My Name Is Sus5an Smith. The 5 Is Silent.

by Louise Plummer

Bored with her conventional life in her small Utah town, would-be artist Sus5an Smith packs up and moves to Boston, where she befriends Thomas Roode, a promising young artist and falls for Willy, a man twice her age. Reprint.

Genres: Young Adult, Fiction, Childrens, Middle Grade

224 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Louise Plummer is a noted author young-adult fiction and a retired associate professor of English for Brigham Young University. She lives in New York, New York with her writer/professor husband Tom. Together they have four sons.

The Plummers moved from Boston to Minnesota in 1971 when Tom took a position at the University of Minnesota. While there, Louise earned a master’s degree in English. They both took positions at BYU in 1985, the same year her first novel, The Romantic Obsessions and Humiliations of Annie Sehlmeier, received the the Delacorte Press First Young Adult Novel Contest, leading to its publication. The book later became a children's choice book with both the New York Public Library and the International Reading Association.

Awards received by subsequent books include Her second novel, ALA Best Book, a School Library Journal Best Book, Utah Arts Council Best Young Adult Novel, Association for Mormon Letters Best Young Adult Novel, and another New York Public Library Children's Choice Book for her second novel, My Name is Sus5an Smith. The 5 is Silent. The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman was also an ALA Best Book, a School Library Journal Best Book, an Association for Mormon Letters Best Young Adult Novel. Her A Dance For Three was also an ALA Best Book.

She has also written nonfiction books specifically for the Mormon audience and is a popular LDS lecturer.

--Bio courtesy of Wikipedia

Reviews

[Liralen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another childhood reread. I remember checking this out from the library and being utterly fascinated by it, although I still don't think I can properly articulate why. It wasn't Sus5an's obsession with Willy—what I remember most strongly is the portrait she paints early on in the book, a family portrait that happens to include the partially decayed face of an Anasazi woman.

The bigger point, of course, is that Sus5an has something of an obsession with her aunt's ex-husband—an uncle Sus5an still considers to be part of the family and whom she herself daydreams of marrying. It's a storyline that I don't think would fly today; I imagine that the 2020 version would involve a lot more...acknowledgement that it's wicked creepy for a 40-year-old man to encourage a 17-year-old girl's crush.

This story could have ended up being much, much darker than it did. It actually ends up feeling relatively tame—but I've had this faintly at the back of my mind for years and years, so I'm glad to have returned to it.

[Magda · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like the main character and most of her family and friends, but I was really creeped out by her obsession with her (ex-)Uncle Willy. Everyone in her family didn't like him (after stealing from the family, and deserting his wife and the Air Force at the same time), but she still thinks fondly of him ... which is fine until she goes to Boston and finds him and then starts dreaming about marrying him. Yeah. Things turn out okay for the most part, but that's just really creepy.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Plummer's writing is amazing as usual, and the entire book had me rigid with tension as I waited to see how serious the mistake Sus5an was making would turn out. That's why it's only four stars: I wanted to SHAKE the girl through the entire book! Which I guess was the point!

[Meaghan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really couldn't get into this book. It was all right, I guess, but Sus5an was so naive I wanted to slap her. She was eighteen, but she seemed as young as twelve sometimes. And I don't understand why her family wasn't angry with her at the end, seeing as how she had stupidly given her uncle (a known thief and n'er-do-well) access to her aunt's apartment and he burglarized the place as a result. Were teen girls really this trusting back in the eighties? Is it just my jaded twenty-first century viewpoint?

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like Louise Plummer, so I wanted to like this book. The writing is fine, and I laughed once or twice out loud, but I got bored. 70 pages in, I wanted to give Plummer the benefit of the doubt, but my reading list is too long this summer. I think that pretty much says it all.
--Btw, it was interesting to read about Springville in a nationally published book.

[P.M. · Rating 2 out of 5]

The best thing about it was the title.

[LuAnn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Talk about procrastinating reading a book, this one sat on my shelf for years, with no real reason other than I simply got distracted. I finally picked it up and read a chapter each day while I waited on my crazy computer and internet to boot. Okay, so once I got 3/4 of the way through, I was reading more than a chapter a day, finally reading the final chapters in a huge gulp of satisfaction! I knew exactly what was going to happen to Sus5an, but I had to be there with her, hoping things would all work out in the end. If you own a copy of this novel, don't procrastinate. It's worth your time to read it.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really like Louise Plummer and read her blog...she is hilarious. I hadn't read any of her books so thought I would give this a try.

