Trouble: A memoir

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It’s feminist. If you’ve read this, you might be thinking: “What on Earth is she talking about?!”, but hear me out. It doesn't explicitly deal with gender politics. But I found that the way this dealt with issues like slut-shaming, and misogyny in sex, really opened my eyes (and will do to so many other people). Let me explain further: Aaron’s perspective throughout the book is what differentiated Trouble for me from an experience like Juno. True, Aaron is not actually the babydaddy—and while his volunteering of those services might seem far-fetched, the juxtaposition of his rising star with Katie’s falling one says a lot about how something like being pregnant shows you who your friends are. The subplot about Aaron’s “shadowy past” teeters on the brink of cliché but never quite goes over—and at the very least, it serves to avoid making him into a manic pixie dream boy whose only purpose is to be Hannah’s friend. Henry Smith is a student at a college prep school whose parents are well-off. Because of his love for his son, Henry's father attempts to protect Henry from life, often spending money to that effect, but of course, this doesn't stop life from afflicting Henry. One day, Franklin, Henry's older brother, gets hit by a car and hospitalized. The novel's action begins when Franklin arises from his coma, looks Henry straight in the eyes, mutters a single word, "Katahdin," and then dies.

The book piles on further down the oppressive white man path when we come across a ‘‘print’’ of an Indian slave ship. (A super unlikely coincidence in a series of unlikely events.) From the Captains face we are to infer some specifics about history and the print has “captured’’ this, implying it’s a photo? (Not possible but we are inferring a lot from what is described as if it were a photo.) Or are we to assume the artists was close to these events? What we do learn is that hero’s daddy’s money is dirty, as all old money must be. And when Hannah finally revealed that her 18 year old stepbrother was the father of her child, oh her parents were mad. And upset. But no-one mentioned how it was, you know, technically rape. The age of consent in the UK is 16. I don’t want to take away Hannah's autonomy because we saw her perceived consent firsthand. But she was young and naive and she felt like she loved Jay and he wasn’t that interested in her. I don’t think the text even touched on this and certainly her mother, who worked in a family planning clinic, didn’t. UGH.Hannah has made some mistakes but she's he first character i've ever read in a Ya novel who talks about periods, being horny and the fact that she really likes sex. Now, I know that Hannah’s decisions and reactions are realistic, and that people do stuff like this in real life, but she’s definitely not smart. I adored all the characters! Trouble is told with 2 POVs, and I cared about each of the characters completely equally. I was really rooting for them all the way, and I found their story so captivating. I was hooked throughout the whole book, and found it really hard to put down, because of how much I just wanted everything to be okay! They had so much depth, and were so complex. Everything became too real, so I just didn't want the book to end! I got about halfway through the book and looked at this blurb again, wondering what I’d missed. Hannah complains and gripes and puts people down and snaps, but no, I really wasn’t seeing the funny. And I certainly didn’t think she was smart. In any sense of the word. Smart people don’t:

Nevertheless, I greatly appreciate Pratt’s depiction of Hannah’s sex and romance life. Not only does she capture Hannah’s voice with the first-person narration, but she also manages to say a lot about the way young women in our society begin to perceive themselves during adolescence: This is a really sex positive story, for one about teenage pregnancy. There's a misinterpretation of a scene of being forced, which gets resolved into something's that is both sex positive, about enthusiastic consent, and champions boys who call peers on bad behaviour. Yes, there's examples of perfectly teenage behaviour, with lying about conquests and such, but that doesn't diminish the sex positivity. I was most definitely not a fan of Jay, who is Hannah’s stepbrother and who turns out to be the father of her baby. The age of consent in the UK is sixteen and Hannah was fifteen when they had sex, so technically that makes him a rapist, but this fact was completely skated over. So was the fact that he’s Hannah’s stepbrother. That just sat all wrong for me and I found the sex scene with him and Hannah a bit grim. I was making faces, and not good ones, and the fact that Hannah was completely in love with him made me like her even less.

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And -- if we hadn't previously gotten the drift -- it becomes abundantly clear that Chay and Louisa (Henry and Franklin's sister) have been spending time together and are in love. One might well conclude that knowledge of this relationship has contributed to Franklin's neanderthal behavior. Non Pratt also made the two voices distinct and full of life. Considering the POVs switched every few paragraphs it was both necessary and welcome.

