Category | Arts & Living

Local student spins clever novel from high school experience

Published on October 30, 2007 by The Sentinel

    You thought your high school experience was dramatic? Nothing
compares to the drama in a fiction novel drawn from a writer’s own life
experience. Vanessa Rose Lee, author of the fiction novel “The Beauty
Queen and the School Nerd,” has a unique talent. Using her own high
school experience for inspiration, she has spun quite the clever novel
for young readers.

     The novel opens by introducing the reader to
two very familiar figures of a high school society: the popular girl
and the nerdy girl. The book progresses by going back and forth between
the lives of the two girls, illuminating their attributes and
weaknesses. At the climax of the novel a shocking revelation is made to
the reader. Interested in analyzing plots myself, I was stunned with
the sudden twist in the novel. Granted there is a hint early in the
story of what the secret is that the two girls share.

     The novel has accurate depictions of the
interactions between family members. The relationships between the
family members are eerie and true. The nerdy girl [Amanda] and her
mother have quite a strong relationship. Because of the mother’s job
and the girl’s school, the two rarely see each other more than at
mealtimes. For the few minutes that the two share, any reader can
imagine the close bond they have with one another. The parents of the
rich, popular girl [Jessica] have quite a different relationship with
their daughter. It is quite clear that the family of three have a cold
and distant relationship. Each person in the wealthy family relies on
the simple script of, “How was your day?” and other estranged-type
phrases to speak to one another.

     Also quite unrealistic are the reactions the
two girls have about the revelation that is made later in the novel. At
the most emotional point in the novel, rather than completely letting
out all their built-up anxiety, Jessica and Amanda merely accept the
truth that is laid so bluntly upon them. It is obvious that each
separate character feels a wide range of emotions, but each character
only skims the surface of the type of emotion human beings can harbor.
The emotions displayed in these characters are not as passionate
as those emotions expressed by characters in more adult novels.

    I would recommend this novel to young girls between
the grades of fourth and eighth. This would be the ideal audience for
the novel for a couple of reasons. First, young girls could handle
reading it because it is only sixty-nine pages long. Second, girls
would enjoy it because they are on their way to high school and they
would enjoy the story. It would intrigue a young female audience
because it is a story about girls that highlights the subjects of boys,
shopping and throwing parties.