Trouble: A memoir

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The elderly characters not only have agency, and the trust of the teen characters, and pasts, but they are friends, not mentors. That is something which I found completely awesome about Trouble. They are allowed to still be awesome in their own right. They're not just foils for the younger characters to learn. They are active, opinionated, sassy characters in their own right. There was a lot of girl hate in here. Under the circumstances it makes sense. I mean, what pregnant teen doesn't get any grief from her peers? Having none would be unrealistic. This particular trope is one I'm tired of but it was not completely out of place. They slept together on Jay's last night before going to college. Hannah was really in love with him. At first, i got really mad because HOW CAN YOU SLEEP WITH YOUR STEP-BROTHER? but she really loved him, she got fooled to see someone who wans't there. Aaron was great. My favorite part tbh. He could be a bit of a martyr at times, but I found the portrayal of his coping mechanisms very realistic. I especially appreciated the apathy aspect of his depression being shown, as I can relate big time. Trouble is an extremely fun, wonderfully British and compassionate novel with a serious side. I started to read Trouble shortly before attending the Walker Blogger Night, just to see what it was like, and before I knew it, I was dropping my current book and taking it to work with me. If you enjoy young adult contemporary, you will want to have Trouble on your shelves. Everyone will be talking about this year and you won't want to miss out.

There's Aaron. Silent and loner Aaron who thinks that by getting close to Hannah and her friends, he can forget the things that happened in his old school. Now, when Aaron found out that Hannah is pregnant, he decided to tell everyone that it's his. And why is that? Because he's stupid! Lol just kidding. But anyway, this is where my conflicting feelings starts. I started reading “Trouble” to see if she’d like it and thought it was really well written. I’m not sure if YD books are allowed to get away with a more implausible plots than say an adult book, but overall, despite the unlikely coincidences that happen throughout the book, the plot kept my interest to the point where I read rather than do other things I should have been doing and finished it in under a week. (Yes, YD but I’m a slow reader.) There was no character development. None. While both characters issues are eventually brought to the surface, we never see them learn from them or behave differently than they did before. Plus, once all their baggage is out in the open the reader never sees the consequence of that. I wanted to see Aaron come to terms with his friends’ death and maybe make amends with Penny. I wanted to see the shit hit the fan at Hannah’s house when her family found out who the father really was. But nada. The revelation is all we get. I did like Aaron and I felt really bad for the terrible things that had happened to him, but he didn’t really seem to develop either. And I didn’t really understand why he offered to pretend to be the father of Hannah’s baby. It is explained, but I still didn’t really buy into it. And I definitely didn’t understand why his parents went along with it!

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Like all of Schmidt's books, Trouble is well-written, with lovely descriptions and excellent character voice. I'm not sure if it's just because I was purposefully looking for the descriptive passages, but Trouble's seem to be the best I've read in his books. Everything is so active and vibrant. I was definitely taking notes. I truly loved the eventual rallying of Hannah’s family upon hearing her news. Her relationship with her grandmother was such a wonderful part of her story. And Aaron’s relationship with the cranky Neville added some necessary levity to the overall story.

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. Despite the obvious consequences of Hannah’s unplanned pregnancy, Trouble manages to be sex-positive. It is brutally honest when Hannah confides in us that she wants sex: “This last week or so has been UNbearable. I have never been so horny in all my life, and I think it might kill me if I don’t have sex soon.” More than that, however, this sex drive is by Hannah, for Hannah. Too frequently, women’s sexuality in media is an object of male desire—women are sexy for men, want sex for the benefit of a male viewpoint character. When Hannah refers to being “on the prowl” or “within perving distance” or otherwise discusses her body and her needs, she’s affirming that she wants sex for her own sake. Sadly she doesn’t really develop over the course of the book. She stops wearing make up and reconnects with some friends that she used to hang out with (but only because the popular crowd have dumped her) but she doesn’t really develop. She doesn’t gain new insight, which is astonishing seeing as how her entire life has changed. We don’t find out her thoughts on impending motherhood. In fact, the only time her pregnancy is mentioned is when she has physical symptoms, like peeing and horniness.The last part was directed not at Henry but at the dog, who had come to sniff Henry's father to see if he might be at all interesting. However, with out spoiling it, I didn't like who the father turned out to be or how it was dealt with. Technically, Hannah falling pregnant at fifteen would be statutory rape, combine this with the father, would this realistically be ignored by the parents and not perused any further? There was, to my recollection, no mention of how the parents dealt with who the father was. For me, it took a book that could have been very realistic and made it less so.

His best went on an exchange program to France and cheated on his girlfriend, Penny, Aaron's best friend. He was defending her and they got into a fight and Chris got in the way of a car. Aaron has his own story, his own battles that have haunted him. He is lost and lonely. He meets his best friend in a residential home. Oh Neville! Aaron felt safe and happy playing cards and spending with someone who needs some company, friendship. Aaron suffered happiness and sadness in such a short amount of time that he needs a focus. Hannah needs his support, a friend to rely on, and he wants to matter again, he needs to do something amazing. He becomes a fake baby daddy and he takes it with both hands and doesn't let go. There is something deeper between them but friendship is the beginning. If the end was a bit too nicely resolved...well, I can forgive a lot when a book is this well done. 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.In the dark, in the light, always imagining her face, remembering her face in the moments before the accident. Her laugh. Her easy wave. How her wave had been the first thing about her that told him all he needed to know. On the sex positivity, it's not only teenagers who are sexual, sexually active, or horny and anything. There are extremely awesome elderly characters who are friends, and confidants, and still allowed to be sexual, to have pasts which aren't romanticised, and be interested in now, and not be examples of 'in my day,' as a contrast with modern sexual or social mores being pulled into play by grandparental figures. Sex was sex in the past, as it is now, and teenagers do it. Gary Schmidt is probably my favorite children's writer after the venerable Katherine Paterson. I love both of them as phenomenal people, and admire them both madly as writers. So that's a disclaimer of sorts. That said--I didn't love TROUBLE as much as LIZZIE BRIGHT, and I didn't work on this book, so don't have quite the affection for it that I do for THE WEDNESDAY WARS. And I do see a few wee little problems in the narrative. BUT, they hardly matter b/c I think the heart of this book rises far above the narrative itself.