Gary Schmidt does an incredible job with character development, and he is one of those writers that can take a small phrase and so clearly set the scene and make you visualize what’s happening. He especially does a great job with the scenes with the dog—it is obvious that the author knows and likes dogs, and those scenes were both heartbreaking, and hysterical! In addition to Henry, the characters of Henry’s friend Sanborn (who shows up to climb Katahdin and support his friend--despite Henry’s attempt to go it alone) and of “the enemy” Chay are superbly done. Sanborn and Henry have one of those deep male friendships disguised by constant insults and even fights—the kind of fights where neither gets mad no matter who wins. And Chay has layers that are revealed a small bit at a time. He goes from The Bad Guy of the story to just…human. Set in the 1980s, TROUBLE is the story of Henry Smith, a middle school student growing up on the northern coast of Massachusetts in a large house which has been inhabited by his ancestors for 300 years. Henry's older brother, Franklin, and his sister, Louisa, both attend Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Preparatory High School in Blythbury-by-the-Sea, the town that has grown up around their ancestral home. Big brother Franklin is the golden boy, popular and athletic, who can do no wrong -- or at least that is how it seems at first glance. How had his father guessed? 'Remember you were Cambodian before you were American.' And so he had taken his dog to teach him what he had to learn. He beat her. He made him watch. He starved her. He made him watch. 'Learn how to be strong,' he said. Then he took her away. 'She is drowned,' he said when he returned. 'Learn to be cold inside.'Like I said before, Trouble is an amazing read. It’s beautiful, raw and very real. I loved how Non Pratt really captured the real life issues that teens go through daily. I knew quite a few people in school who were like Hannah’s friends and it’s easy how you forget things over the years. Reading Hannah’s story about her drinking, sex and smoking, honestly it made me cringe, but these are the things that happen in ever day life for some teenagers. It felt realistic, honest and it’s a brave story. There were moments in the book that made me inadvertently cringe. Especially in the beginning, I was certainly like 'Really!?', why would a teenager of the age of fifteen want to become someone like that, want to throw away their life and want to grow up in more ways than one. I think Hannah was someone pretty much like that, But she certainly had some slutty friends naming one, Katie. I actually wanted to really slap her. She was nothing but a wannabe bratty child and she makes Hannah's life a living hell while she hasn't got enough on her plate already. However let me highlight the WAS in that sentence. I think having another responsibility for not only yourself is something scary, frightening and is the unknown. Hannah comes a long way to accept that, and that's what aspiring in Pratt's writing and her character. Hannah is fifteen and pregnant. Suddenly faced with motherhood alone she doesn't know what to do or who to turn to. When new guy in school offers to pretend to be the father to protect her from the students, who have turned into vultures, at school, Hannah accepts. They are thrown into a beautiful friendship but both Hannah and Aaron are keeping big secrets. What will happen when they all come to light? Will it tear the best friends apart or can their friendship stand all weathers? I’m not one of those pearl-clutching adult readers of YA. I love to see real life situations portrayed in books for teens and I don’t care about thinking of the children or whatever. I expect young people to act like young people and that includes make less than perfect choices and mistakes and everything else. Nor do I think books have to teach lessons or guide kids in any particular direction. Non most definitely did a very brave thing writing a YA Contemporary book with no main romance. Yes this book isn't a romance. It is so much more and about something so much more important. True Friendship. And how true friendship can withstand everything, It is truly beautiful, uplifting and moving. I loved that there was a little hint of romance at the end. Hannah and Aaron have such a beautiful and perfect friendship so that little hint that it could be more had the hopeless romantic in me aww-ing and squeeing a little.

Hannah. I found myself not liking her like 70% of the time. Her promiscuousness took some getting used to, but that didn't bother me so much. It mostly had to do with the fact that she had no problem with cheating, was incredibly impulsive (not in a good way) and could be quite judgmental. Thankfully she does go through some serious character development, but boy was she hard to relate to.

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One scene that totally didn't ring true and really bugged me was the courtroom "interrogation" of the witnesses: Why would Chay's lawyer laying out all the information that can convince anyone that Chay had every right to take revenge on Franklin, after being harassed for such a long time? All those questions serve as an exposition for the readers but it was done in a way that is not convincing at all. The side character friends were really enjoyable but not as developed as I'd have liked. I would have loved to see a scene where Hannah and Anj discussed their former friendship and falling out after she had that epiphany about how toxic her relationship with Katie had been compared to Anj