YA Novel Review
Clean by Amy Reed (SimonPulse)
Back in June, I had the honor of being nominated for the Northern California Book Award with Amy Reed and Daniel Handler. I was a bit star struck by this honor and nothing short of astonished to be named the winner. But, cliche as it is, there really isn’t a “winner” when it comes to being nominated with two such amazing authors who contribute so much to the YA landscape.
Perhaps the best part of the event in San Francisco last June was getting the chance to hang out with Amy Reed, author of CLEAN. I had read Amy’s book after speaking with her at the Sonoma Book Festival last fall and loved it and had been meaning to write about it for Point of View. The Northern California Book Awards proved the perfect opportunity.
CLEAN recounts the time five diverse teen addicts – wealthy, perfectionist Olivia, party girl Kelly, church-going Christopher, bad boy Jason, and goth girl Eva – spend in a private Seattle rehab center. In the book, Amy gives a nod to The Breakfast Club– type construct of her novel, an automatic hook for me as TBC is one of my favorite teen movies. I love the notion of unlike people coming together under confined circumstances, especially when they shift into individuals along the way who grow to respect the power of differences within a community.
It takes a top-notch writer to handle addiction books, and Amy’s one of the best I’ve read. Her prose is crisp, detailed, exact, and her five distinct voices give insight into the heartaches and struggles of these five very real teens as they begin to investigate their path to recovery. Amy’s themes (accountability, recovery, choices) are rich and well-developed, and while this book contains some very difficult content, Amy handles it with grace, optimism and love. These teens have been given an opportunity – to make good choices, to understand their roles in the world, and, ultimately, to live.
Writing Exercise
When I taught high school drama, I had a project called “Trapped” where I would show my students The Breakfast Club, we would talk about the construct of confining unlike people in a certain environment, and then I’d have them work in groups to write a play where they created another version of that construct. (My students always wowed me, setting their plays in a closed Costco, a rooftop, an island, a bomb shelter…the list went on and on).
Use this construct as a basis for a piece of writing. Start by creating five distinctly different characters who might not normally choose to be in the same space. Next, choose a setting where the characters would not be allowed to leave, some place that would naturally lead to discussion. Give them each a problem they must overcome individually, and also a collective one (we have to get off this rooftop!). See where this takes you. I loved in class that, after watching the student plays, our discussions always centered around how much we assume about people (stereotyping) and how so many of us really all want the same things.
Outside Reading School Project
Have students compare and contrast The Breakfast Club with CLEAN, and then perhaps find one other book or film where they feel like the author/filmmaker uses a similar construct. Have them show their information as a poster, webpage, or essay.
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