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The Starboard Sea
"A rich, quietly artful novel that is bound for deep water, with questions of beauty, power and spiritual navigation as its main concerns. The title refers not to the right side of a boat but to the right course through life, and the immense difficulty of finding and following it."--Janet Maslin, The New York TimesA powerful first novel about life and death, friendship and love, as one young man must navigate the depths of his emotions.JASON PROSPER grew up in the elite world of Manhattan penthouses, Maine summer estates, old-boy prep schools, and exclusive sailing clubs. A smart, athletic teenager, Jason maintains a healthy, humorous disdain for the trappings of affluence, preferring to spend afternoons sailing with Cal, his best friend and boarding-school roommate. When Cal commits suicide during their junior year at Kensington Prep, Jason is devastated by the loss and transfers to Bellingham Academy. There, he meets Aidan, a fellow student with her own troubled past. They embark on a tender, awkward, deeply emotional relationship. When a major hurricane hits the New England coast, the destruction it causes brings with it another upheaval in Jason's life, forcing him to make sense of a terrible secret that has been buried by the boys he considers his friends.Set against the backdrop of the 1987 stock market collapse, The Starboard Sea is an examination of the abuses of class privilege, the mutability of sexual desire, the thrill and risk of competitive sailing, and the adult cost of teenage recklessness. It is a powerful and provocative novel about a young man finding his moral center, trying to forgive himself, and accepting the gift of love.
321 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2012
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August 10, 2015
My #1 Read for 2013
This book reminds me in many ways of Bridge to Terabithia, the book that started my love of reading. Don't get me wrong, The Starboard Sea is certainly more adult oriented and certainly not a children's book but there is something about a coming of age story that brings me back that first book that made such an impact on me.
The Starboard Sea is melancholic at times and a brooding story that gives us peek into the lives of rich and privileged kids at a boarding school. In small part, the book explores what money can allow one to get away with but beyond this the story explores how people deal with guilt, regret, death and ultimately how some learn to heal.
Although the main characters were finishing their last year of high school, I didn't feel I was reading a book about kids for kids. To appreciate the emotional weight of the book I think you need to have a few more life experiences than a newly minted high school graduate.
The book is equally emotional, moving and disturbing. Some of the themes will make some readers uncomfortable but I think it is the turbulence within the story that draws you in. An excellent, emotional read. 5 Stars and a top read of 2013.
This book reminds me in many ways of Bridge to Terabithia, the book that started my love of reading. Don't get me wrong, The Starboard Sea is certainly more adult oriented and certainly not a children's book but there is something about a coming of age story that brings me back that first book that made such an impact on me.
The Starboard Sea is melancholic at times and a brooding story that gives us peek into the lives of rich and privileged kids at a boarding school. In small part, the book explores what money can allow one to get away with but beyond this the story explores how people deal with guilt, regret, death and ultimately how some learn to heal.
Although the main characters were finishing their last year of high school, I didn't feel I was reading a book about kids for kids. To appreciate the emotional weight of the book I think you need to have a few more life experiences than a newly minted high school graduate.
The book is equally emotional, moving and disturbing. Some of the themes will make some readers uncomfortable but I think it is the turbulence within the story that draws you in. An excellent, emotional read. 5 Stars and a top read of 2013.
December 17, 2011
Rules of conduct are flexible for rich kids, and never more so than at Bellingham, a co-ed prep school for misbehaving teens who have been booted out of more prestigious academies. In her debut novel, Amber Dermont revisits the zeitgeist of the Reagan era through the eyes of Jason Prosper, a senior who lands at Bellingham in 1987 following the suicide of Cal, his best friend and sailing partner.
When Jason arrives at Bellingham, he is full of secrets and emotional baggage involving Cal's death, his parents' faltering marriage, and his own sexuality. The school provides an atmosphere amounting to supervised juvenile delinquency, where "if you could pay, you could stay." Many of the students devote more energy to sailing, sex, hazings, and substance abuse than to academic pursuits.
Jason falls in with a gang of kids who seem to practice delinquency almost as an art form or a religion, and they do it with the insouciance of the indulged. Not for them the grief or consequences that plague the rest of us. At least not on the surface. Sometimes that manufactured mischief is a front for an anguish that has no other outlet. And when Black Monday hits in October, some of them learn they're not as immune to reality as they'd imagined themselves to be.
In the enigmatic Aidan, Jason finds a confidante, but she's a damaged and troubled soul. Rumors and speculation swirl around campus about her history and her violent tendencies. After a hurricane batters the East Coast, Jason is left with questions about Aidan's capacity for harming herself.
Ultimately this is Jason's story of managing grief and guilt while examining some questions of ethics involving his friends, his brother Riegel, and his parents' generation. In a larger sense, it spotlights the ways in which privilege supersedes societal strictures and the whispers of one's conscience.
The Starboard Sea is quite a remarkable debut novel. Dermont's dialogue and characters are real enough to be both entertaining and disturbing. Beautiful sailing and stargazing imagery abounds. The one weakness I would cite is the way the novel ends. Secrets are revealed, the school year is over, and the story is finished. With so many serious considerations introduced throughout the book, the end feels abrupt and leaves hazy the author's intentions for the story's message. Highly recommended, nonetheless. [4.5 stars]
When Jason arrives at Bellingham, he is full of secrets and emotional baggage involving Cal's death, his parents' faltering marriage, and his own sexuality. The school provides an atmosphere amounting to supervised juvenile delinquency, where "if you could pay, you could stay." Many of the students devote more energy to sailing, sex, hazings, and substance abuse than to academic pursuits.
Jason falls in with a gang of kids who seem to practice delinquency almost as an art form or a religion, and they do it with the insouciance of the indulged. Not for them the grief or consequences that plague the rest of us. At least not on the surface. Sometimes that manufactured mischief is a front for an anguish that has no other outlet. And when Black Monday hits in October, some of them learn they're not as immune to reality as they'd imagined themselves to be.
In the enigmatic Aidan, Jason finds a confidante, but she's a damaged and troubled soul. Rumors and speculation swirl around campus about her history and her violent tendencies. After a hurricane batters the East Coast, Jason is left with questions about Aidan's capacity for harming herself.
Ultimately this is Jason's story of managing grief and guilt while examining some questions of ethics involving his friends, his brother Riegel, and his parents' generation. In a larger sense, it spotlights the ways in which privilege supersedes societal strictures and the whispers of one's conscience.
The Starboard Sea is quite a remarkable debut novel. Dermont's dialogue and characters are real enough to be both entertaining and disturbing. Beautiful sailing and stargazing imagery abounds. The one weakness I would cite is the way the novel ends. Secrets are revealed, the school year is over, and the story is finished. With so many serious considerations introduced throughout the book, the end feels abrupt and leaves hazy the author's intentions for the story's message. Highly recommended, nonetheless. [4.5 stars]
January 1, 2015
I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of positive things to say about this one. First, a disclaimer: I listened to the audio version of this one in the car, and while I love audio books as a rule, every now and then I encounter one read by a film or TV actor who really should NOT be employed as an audio reader. Just because they are a known name and I’m sure perfectly competent at their primary profession, that does not always translate to capturing the right tone in an audio book, or (especially) competence at voicing multiple characters. This one was SO bad, the voices for the majority of the characters so clichéd and cartoonish, I almost stopped listening to this book after the first CD. It bothered me a little less as time went on, but may have had a little influence on my impressions.
Sadly, there were plenty of other issues that cannot be blamed on the audio format. The book contains some interesting themes, but (in my opinion at least) suffers from weak development/writing of themes. As well as predictability of plot (and the need for a review of “show, don’t tell”) the novel is weakened by an uneven narrator who leaps between one extreme characteristic to the other (hurtling from A to E with no B, C, or D, no hint of transition in his thoughts/actions). That said, I did find both Aiden and Chester (and Cal, although he only appears in flashbacks) interesting and sympathetic.
Another aspect of the writer’s style that drove me a little crazy: at several points the author shied away from important (and perhaps challenging to write) scenes and conversations between the characters. Then, she simply mentioned in passing a chapter or so later that they happened. For example, Aiden and Jason are talking intensely, and Jason is (understandably!) hesitant to tell her the full truth about his relationship with Cal and role in his death. I was waiting for it to happen, since the author had mentioned Jason’s internal conflict over his secrets and wanting to be close/honest with Aiden repeatedly. The scene never came; instead, at a seemingly random/tacked on moment, the narrator is like, oh and that night (apparently after the author ended the scene) I had finally told Aiden about Cal and his death, etc. There is no real mention of her response until almost the end of the novel, again in retrospect, and zero discussion of how the conversation came about. While I can see the need to withhold a few details of their conversation (for a “big reveal” towards the end) it was very frustrating as written. That happened more than once, and it struck me as lazy writing and very ineffective.
Sadly, there were plenty of other issues that cannot be blamed on the audio format. The book contains some interesting themes, but (in my opinion at least) suffers from weak development/writing of themes. As well as predictability of plot (and the need for a review of “show, don’t tell”) the novel is weakened by an uneven narrator who leaps between one extreme characteristic to the other (hurtling from A to E with no B, C, or D, no hint of transition in his thoughts/actions). That said, I did find both Aiden and Chester (and Cal, although he only appears in flashbacks) interesting and sympathetic.
Another aspect of the writer’s style that drove me a little crazy: at several points the author shied away from important (and perhaps challenging to write) scenes and conversations between the characters. Then, she simply mentioned in passing a chapter or so later that they happened. For example, Aiden and Jason are talking intensely, and Jason is (understandably!) hesitant to tell her the full truth about his relationship with Cal and role in his death. I was waiting for it to happen, since the author had mentioned Jason’s internal conflict over his secrets and wanting to be close/honest with Aiden repeatedly. The scene never came; instead, at a seemingly random/tacked on moment, the narrator is like, oh and that night (apparently after the author ended the scene) I had finally told Aiden about Cal and his death, etc. There is no real mention of her response until almost the end of the novel, again in retrospect, and zero discussion of how the conversation came about. While I can see the need to withhold a few details of their conversation (for a “big reveal” towards the end) it was very frustrating as written. That happened more than once, and it struck me as lazy writing and very ineffective.
