Dramarama
E. Lockhart
Hyperion, May 2007 (ARC)
311p. 12+y.
This will be brief for two reasons 1) I graduate with my M.Ed. from Vanderbilt tomorrow and have much party goodness to plan for (yay me!) 2) I didn't take a lot of notes while reading; I just enjoyed it.
Sarah Paulson and Douglas Howard, Jr. meet at an audition for the Wildewood Academy musical theatre summer camp. They're probably the only two at their very vanilla Ohio high school who have the slightest clue how big a deal it would be to get in. Douglas confesses he really goes by Demi when not in "straight-boy drag", changes Sarah's name to Sadye and an inseparable friendship is born. Told through Sadye's eyes and the dynamic duo's microcassette recordings ("for posterity"), this is one easy book to love.
Sadye reminds me so much of me (in high school, mind you) as she struggles through camp. She's pretty above-average in a million things, but expert at nothing except maybe wanting to "pounce" Theo, the cute piano boy. This mediocrity wouldn't be so bad were she not surrounded by the best and the brightest, especially her best friend/star of the show, Demi. The forward progression of this book is definitely Sadye and Demi's razzle-dazzle friendship and even a few Official Quarrels.
It occurred to me that there aren't a lot fo good books that take place at summer camp (please correct me if I'm overlooking some). One reason for this could be the stereotypical suspending of reality that happens at camp. The danger, then, is when the author encourages the plot to follow suit resulting in a cheeseball, never-would-happen-in-real-life-but-it's-at-summer-camp-so-okay-yeah-i'll-believe-it story. I'm happy to report that not only does Dramarama avoid that pitfall, it is much more than a book about (from the back cover):
"One boy, one girl
One gay, one straight
One black, one white"
There are three potentially controversial YA topics here - gender, sexuality, race - and Lockhart allows the story to simply follow some musical theatre-loving teens as they discover what they may or may not be made of (forgive the prepositional ending). I mean, this is not a book to hand to that teen student trying to identify his sexuality or your Honors English class to open a discussion on race in literature. It's not a book from which you at all costs MUST learn something, gosh darn it! The kids to whom this book will appeal already live a life of color, and will enjoy this as a book of a girl and a friendship and a summer of fun. You don't have to recreate background knowledge about Cabaret and RENT for Dramarama Readers. They arleady bring a wealth of their own.
That said, Lockhart makes the Reader feel like one of the over-the-moon-about-musicals Wilders (the nickname for the campers). You feel like you, too, are a Minnelli devotee and, of course you know the words to "The Telephone Hour." I appreciate that Dramarama doesn't try too hard. It does, however, make you want to go to theatre camp!
Hmmm ... so much for brief. :)
Check out Lockhart's other books and her blog.
