankfully, not tied up so neatly with a bow and while I wasn't quite satisfied with the ending, which felt rushed and a bit too easy compared with the rest of the story, I do like how Caletti left things overall.

I didn't expect to, but I loved this book. Love love love. It's lyrical and creepy, all-too-honest and believable, and written with such great tension and realistic characters. As I said earlier, I definitely recommend it for those readers who have grown disenchanted with the insta-love of many YA novels.

*ARC sent by publisher for review.