Solitaire by Alice Oseman

Life has been pretty crazy so I took a brief hiatus, but I should be back strong in the summer months! We shall see.

If you aren't aware, Solitaire is the debut novel of Alice Oseman, who was just 19 when it was published and 17 when it was written. This was quite a big thing on Tumblr (where she has a presence) last year when the  novel was published in the UK, and naturally it had be interested and inspired. It was published here in the U.S. at the end of March, so I picked up a copy from my library as soon as I could. (By the way, from what I can tell, the U.S. edition doesn't seem to be very altered from the original except in grammar and spelling--it still has very British terms that are not all explained, for example.)

I suppose the best way to begin talking about Solitaire is with our protagonist, Tori Spring. Tori's a pessimist and she's aware of it. She's also an introvert who spends a lot of time blogging (meaning Tumblr) and interacting with anonymous people online. This causes her to be very angry and judgmental toward her schoolmates. It's painful to read, but I think it's a realistic mindset for an introvert who does not get to know who people truly can be inside. She also isn't afraid to dislike things that many other people love (including books), which I know will deter some people, but honestly 1) why do YA heroines have to be so plain so that everyone can relate/like them? 2) these are not necessarily the views of the author and 3) aren't you friends with people who dislike things that you love? Also, after the first third of the book or so, I found Tori much more bearable to read as she got to know some of her classmates a bit better.

Well, primarily, Michael Holden, a strange boy she meets who intrigues and frustrates her. It might sound like a cliche, but in actuality, he's there to open up her mind to the fact that other people can also be interesting. She learns of his amazing speed-skating hobby, of his struggles in school, and of his anger management issues. The two of them grow a bond where sexual attraction is not mentioned once, and I think that's pretty important to show for a change. Relationships are complex. (As I have been saying on this blog when half-hearted romances pop up in books.)

The other character that really stands out is Charlie, Tori's younger brother, who is gay, formerly attempted suicide, and still struggles with mental health. He and his relationship with his sister were probably my favorite things about the book. Then there's Tori's former best friend, Lucas, who comes into her life again; and Becky, Tori's current best friend whom she hasn't gotten along with too well lately and disagrees with at certain parts of the story. These two didn't have as much focus in the story, and although Becky gets some redemption at the end, overall there was a weird lack of developed female characters for a story set in an all-girls school.

And then there's the titular Solitaire, which is a blog-based organization set on staging pranks on the school. These pranks eventually turn dangerous. The thing is, it's quite unrealistic from multiple angles: how the domain solitaire.co.uk existed, how the whole school was hacked and various other things orchestrated, how the school administration doesn't seem too concerned. I believe I saw Alice Oseman say somewhere on the interwebs that this plot came out of her desire for something interesting to happen at school. And, well, the novel doesn't do too much to hide the fact that it's all happening so there is some sort of plot in there while the rest of it can focus on the characters. I think that's something that is understandable as a new writer; I myself have wondered how authors write contemporary without some big scheme of a plot. Nevertheless, it succeeds in its goal of putting the characters in situations that will allow them to develop or reveal what's in their minds and I didn't find it too distracting.

Solitaire's heart is really in mental illness, which manifests (and has manifested) in different forms in Tori, Charlie, and Michael. There is a strong theme of school and schoolwork being unfit for individual people and causing a lot of general unhappiness. This is something that sadly, no matter how much I love learning, I can relate to right now and it's a shame, but it's something we should be talking about. There was also some self-hatred that rang sadly familiar at times. Some darker scenes may have been cut out, but I think the overall effect of Tori believing her life just is this way and the eventual voluntary flirtations with death is believable and done with care.

Despite my reservations about Solitaire, I am really excited to see how Alice Oseman grows as a writer. What she has said so far about her second book (and how she is willing to acknowledge that there are many things she would change about Solitaire at this point in time) has really intrigued me and seems up my alley. I'm really glad she has a voice in fiction and plenty of things to say.