Rose of No Man's Land

by Michelle Tea

Fourteen-year-old Trisha Driscoll is a gender-blurring, self-described loner whose family expects nothing of her. While her mother lies on the couch in a hypochondriac haze and her sister aspires to be on The Real World, Trisha struggles to find her own place among the neon signs, theme restau­rants, and cookie-cutter chain stores of her hometown.  After being hired and abruptly fired from the most popular clothing shop at the local mall, Trisha befriends a chain-smoking misfit named Rose, and her life shifts into manic overdrive. A “postmillennial, class-adjusted My So-Called Life” (Publishers Weekly), Rose of No Man’s Land is brim­ming with snarky observations and soulful musings on contemporary teenage America.

Genres: Fiction, Queer, LGBT, Young Adult, Coming Of Age, Queer Lit, Lesbian

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Michelle Tea (born Michelle Tomasik) is an American author, poet, and literary arts organizer whose autobiographical works explore queer culture, feminism, race, class, prostitution, and other topics. She is originally from Chelsea, Massachusetts and currently lives in San Francisco. Her books, mostly memoirs, are known for their views into the queercore community. In 2012 Tea partnered with City Lights Publishers to form the Sister Spit imprint.

Reviews

[Caitlin Constantine · Rating 2 out of 5]

How to describe this....Okay, how about this. Take Blake Nelson's "Girl" and have her embark on lesbian sex-fest with "Mrs. Dalloway" and jack her on up crystal meth and make her sweaty and grimy and tattoo-covered and roll her around in some period blood and you'll have "Rose of No Man's Land." (The reference to "Mrs. Dalloway" is not about literary quality as much as it's about the whole conceit of using stream-of-consciousness to track a day in a character's life.)

This is the thing about Michelle Tea, the thing that bothers me so much - she is clearly capable of writing beautifully, and yet I feel like those bits and pieces of gorgeous prose are lost in the tidal wave of words that you have to work extra hard to sift them out. It's like reading Elizabeth Wurtzel, who is another talented writer who needs the assistance of a heavy-handed editor (and maybe a 12-step group, I dunno) to make her work readable.

This is my own issue and your mileage may vary on this, but I got tired of the drug use that pops up so regularly that I'm often nauseated when I read her work. I don't need writing about drugs to be finger-wagging PSAs issued straight from the local school DARE officer, but I do like realism and realism is that speedy drugs are fun until you come down from them, and then they are the worst thing in the world. I had the same experience while reading "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." I could barely focus on the story itself, my stomach had so curdled itself at the prospect of ingesting so much stuff. But like I said, this is informed by my own past and so another person might have a totally different response.

I always read her books wanting to like them so much, and yet I often feel disappointed. (I did like "Rent Girl" though.)

[J.S.A. Lowe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gulpable YA that I was kind of surprised to like, since the plot features teenaged girl-girl betrayal, shoplifting, hitchhiking, destruction of property, and snorting crystal meth while drinking vodka energy drinks (and then getting tattooed). And I loved it. The androgyne-female narrator speaks in capitalized letters ("Whatever, I Don't Really Give A Shit About Hair, I said") and everyone else's utterances are in italics, a bold technical move that gives the novel its flavor. It was just really fun, strangely enough, and I bolted it in an hour. A lot like Russell Banks's Rule of the Bone in its portrayal of squalid life in impoverished New England small cities, former mill towns, etc....the vanishing of the industrial base, the substance abuse and general depravity which sets in when no one can find work other than at the strip mall. The white underclass, the working poor, who turn to petty crime and (in most books of this kind) child molesting. Fun!

[Rabbit {Paint me like one of your 19th century gothic heroines!}]

On-hiatus indefinitely/DNF.

DNF on page 17.

I really don't have the urge to read this right now, and I'm sure my friend (irl) wants this book back. I feel bad that I've borrowed her books for so long.