March 23, 2023
Bei "In guten Kreisen" handelt es sich um einen überaus klugen College-Roman in der Welt der Ostküsten-Elite. Es geht um Schuld, (sexuelle) Identität, Kapitalismus, Klassizismus und einfach nur das Überleben als junger Mensch in einer größtenteils kaputten Welt. Der Roman ist vor zehn Jahren erschienen und hat nichts von seiner Dringlichkeit eingebüßt.
Jason Prosper ist der Ich-Erzähler. Er wird im Sommer 1987 in eine neue Schule abgeschoben. Er entspricht nicht den Erwartungen der "guten Kreise". Sein Freund Cal ist durch Selbstmord gestorben. In der neuen Schule trifft er das mysteriöse Mädchen Aidan. Jason Prosper wurde von der amerikanischen Kritik mit Nick Carraway verglichen. Dieser Vergleich greift zwar literarisch sehr hoch, absurd ist er dennoch nicht.
Es ist ein Coming-of-age-Roman, der das Segeln als Spiegel für die Unsicherheit des Protagonisten einsetzt. Navigation, Ausrüstung, Stürme oder Unfälle finden im Leben von Jason ihre Entsprechung. Das könnte trivial und billig sein. Da es sich natürlich einfügt und nicht mit dem Holzhammer präsentiert wird, funktioniert es hier für mich. Manchmal sind die einfachsten Ideen doch die besten.
Der Roman wurde vor ca. 10 Jahren veröffentlicht. Fast zeitgleich gab es eine Kurzgeschichten-Sammlung der Autorin. Außerdem konnte man die Ankündigung lesen, dass Amber Dermont an ihrem dritten Buch, welches vermutlich "The Laughing Girl" heissen würde, arbeite. Dieses würde voraussichtlich 2015 erscheinen, was aber nicht passiert ist. Auf der Webseite des Colleges, an dem sie unterrichtet, steht auch 2018 noch dieselbe Information. Ich hoffe, dass es irgendwann einmal einen neuen Roman von Amber Dermont geben wird.
"In guten Kreisen" könnte in Zukunft noch einen Schub erhalten. Netflix hat angekündigt ein Projekt auf Basis des Romanes zu entwickeln. Details, wie z.B. ob es eine Serie oder ein Film werden soll oder wer involviert sein wird, sind noch nicht bekannt. Wenn eine Serie oder ein Film auf Netflix den Roman auf die Bestsellerlisten bringt, wäre das gut, denn es ist ein absolut lesenswertes Buch.
Jason Prosper ist der Ich-Erzähler. Er wird im Sommer 1987 in eine neue Schule abgeschoben. Er entspricht nicht den Erwartungen der "guten Kreise". Sein Freund Cal ist durch Selbstmord gestorben. In der neuen Schule trifft er das mysteriöse Mädchen Aidan. Jason Prosper wurde von der amerikanischen Kritik mit Nick Carraway verglichen. Dieser Vergleich greift zwar literarisch sehr hoch, absurd ist er dennoch nicht.
Es ist ein Coming-of-age-Roman, der das Segeln als Spiegel für die Unsicherheit des Protagonisten einsetzt. Navigation, Ausrüstung, Stürme oder Unfälle finden im Leben von Jason ihre Entsprechung. Das könnte trivial und billig sein. Da es sich natürlich einfügt und nicht mit dem Holzhammer präsentiert wird, funktioniert es hier für mich. Manchmal sind die einfachsten Ideen doch die besten.
Der Roman wurde vor ca. 10 Jahren veröffentlicht. Fast zeitgleich gab es eine Kurzgeschichten-Sammlung der Autorin. Außerdem konnte man die Ankündigung lesen, dass Amber Dermont an ihrem dritten Buch, welches vermutlich "The Laughing Girl" heissen würde, arbeite. Dieses würde voraussichtlich 2015 erscheinen, was aber nicht passiert ist. Auf der Webseite des Colleges, an dem sie unterrichtet, steht auch 2018 noch dieselbe Information. Ich hoffe, dass es irgendwann einmal einen neuen Roman von Amber Dermont geben wird.
"In guten Kreisen" könnte in Zukunft noch einen Schub erhalten. Netflix hat angekündigt ein Projekt auf Basis des Romanes zu entwickeln. Details, wie z.B. ob es eine Serie oder ein Film werden soll oder wer involviert sein wird, sind noch nicht bekannt. Wenn eine Serie oder ein Film auf Netflix den Roman auf die Bestsellerlisten bringt, wäre das gut, denn es ist ein absolut lesenswertes Buch.
May 19, 2012
Amber Dermont was my creative writing professor in college, so when I heard about this book I naturally had to go out and buy a copy immediately.
It's a good book. The story has a lot of elements that reminded me of The Secret History and Looking for Alaska, in that it takes place at an expensive prep school and deals with bullying, drugs, entitled rich kids who get away with anything, and a female love interest who's so clearly damaged she would have Alaska Young backing away in apprehension.
There are flaws in the book, and it wasn't my favorite, but that's all I'm going to say because I know that Dr. Dermont is on Goodreads and I'm still kind of afraid of her.
It's a good book. The story has a lot of elements that reminded me of The Secret History and Looking for Alaska, in that it takes place at an expensive prep school and deals with bullying, drugs, entitled rich kids who get away with anything, and a female love interest who's so clearly damaged she would have Alaska Young backing away in apprehension.
There are flaws in the book, and it wasn't my favorite, but that's all I'm going to say because I know that Dr. Dermont is on Goodreads and I'm still kind of afraid of her.
December 11, 2018
Poor Rich Kids
“Rich kids who'd gotten caught, been given a second chance, only to be caught again then finally expelled. We weren't bad people, but having failed that initial test of innocence and honour, we no longer felt burdened to be good.”
Sailing metaphors abound in this coming of age tale, as we explore the murky depths below the glittering surface of the affluent world of the New England wealthy elites, revealing the moral bankruptcy of their status and money-obsessed society.
Insulated from censure by their rich and powerful parents, over-privileged kids play delinquent at their East Coast prep school academy where the 17 year old narrator finds that juvenile misdemeanors can have far more lasting consequences than he imagined.
“Rich kids who'd gotten caught, been given a second chance, only to be caught again then finally expelled. We weren't bad people, but having failed that initial test of innocence and honour, we no longer felt burdened to be good.”
Sailing metaphors abound in this coming of age tale, as we explore the murky depths below the glittering surface of the affluent world of the New England wealthy elites, revealing the moral bankruptcy of their status and money-obsessed society.
Insulated from censure by their rich and powerful parents, over-privileged kids play delinquent at their East Coast prep school academy where the 17 year old narrator finds that juvenile misdemeanors can have far more lasting consequences than he imagined.
March 7, 2012
When I finish certain books, I'm sad that they're over but feel fulfilled by the chance to have read them. Amber Dermont's debut novel, The Starboard Sea, is one of those books. I couldn't stop myself from wanting to race through the entire book, but tried in vain to slow down as the end approached, because I wanted to prolong the story and see what came next for the characters.
It's 1987, just before the stock market crash. Jason Prosper is a rich high school senior from New York City, raised with all of the benefits a wealthy family can offer. After getting kicked out of his prep school following the suicide of his best friend and roommate, Cal, Jason winds up at Bellingham, a boarding school for many "second chance" kids of privilege. Struggling with Cal's memory and guilt over his death, Jason finds himself drawn to Aidan, a student with her own troubled past. The two begin to let their guards down and confide in one another. And then one night, when a hurricane hits New England, everything goes awry, leaving Jason to once again pick up the pieces, and he discovers just what privilege can do—and what it can't.
At first, I thought I wouldn't enjoy this book because I couldn't identify with rich, reckless high school students used to getting everything they wanted and living lives I could only imagine. But Dermont's development of the characters, even those who seemed on the surface like nothing more than rich kid stereotypes, is very complex, and she really draws you into all that Jason is struggling with. I honestly could have spent another few hundred pages watching what happened next with the characters once they left Bellingham and seeing what direction Jason's life took, and that, to me, is the mark of a fantastic book. Dermont is a really terrific writer and I can't wait to see what she does next!
It's 1987, just before the stock market crash. Jason Prosper is a rich high school senior from New York City, raised with all of the benefits a wealthy family can offer. After getting kicked out of his prep school following the suicide of his best friend and roommate, Cal, Jason winds up at Bellingham, a boarding school for many "second chance" kids of privilege. Struggling with Cal's memory and guilt over his death, Jason finds himself drawn to Aidan, a student with her own troubled past. The two begin to let their guards down and confide in one another. And then one night, when a hurricane hits New England, everything goes awry, leaving Jason to once again pick up the pieces, and he discovers just what privilege can do—and what it can't.
At first, I thought I wouldn't enjoy this book because I couldn't identify with rich, reckless high school students used to getting everything they wanted and living lives I could only imagine. But Dermont's development of the characters, even those who seemed on the surface like nothing more than rich kid stereotypes, is very complex, and she really draws you into all that Jason is struggling with. I honestly could have spent another few hundred pages watching what happened next with the characters once they left Bellingham and seeing what direction Jason's life took, and that, to me, is the mark of a fantastic book. Dermont is a really terrific writer and I can't wait to see what she does next!
