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The Opposite of Geek

by Ria Voros

Fourteen year-old Gretchen Meyer treads lightly through the halls of Carver Green High School with her loyal pal Nemiah, rolling her eyes at the school’s tedious and shallow clique culture. So far she’s managed to fly under the popular kids’ radar, but feels she’s close to being pegged as a complete loser: her parents are food-obsessed occasional nudists; she shares a secret passion for verse (haiku in particular) with the school’s guidance counsellor; and she’s about to fail math for the second time. Despite this, life is pretty decent, until Nemiah ditches her to join the swim team.

Suddenly cast in the role of uncool loner, Gretchen discovers friends in the keeners and geeks she has previously written off – in particular her math tutor, a bullied senior named James. It turns out that sensitive, good-natured James and his 18-year-old cousin Dean are just the sort of nonconformists Gretchen needs to pull her out of the dramas of school and home. When tragedy strikes (in an incident borrowed from the real James Dean’s life), Gretchen’s burgeoning sense of self is tested. Disappointment, depression, and shock lead a grieving Gretchen to turn to art and a newfound community to heal.

The novel is structured as a sort of poetic journal kept by Gretchen, and the inclusion of haikus – her own as well as a few by 18th-century poets Kobayashi Issa and Yosa Buson – inject playfulness and might convince young readers that not all poetry has to rhyme or be heavy and boring.

The Opposite of Geek is Ria Voros’s first foray into YA fiction (her previous book was the middle-grade novel Nobody’s Dog), and she does a good job capturing the realities of teen life. However, the book’s underlying messages of trusting in yourself and valuing actions over appearances may strike readers deep in the trenches of high school as easier said than done.

 

Reviewer: Natalie Samson

Publisher: Scholastic Canada

DETAILS

Price: $9.99

Page Count: 240 pp

Format: Paper

ISBN: 978-1-44310- 484-5

Released: Sept

Issue Date: 2013-11

Categories: Children and YA Fiction

Age Range: 12+