[Ciara · Rating 1 out of 5]

oh boy. here we go. michelle tea. is there an author i like less? i don't think so. why do i torture myself by reading her books? i have hated all of them, with the exception of the chelsea whistle, which i merely disliked quite a bit. she's like francesca lia block for queers--substance-less, mind-breakingly boring, content to rest of the laurels of sub-cultural associations in lieu of actual plot & character development, untaxingly insipid (i imagine this works well for people who have to get completely hammered before reading one of her books, just to keep things interesting for themselves)...blech. HATE. this one is the story of trisha, a poor teenage girl who makes a new pal who encourages her to run away to the mall or some such ridiculous bullshit, where she has her coming-of-age moments involving shoplifting & lesbianism. i mean, i'm sure it's totally awesome for queer teenage girls to have books where their marginalized sexualities are reflected. i just want BETTER for those girls than boring, uninspired, condescending tripe like this. don't young queer girls deserve complex characterizations & relevant storylines & good writing? surely there are awesome queer writers out there who could write books like this. actually, i bet there are writers making books like that, but the publishers are sticking with tea because she has been vaunted to the upper ecehlons of punk-identified queer authorship--a heap that is admittedly not really anyone's everest. i mean, we're talking about a pretty marginalized little corner of the publishing industry here. but still. the world needs better than michelle tea.

[Steph · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow, this book is quite a trip. The first half is mostly just gearing up for the second half, in which our protagonist, Trisha, goes on an adventure with an exciting girl she's just met, Rose. There's alcohol and heavy drugs, there's stealing, there are creepy men, there's trespassing and tattoos. and there's some romance between the girls, of course.

But the thing is, I liked the first half of Rose of No Man's Land better than the second half. Did I mention that these are fourteen year old girls?? Maybe I'm just too old and boring to find this stuff entertaining anymore. but it wasn't fun or exciting for me. I wanted them to go somewhere safe to have their self-discovery.

Trisha's slow realization that she might be a lesbian is interesting - but that part of the story made me uncomfortable because it's so tied to the drugs.

So, yeah, this book was pretty disappointing. The first half is an authentic-feeling picture of a poor family's dysfunction. When I thought the story was going to take off into something great, it turned into a mess.

But despite its weak second half and its vague ending, Rose of No Man's Land does have a beautiful and engaging narrative voice. I'm sure Michelle Tea is capable of some amazing writing. this one just didn't do it for me.

EDIT: Slutever is a band with a really gritty vibe that complements the I-need-to-take-a-shower feeling that I got from this book.

[Bookmarks Magazine]

Following on the heels of her graphic novel Rent Girl (2005), the award-winning Valencia (2001), about San Francisco prostitution, and The Beautiful (2003), a collection of poetry, Rose of No Man's Land is Tea's first novel. Critics describe it as raw, honest, confident, hilarious, unpretentious, cynical, and poignant__and agree that among coming-of-age novels, Tea's voice rings true. Narrated by Trisha, the novel takes place over one day, which stretched credibility for some critics. Yet Tea's first-person narrator and defiant sidekick, as well as her fantastic observations of pop culture, won critics over. Notes the San Francisco Chronicle: "Trisha refuses to become a poster child for what is wrong with youth today, and instead becomes what is most important of all, herself."

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

[Ryn · Rating 2 out of 5]

That meth binge was the most uplifting thing about this book about a disadvantaged lesbian coming of age. Also, I was not a big fan of Michelle Tea's overly descriptive writing style. This book took place over the course of about three or four days in a young woman's life and yet, it felt like years.

[jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

i'm ready for michelle tea to write books about being an adult.

[Suzi bLu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy crap its GREAT! I forgot how much I adore her and want to be her. Quiet my mind and remember the details of all the fkd up shit that has happened. Details baby, it's in the details.

[Waffle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I ate it up quick, this wild ride of a read. And yet I’m left wondering if I liked it or not. Tea’s writing is excellent, as usual, and I feel so in the moment, in Trisha’s head and heart. But I work with kids near her age and I was so worried for her! And for kids reading this, full of moments where it could have gone far far worse, but everyone managed to be okay. But I can’t moralize about it, it seems too out of line with the book, it’s all so exciting for Trisha, all so new.