March 29, 2012
This is a debut novel and I believe that the author is gifted in that she can write. The book abounds with sailing explanations and references which are interesting and fascinating. The setting for the novel is a classic one-a boarding school. Visions of Catcher in the Rye, Dead Poet's Society, A Separate Peace come to mind. All the good stuff ended there. About 40 pages in, the book became a rock growing heavier with every page. My natural inclination was to throw it into the sea as a fitting tribute yet I read on. Being able to write and being able to create good characters and a creative plot are not the same. This book in some way reminds me of Brett Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero which was written in the 80's the setting for this novel. It may be significant that I hated that novel also with its drug addled rich kids accepting no responsibility. This novel is rife with more of the same trite, overworked material. I may be jaded and/or incorrect, but I believe not a great deal of good literature is being produced. Many people however,and publishing companies believe this is indeed good literature aka James Patterson et al. I can imagine some teacher reading this and thinking, gosh, this is good. I'll have my freshman read it. Why not- my neighbors' 16 year old was assigned the Hunger Games. I would hate to be a teenager today in school. What are the chances of their reading classic literature? Unfortunately the generation teaching now and its successors were assigned great classics such as the Twilight Saga and Harry Potter. The Starboard Sea will be at home here.
August 19, 2025
Wow. Intense and layered. Recently saw a documentary "Born Rich" by a member of the Johnson family about his cohorts — the children of the wealthy. Thought about that doc while reading this novel. The very wealthy apparently all know each other — a point made in both the film and this novel.
I don't know anything about prep schools or sailing and yet every detail here is fascinating.
The one false note was the scene where the ocean froze in winter. Salt water does freeze of course, if it is cold enough — I guess it can happen, in a particularly cold winter.
I also wondered about some of Jason's emotional reactions — are they authentic? Is that how a teenage boy feels? But then who knows? A character is an individual, not an archetype.
I've tagged this novel "gay" even though it is really not that gay. However, it is full of those questions, such as am I gay if I love my best friend? Is it gay to have sex with my best friend — (the kids today might label this sort of thing demi-sexual). All in all, Kinsey-like, the novel follows a wavering course through the uncharted expanse between gay and straight, tacking against the headwinds of labels, to reach one's own destination.
Thrilling, suspenseful and satisfying.
I don't know anything about prep schools or sailing and yet every detail here is fascinating.
The one false note was the scene where the ocean froze in winter. Salt water does freeze of course, if it is cold enough — I guess it can happen, in a particularly cold winter.
I also wondered about some of Jason's emotional reactions — are they authentic? Is that how a teenage boy feels? But then who knows? A character is an individual, not an archetype.
I've tagged this novel "gay" even though it is really not that gay. However, it is full of those questions, such as am I gay if I love my best friend? Is it gay to have sex with my best friend — (the kids today might label this sort of thing demi-sexual). All in all, Kinsey-like, the novel follows a wavering course through the uncharted expanse between gay and straight, tacking against the headwinds of labels, to reach one's own destination.
Thrilling, suspenseful and satisfying.
March 6, 2012
This book is being sold as adult fiction but it's Y/A at its lamest, an unholy brew of "Ordinary People," "Catcher in the Rye" and "Twilight" minus the occult. I knew I was in trouble in the first chapter, when the "tortured" gay rich kid says he likes rock climbing because "I always seemed to be draw to jagged places." Uh oh. The sailing stuff was pretty neat, but I quickly became distracted by the nonstop descriptions of people's hair: our hero's matted curls, our heroine's glorious red locks, always being swept up or floating free (if you have a Nook, do a search on "hair" and prepare to be awed). I gave up on this book when the spunky heroine cuts the tortured hero's hair and proclaims "Hair is destiny." I didn't bother reading any more because I just assumed somebody was going to fall into the water while sailing and somebody else was going to haul them up by their destiny-laden locks.
January 8, 2018
It's hard to put into words the abundant compassion that Amber Dermont displays for her characters. But it's there, apparent, from the first paragraph to the final word.
The prep school world of Jason Prosper looks alternately like Cruel Intentions and your standard bildungsroman with a little murder mystery thrown in. But the whole is so much more than the sum of its parts. It's a treatise on class privilege. It's a discussion of race, particularly in the world of the wealthy. It's an honest look at teenage sexuality, in all its sordid shame and tender honesty. It's an homage to the sea and to sailing. Ultimately, it's a love story to a kid who's just starting to figure out who he is and what he wants out of life, who gets dealt some pretty big blows that no one around him seems willing to recognize.
I felt so drawn to the story from the first page, and so inexplicably sad throughout the early part of reading it, even before I had any reason to. I thought about it constantly when I wasn't reading it, and finishing it both lifted a weight off my shoulders and weighed me down with empathy and forgiveness. It sounds weird, but I mean that in a good way!
Another thing it gave me was a surprisingly intricate look at the world of teenage boys. As the author is a woman, I'm not sure how accurate it is, but it's multifaceted and nicely treated, and I'd be interested to give this book to one of my brothers to gauge his opinion of it. This would be a great book club pick, and in fact I went hunting for the reading group guide even though I don't have anyone to discuss it with. (Point of order: I wasn't able to find one. Anyone know if there is one?)
For those interested in bittersweet stories about the ravages of youth or any coming-of-age, this is a really moving read.
The prep school world of Jason Prosper looks alternately like Cruel Intentions and your standard bildungsroman with a little murder mystery thrown in. But the whole is so much more than the sum of its parts. It's a treatise on class privilege. It's a discussion of race, particularly in the world of the wealthy. It's an honest look at teenage sexuality, in all its sordid shame and tender honesty. It's an homage to the sea and to sailing. Ultimately, it's a love story to a kid who's just starting to figure out who he is and what he wants out of life, who gets dealt some pretty big blows that no one around him seems willing to recognize.
I felt so drawn to the story from the first page, and so inexplicably sad throughout the early part of reading it, even before I had any reason to. I thought about it constantly when I wasn't reading it, and finishing it both lifted a weight off my shoulders and weighed me down with empathy and forgiveness. It sounds weird, but I mean that in a good way!
Another thing it gave me was a surprisingly intricate look at the world of teenage boys. As the author is a woman, I'm not sure how accurate it is, but it's multifaceted and nicely treated, and I'd be interested to give this book to one of my brothers to gauge his opinion of it. This would be a great book club pick, and in fact I went hunting for the reading group guide even though I don't have anyone to discuss it with. (Point of order: I wasn't able to find one. Anyone know if there is one?)
For those interested in bittersweet stories about the ravages of youth or any coming-of-age, this is a really moving read.
February 13, 2012
I mentioned once before that my personal experience with New England boarding schools is not something I would wish on my worst enemy. That was in a review for The Twisted Thread, a young adult novel about a murder on one of these campuses. I liked it; didn’t love it. This book, The Starboard Sea, is light years beyond that one. I don’t think it’s promoted as YA, and although sophisticated teens might love it, the depth and breadth of this one is so far beyond the Pretty Little Liars genre that I would enthusiastically recommend it to my adult friends.
Dermont writes from the viewpoint of Jason Prosper, a student relegated to Bellingham Academy, where privileged kids are sent after they can’t cut it for some reason at one of the better schools. Jason’s story and those of his new classmates gradually unfold in this perfectly-paced tale. If The Twisted Thread got at least some of the realities of boarding school right (as I stated in that review), this one goes far deeper and reveals much more than even Curtis Sittenfield (who wrote the best-selling novel Prep) ever did. Dermont handles everything deftly here, from the fragile characters and relationships to the stunning metaphors and descriptive language.
I LOVED this book.
Dermont writes from the viewpoint of Jason Prosper, a student relegated to Bellingham Academy, where privileged kids are sent after they can’t cut it for some reason at one of the better schools. Jason’s story and those of his new classmates gradually unfold in this perfectly-paced tale. If The Twisted Thread got at least some of the realities of boarding school right (as I stated in that review), this one goes far deeper and reveals much more than even Curtis Sittenfield (who wrote the best-selling novel Prep) ever did. Dermont handles everything deftly here, from the fragile characters and relationships to the stunning metaphors and descriptive language.
I LOVED this book.
February 9, 2013
Wow, this book wasn't good. Loved the premise of some secret between prep school kids, but the execution of the story was weak. The jacket says "set against the backdrop of the 1987 stock market collapse," but aside from mentioning how a few characters' fathers fared, it doesn't play a role at all. The author continually forces musical references into the story. An example of which is "Even with the music blaring, with Robert Smith imploring 'Oh, why can I, I, I, be you?' I heard Chester hit the floor, heard a snap..." I know it's 1987, you don't have to force it down my throat.
The jacket talks about how the narrator and Aidan have this great love affair. There is hardly any detail about this. Throw in a strange inclusion of information about Robert Chambers, the Preppie Murderer, and you have the makings of a dull book whose characters are stereotypes and whose prose will beat you over the head with its simplicity and obviousness.
A complete waste of my time. By the end, I didn't care what the secret was (and believe me, it wasn't a big secret, I figured it out halfway through), I was just happy the book was done. Snoozers.
The jacket talks about how the narrator and Aidan have this great love affair. There is hardly any detail about this. Throw in a strange inclusion of information about Robert Chambers, the Preppie Murderer, and you have the makings of a dull book whose characters are stereotypes and whose prose will beat you over the head with its simplicity and obviousness.
A complete waste of my time. By the end, I didn't care what the secret was (and believe me, it wasn't a big secret, I figured it out halfway through), I was just happy the book was done. Snoozers.
May 7, 2012
From Jane Eyre to The Chocolate War to The Outsiders fiction has explored the hurts and the conceits of that most vulnerable and brutal of humans beings: the teenager. And from A Separate Peace to Never Let Me Go to the Harry Potter series, readers flock to the romance of that exclusive teenage club to which most of us never belonged: prep school. One of American literature's most iconic characters, Holden Caulfield - newly-expelled from Pencey Prep as The Catcher in the Rye opens - has been the defining voice of teenage angst and rebellion since the novel's publication in 1951.
I was a senior in high school in 1987, the same year Amber Dermont sets her debut novel The Starboard Sea. Yet my high school culture was far removed from the novel’s Bellingham Academy, the last resort of prep schools for New England's elite. Bellingham is where the one percent sends its misfits- the academically- and disciplinary-challenged, the wounded, the angry, the racially-distinct. These are the kids who can't make it or who aren’t accepted at the more prestigious institutions.
