Another survivor from my booklist for Shakespeare & Children's Lit class last semester.


Flipping through it again, I don't remember why I kept it.  It's based on A Midsummer Night's Dream, although the actual plot of the play doesn't play out (no pun intended) until the very end, making for an odd adaptation.

Hermia and Helena are BFFs, despite being complete opposites.  Helena is girly and artistic and believes in true love; Helena that is, Hermia - already I'm mixed up - is more grounded and takes things in stride.  Helena has her eye on the mysterious new guy, Dmitri, while Hermia is in L-U-V with her best guy friend, Alex.  Meanwhile, Helena is also confused about her ex-boyfriend Nick, who seems to be giving her attention even though she thinks he doesn't like her.  As Helena and Dmitri's relationship progresses, though, Dmitri starts hitting on Hermia, whose many attempts at telling him to get lost fall on deaf ears.  Motivated by his intense dislike of Alex (not that we ever find out why they hate each other), Dmitri firsts asks Hermia to a dance and then, when she refuses to go, gets her overbearing father to ground her if she doesn't go with him.  But Hermia really wants to go see this play in Central Park (she has aspirations to be an actress) that's on the same night.  After Hermia has sneaked away with the help of Alex, Helena sees an opportunity to get Dmitri back by telling him where Hermia went and clinging along for the ride.  It all culminates at the play, and do I really have to tell you about the shit that has to happen before everyone ends up the right person?

As you can see, this book is way more complicated than it needs to be.  I liked the characters of Helena and Hermia - that is, when I could tell them apart - but Alex is pretty much a nonentity while Dmitri's motivations don't seem to at all justify his insane actions.  Seriously, he's pretty much a psycho in the later half of this book.  Hermia's dad is even worse - apparently her mother cheated on him with another woman, which is infinitely more interesting than most of this book.  There's a subplot about the all-boy production of Romeo and Juliet their school is putting on ... which goes nowhere fast.  The only redeeming quality is Nick, a perfectly sweet guy whose affection for Helena is obvious to anyone but Helena herself.  Sutherland packs a lot of ideas into this book, but none of them are ever really explored (i.e., Dmitri's snobbishness about being seen with the "right" people; why teenagers sometimes transfer their affections so quickly).  Plus, even though it's set in New Jersey, everyone talks like they're British - no contractions, a lot of "perhaps"s and "indeed"s - plus, we get sentences like "I waver between delight and dismay and end up finding myself altogether embroiled in confusion" from Helena, the "poet."

Quite simply frustrating.  Rating:  2.5 ansty poems out of 5.