[Dan Keating · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, I felt a little let down by Michelle Tea's Rose of No Man's Land. I probably ought to preface that statement by saying that I have unreasonably high expectations of young adult literature, at least when judged against the common standard these types of books are held to, but that notwithstanding I still felt let down - the kind of let down that can only come from an experience that was decent but had the potential to be so much more.

First off, the characterization. Michelle Tea crafts the emotionally vacant, commercially washed out characters in a way that is at once unique and interesting while remaining true to the heavily-appropriated, soulless commercialism that pervades their lives. You have to give her props for that.

Second, any book that's willing to look at things that are considered culturally taboo is worth a look. In particular, an exchange in which the title character, Rose, wards off a group of horny teenage guys by removing her bloody tampon and throwing it at them is spectacular - the passage describes one young man as looking betrayed by this action, an absolutely perfect way to some up how Rose's taboo scandalized a young man who probably looked at himself as badass and scandalous due to his mainstream-culture-driven perception of himself. That sort of thing is excellent.

And, third, I'll admit there's a little nostalgia thrown in here. Tea's fictional town of Mogsfield, and the Square One Mall and the various attractions on Route 1, are populated by fictitious places, but all fictitious places that are based on actual ones - for instance, the Chinese restaurant with the river running through it, Weyloon, is based on a restaurant called Kowloon. I knew these places growing up as well as I lived fairly close to that part of Route 1. That the novel's narrator, Trisha, describes these places with exactly the same reverent scorn I used to attribute to them - due to them being so obviously soul-sucking and shitty yet still homey, as they're what we knew - definitely tickled me.

But, unfortunately, there are some issues with Rose of No Man's Land that can't be ignored.

The biggest issue is the pacing. The first half of the novel or so takes place at a pretty moderate pace. Days go by between chapters, things are spaced out. Then, after the narrator meets Rose, everything goes kind of nuts - the second half of the book is the continuous narration of a single night. While that night is fully worth describing in this much detail, it feels extremely disjointed from the rest of the novel; the first half and second half don't seem to have a whole lot to do with each other. The slower, evener pacing of the first half made the second half feel like it was rushing to get a whole range of emotions into one night. I felt kind of cheated - it felt like there should have been more to the story than what was there. Maybe the problem isn't so much with the pacing as with the ending - the book should have kept going.

There are couple of other issues, too. While I overall enjoyed Trisha's narratorial voice, her penchant for scatological references eventually crossed the line from interestingly unique to annoyingly repetitive. And, finally, Trisha's voice gets a little melodramatic near the end - while her ironic transformation into someone as petty as the people she'd despised could have been golden, it never got to develop fully. You could perhaps lump that in with the pacing issue described above, but it felt important enough to mention separately.

Rose of No Man's Land was definitely, overall, a letdown, but it's still worth attention, if for nothing else than for the fact that it's the closest thing to transgressive young adult fiction I've ever encountered. The casual manner in which drugs and lesbian sex are embraced by Trisha as means of getting beyond the hopelessly banal existence around her are refreshing changes to the usual round of preachy, moralizing tripe you typically see in young adult fiction. While the book itself isn't great, what it represents - young adult fiction which is willing to break the mold of what is acceptable in way that is meaningful - could lead to some really great things.

[Marnie · Rating 3 out of 5]

My opinion on this book is pretty much the opposite of the rest of the reviews here. I found it at the library & thought it looked interesting, which it definitely was. It was disturbing. I thought the 1st 10 or so chapters were great, reading about what Trisha's life was like & trying to figure out where she fit in, & reading about the mall, plus the writing is really good. The names the author gave the stores were pretty obvious which ones she meant (she called Hot Topic "Dark Subject" & Jack-in-the-Box was "Clown in a Box" & I think "Ohmigod" was like Gadzooks or Wet Seal. Everything went downhill really fast when Trisha met Rose, who got her into all kinds of trouble. After Trisha lost her job she & Rose stole a bunch of stuff, went hitchhiking, bought a bunch of drugs, got high off them & then vandalized a bunch of property, experimented sexually with each other, & found a tattoo artist who was willing to tattoo underage girls (they were 14). It glamorized drug use & Trisha idolized Rose & thought she was really cool. I felt like I had to finish it because I wanted to see what would happen. There really wasnt much of an ending.