The Starboard Sea is narrated by Jason Prosper, whose voice brings to mind Holden Caufield’s ennui and Nick Carraway’s moral wrestling. Cal, Jason’s best friend, sailing partner and roommate committed suicide the previous school year. Jason carries the weight of his friend’s death, but hopes to disappear into one last school year at one last school, so he transfers to Bellingham Prep. Jason knows many of these students already. They grew up in the same Manhattan highrises, they sailed at same yacht clubs, skied together during winter holidays in Gstaad, their parents share art dealers and stockbrokers.
But Bellingham Prep offers Jason at least one fresh start: a friendship with Aidan, a reclusive, odd and beautiful girl from California. Aiden is a firefly and Jason takes great care with her, allowing their relationship to deepen into gentle romance. Both characters are wounded and elusive, harboring secrets as they explore one another’s vulnerabilities.
A hurricane interrupts the flow of Jason’s new life. In the wake of its destruction, Jason is forced to confront ghosts from the old life he is trying to forget and from the new he is trying to build.
The book is braced by two bookends: one, the bedrock of privilege represented by Bellingham and its spoiled denizens; the other, the shifting and precarious sea. As a skilled competitive sailor, Jason handles a sailboat and the sea with the dexterity and respect of a grown man. A rudder and sail seem to be among the few things in life he can control, but even then, he can err or soar at the whim of chance.
We approach a novel of late adolescence looking for ourselves in the characters, to find clues that explain why we didn't fit in or to recapture the time where we shone the brightest. In truth, there is very little of the backgrounds and lifestyles of these young people to which I can relate. They have a level of sophistication and a sense of entitlement that only abiding wealth can create. These are young men and women from a tribe of bluebloods who winter in St. Barth's, summer in the Hamptons and who are confident of their admission to the Ivy Leagues despite their mediocre grades.
But this is not a story that allows the less-economically secure reader to become a cynical voyeur into the life of clichéd “poor little rich” kids. Despite its manicured and precious setting, the novel follows themes common to most teenagers: implosive first loves, shifting loyalties, emerging selves, social isolation and confraternity.
Dermont’s writing is graceful and elegant. She captures the pain and embarrassment of adolescence as well as teenage silliness and self-absorption through Jason’s reserved, aching voice.
Despite the cultural markers - the stock market crash of October 1987, the collective held breath while the nation awaited Baby Jessica’s fate after her tumble down a well and the pop music references - I didn’t have a sense of late 80’s culture as I experienced it. Yet Dermont’s portrayal of this pivotal time in our social and personal development is timeless. There are few ages as exhilarating and devastating as seventeen.
I was a senior in high school in 1987, the same year Amber Dermont sets her debut novel The Starboard Sea. Yet my high school culture was far removed from the novel’s Bellingham Academy, the last resort of prep schools for New England's elite. Bellingham is where the one percent sends its misfits- the academically- and disciplinary-challenged, the wounded, the angry, the racially-distinct. These are the kids who can't make it or who aren’t accepted at the more prestigious institutions.
The Starboard Sea is narrated by Jason Prosper, whose voice brings to mind Holden Caufield’s ennui and Nick Carraway’s moral wrestling. Cal, Jason’s best friend, sailing partner and roommate committed suicide the previous school year. Jason carries the weight of his friend’s death, but hopes to disappear into one last school year at one last school, so he transfers to Bellingham Prep. Jason knows many of these students already. They grew up in the same Manhattan highrises, they sailed at same yacht clubs, skied together during winter holidays in Gstaad, their parents share art dealers and stockbrokers.
But Bellingham Prep offers Jason at least one fresh start: a friendship with Aidan, a reclusive, odd and beautiful girl from California. Aiden is a firefly and Jason takes great care with her, allowing their relationship to deepen into gentle romance. Both characters are wounded and elusive, harboring secrets as they explore one another’s vulnerabilities.
A hurricane interrupts the flow of Jason’s new life. In the wake of its destruction, Jason is forced to confront ghosts from the old life he is trying to forget and from the new he is trying to build.
The book is braced by two bookends: one, the bedrock of privilege represented by Bellingham and its spoiled denizens; the other, the shifting and precarious sea. As a skilled competitive sailor, Jason handles a sailboat and the sea with the dexterity and respect of a grown man. A rudder and sail seem to be among the few things in life he can control, but even then, he can err or soar at the whim of chance.
We approach a novel of late adolescence looking for ourselves in the characters, to find clues that explain why we didn't fit in or to recapture the time where we shone the brightest. In truth, there is very little of the backgrounds and lifestyles of these young people to which I can relate. They have a level of sophistication and a sense of entitlement that only abiding wealth can create. These are young men and women from a tribe of bluebloods who winter in St. Barth's, summer in the Hamptons and who are confident of their admission to the Ivy Leagues despite their mediocre grades.
But this is not a story that allows the less-economically secure reader to become a cynical voyeur into the life of clichéd “poor little rich” kids. Despite its manicured and precious setting, the novel follows themes common to most teenagers: implosive first loves, shifting loyalties, emerging selves, social isolation and confraternity.
Dermont’s writing is graceful and elegant. She captures the pain and embarrassment of adolescence as well as teenage silliness and self-absorption through Jason’s reserved, aching voice.
Despite the cultural markers - the stock market crash of October 1987, the collective held breath while the nation awaited Baby Jessica’s fate after her tumble down a well and the pop music references - I didn’t have a sense of late 80’s culture as I experienced it. Yet Dermont’s portrayal of this pivotal time in our social and personal development is timeless. There are few ages as exhilarating and devastating as seventeen.
September 21, 2025
(Since posting my review a little over a week ago I realised that I failed to properly discuss some of the author's egregious failures. To rectify this I have not altered my review but added addendum in which, via the novel's 'gay' plot/theme, I have tried to address some of the novel's more glaring absurdities).
My original review:
With over 650+ reviews (as of September 2025) I can't imagine my review will have any real effect, though I do hope it my prevent any of more discerning friends or followers from wasting time on this tosh.
I must admit two things put me off the novel right at the start; my copy has a quote from a reviewer in the Washington Post: 'The Starboard Sea feels like a distant cousin of The Great Gatsby' - well a distant cousin of the set decorator on one of the Gatsby's film adaptations possibly and almost certainly the reviewer had never read The Great Gatsby. More distressingly I discovered on starting the novel that it is set in the late 1980s and the scene is set with mentions of Oliver North and paper shredders, Gary Heart and Monkey Business, Mathias Rust landing a Cesna in Red Square and record deaths from AIDS. Even though I was in my mid twenties at the time these references were of forgotten, except for AIDS, trivia. Even AIDS, for readers born in the late 20th early 21st century, is almost indistinguishable from other earlier plagues. If you are going to drop historical references at the start of a novel you need to choose them carefully. Tolsoy in opening of War and Peace, mentions the French annexation of Genoa and Lucca in 1805 and this is the central topic of discussion at Anna Pavlovna Scherer's soirée. I am sure when the novel was first published in 1869 the details of Napoleon's Italian policy in 1805 were largely forgotten or unknown but the annexation of Genoa immediately establishes the novel's historical context and introduces Napoleon as the catalyst for the wars to come. Needless to say Oliver North, Gary Hart, Mathias Rust or AIDS establish nothing.
I must admit I was perplexed about why a bildungsroman published in 2013 was set at the time of the late 80s financial crisis. Seriously who remembers that crisis after 2008? Well obviously the author does but more of that annon.
If you are going to set a novel in the late 1980s there must be a reason. No one asks questions like that when reading 'While We Were Dreaming' by Clemens Meyer (a work of such beauty that I am almost ashamed to mention it this review least I unintentionally tarnish it by association). But it can't but be asked about 'The Starboard Sea' - not that have any answers - only guesses and those tend to go back to the author who is, or was at the time of publication an associate professor of creative writing and a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. That tells me a great deal. The author is an example one of current literature's most baleful influences - creative writing and academia. The world seems to be full of writers who know nothing and have experienced nothing except school and university. I find it makes their fiction all too often, and I admit there are exceptions, etiolated, lifeless, derivative and unconvincing. I do not deny that Amber Dermot and her like can write, but can they write anything worthwhile?
There is not a single character or scene in this novel that rises above the jejune. What is worse I didn't for a moment believe in any of the characters as living in the 1980s. But what is more I found everything unconvincing, that is why the comparison to The Great Gatsby became so offensive. Fitzgerald in a sentence or two could transfix his characters with a brilliance and by the novels end he could say:
"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."
because he had already shown their vast, cruel, self-centered carelessness. Ms Dermont doesn't show anything. Her vaunted accounts of sailing shrivel into painfully transcribed research notes if you dare read them in conjunction with 'The Old Man and the Sea'.
This is a novel of coruscating mediocrity and to read it is a sinful waste of time.
My Addendum (written and posted on 20/09/2025):
I said in my review above that one of the author's failures was that although set in the late 1980s none of the characters are believable in that time period and this goes particularly for Jason Prosper and his 'If I have feelings for, or have had sex with, my best friend (Cal) am I gay?', Jason's father's reaction to discovering Jason and Cal in bed together, and 'homosexual' behavior in the Prep school/upper class milieu the novel is set in. I will deal with each of these 'themes' individually but there is a great deal of overlap between them.
'If I have sex with my best friend does that mean I am gay?' Even today and within societies which are tolerant and accepting it is still a question many teenage boys grapple with so it is not unusual that Jason should be uncertain. What is less believable is that he would only start asking these questions at 17 years old. Being 'Gay' as a subject was well and truly out of the closet and and on the radar of everyone. This was the result of post Stonewall generation of gay men claiming, no demanding, the right to be who they were and for society to accept them. The initial gay liberation movement's aims and society's response to them had been vastly expanded and complicated by AIDS which, since the death of Rock Hudson in 1985 (along with other celebrity deaths), was not something that could be ignored by any young person, gay or straight.
