Stevie‘s review of Caron High News by Annabelle Jay
Young Adult Lesbian Romance published by Prizm Books 28 Jul 15
One of the aspects of Young Adult fiction I particularly love is the opportunities it gives authors to experiment with narrative structure and plotting conventions. So here we get the story told from the point of view of alternately the heroine and someone who, while strictly speaking not the antagonist, certainly comes across as not having the heroine’s best interests at heart. This is also a romance in which the route to true love and commitment (or at least what passes for a long-term relationship in the frenetic lives of a bunch of teenagers) isn’t particularly obvious from the outset. So I’m not going to tell who ends up with whom, although I may be tempted to hint a little…
Nissa begins the new school year still recovering emotionally from a horrific homophobic attack, although we aren’t told much about what happened until well into the story. After what happened, she no longer cares about getting good grades or about maintaining her popularity – in fact, she goes out of her way to distance herself from those of her former friends who haven’t already ostracised her. She does, however, go along with the head’s suggestion that she form an after-school Gay-Straight Alliance group, although the first meeting is attended by no one but Nissa and her teacher-chaperone.
Meanwhile, Nissa’s former best friend and all-round popular girl Bethany has broken up with her boyfriend, after catching him with another of their class. Nissa and Bethany team up with the aim of, firstly, making Nissa and, more importantly, the GSA popular and, secondly, making Bethany’s ex jealous enough to take her back. Their activities are observed by Audrey, the editor of both the official Caron High News and the underground gossip paper Who What Where and her sidekick Tamara. From then on the story follows Nissa, as the GSA begins to acquire new members, and Audrey, as her attempts to gain ever more spectacular titbits and photographs concerning the GSA members get increasingly extreme – to the point where she deliberately engineers situations to make them more newsworthy.
Of course, something has to end badly somewhere along the line, but once the dust has settled after Audrey’s final move to make as well as report on the school’s news, pretty much everyone has gained from their experiences and Nissa is able to both face up to what happened over the summer and move on in the best possible way.
Grade: A
Summary:
Caron High News begins on the day of the first GSA, or Gay-Straight Alliance, meeting at Nissa Falenbach’s school. The club was started by Principal Perry to give Nissa a community after the school’s first hate crime that past summer, but unfortunately, no one shows up. As Nissa leaves the school she sees Bethany, her former best friend and now popular girl, crying in the middle of the quad because she was just dumped by her boyfriend, Lenny, for not being sexually adventurous. The two agree on mutually advantageous terms: they will pretend to date until Lenny wants Bethany back, and in return, Bethany will draw ten new GSA members into their group. The novel is a split narrative between Nissa and Audrey, the school gossip newspaper’s Editor-in-Chief, who creates scandals that both help Nissa’s cause and, in the end, reveal her true motives. But neither Nissa nor Audrey could have predicted what happens at the Holiday Assembly after Audrey plays a recording of Nissa and Bethany’s bathroom confession.
Read an excerpt.
