How did I come to pick this book up? I was looking up some books about Borderline Personality Disorder and self-injury at the library and this book came up. Usually, I only read young adult novels when they cover a subject I'm interested in, such as psychological disorders/symptoms. So that's how I stumbled upon Joyce Carol Oates' "Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You".
Copyright 2012, Hardback, The Ontario Review, Inc., HarperCollins Publishers.
Summary: After the death of a school friend, Tink, two girls Merissa and Nadia struggle with their respective lives, self-esteem, love, and social issues. Merissa struggles with self-injury as her parents go through a divorce and Nadia has to face her fears when she falls in love with a teacher at her prep school.
I won't lie: I wasn't a big fan of this book. I've read Young Adult fiction featuring self-injury and self-esteem issues in the past, and this just didn't measure up to others that I've read, like "Cut" by Patricia McCormick and "The Luckiest Girl in the World" by Steven Levenkron. Though, it should be noted that the difference between those novels and this one is that "Two or Three Things" features self-injury but is not actually about self-injury. But I'll get to my criticism of that.
Upsides: I will give the book this--it depicts social and personal issues that young people go through in high school pretty accurately and in a painfully honest way. The writing is done in such a way that I think high school and middle school students would be able to relate to it. Had I read this book in 9th or 10th grade, I might have enjoyed it a lot more, but reading it as a 22 year old, it wasn't marketed for someone my age, clearly.
Downsides: I absolutely hated the way the book began. Oates starts us off with Merissa's story line and for several chapters, introduces us to Merissa by showing us how wonderful her academic life is and how everyone is so jealous of her super perfect life. Starting this way didn't give me a good impression of Merissa or of any of her friends. She seemed to me so whiney and I just wanted her perspective to shut up. As we go on, her point of view begins to make more sense, but those first five chapters or so really got me, at least, off on the wrong foot with the main character. I think my biggest problem with this book is that there isn't really any actual plot. It's a supposed to be a story of personal growth, I believe, and Merissa and Nadia are supposed to overcome their respective challenges with the help from their recently deceased friend, Tink. The way the book is publicized, you'd think the book was about Tink, but the character is only a foil for the others. And supposedly, by the end, these characters have overcome their difficulties magically all on their own, and I honestly have to say it just doesn't seem plausible. Like I mentioned, there wasn't a whole lot plot and I really wanted there to be. You can have a book without plot if there's a great personal growth story, but lacking both, the book really disappointed me.
Overall Rating: 2/5 Stars: I thought this book needed a lot more plot, a lot more development, and a lot more conclusion. It did a good job of describing the sensations surrounding self-injury, the anxiety that comes from a lack of self-esteem in high school, and the problems that come with a difficult home life. But outside of these good points, the book was lacking a lot and I would not recommend it to anyone as far as a young adult book depicting social struggles and self-injury. The alternatives I mentioned earlier in this post are books I would recommend for you if you're interested in that kind of genre.
Happy reading everybody!
AJ
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