The 'am I gay' if I fancy/have sex with my best friend question seems even less probable for a 17/18 year old Prep school boy because at that period, and as 'The Starboard Sea' makes clear most boarding schools were still single sex and even those schools now accepting girls it was a long way from real co-education. The absence of girls doesn't mean that the post pubertal boy's sex drive switches into abeyance, it rages on and fixates on the flesh that is available, their school mates who are all boys. The highly charged homoerotic ambiance in boys boarding Prep schools in the USA has been brilliantly conveyed by Gore Vidal in 'Palimpsest: A Memoir'.
The boarding/Prep school setting is significant because in the 1980s these schools, and how questions like homosexual behavior by their students was different to that of an ordinary high school was was inextricably linked to codes of conduct of that East Coast 'Preppy' class. More importantly questions about 'homosexual' acts by boys at these schools was also buried under layers of complex hypocrisy and it is via that hypocrisy that I am going to look at the response of Jason's father to finding Jason and Cal in bed together at school.
In the novel Jason's father is the epitome of a man from an established old money East Coast family for whom the shibboleths of his class are not just second nature but graven in his DNA and what is most important is how a man behaves in his public life. That in reality his personal life and behavior may not coincide in any way with his public facade is accepted, even for granted. Men like Jason's father do not believe they are tied to any rules because those rules are there to keep the ordinary man in his place productively working to keep them in the baronial splendour they accept as their due. For a man like Jason's father to behave with horrified shock to finding his son in bed with another boy is so out of character as to be impossible. Also any father knows that to barge unannounced into your teenage son's bedroom or bathroom is bound to result in farcical embarrassment.
For Jason's father to react in the way he does is inexplicable because he had attended the same Prep/Boarding school, as had his own father, and the homo-social sexual behavior that he found Jason and Cal indulging was not aberation and quite possibly identical to what he might have done as a schoolboy. What mattered was not how Jason and Cal behaved behind closed doors but how they behaved in public. For his son to behave in an insouciant manner with regards to sexual conventions was to be applauded as long as he behaved hypocritically correctly. Christian morality was the opium of the masses not of the upper classes.
I could go on and analyse various other absurdities of the plot, particularly the whole 'revelation' that at the heart of the vast moral turpitude at the centre of Jason's social milieu but, seriously, I refer back to my quote from Fitzgerald, none of this is new or even interesting. What is annoying is to set a novel in the 1980s but to make no effort, aside from a few mentions of period characters such as Oliver North, to make the believable as a novel taking place in the 1980s. For this author the 1980s, and perhaps all of the past, is purely fancy dress with which to dress up her characters. I have noticed this tendency with a great deal of recent fiction which they chose to be set in the past. I don't believe that in writing a novel set in a 'historical' period has to read like it was written in a particular time but it must be honest to those times. A character like Jason might question is he gay but he will do it in 1980s way, not a 21st century way.
My original review:
With over 650+ reviews (as of September 2025) I can't imagine my review will have any real effect, though I do hope it my prevent any of more discerning friends or followers from wasting time on this tosh.
I must admit two things put me off the novel right at the start; my copy has a quote from a reviewer in the Washington Post: 'The Starboard Sea feels like a distant cousin of The Great Gatsby' - well a distant cousin of the set decorator on one of the Gatsby's film adaptations possibly and almost certainly the reviewer had never read The Great Gatsby. More distressingly I discovered on starting the novel that it is set in the late 1980s and the scene is set with mentions of Oliver North and paper shredders, Gary Heart and Monkey Business, Mathias Rust landing a Cesna in Red Square and record deaths from AIDS. Even though I was in my mid twenties at the time these references were of forgotten, except for AIDS, trivia. Even AIDS, for readers born in the late 20th early 21st century, is almost indistinguishable from other earlier plagues. If you are going to drop historical references at the start of a novel you need to choose them carefully. Tolsoy in opening of War and Peace, mentions the French annexation of Genoa and Lucca in 1805 and this is the central topic of discussion at Anna Pavlovna Scherer's soirée. I am sure when the novel was first published in 1869 the details of Napoleon's Italian policy in 1805 were largely forgotten or unknown but the annexation of Genoa immediately establishes the novel's historical context and introduces Napoleon as the catalyst for the wars to come. Needless to say Oliver North, Gary Hart, Mathias Rust or AIDS establish nothing.
I must admit I was perplexed about why a bildungsroman published in 2013 was set at the time of the late 80s financial crisis. Seriously who remembers that crisis after 2008? Well obviously the author does but more of that annon.
If you are going to set a novel in the late 1980s there must be a reason. No one asks questions like that when reading 'While We Were Dreaming' by Clemens Meyer (a work of such beauty that I am almost ashamed to mention it this review least I unintentionally tarnish it by association). But it can't but be asked about 'The Starboard Sea' - not that have any answers - only guesses and those tend to go back to the author who is, or was at the time of publication an associate professor of creative writing and a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. That tells me a great deal. The author is an example one of current literature's most baleful influences - creative writing and academia. The world seems to be full of writers who know nothing and have experienced nothing except school and university. I find it makes their fiction all too often, and I admit there are exceptions, etiolated, lifeless, derivative and unconvincing. I do not deny that Amber Dermot and her like can write, but can they write anything worthwhile?
There is not a single character or scene in this novel that rises above the jejune. What is worse I didn't for a moment believe in any of the characters as living in the 1980s. But what is more I found everything unconvincing, that is why the comparison to The Great Gatsby became so offensive. Fitzgerald in a sentence or two could transfix his characters with a brilliance and by the novels end he could say:
"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."
because he had already shown their vast, cruel, self-centered carelessness. Ms Dermont doesn't show anything. Her vaunted accounts of sailing shrivel into painfully transcribed research notes if you dare read them in conjunction with 'The Old Man and the Sea'.
This is a novel of coruscating mediocrity and to read it is a sinful waste of time.
My Addendum (written and posted on 20/09/2025):
I said in my review above that one of the author's failures was that although set in the late 1980s none of the characters are believable in that time period and this goes particularly for Jason Prosper and his 'If I have feelings for, or have had sex with, my best friend (Cal) am I gay?', Jason's father's reaction to discovering Jason and Cal in bed together, and 'homosexual' behavior in the Prep school/upper class milieu the novel is set in. I will deal with each of these 'themes' individually but there is a great deal of overlap between them.
'If I have sex with my best friend does that mean I am gay?' Even today and within societies which are tolerant and accepting it is still a question many teenage boys grapple with so it is not unusual that Jason should be uncertain. What is less believable is that he would only start asking these questions at 17 years old. Being 'Gay' as a subject was well and truly out of the closet and and on the radar of everyone. This was the result of post Stonewall generation of gay men claiming, no demanding, the right to be who they were and for society to accept them. The initial gay liberation movement's aims and society's response to them had been vastly expanded and complicated by AIDS which, since the death of Rock Hudson in 1985 (along with other celebrity deaths), was not something that could be ignored by any young person, gay or straight.
The 'am I gay' if I fancy/have sex with my best friend question seems even less probable for a 17/18 year old Prep school boy because at that period, and as 'The Starboard Sea' makes clear most boarding schools were still single sex and even those schools now accepting girls it was a long way from real co-education. The absence of girls doesn't mean that the post pubertal boy's sex drive switches into abeyance, it rages on and fixates on the flesh that is available, their school mates who are all boys. The highly charged homoerotic ambiance in boys boarding Prep schools in the USA has been brilliantly conveyed by Gore Vidal in 'Palimpsest: A Memoir'.
The boarding/Prep school setting is significant because in the 1980s these schools, and how questions like homosexual behavior by their students was different to that of an ordinary high school was was inextricably linked to codes of conduct of that East Coast 'Preppy' class. More importantly questions about 'homosexual' acts by boys at these schools was also buried under layers of complex hypocrisy and it is via that hypocrisy that I am going to look at the response of Jason's father to finding Jason and Cal in bed together at school.
In the novel Jason's father is the epitome of a man from an established old money East Coast family for whom the shibboleths of his class are not just second nature but graven in his DNA and what is most important is how a man behaves in his public life. That in reality his personal life and behavior may not coincide in any way with his public facade is accepted, even for granted. Men like Jason's father do not believe they are tied to any rules because those rules are there to keep the ordinary man in his place productively working to keep them in the baronial splendour they accept as their due. For a man like Jason's father to behave with horrified shock to finding his son in bed with another boy is so out of character as to be impossible. Also any father knows that to barge unannounced into your teenage son's bedroom or bathroom is bound to result in farcical embarrassment.
For Jason's father to react in the way he does is inexplicable because he had attended the same Prep/Boarding school, as had his own father, and the homo-social sexual behavior that he found Jason and Cal indulging was not aberation and quite possibly identical to what he might have done as a schoolboy. What mattered was not how Jason and Cal behaved behind closed doors but how they behaved in public. For his son to behave in an insouciant manner with regards to sexual conventions was to be applauded as long as he behaved hypocritically correctly. Christian morality was the opium of the masses not of the upper classes.
I could go on and analyse various other absurdities of the plot, particularly the whole 'revelation' that at the heart of the vast moral turpitude at the centre of Jason's social milieu but, seriously, I refer back to my quote from Fitzgerald, none of this is new or even interesting. What is annoying is to set a novel in the 1980s but to make no effort, aside from a few mentions of period characters such as Oliver North, to make the believable as a novel taking place in the 1980s. For this author the 1980s, and perhaps all of the past, is purely fancy dress with which to dress up her characters. I have noticed this tendency with a great deal of recent fiction which they chose to be set in the past. I don't believe that in writing a novel set in a 'historical' period has to read like it was written in a particular time but it must be honest to those times. A character like Jason might question is he gay but he will do it in 1980s way, not a 21st century way.
