One Night

Publishers Weekly

Australian author Wild (Jinx) pens a free-verse problem novel about two teens who accidentally become parents after hooking up one night at a party. The book divides into three parts, the first of which centers on Gabe, who's cold but has a self-proclaimed "devastating smile." He meets Helen, who has a "damaged face" but, he admits, "saw into my soul." In the next part, told mainly from Helen's perspective, she realizes she's pregnant but cannot get Gabe on the phone to tell him. After fighting with her dad, she leaves home and finds a new family in a rundown boarding house, where she begins raising her son. In the final section, Gabe and Helen reconnect, confronting their problems and their futures. Gabe and Helen don't have a monopoly on difficulties, either; Wild also dissects both characters' parents' marriages. And, among other characters, Gabe says his best friend Al's name is "short for Alan and Alcohol"; Helen's new landlady has a drug-addicted granddaughter; and one boarder keeps expecting his dead son to visit. The verse can be startlingly perceptive (Helen, unable to breastfeed her son, feels judged by other mothers who "unbutton their blouses/ with milky complacency"). The author quickly captures multiple voices and points of view, and while some plot elements strain credibility, the teen-pleasing insights and fast pace outweigh the soap-opera touches. Ages 12-up. (May) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Children's Literature

Bram plans the parties and Gabe lures the girls and the only commitment is to return the houses to the same condition they were before. Gabe's mother left him when he was seven and left a hole so big no girl can fill it. Gabe's friend, Al, also comes from a home of no love and he aimlessly drifts from one party to the next filling his emptiness with girls and beer. One night Helen walks into one of these parties and falls for Gabe. The result is a pregnancy she carries to full term even though she has no support from her parents. She leaves school, gets a job, enrolls in a correspondence course, and finds a landlady who adopts her to replace the daughter who ran away. When the landlady becomes ill, Helen is determined to find the daughter but she must find someone to take care of her baby. She leaves the baby in Gabe's care, the first he knows he's a father, but it is also the night of a party. Al, in his drunken state, almost kills the baby and that ends all the parties. In one fast, pat ending, the boys grow up, the landlady's daughter returns home, and Helen is reconciled with her parents. The characters are well-developed in free verse style of writing, but the ending is too easy. Hopefully, teenagers reading this book will not believe real life issues have fairy tale endings. 2003, Alfred A. Knopf, Ages 10 to 14.
—Janet L. Rose

KLIATT

Like the author's Jinx (reviewed in paperback in this issue of KLIATT), One Night is a story told in short poems, from the point of view of several characters. It's quite amazing how a carefully crafted poem is able to reveal character so clearly on two levels of understanding: intellectual and emotional. One night two people meet at a wild party and then go their separate ways, but the night changes both their lives forever. Gabe is a beautiful young man, obsessed with hooking up with girls, but uninterested in commitments. Helen is a girl with a beautiful soul and a damaged face. When she realizes she is pregnant with Gabe's baby from the casual sexual encounter that one night, she decides to keep the baby and escape the misery of her parents' household. Both characters are eventually transformed by this one night and its aftermath. Margaret Wild is able to tell about teenagers and families with honesty. She doesn't pull back from the weaknesses and mistakes. But she also has compassion for these characters she has created, even the flighty mother, the rigid father, the drunken boy, the drug-addicted daughter who are peripheral to the story. As we might expect in a YA novel, Gabe and Helen mature by the end of the story, sharing a love for their son if not for each other. Helen's parents change in ways that help her start to trust them. Al, the alcoholic, pulls back from the edge of self-destruction, sobered by a near tragedy of his own making. This book, set in Australia, was first published there; this shouldn't be any barrier to readers from other countries. It's a strong, gripping story throughout, especially the birth poems when Helen is in labor, alone in the hospital. KLIATTCodes: JS—Recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2003, Random House, Knopf, 236p., Ages 12 to 18.
—Claire Rosser

School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up-Angry at his mother for deserting him, hunky Gabe treats the many girls he meets with a "love them and leave them" attitude. He and his buddies function as a well-oiled machine when it comes to throwing parties, hiding the dysfunction in their families and their personalities behind a smooth facade. Helen, who was born with a disfigured face, hopes to become a plastic surgeon someday. After a one-night stand with Gabe, her world is shattered when she finds that she is pregnant. Written in verse, the book details each small failure and success along the journey toward Gabe and Helen feeling comfortable in the world again. The book takes a sensitive and thoughtful look at a number of other characters as well, each of whom has been betrayed in some way and is dealing, or refusing to deal, with the grief of the situation. Teen readers will love this story and will appreciate its hopeful ending.-Catherine Ensley, Latah County Free Library District, Moscow, ID Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A confused novel-in-verse explores the personalities of four archetypical high-school students and the consequences of one-night flings. Gabe is the gorgeous member of a trio of friends who throw parties. His job is to invite as many pretty girls as he can attract. Bram is the calculating mastermind and Al supplies the booze. Helen is the independent loner who gets pregnant one night. Free-verse poems describe these and other characters, sometimes in first-person and sometimes in third. Divided into three unequal sections, the story lacks structure, as side characters butt in at awkward moments, and as a lack of depth and context to the story make each character's neatly tied-up ending seem far too purposeful. Though the verse allows Wild to vividly capture the emotions of these teens, the story she's trying to tell requires a novel's structure and complexity, never realized here. Poetry sequence or novel-it fails either way. (Fiction. YA)