“Call me a planet, orbiting a revenge-colored sun or a seed growing in the gray soil of settling the score, I am a cold drink, retribution for ice cubes, A meal spicy with payback, Call me a film reel, Watch to see what I do,” writes Celia Door, who just after her 14th birthday turns ‘dark’. And that is how Karen Finneyfrock’s first novel, The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door begins. It’s juicy from page one. Set in Hershey, Pennsylvania, this novel chronicles the story of 14 year-old poet and outcast Celia Door. Celia with her poetry and her darkness and her thick black boots- haven’t we all been that girl, justifiable angsty, trapped in the misery of high school and just itching for something good to happen (or was that just me, minus the boots)?
Side note: For those of you who don’t know, I have been officially obsessed with Young Adult fiction since 2004 when I succumbed to the over-priced self-administered beat down otherwise known as grad school on the green mountain. There, trapped on campus with 200 other do-gooders and insane amounts of homework, I found relief in books I could read in a day. I started with Tamora Pierce and worked my way through John Green, Rachel Cohn, Justine Chin Headley, David Levithan, Justine Larbalestier, and those few “adult fiction" authors who dared to cross over like Madeline L’Engle, Sherman Alexi, Walter Mosley, and Isabel Allende. What makes YA so engrossing? Well for one thing, it’s accessible.
You are not going to be stuck in some deep and meaningful metaphor about a rose for 90 pages, not to say that it’s always easy. God knows I cried my ass off reading Looking for Alaska. Just because the books are written for a younger audience doesn't make them any less brutally honest, rich, or beautiful…if anything I find YA as a genre far more honest than adult fiction in that there is less posturing and writerliness and more getting to the point and kick ass stories. And I am not surprised to report that Finneyfrock’s book fits this bill. For those of you unfamiliar with Ms. Finneyfrock, she has been a staple at the Seattle Poetry Slam for years where she has represented my fair city on the mic at several National Slams.
She was granted the great honor of being Writer in Residence at the Richard Hugo House where she became mentor to many writers of all ages. She also teaches writing to youth, which shows in the novel by the way her characters' voices ring true. Celia is going through that rough time we often casually refer to as adolescence…ahh adolescence, the catch-all phrase for what can be the most awkward, icky phase of life, the proverbial soupy goop that takes place in the cocoon before the butterfly can emerge sometime in our mid twenties. Celia is definitely in the goop and like typical high school students, her classmates, particularly one Ms. Sandy Firestone, can’t wait to point out to her how weird and completely unacceptable she is. Enter the boy…there is often a boy…Drake, who is from NY and cool and miraculously drawn to Celia despite the weird and ‘dark’ she is labeled with. Don’t worry I’m not giving out spoilers, let’s just say this story didn't go where I thought it was going and that is always a good thing. I plowed through this book in two days enjoying every poetic cadence and really rooting for a happy ending (oh God, did I just out myself as a perpetual optimist). It was rich, at times funny, at times poignant, and completely worth it to pick up a copy and fall in love with it for yourself.