August 9, 2012
Though unable to relate to the overindulgent upbringing of the cast of characters, what I could relate to is the feelings they experienced. Feelings of invincibility, self-loathing, pride, indecision. Jason wears these like a banner waving in the wind. He internalizes them also, but bears them vibrantly for the reader to evaluate their own feelings against his story. To become so entwined with him that they are not two separate yet equal beings, but the reader and Jason become joined, their emotions inseparable and indistinguishable.
There is so much pain. Sometimes unbearable to the point of being unsure whether I could carry the yoke of this book. Glimpses of joy perforate the solemnity, providing rays of hope in an otherwise dark tale. Sorrow is Jason’s scar, one that he carries as Atlas shrugged under the weight of the world. A sorrow that seeps into the soul of the reader. Yet there is little comfort to be found—for Jason or the reader. There is not a magic silver-lining. One can only hope to persevere, not overcome.
I finished this book and sighed, “Oh my goodness.” Nearly in tears, and glad for the reprieve of having finished such an intense, emotional book. My heart aches and yearns for better things to come. For justice, for peace, for hope to prevail and for life, in all it’s bitter glory, to go on. There are so few books that move me to near-tears, and this one did. I had my qualms with The Starboard Sea, yet I have been moved and changed. A little part of myself shattered, and reshaped. I cannot imagine how this book could not affect someone immensely. To enlarge the heart of it’s reader to increase love, to embrace the hurting, to mend the broken.
If there was a way to insert the feeling of a standing ovation to this review, I would, for Amber Dermont deserves one.
There is so much pain. Sometimes unbearable to the point of being unsure whether I could carry the yoke of this book. Glimpses of joy perforate the solemnity, providing rays of hope in an otherwise dark tale. Sorrow is Jason’s scar, one that he carries as Atlas shrugged under the weight of the world. A sorrow that seeps into the soul of the reader. Yet there is little comfort to be found—for Jason or the reader. There is not a magic silver-lining. One can only hope to persevere, not overcome.
I finished this book and sighed, “Oh my goodness.” Nearly in tears, and glad for the reprieve of having finished such an intense, emotional book. My heart aches and yearns for better things to come. For justice, for peace, for hope to prevail and for life, in all it’s bitter glory, to go on. There are so few books that move me to near-tears, and this one did. I had my qualms with The Starboard Sea, yet I have been moved and changed. A little part of myself shattered, and reshaped. I cannot imagine how this book could not affect someone immensely. To enlarge the heart of it’s reader to increase love, to embrace the hurting, to mend the broken.
If there was a way to insert the feeling of a standing ovation to this review, I would, for Amber Dermont deserves one.
January 23, 2015
The writing is good enough ('though surely not deserving of a front-page review in the NYT Book Review), but most of the characters are so repellent that the book is hard to like. In the end, this is true even of Jason, the main character, for whom one feels sympathy until very nearly the end of the novel, when it's revealed that not only (as we've been led to expect) did he turn his back on his best friend, with whom he'd been carrying on a rather long-term sexual relationship, leading to that friend's suicide, but that he in fact brutally raped that best friend before turning away from him. There truly are acts that are unforgivable, and of course this one was a crime as well, although a crime most unlikely to be reported, much less prosecuted. I can't help but wonder how reactions of other reviewers here would differ if Jason had raped a young woman and the act had led to her suicide.
(One other very minor quibble, the vast majority of visible stars are not, as the author seems to believe, "dead" although we see their light. Most stars live for billions of years, and all of the visible ones are much closer than a billion light years away. Are there no editors left?)
(One other very minor quibble, the vast majority of visible stars are not, as the author seems to believe, "dead" although we see their light. Most stars live for billions of years, and all of the visible ones are much closer than a billion light years away. Are there no editors left?)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 8, 2012
I don't know how to articulate what I think about this book.
It started very slow for me - the characters are unlikeable and over the top privileged. It's not scandalous, it is just boring and yucky. Or maybe some people are into that, I don't know. It's boarding school (which is probably why I got it from the library in the first place - love boarding school!) but it lacks the charm of other boarding school settings.
The most interesting piece of the story was the dead best friend - but we don't actually get enough of that. The book is about the main character dealing with his BFF/lover's suicide after the fact, but I didn't care about what was happening in the story's present and I really didn't care about this kid's family or friends (all gross).
There is a sudden mystery towards the middle that kept me reading just to see what happened (which we don't, not really) and by the time I had gotten to the end I did sympathize with the main character and then the SHOCKER at the end has left me thinking afterwards.
It started very slow for me - the characters are unlikeable and over the top privileged. It's not scandalous, it is just boring and yucky. Or maybe some people are into that, I don't know. It's boarding school (which is probably why I got it from the library in the first place - love boarding school!) but it lacks the charm of other boarding school settings.
The most interesting piece of the story was the dead best friend - but we don't actually get enough of that. The book is about the main character dealing with his BFF/lover's suicide after the fact, but I didn't care about what was happening in the story's present and I really didn't care about this kid's family or friends (all gross).
There is a sudden mystery towards the middle that kept me reading just to see what happened (which we don't, not really) and by the time I had gotten to the end I did sympathize with the main character and then the SHOCKER at the end has left me thinking afterwards.
August 2, 2012
It was a melancholy but engrossing story of a boy in a prep school for misfits. Plagued with regret, he befriends a troubled girl as they navigate the social pitfalls of the rich. The main character, Jason Prosper, even though from a wealthy family, struggles with his wealth and his role as he searches for himself and to solve a mystery that slowly develops. The book is well written and you feel like you know the main character, but his melancholy does weigh on the book. I loved the nautical elements but don't worry, they are not overwhelming (like a Moby Dick). Also, the book does touch on some "controversial" issues, so be forewarned.
March 16, 2019
For much of the time that I was reading this book, I thought that I would give it two stars. The author has some writing skill, and the story moved along very well. Jason and Aidan were interesting enough to keep me reading and the story was well paced. By the time I finished, my regard for the book and the author were much diminished.
The book has received a good deal of hype. There was a front page review in the New York Times Book Review that compared the book to The Great Gatsby. Um, no. The story concerns a young man, a high school senior, who spends his last year of high school at a boarding school that is apparently a haven for rich kids who have been thrown out of, or deemed unworthy of, better prep schools. The protagonist, Jason Prosper, is a rich kid struggling with family issues, with the loss of his best friend to suicide, and with his sexuality. He seems to be gay, or perhaps bisexual. At the school, he befriends a similarly troubled young woman named Aidan. Throughout the story, the author drops hints that Jason did something bad or cruel to his friend, Cal, before Cal committed suicide. What it was is not addressed until the end of the book.
Another reviewer on this site remarked that the characters in the book are repellent, and I agree with that characterization. They have weird names, like Taze, and Race, and Brizzey, and they live in a world of self-indulgence, in drugs or sex, or alcohol, at a school that apparently doesn't believe in adult supervision. The adults who appear in the book are mostly amoral, or confused, so you probably wouldn't want them to supervise your child anyway.
There is a great deal in the book about sailing, and about prep school life, neither of which I find interesting, so that probably hampered my appreciation of the novel. The bigger problems were the characters and the plot.
The author takes a great risk by killing off the most interesting character, Aidan, halfway through the novel. This gives the author a second mystery with which to tantalize the reader. Did Aidan really commit suicide, as the school administration contends? Or was there some sort of foul play, perhaps occurring at a party at the home of Race, who is either Jason's greatest enemy or greatest friend, depending on which page of the book that you are on? The book goes on, Jason applies to Princeton, he drinks and sails and flirts with a 15-year-old who wants him to take her virginity.
The mysteries are solved, more or less, at the end of the book. Jason wasn't just mean to Cal, he committed a brutal sexual assault on him. Yes, he raped his best friend, who then committed suicide. This changes one's entire perspective regarding Jason and the story itself. It's hard to see him as a sympathetic figure after that, though many reviewers seem to disagree with my view. Mosty reviews on this site don't even mention the rape, which I find to be very odd.
The resolution of the Aidan story is less clear, though it seems that she was either murdered, or died in a revenge prank gone awry. Everyone, by the end including Jason, seems content to let the coverup remain in place. Strange.
What are we to make of the story that the author is telling here? Are the privileged so privileged that rape and homicide are just rites of passage on the way to Princeton? Are we supposed to pat Jason's head and cheer for him as he swims to college after being responsible for the suicide of his friend/rape victim? And why do they say that the story is set against the backdrop of the 1987 stock collapse (barely remembered these days) when it really only affects one minor character and that one in a very slight way? Maybe the author didn't want to have to deal with cell phones, computers, and sexting.
The author has some talent, yes, but I just found the story to be disturbing, if not despicable. Not recommended.
The book has received a good deal of hype. There was a front page review in the New York Times Book Review that compared the book to The Great Gatsby. Um, no. The story concerns a young man, a high school senior, who spends his last year of high school at a boarding school that is apparently a haven for rich kids who have been thrown out of, or deemed unworthy of, better prep schools. The protagonist, Jason Prosper, is a rich kid struggling with family issues, with the loss of his best friend to suicide, and with his sexuality. He seems to be gay, or perhaps bisexual. At the school, he befriends a similarly troubled young woman named Aidan. Throughout the story, the author drops hints that Jason did something bad or cruel to his friend, Cal, before Cal committed suicide. What it was is not addressed until the end of the book.
Another reviewer on this site remarked that the characters in the book are repellent, and I agree with that characterization. They have weird names, like Taze, and Race, and Brizzey, and they live in a world of self-indulgence, in drugs or sex, or alcohol, at a school that apparently doesn't believe in adult supervision. The adults who appear in the book are mostly amoral, or confused, so you probably wouldn't want them to supervise your child anyway.
There is a great deal in the book about sailing, and about prep school life, neither of which I find interesting, so that probably hampered my appreciation of the novel. The bigger problems were the characters and the plot.
