Skip to main content

The Season

I recently took a break from my MG Speculative Fiction reading for the Cybils and chose to read The Season by Jonah Lisa Dyer and Stephen Dyer. This is a book that combines Texas debutantes, soccer, and a splash of Pride and Prejudice. I will admit the book is far from perfect, but I enjoyed every single minute I spent reading it.

Megan McKnight is a star soccer player who dreams of playing on the National team. Soccer consumes all of her life until the day the newspaper announces the Bluebonnet debutantes have been chosen by the Dallas elite and she is one of them. Megan always knew her twin sister, Julia, and her cousin, Abby, were destined for the Bluebonnet circuit. She thought she was safe. But her mother had other plans and now Megan has to find a way to juggle soccer and classes with tea parties, cultural outings, and balls.

I really liked Megan's voice. She has a subversive snarky sense of humor. Her mouthiness often gets her in trouble, but she is hilarious. When her escort to the first ball tells her he's actively looking for a wife among the debutantes, she responds with,  "I'm just here for the sex." You have to love a girl with that kind of comeback power. Her attitude gets her in trouble too though, and this is part of why her mother insists she go through the Season. As a reader, I felt a great deal of indignation on Megan's behalf, but as Megan begins to try and see things from other's perspectives it was obvious she did need this experience and it helped her grow. At the core of this story are female relationships of all sorts. Megan and her sister Julia share a strong bond and there's not much Megan won't do for Julia. The relationships Megan has with the other debutantes change and grow as the book progresses too. We don't see as much of this, and the one "mean girl" doesn't get much development or sympathy, but what we do see of Megan with the other girls is good stuff (particularly at the end). The relationship between Megan and her mother is important as well. They both learn to see new things and appreciate different things about each other.

Megan's suddenly dramatically busy life is made further chaotic by the men she meets. She first encounters Andrew, a Harvard graduate Yankee business man who seems to find her sense of humor and chaotic existence amusing. When she hears him insulting her during the first ball, her opinion of him drastically changes. Megan then meets Hank, a sexy, charmingly flirtatious Texas boy who has big plans for her family's land that could solve their financial problems and help keep them from selling to a fracking company. Anyone who has read Pride and Prejudice will see where the story with these two is going immediately. That is a bit of a problem because I felt like the authors relied on that a lot to make Andrew a feasible romantic option for Megan. A lot of my desire for them to get together was knowing he was Darcy and not because there was a lot of great chemistry or development between them on the page. Andrew is a really great guy, but their storyline needed a little more developing. I sill enjoyed watching them get there though.

The Season is a hard book to pin an age category on. It's being marketed as YA and is published by Viking Children's. It's not really YA though. Megan is in college and of legal drinking age. All of the guys in the novel are men with careers and businesses. Megan is navigating a very adult world. It makes it a hard book for me personally to recommend to the teen readers I personally work with. For some teen readers it will be exactly what they are looking for. Teen me would have made this her favorite book and read it a million times.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Favorite Kissing Scenes

When thinking of a favorite things post I could do for February I decided it would have to be kissing. I've already done couples and I was feeling in the mood to do something fluffy and Valentine's related. So kisses it is. I read more MG than YA, and the YA I read tends to not focus on romance so this was actually harder than I expected it to be though a few jumped into my head right away. (And one of my choices does actually come from a MG book. One is adult. Gasp!) The actual scene from the book is quoted followed by my thoughts. The king lifted a hand to her cheek and kissed her. It was not a kiss between strangers, not even a kiss between a bride and a groom. It was a kiss between a man and his wife, and when it was over, the king closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the hollow of the queen's shoulder, like a man seeking respite, like a man reaching home at the end of the day . - The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner Turner doesn't write the

TTT: Most Recent Additions to My TBR List

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly themed blog hop created by  The Broke and the Bookish  and now hosted at  That Artsy Reader Girl . This Week's Topic: Most Recent Additions to My TBR List From Most Recent to Least: What books have recently caught your eye?

This Side of Home

What attracted me to This Side of Home by Renee Watson was the cover. The story hooked my interest. The characters made me fall in love. Maya has lived her entire life in the same neighborhood in Portland hanging out with the same group of friends: her twin sister Nikki, their best friend Essence, and Ronnie, Malachi, and Devin-three boys her father mentors. They have plans for the future that involve each other: prom, college, life. But things in their neighborhood are changing. People are moving in and starting new businesses. Property values are going up as a result. In addition to change, this is also causing trouble. Essence has to move out of her  house when the owner decides he can make more money selling it than renting it. The racial demographics of the school, which has been mostly African American, is shifting. This presents new challenges and choices for Maya and her friends. It brings new people into their lives at the same time. Maya has to figure out how-and if-she wa

Serafina and the Black Cloak

Serafina and the Black Cloak  by Robert Beatty is a thrilling tale of mystery and adventure set at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC in 1899. Having lived in Asheville and visited the house several times, there was no way I was going to pass up a chance to read this. (Also it's MG fantasy, always a bonus for me.) Serafina lives in secret in the basement of the Vanderbilt's spacious vacation home. She has lived there most of her life. Her father worked on the house as it was being built and is the mechanic who runs the massive generator and keeps the electricity going. Serafina is the chief rat catcher, slipping through the halls of her massive home secretly and quietly. She is light on her feet, sees well in the dark, and is quick enough to catch the vermin and keep them out. Serafina knows she if different and strange. Her father insists she stay hidden. But all that changes when one night Serafina witnesses a horrible crime. A little girl, a guest in the house, is fleein

Shorter Musings MG Fantasy

Here are some shorter musings on recent MG fantasy reads. Anya and the Dragon   by Sofiya Pasternack This book is fun. It is a book full of adventure, an obvious bad guy, some more complicated morally gray area characters, and a strong, brave heroine. It is also a book about friendships, community, and fighting for what is right. All things that usually work for me really well. While I enjoyed this, I did feel it was a little overlong and there were certain plot points at the end I didn't love. However, there were things I thought were done really well, such as Anya's Jewish faith and the idea that power needs to be challenged. In the end it was a middle of the road read for me, but it is one I will certainly be recommending to dragon and fantasy adventure lovers I know! R is for Rebel   by J. Anderson Coats This is tough because I usually really like Coats's books. I had such a hard time with this one though on so many levels. It's difficult to get into because t