[Q · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty rare to find a coming-of-age novel that's not drenched in polemic. I thought Tea captured that teenage moment pretty well: a kind of impotent self-awareness, longing for what seems inaccessible and maybe some fear that things won't ever change. (I'm still holding onto that fear when it comes to the world, but the personal dimensions have shifted radically.)

The protagonist is pretty kick-arse, too, which is always fun - ey reminds somewhat of the working class girl in My Summer of Love, mixed with someone from Francesca Lia Block but a little more real. That said there's something a little too cool about this book, maybe, like Francesca Lia Block, like Daria. Maybe the process of representation just does that. Michelle Tea must be aware of this, I feel like Trish's sister's making the video to get onto The Real World is about lampshading the narration, but I don't know.

[Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book, but there's no way I would recommend it to a teen. It has a lot of scenes about doing crystal meth and it's edgy and gritty.

That said, I really enjoyed it. The premise begins when a gender neutral girl named Trisha takes a job at a clothing store called Ohmigod! in a mall in her town. She is soon fired, but meets a girl named Rose, who works at Clown in a box, a place in the mall that sells all varieties of fried food (deep fried veggies, corn dogs, Mars bars, everything!).

The two girls proceed to get into a lot of trouble together. This book has it all- drugs, sex, profanity, shoplifting, tattoos, hitchhiking.

There were parts of the book that were funny and bordered on dark satire- like Heathers.

I also loved the language and the way it was written, but I'm quite aware that there is a select audience out there for this book.

[Katey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an impulse read from the library. It wasn't fantastic, but definitely not horrible, and better than just okay. It's your typical down-and-out girl's coming of age story, complete with a strange new friend and a drug-fueled lesbian experience. Yadda yadda yadda.

Some major points were scored in my eyes by the author using The X-Files as an adjective.

And as a completely irrelevant sidenote, I kinda wish my last name was Tea.

[Adam Hodgins · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book, a queer, outsider, working class story. This kind of writing makes me really happy, I just wish there was more queer guys writing stuff like this.

[Valerie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Normally I reserve 1 star rating for books that are so terrible that I can’t even finish them, but for this book I’ll make an exception. It was a short read, so that’s probably why I was able to suffer through it. I believe this author is a child predator. This book basically advertised binge drinking, disrespect of self and others (specifically adults), reckless promiscuity and drug abuse to 14 year olds... children. I don’t mind books and stories that show that these kind of things happen to kids, but most of those books show that there is some level of consequence to those behaviors. Which is accurate — there are consequences for that kind of behavior... that’s why we don’t encourage children (or anybody, but specifically children) to engage in these actions. This story wrapped up with the author basically saying it was all cool and fun and encouraging the ambitious, hard-working, GOOD older sister to go down that same path of self-destruction. This book was disgusting.

[Susan Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Plot: This book covers Trisha's first few days of summer after 9th grade, (I think this makes her 15 I'm not overly familiar with the american grades and what they need). Trisha's family consists of a Mum who is a hypochondriac, her Mum's slob of a boyfriend Donnie and her bossy big sister who is obsessed with the idea of getting on the reality tv show called 'Real World'. The main plot of the novel is Trish getting a summer job at the mall, meeting Rose. This is a bad ass coming of age story fueled by drugs, alcohol and the sense of indestructibility only a teenager has as well as a love story between two loners/weird girls.

Talking about her Mum: 'I have found that thinking about Ma like she's another girl in the world, like any of the girls going on about their boyfriends in the bathroom at school makes me less horrified that she is in the fact my mother. When I start thinking of that word, mother, its when I can start to feel empty and panicky and filled with big scary nothing feelings'.

I really enjoyed this novel, as well as being a great coming of age story it introduced me to a world I've never experienced. Although I have read quite a lot of Queer YA books (particularly when I was younger) I don't know if I've ever read something that was so different to my own experience growing up that I enjoyed as much.