The author takes a great risk by killing off the most interesting character, Aidan, halfway through the novel. This gives the author a second mystery with which to tantalize the reader. Did Aidan really commit suicide, as the school administration contends? Or was there some sort of foul play, perhaps occurring at a party at the home of Race, who is either Jason's greatest enemy or greatest friend, depending on which page of the book that you are on? The book goes on, Jason applies to Princeton, he drinks and sails and flirts with a 15-year-old who wants him to take her virginity.
The mysteries are solved, more or less, at the end of the book. Jason wasn't just mean to Cal, he committed a brutal sexual assault on him. Yes, he raped his best friend, who then committed suicide. This changes one's entire perspective regarding Jason and the story itself. It's hard to see him as a sympathetic figure after that, though many reviewers seem to disagree with my view. Mosty reviews on this site don't even mention the rape, which I find to be very odd.
The resolution of the Aidan story is less clear, though it seems that she was either murdered, or died in a revenge prank gone awry. Everyone, by the end including Jason, seems content to let the coverup remain in place. Strange.
What are we to make of the story that the author is telling here? Are the privileged so privileged that rape and homicide are just rites of passage on the way to Princeton? Are we supposed to pat Jason's head and cheer for him as he swims to college after being responsible for the suicide of his friend/rape victim? And why do they say that the story is set against the backdrop of the 1987 stock collapse (barely remembered these days) when it really only affects one minor character and that one in a very slight way? Maybe the author didn't want to have to deal with cell phones, computers, and sexting.
The author has some talent, yes, but I just found the story to be disturbing, if not despicable. Not recommended.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 15, 2013
This book pissed me off. The author was pretentious, and, among other things, loved waffling on about sailing and how much she knew about rich kids in boarding school. I went to boarding school around the same time this book takes place, and I think she's pretty much full of crap. The only two things she got right were 1) all dorm rooms blast Bob Marley, and 2) boarding school is call just that because it is boring.
In addition, this book was one in which you can predict exactly what will occur on about page 6, and yes, that is just what happens at the very end. She also could not make up her mind about her protagonists character, e.g. is he good or is he evil nor could she make up her mind about his sexuality. Is he bi-sexual, gay, or confused or conflicted? The book is so poorly written you find yourself not caring. Finally, you'll note the hackneyed mysteriously different love interest bears a striking resemblance to author photo on the back. Pathetic! In summation, be sure to skip this one.
In addition, this book was one in which you can predict exactly what will occur on about page 6, and yes, that is just what happens at the very end. She also could not make up her mind about her protagonists character, e.g. is he good or is he evil nor could she make up her mind about his sexuality. Is he bi-sexual, gay, or confused or conflicted? The book is so poorly written you find yourself not caring. Finally, you'll note the hackneyed mysteriously different love interest bears a striking resemblance to author photo on the back. Pathetic! In summation, be sure to skip this one.
January 31, 2012
Set in the late 1980's "The Starboard Sea" delicately balances the heartbreaking tale of Jason's senior year at prep school against tongue in cheek references to the over the top 80's social scene.
Jason stoically deals with bi-sexuality, suicide, racism, divorce, classism and even a murder as he navigates his way through his "second chance" prep school senior year. His parents, are non-entities in his upbringing and seem to think that there is no problem too big that they can't throw enough money at it. Despite this Jason is a well-adjusted and sweet child who doesn't use his wealth to cover his mistakes, and in fact beats himself up over what he might have done to prevent them.
I would say this novel is a combination of "School Ties" and "Cruel Intentions".
*Won through Goodreads.
Jason stoically deals with bi-sexuality, suicide, racism, divorce, classism and even a murder as he navigates his way through his "second chance" prep school senior year. His parents, are non-entities in his upbringing and seem to think that there is no problem too big that they can't throw enough money at it. Despite this Jason is a well-adjusted and sweet child who doesn't use his wealth to cover his mistakes, and in fact beats himself up over what he might have done to prevent them.
I would say this novel is a combination of "School Ties" and "Cruel Intentions".
*Won through Goodreads.
August 2, 2012
My lifelong fascination with boarding schools continues! So far, nothing beats "A Little Princess," but I'll keep an open mind.
UPDATE: This was really terrible! About a dozen characters too many, so I didn't care about anyone except maybe the best friend who died before the book even opened. But most annoyingly, absolutely no person talks like the narrator in real life, especially not a 17 year old boy.
UPDATE: This was really terrible! About a dozen characters too many, so I didn't care about anyone except maybe the best friend who died before the book even opened. But most annoyingly, absolutely no person talks like the narrator in real life, especially not a 17 year old boy.
July 31, 2012
another novel i got sucked into reading thanks to reviews that made the plot sound all mysterious. it's all, "rich kid gets booted out of nice prep school & transfers to prep school for misfits, where he starts up a friendship with a troubled redheaded girl. but when she turns up dead, he has to confront painful memories. also, sailing." i was all, "wait, who died? why? did someone else die too?" this is the same impulse that sends a person down an hour-long rabbit hole in the CNN crime news links. i don't know if it's a weird voyeuristic impulse or what.
this book wasn't too shabby, & i was surprised by two of the big plot twist/reveals. they both went in different directions than i expected, one in a way that i found relieving & one in a way that i found really disturbing. so well done for upending my narrative expectations, amber dermont! i'm also a sucker for books where kids are at boarding school. i don't know why! i always wanted to go to boarding school. though, now that i'm adult, i have friends that went & they have assured me that it totally sucked. i still have this weird idea that if i'd gone to boarding school, i would probably be able to rock plaids better, & maybe i would own a prius.
ultimately, this book wasn't bad, & it wasn't great. but my perspective could be colored by the fact that maybe i am just not that wild about fiction? i'm learning all kinds of stuff about myself.
this book wasn't too shabby, & i was surprised by two of the big plot twist/reveals. they both went in different directions than i expected, one in a way that i found relieving & one in a way that i found really disturbing. so well done for upending my narrative expectations, amber dermont! i'm also a sucker for books where kids are at boarding school. i don't know why! i always wanted to go to boarding school. though, now that i'm adult, i have friends that went & they have assured me that it totally sucked. i still have this weird idea that if i'd gone to boarding school, i would probably be able to rock plaids better, & maybe i would own a prius.
ultimately, this book wasn't bad, & it wasn't great. but my perspective could be colored by the fact that maybe i am just not that wild about fiction? i'm learning all kinds of stuff about myself.
January 21, 2012
I just put this book down, and I am reeling. Bravo to Amber Dermont for this beautiful, painful novel. The secrets of the privileged class may not necessarily be worse than those of the rest of us, but the course of action taken in their wakes is terrifying. I just don't feel that some of us have the luxury of focusing on our own greatness to the detriment of others. It scares me to imagine this world.
I won this through a Goodreads giveaway, but the greater prize was adding another book to my life that will be remembered in years to come-in the way of The Chocolate War by Cormier and Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. While I was left ashore during the descriptive passages of the nautical terms, I was addicted to Jason in a similar way that he was addicted to Cal. I didn't really want to share this book with the casual onlooker.
"What are you reading now, Suzanne?"
"Just another book."
Just another book that tore my heart apart.
I won this through a Goodreads giveaway, but the greater prize was adding another book to my life that will be remembered in years to come-in the way of The Chocolate War by Cormier and Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. While I was left ashore during the descriptive passages of the nautical terms, I was addicted to Jason in a similar way that he was addicted to Cal. I didn't really want to share this book with the casual onlooker.
"What are you reading now, Suzanne?"
"Just another book."
Just another book that tore my heart apart.
June 10, 2012
An excellent read. Vividly written, and evocative. The Starboard Sea tells the story of Prosper, removed from one exclusive prep school for another - renowned for its acceptance of spoilt little rich kids, who won't be accepted anywhere else. Set in 1987, on the eve of the stockmarket crash, it tells the story of Prosper's acceptance of himself after a terrible tragedy, his forgiveness of himself for his no small part in it, and his attempts, sometimes misguided, to make good choices. With an emotionally distant family, and a peer group with no fear of consequences, he finds himself alone and dealing with further tragedy. The children were taught that money could buy your way out of anything, and their code of honour was one of silence. Anyone that didn't fit was belittled and bullied. Despite its setting in the 1980s, the issues it raises are completely topical today, and I suspect even more pervasive.
February 23, 2015
This book reminded me of The Catcher in the Rye to an extent.
August 25, 2015
3.5 review to follow.
December 14, 2012
(Read in un-corrected proof)
I was fortunate enough to receive this novel and three others from Constable and Robinson a few weeks ago. First published in the USA by St. Martin’s press – a new edition is due for publication in January 2013.
In the privileged world of the 1980’s super rich, Bellingham Academy is the last stop for those kids kicked out of other prep schools. On the day of his eighteenth birthday, Jason Prosper leaves his New York home with his father for Bellingham in New England. Jason is still nursing a raw grief for his best friend and sailing partner, Cal, who recently killed himself. At Bellingham Jason meets up with the sons and daughters of families he already knows – such is the insular world from which he comes, and he is immediately courted by the sailing coach. However an accident aboard results in Jason taking risks in order to save a fellow student and forces him to re-consider his desire to sail, especially now that he has to do it without Cal. Haunted by the death of his friend and the secrets he carries with him of the time before his friend died, Jason meets Aidan, a girl who he at first mistakes for a cormorant – standing arms outstretched on rocks by the sea. She is unlike anyone he has met before, and a fledgling friendship blossoms between the two. Aidan is a strange and beautiful creature, who owns Fred Astaire’s shoes and is not really a part of the group of friends that Jason has found himself attached to. The tender and emotional relationship that starts between these two ostracised young people is beautifully and deftly handled by the author. Chester, the only black student at Bellingham is also on the outside of those who are accepted, there is a quiet coolness to Chester that Jason notices right away and tries to befriend the young tennis player. However in the aftermath of a terrible storm, events take a tragic turn once again, and Jason numbed and disbelieving comes to re-evaluate the group of classmates he been spending his time with. Bellingham is a world where friendships are really alliances, Jason understands this world, understands what he needs to do to survive, yet at times seems happy to ignore these unspoken rules. Thus we see Jason playing pranks and sneaking out to party with the hedonistic youngsters of Bellingham Academy one minute, yet talking deeply and emotionally with Aidan the next. Prompted by Leo – who is a kind of servant to the rich kids – called “plague” by everyone else, Jason determines to find out what really happened on the night of a hurricane party that he missed.