I just couldn't get past Sus5an the main character. She has a creepy obsession with her uncle Willy, who disappeared when she was 7. This tells the story of her coming-of-age and realizing what she wants with her life and who she is. She was just so dumb. Really? You want to marry your 40 year old uncle? Hmm.. grow up a little!

I think I will try another of her more popular books.

[Susan Katz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This portrait of the artist as a young woman has some memorable secondary characters in Grace MacGregor, an 84-year-old neighbor, and Willy Gerard, the amoral and irresponsible former husband of the heroine's aunt. Sus5an Smith's decade-long romantic fantasies of Willy come to an abrupt and shocking halt on Susan's 18th birthday, enabling her to take her first steps into adulthood.

[Aubrey Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I met Louise Plummer once and I really enjoy her writing. This story was just weird though. I thought Sus5an was immature and annoying. I wanted to slap her. I felt no sympathy for her at the end of the book when she got her stupid heart broken. I did like that the story was set in Springville and talked about the Springville Art Museum.

[Juliette Caron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Louise Plummer is one of my favorite authors and this is one of my two favorite books of hers. I loved everything about this story. As an artist and a girl who once found myself falling for all the wrong men, I found Sus5an's character to be so relatable. Ms. Plummer doesn't sugar-coat reality and I love that. I've read this painfully real book twice and I look forward to reading it a third time.

[Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

SPOILERS



I read this as a child and I liked it a lot. I thought it was a strange book to have in our tiny library at school. I also remember being a little creeped out that Susan is dating her uncle in the book.

[Siyuan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is actually not a favorite, but it was weird enough that i returned to it a couple of times when i was a kid. the main character is a budding artist, who has an unhealthy romantic obsession with an adult ex-uncle-in-law, and later moves to boston. yeah.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a nice young adult book. I like Louise Plummer. The girl, Susan Smith, was a bit of a twit, but a lot of kids at that age are, so it was somewhat realistic. I thought the parents would be more supportive since Susan's paintings were not that offensive.

[Britney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting. I picked this up in the teen section. Louise Plummer is an LDS author and her book had won a couple of awards. It is a little different but I really liked it. It seemed very honest and I could see how this girl could get into trouble.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not like this book as well as the Kate Bjorkman book by Plummer, but again a very real, very believable story. Also very contemporary though it was written in the 90's. Again Plummer leaves the ending untied. I like that.

[Elesa · Rating 2 out of 5]

As far as I remember, this is about a teenage girl who is in love with her Uncle, who, besides being her uncle, is also a loser. I guess it is probably about her learning not to be so dumb, since obviously she was, but I don't really remember much else.

[Elizabeth Gibbs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sus5an, a 17-year-old artist, goes to Boston for the summer to find her Uncle Willy who abandoned her aunt ten years ago. She believes he was really a wonderful person and that everyone is blind to that.

[Ashley Flynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was just ok. Susan was a bit too naive for me to really like, although I could identify with her desire to follow her dreams in a big city. The conclusion of her relationship with willy was too predictable, and I'm not sure the closure she gets with her mom at the end was totally believable.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good book by a local Utah County author. I haven't read another book quite like this one. When it ended, I felt like it could use a sequel, but I just made one up in my mind. :)

[Paige · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somewhat dated, LDS fiction. Actually, the LDS is not beaten over your head...a good thing. Describes a coming-of-age story of a 17 year old artist from Springville. Not bad.

[Liaken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. It's really revealing to watch a 17-year old make this many mistakes. She's an empathetic character, and the story is well-told and interesting.

[Emster · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book I read in seventh grade and really liked it. The story was interesting for me and saddening. I've only read one other book like it, but cannot fortunately remember the name at this time.

[Bear · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was enamored with this author's other work "The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman" which was hilarious. This one was just dull and boring.

[Stephanie Fontanilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good presentation of characters.

[Lucinda · Rating 2 out of 5]

I kinda wanted to beat this character over the head and scream "can't you see he's using you!"

[erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

strange, yet interesting too.

[P.M. · Rating 2 out of 5]

The best thing about it was the title.

[michelle]

an absolute wild library sale find

[Chandni · Rating 2 out of 5]

This isn't a very good book. Susan is a hopelessly naive character and the plot is so slow and meandering and pointless. Even though it's not a very long book, the only actual plot events happen in the last 20-30 pages. I hated Willy right away, and there was absolutely no level of realism in this book.