I’ll count the last entry as the one for day 12.
Funny, when made to name a fictional book, I’m at a loss for words. Where to start? I already wrote about Harriet the Spy.
Ah, I know, I’ll write about the Jessica Darling series.
I make no excuses: this is chick-lit. I actually like chick-lit when the female protagonist is not so simplistic. It isn’t all about settling down and getting married after all. As a twenty-something girl who often feels like someone in a chick-lit setting, it’s a juggling act of work, love, friendship, and coming to terms with myself. It is a cliche because it’s true.
Jessica Darling from books one to three narrates through a compilation of letters to her best friend. She is a frustrated achiever, smarter and more aware of what goes on outside of her little town. Of all the people to empathize with her, it’s with Marcus, the high school druggie. What follows is a rollercoaster relationship with Marcus, as well as struggling to stick to the bigger picture no matter how small-minded the world around her is. As she enters Columbia University in New York, she finds that even she looks as small as the town she left behind. Add to that is the complex on-off relationship with Marcus, who has chosen to tread an alternative approach to life.
In book 4, Jessica Darling chooses to make her life without Marcus. It’s not a spoiler, I think this is a plus in the Jessica Darling series – book 5, she encounters Marcus again. They don’t end up together, but they finally understand what it is that has kept them together for all that time.
The Jessica Darling series was lent to me at an interesting time. I had a Marcus, one I’m still coming to terms with. It is one of those things a friend and I often agree to be, “when smart people become stupid”. I’m not ashamed to own up to my smarts, but I know I have HUGE potholes in my rationale.
I always appreciate female leads who don’t have to be right all the time. That is more real to me than someone who actually makes the dream of having it all. I only know one person who finally had it all, and it was a lifetime struggle for her. I like that the series writes about the struggle. Jessica Darling is often unsatisfied, but it rings true. It helps that McCafferty made it so timely: she did her research and grounded it very well into the time it was written.
Everything just read so well and felt so real. I still read it from time to time when hit by nostalgia, or confusion.
Part of the 30 Day Writing Meme. Next is Day 14: A Non-fictional book.