In The Starboard Sea, Amber Dermont has re-created a world of selfish privilege and boarding school lore. Despite the title - sailing actually only plays a fairly a small part in the novel – but there are some beautiful descriptions of sailing and the sea, and I feel sure the author must have a love of the ocean herself. Dermont has packed a lot of fairly meaty issues into this novel, grief, suicide burgeoning sexualities, racism and class set against the backdrop of a storm lashed New England coast and the Wall Street crash of 1987. This is not entirely a faultless novel, it does take a while to get going, and there are times when Jason sounds rather older than his years, these though are small gripes and do not detract at all from the overall excellence of this beautifully written novel, for me there is far far more to recommend it. The writing is excellent the images created by the author will stay with me for some time. At various times this novel made me think of The Great Gatsby and The Secret History by Donna Tartt, although it’s not really like either of them, I know that’s confusing, but The Starboard Sea has an emotional quality to it that those works had too. This is a quite remarkable debut by a talented writer, who I really look forward to reading more of in the future.
I was fortunate enough to receive this novel and three others from Constable and Robinson a few weeks ago. First published in the USA by St. Martin’s press – a new edition is due for publication in January 2013.
In the privileged world of the 1980’s super rich, Bellingham Academy is the last stop for those kids kicked out of other prep schools. On the day of his eighteenth birthday, Jason Prosper leaves his New York home with his father for Bellingham in New England. Jason is still nursing a raw grief for his best friend and sailing partner, Cal, who recently killed himself. At Bellingham Jason meets up with the sons and daughters of families he already knows – such is the insular world from which he comes, and he is immediately courted by the sailing coach. However an accident aboard results in Jason taking risks in order to save a fellow student and forces him to re-consider his desire to sail, especially now that he has to do it without Cal. Haunted by the death of his friend and the secrets he carries with him of the time before his friend died, Jason meets Aidan, a girl who he at first mistakes for a cormorant – standing arms outstretched on rocks by the sea. She is unlike anyone he has met before, and a fledgling friendship blossoms between the two. Aidan is a strange and beautiful creature, who owns Fred Astaire’s shoes and is not really a part of the group of friends that Jason has found himself attached to. The tender and emotional relationship that starts between these two ostracised young people is beautifully and deftly handled by the author. Chester, the only black student at Bellingham is also on the outside of those who are accepted, there is a quiet coolness to Chester that Jason notices right away and tries to befriend the young tennis player. However in the aftermath of a terrible storm, events take a tragic turn once again, and Jason numbed and disbelieving comes to re-evaluate the group of classmates he been spending his time with. Bellingham is a world where friendships are really alliances, Jason understands this world, understands what he needs to do to survive, yet at times seems happy to ignore these unspoken rules. Thus we see Jason playing pranks and sneaking out to party with the hedonistic youngsters of Bellingham Academy one minute, yet talking deeply and emotionally with Aidan the next. Prompted by Leo – who is a kind of servant to the rich kids – called “plague” by everyone else, Jason determines to find out what really happened on the night of a hurricane party that he missed.
In The Starboard Sea, Amber Dermont has re-created a world of selfish privilege and boarding school lore. Despite the title - sailing actually only plays a fairly a small part in the novel – but there are some beautiful descriptions of sailing and the sea, and I feel sure the author must have a love of the ocean herself. Dermont has packed a lot of fairly meaty issues into this novel, grief, suicide burgeoning sexualities, racism and class set against the backdrop of a storm lashed New England coast and the Wall Street crash of 1987. This is not entirely a faultless novel, it does take a while to get going, and there are times when Jason sounds rather older than his years, these though are small gripes and do not detract at all from the overall excellence of this beautifully written novel, for me there is far far more to recommend it. The writing is excellent the images created by the author will stay with me for some time. At various times this novel made me think of The Great Gatsby and The Secret History by Donna Tartt, although it’s not really like either of them, I know that’s confusing, but The Starboard Sea has an emotional quality to it that those works had too. This is a quite remarkable debut by a talented writer, who I really look forward to reading more of in the future.
June 30, 2012
An uneven debut novel set in the Reagan 1980s, "The Starboard Sea" is the tale of senior Jason Prosper, a senior who transfers to Bellingham, a sort of second chance New England prep school. Traumatized by the recent suicide of his close friend Cal and the resultant scandal, Jason is forced by his parents to start afresh at a new school; he finds, however, that his past isn't so easily left behind.
If read as a Hollywood-meets-prep-school, "Gossip Girl" sort of read, this is entertaining enough and a fast read, if one that's probably too mature for the YA audience for which I suspect this will be marketed.
The author shows flashes of literary promise - with some of the nautical history analogies, for example. When they work - and they don't always - they serve beautifully and are interesting in their own right. This is coming from a girl whose sum total of nautical knowledge extends to my French sailor tee collection, so that's saying something. She also approaches the theme of sexual desire & its mutability with a nuanced, sympathetic eye, though I did find certain passages unnecessarily graphic on that front.
On the downside, this book suffered from what a friend brilliantly termed "The Iowa Writers' Workshop Problem" - that is, there's a sort of impenetrable fog of foreboding throughout, almost a film between the protagonist and the reader, preventing you from fully relating with or even liking him very much. I had the same problem with the much-better-yet-related "Prep" by Curtis Sittenfeld (who has an MFA from Iowa, not so coincidentally). Prosper is so wholly defined by his murky past, his nihilistic world view, and his struggle to come to terms with his bisexuality - yes, he's a hormonal teenage boy, but at times he seemed more like a . . . how to put this . . . a walking libido more than a human, every interaction a potential come-on. He just never truly evolves into a fully believable or relatable person.
Character development is an issue throughout "Starboard", in fact. Whenever I feel the need for a diagram to keep the leads straight, something has gone awry. Prosper's classmates are all so one dimensional and largely awful as to be interchangeable. In fact, the only lead with any depth to him at all is the dead one - Cal. Flashbacks between Cal and Prosper are moving, and I found myself wishing more of the book was about their complex relationship.
It's a minor point, but some of the New England prep school details rang a little false. Granted, that's not my background, but those I've met from that world aren't nearly as eager to wear it on their sleeve - in fact, to do so is to prove you're not a member of the (country) club. I mean, the lead character's surname is *Prosper*, for the love of obvious symbolism. I'd be curious to know whether the author is part of that set herself or is penning this from an outsider's view. Her disdain for that universe is palpable, either way.
Finally, the book has a narrative trick which doesn't quite pay off. Without spoiling anything, one of the reasons Prosper is so haunted is revealed near the very end - and it's awful and shocking, but by then I wasn't invested enough in him or the other characters to have the emotional payoff the author surely intended.
I actually think that I liked this better than this review may indicate, and I do think the author has some promise. However, if like me you're drawn to contemporary reads about this prep universe, stick with the far better, aptly titled "Prep" or John Green's "Looking for Alaska".
If read as a Hollywood-meets-prep-school, "Gossip Girl" sort of read, this is entertaining enough and a fast read, if one that's probably too mature for the YA audience for which I suspect this will be marketed.
The author shows flashes of literary promise - with some of the nautical history analogies, for example. When they work - and they don't always - they serve beautifully and are interesting in their own right. This is coming from a girl whose sum total of nautical knowledge extends to my French sailor tee collection, so that's saying something. She also approaches the theme of sexual desire & its mutability with a nuanced, sympathetic eye, though I did find certain passages unnecessarily graphic on that front.
On the downside, this book suffered from what a friend brilliantly termed "The Iowa Writers' Workshop Problem" - that is, there's a sort of impenetrable fog of foreboding throughout, almost a film between the protagonist and the reader, preventing you from fully relating with or even liking him very much. I had the same problem with the much-better-yet-related "Prep" by Curtis Sittenfeld (who has an MFA from Iowa, not so coincidentally). Prosper is so wholly defined by his murky past, his nihilistic world view, and his struggle to come to terms with his bisexuality - yes, he's a hormonal teenage boy, but at times he seemed more like a . . . how to put this . . . a walking libido more than a human, every interaction a potential come-on. He just never truly evolves into a fully believable or relatable person.
Character development is an issue throughout "Starboard", in fact. Whenever I feel the need for a diagram to keep the leads straight, something has gone awry. Prosper's classmates are all so one dimensional and largely awful as to be interchangeable. In fact, the only lead with any depth to him at all is the dead one - Cal. Flashbacks between Cal and Prosper are moving, and I found myself wishing more of the book was about their complex relationship.
It's a minor point, but some of the New England prep school details rang a little false. Granted, that's not my background, but those I've met from that world aren't nearly as eager to wear it on their sleeve - in fact, to do so is to prove you're not a member of the (country) club. I mean, the lead character's surname is *Prosper*, for the love of obvious symbolism. I'd be curious to know whether the author is part of that set herself or is penning this from an outsider's view. Her disdain for that universe is palpable, either way.
Finally, the book has a narrative trick which doesn't quite pay off. Without spoiling anything, one of the reasons Prosper is so haunted is revealed near the very end - and it's awful and shocking, but by then I wasn't invested enough in him or the other characters to have the emotional payoff the author surely intended.
I actually think that I liked this better than this review may indicate, and I do think the author has some promise. However, if like me you're drawn to contemporary reads about this prep universe, stick with the far better, aptly titled "Prep" or John Green's "Looking for Alaska".
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