Castellucci, Cecil. Boy Proof

There are two ways to write a book about geeks and guarantee that I'll hate it. The first is the Cinderella-Geek story: as soon as the girl gets some self-confidence, she'll be made over and transformed into some gorgeous radiant creature. This presupposes too much; sure, most people will be prettier with some self-confidence and a smile, but self-confidence doesn't pluck your eyebrows or shave your legs or style your hair. Feminine beauty requires that you never, ever draw attention to the fact that it's hard, and expensive, and time-consuming to maintain a look.

That's not what this book is.

The second story is fandom as social dysfunction; anyone who was really mentally, emotionally, and socially healthy would have better things to do than geek out about a movie. As someone who wears her geek hat and Doctor Who scarf with pride, that annoys me for obvious reasons.
Well, it's a metaphorical Doctor Who scarf, because I don't knit, and because I didn't get into it until this season, where there isn't any scarf. But you know what I mean.

That's not what this book is either, though it treads a little close.

Victoria "Egg" Jurgen shaves her head, scorns humanity, worships a movie called Terminal Earth, doesn't wear make-up, reads science fiction, wears a white cloak, and hangs out in her make-up/special effects artist father's workshop, making things. She meets the new kid, Max, who she thinks she hates, precisely because she likes him too much. But she's aloof, standoffish, angry; and unlike some perfect fantasy boy, he doesn't wait for her to come around and start being sociable.

I loved this book. It rings incredibly true to me; this is high school. Though Victoria got a better high school romance than I did. Everything is so keenly observed; and because of that, it becomes easy to notice the things that Victoria isn't noticing, that she's misinterpreting and overlooking. Because teenagers still have a long way to go in figuring out how to live in the world, I think one of the really great things young adult novels can do is draw a line between perception and reality in that way, so that you become keenly aware that the protagonist is wrong. And this book does that marvelously. It manages another balancing act in that Victoria is mostly responsible for her own problems--she's not a victim--but she still manages to be incredibly sympathetic; this is what high school does to people. You don't know how to survive, so you cope in any way that you can. What looks like social dysfunction on the outside looks, on the inside, like the only way you can protect yourself.

There's another thing; this book cheers for being passionate about things, for working hard and being creative. I think it's too easy in our culture to say, if you're not in the top 0.1%, don't even bother trying to make things. Why be mediocre when there are so many people out there who are better than you? Sit back, watch television. Egg takes photographs, she draws, she sews, she learns how to do monster makeup. Max draws graphic novels and political cartoons. You have to love a book with so much enthusiasm for art and creativity and political protest!

There's so much of the hilariously painful, or painfully hilarious, truth of what it's like to be weird in high school; my heart just about broke for Victoria, and for the me that I was then.