Trisha's home life is incredibly unstructured, she has no rules which has led to a regular alcohol use. Her mother doesn't seem to care about her because she essentially lives on the couch due to her hypochondria and her Mum's boyfriend doesn't work except to move stolen goods. Her sister is in some ways the antithesis of her in that she cares a great deal about her appearance and is very driven towards her goal of being on a reality TV show. (Without spoiling the plot I'm going to have to be vague). Other experiences that are touched upon in this book that I didn't expect going in but I was actually really interested in were, shop lifting, using crystal meth, getting tattooed whilst high and a dramatic event involving a used tampon. (Also coming from a non-American perspective I also felt like I learnt about the US mall culture which I had seen on TV and Movies but never quite got how significant they were to socialising for some American teenagers, so that was interesting)

This book takes place over a few days, the short time frame means all the actions of the characters are exacerbated and leads to some really intense character development. This along with the fact that these aren't regular days in Trish's life (in many ways these are some of the most important and defining few days in the young woman's life, because of her sexual awakening ).

First Description of Rose: 'She was holding a big army bag and wearing a bizarre outfit of bright stripes. The top was striped with orange and green and yellow and the bottom was stained khaki and the whole thing was too big for her. Her hair was dark but it was all smashed under a hairnet like an old lady. She looked greasy. Her makeup, mostly eyeliner, had pooled around her eyes like liquid, and her facehad a sheen to it. She spoke real low, in a voice that sounded so deep and scuffed-up it was like she was was a fifty-year-old bartender in a thirteen-year-old's body'.

Trish isn't entirely likable at times but I think this gives the character an authentic feeling. Because her attitude is understandable given her home environment and I would say even at the points in which she was losing some of my sympathy she was still very relatable. An example of this is when she is cynical about teenagers mental illness and self-harmers, as well as using ableist slurs but when talking about her Mum she is says of mental illness that it 'is worse than having kidney infection or a gallstone 'cause it can go on forever, and in the process you lose all of your friends for being crazy'. But I can understand how as a kid growing up in that environment she learn's to care for her Mum/try to understand her and might become isolated develop a very cynical tone towards the rest of the world.

In the description of this book it talks about Trish as being 'gender blurring' so I was expecting gender identity to be explored in some way (maybe through non binary identity). However Trisha (who is described using female pronouns throughout) 'gender blurring' is more in terms of presentation, i.e how she dresses. So if your'e looking for a book about a teenager figuring out their gender identity this is not that novel.

Who would I recommend this book to?: If you like YA literature with loner characters finding themselves, in a stream of consciousness style like The Catcher in the Rye then this book might be for you. I believe when i purchased this book it was classified as adult but I think it share a lot of themes with YA literature, with teen protagonists and an unconventional YA romance. Its definitely on the darker side of contemporary YA and also deals with a lot of difficult subjects such as alcoholism, drug taking and shop lifting. I know personally teen me would have enjoyed this book as much as early twenties me does!

Also if you don't like romance I would say that although Trish and Rose's relationship is a big part of this story , the reader/Trish only meet Rose halfway through the novel so you get quite a while to get to know Trish. I would say this book is more of a coming of age story than a Romance.

Would you read more by the author?: Yes definitely, the writing style really grabbed me and I've heard good things about her other works especially Rent Girl.

Rating: 4/5

[Mason Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure calling this a "fun" read is quite accurate, though it is a lot of fun if you have the necessary constitution. A sort of Catcher in the Rye for folks who appreciate New England teens losing control in the depths of a crystal binge, it's the story of a 14-year-old girl in a failed family growing up in Connecticut, making her first friend and then some bad decisions, though it all turns out fairly well in the end. Definitely not a YA book for anyone under 18, I'd say, but at that age it'll be well-appreciated I'm sure.

[Mya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contrary to many of the other reviews I loved it! Although it definitely deals with hard topics it portrays these in the perfect gritty and sometimes gross way, without romanticizing it. It's an accurate portrayal of things that a lot of lower-class teen girls experience. The author captured Trishas experience and her coming to terms with possibly being a lesbian perfectly as well, it felt relatable and real.

