Lobsterland

Publishers Weekly

Teens bored with their humdrum surroundings and on the hunt for something (or someplace) better will be drawn to this debut novel. It's the week before boarding school applications are due, and 16-year-old Charlotte must decide whether to stay on the island off the coast of Maine with her dysfunctional family (she shoulders the responsibility for her preschool-age siblings) or to broaden her horizons. Charlotte's stream-of-consciousness responses to the applications' essay questions reveal her desires, frustrations and fears. For example, "Who is your favorite literary character?" leads to a rant about how Charlotte's unstable mother named her three children after Charlotte's Web; how Charlotte's best friend, who has just hooked up with Charlotte's lifelong boyfriend, ought to have been named Templeton, the rat; a complaint about her Scrabble-obsessed dad who has "shtupped" the preschool teacher; and a comparison of herself with Charlotte the spider ("love words" and "not instantly likeable" are traits they share). Charlotte is right about not being instantly likeable: as people keep telling her, she's condescending and snarky, and she hurts her boyfriend by hiding from him her thoughts about boarding school. Although her diatribes often sound arch or overly clever, they evoke a realistic picture of a girl who yearns for independence but secretly fears letting go of the familiar. The rest of the characters seem somewhat two-dimensional, but readers might be too consumed with Charlotte's ongoing drama-that is, their own drama writ very large-to mind. Ages 14-up. (Sept.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Children's Literature - Susan Borges

This realistic fiction about a teenager's interpersonal relationships and self-awareness is edgy and raw. Charlotte, a high school sophomore, is struggling to find her way in a place she describes as a bleak, shrinky-dink island town. "Bleak" is a small island off the coast of Maine where Charlotte lives with her dysfunctional family in a small shingled cottage in close proximity to the other 500 year-round residents of the island. From September to June, Charlotte travels by ferry to high school on the main land, after lugging her two young siblings to daycare each morning. Unsupported by her clinically crazy Mom or free-spirited dad, Charlotte relies on Noah who is her best friend of sixteen years as well as her boyfriend. Describing the unique details of her hectic days, Charlotte's narratives are stocked with Wordly Wise vocabulary words learned in Mr. Trice's AP Lit class, as well as the odd phrases here and there that she has learned in French class. Written from a teenager's point of view with humor, compassion, and intimate detail, this story clearly illuminates the difficulties of living in such a small, limited community. Throughout the story, as Charlotte works on applications to boarding schools which would remove her from the community, she is struggling with thought s of how she will actually leave her life, family, and boyfriend behind. Although it does have a happy ending, this story is not sugar-coated. Charlotte's language is strong and she shares details of her personal life with complete candor and in-your-face honesty. Reviewer: Susan Borges

School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up
Charlotte, 16, lives off the coast of Maine on an island she calls Bleak. She can't wait to leave. In fact, she's secretly filling out boarding school applications for places far away (well, hundreds of miles, at least). In the meantime, her life jumps from drama to drama as her heavily medicated mother shares information about a long-ago abortion; her boyfriend seems to be spending a lot of time with her best friend; and her dad, obsessively addicted to online Scrabble, may be wanted by the FBI and is likely having an affair. Charlotte's rushed narrative is filled with unusual slang and a plethora of parenthetical comments. The choppy writing style is repeatedly disrupted by random observations, science facts, and other bits of arbitrary knowledge that only occasionally relate to the surrounding text. There are vague references to past people and events that won't be familiar to today's teens. And readers who do last until the end will be disappointed as the author tries to wrap everything up too neatly and easily-yet still leaves many questions unanswered.
—Heather E. MillerCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A day in 16-year-old Charlotte's life on Bleak, an island of the coast of Maine, contains more chaos than a season of your average TV drama. With her mother both physically and mentally unavailable and her father more interested in his laptop than his kids, it's up to Charlotte to shuttle siblings Eb and Fern to day care and keep them entertained and fed. On top of her familial responsibilities, she maintains the top GPA in her class and makes time for her boyfriend Noah. In the week leading up to the winter solstice, obnoxious, literate Charlotte races to finish her boarding-school applications, fights with her best friend and questions the viability of her relationship with Noah. Additionally, her mother deserts the family, and her father may be wanted by the FBI. Carlton grasps at intelligence, wit and pathos but fails to reach any of them. Charlotte vacillates between sounding like an embittered hipster and a ten-year-old, and her speech often alienates the reader. Between Charlotte's delirious thought patterns, her endless attempts at wordplay and some of the unsexiest make-out scenes in teen literature, it is unlikely that readers will develop an attachment to anyone in this story. (Fiction. YA)