[Lisa Barron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really captures those teenage years of getting loaded and finding adventures on your own terms.

Michelle Tea you seriously rule!

[L · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book when I was 14 so I won't provide an in-depth analysis. I do remember being disappointed that the payoff of having read the book was not worth the effort.

[Alex Bitten]

You get immerses in the book! Feel like you are going on your own journey

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[Toni · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good writing, if overwrought after a while. A few sad days of a sad girl’s sad life in a sad town. Ultimately depressing.

[Alex R]

craziest virginity loss in history probably

[maddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm getting old I guess

[Sage Gill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome great fiction

[Kelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this queercore coming of age book from Michelle Tea. Tea explores the life of a working class, gender bending teen who discovers her sexuality/sexual orientation in one crazy day during the first week of her summer vacation. All in one day, Trisha gets hired at the mall, steals, lies, assists others in stealing, gets fired, does crystal, loses her virginity, hitchhikes, gets drunk, rips off a child pornster, and wreaks havoc on the glittering oceanfront strip filled with gawdy, neon-glowing bars and restaurants. There's no 'resolution,' no lessons really, no moment of queer enlightenment, no lightbulb going off moment where Trisha, the main character, says, "All my life, I've been queer. I was born this way!" What's really great about this book is that you aren't given any morality plays about what it means to be queer. No finger-wagging about the heterosexism that every character exhibits, no insistance that one's first queer experience is, for a women, some sort of romantic, fall in love forever and ever moment. At the end, you return to Trisha's family, even more broken than it was when you first opened the book. You are left hanging, but in a good way, not sure what's going to happen. Which is fitting since Trisha is just entering 10th grade and, of course, has a lifetime of learning who she is ahead of her. It's a good beach novel.

It was labeled 'Romance' by the local library, which I found amusing as I had to cart this book around with a little pink heart on it and the word, "Romance" -- a book that is decidedly not cut from the typical "Romance" mold.

5 stars to the cover which is of a mannequin, dressed in pink and bright lipstick, hitchhiking.

Spoiler: The title comes from the nickname of a tattoo men used to get during WWI and WWII. When nurses saved their lives by tending to their wounds on the battlefield, they'd commemorate their survival and honor the nurse with the tattoo. Again, the nice thing about Tea's work is that she tells you the history of the tattoo, weaves it into the experience of the character, and then leaves it totally up to you as to what meaning(s) to inscribe on the expression, "Rose of No Man's Land."

http://www.mnrose.com/history

[Annie Po · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this book would make a great film.

I was quite surprised by the pace of this novel. First half sets up the tone and the context of its main character (whose voice also tells the story, with a very Michelle Tea Way of Writing Her Main Characters Spoken Dialogue Like This, which I always loved). Second half escalates quickly, and is about just one single night. I don't think the writing or the editing is very strong in this. It could have maybe done better as either a short story or a much longer novel? Either way I loved it, but found myself skipping some descriptions of say the mall or the carnival, because the description did not feel like the main character's voice, just some side notes? Who cares though, everyone's allowed their mistakes or less than perfect pieces of work.

The pacing is amazing though; the one night during which Trisha's insecurities and cynical takes on the world boil down to the fact that she is a lesbian and what this implies on a personal and social level. The drug fuelled tension of that night is a wonderful climax to a story which built up slowly in a sluggish and weird small town kind of way. While it's clearly hinted at that Trisha is already relying on alcohol in a way that's dysfunctional, she's quite the loner who doesn't want to get tangled up with mess and crime, until she meets Rose. There's something interesting around dynamics here. If you don't like drugs and alcohol in your stories don't read this.

I can see why as a YA novel this may not quite work, because of the drugs and alcohol, but there's an honest description of the negative effects of the drugs too in there, as well as an awareness that some kids use drugs to get some bravado and experience because the adult figures in their life let them down. There's also a real safety net in the sense that no one gets hurts despite all their reckless adventures.