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Being Different
Chester Higgans has always been a self-proclaimed outcast. Because to her, being an outsider means freedom. Jase Mathews, however, is new to the social pariah scene. After a tragic accident stole the lives of his two best friends, Jase stepped off the basketball court and into a deep depression. He returns to his senior year of high school wearing Gothic clothes and sitting at the loser table. Chester, veteran of said loser table, wants nothing to do with Jase or his problems. But fate—or possibly Chester’s best friend Gabriel—is determined to keep Jase around.
272 pages, Paperback
First published August 8, 2016
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20 people want to read
About the author
Anne Lutz
4 books22 followersAnne Lutz is a MG through NA writer from North Idaho. She recently graduated from the University of Montana with a degree in English and creative writing.
Mailing list: http://eepurl.com/bPAVTf
Mailing list: http://eepurl.com/bPAVTf
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 12, 2018
A good 3.5-star book. There are some spoilers mentioned in my review, so you've been warned.
The Plot: Chester embraces her "weirdness." She doesn't try to live up to social standards, she doesn't care what people think of her clothes, and she's alright with secluding herself to the outcast table with only her best friend Gabriel as company. She's always spoken her mind, even at the detriment of her social status, but is always loyal to those that come and go from her outcast group...they just tend to leave her behind. One day a hooded, silent boy with slightly-scary white face make-up sits at her outcast table. She's content to leave him alone, but Gabriel continues to chat to the boy merrily without so much as a friendly look back in his direction. Chester, standing up for Gabriel, tears into the quiet guy, giving him a piece of her mind just to have him be abrasive back. Little does she realize, the stand-offish guy is former prep Jason. She has conflicting feelings. On the one hand, she doesn't want anything to do with him - he's a popular boy playing dress-up as a scary outcast. On the other hand, he's having a personal crisis after losing his two best friends to a drunk driving accident. Being pushed from multiple sides to accept him and try to help him in her own odd way, Chester grits her teeth and reluctantly plays nice only to find out Jase can be a good friend.
The Good: The good outweighs the bad for sure. The banter between the characters was well done and entertaining. I liked how Chester and Jase really can't stand each other in the beginning, and the author does a good job of showing a believable transition from dislike to a reluctant stalemate to friendship to crush. Really, so many books have trouble getting such a seamless and subtle, convincing change from one stage to another. I was very impressed with how smoothly it was done in this one. It was probably the thing I liked best about the story.
I liked the characters, which were also quite believable. They were realistically flawed and imperfect, which I love. Chester is caring but kind of abrasive, she's awkward and lacking in some social norms. Even though she embraces her weird, she's got many insecurities based on some abandonment issues. Jase is at heart a good guy but admittedly a self-proclaimed jerk at times. He has to be mindful of how much of a jerk he's being, yet is loyal and protective of the ones he cares about, and he's sadly dealing with a tragedy the best he can. Ashley, Jase's ex, is a fresh breath of air. Instead of being the vengeful ex, psycho-prep, she's very sweet and does everything she can to help Jase get better. Even when she knows she isn't the one he wants, she's a big enough person to realize others are the better solution to his problems, and she steps back, supporting him from afar. Jase's mom was trying to balance between doing what a normal mom might do and just being happy that her son was starting to act normal again. I thought the most stereotypical and one-dimensional characters were Gabriel and Chester's mom.
What was great about this book was, for the most part, you never quite know how something was going to take place or how someone was going to react. That's a good thing. It was a lot less cliched because of that. Chester and Jase, even in their relationship, keep up their barbs and insults (good-naturedly) and don't hold punches with the truth. The characters don't try to be sickeningly sweet or overly romantic. The date wasn't trying to be magical or fictionalized...it was very much like a teen date at a noisy, low-level Mexican food place; the characters didn't try to dress up to impress or do the I-love-her-now-because-she-looks-hot-in-that-outfit thing; they were super-awkward because they didn't know if they should try to act differently now that it was a date and not just a friendly outing; and so forth. I'm telling you, so much in this book was a refreshing change to so many cliched tropes in other stories.
The Bad: Let's get the one negative out of the way. To me, it's a big issue because Chester focuses so much on aspects of it in the book. How the aftermath of an assault was handled was very unrealistic. So, Chester's friend Gabriel is gay, and he had been hospitalized a year or two prior from a beating. During the book, Gabriel gets beat up again and back in the hospital. My problem was how it said both times nothing was done about the assaults. I'm sorry, but if he got put in the hospital and injured that bad with broken bones, the police would have investigated, whether the school cared about the investigation or not. The victims just would have had to report it to the police. Why didn't any of the character report it? I saw this as very unrealistic to say that no one would do anything or not care, especially from my school teaching background. Even if the principal himself were a bigot, something like that would never go by the wayside so easily. You'd have the superintendent involved, the school board, other teachers, the police...I'm telling you. If there was some small chance nothing was done by the school, that would bring down a legal nightmare for the school district, at least in the state I live in. Schools never want that, legally or for negative publicity. It's easier and safer for the district to investigate themselves and cooperate in a police investigation rather than try to ignore an issue or cover it up. But, none of this was thought about in the book, and nothing was ever mentioned about the victims themselves involving the police, which they should have. Okay, that is my biggest gripe with this book and the most unrealistic thing I saw in it. It just kept irritating me everytime it was brought up.
The Plot: Chester embraces her "weirdness." She doesn't try to live up to social standards, she doesn't care what people think of her clothes, and she's alright with secluding herself to the outcast table with only her best friend Gabriel as company. She's always spoken her mind, even at the detriment of her social status, but is always loyal to those that come and go from her outcast group...they just tend to leave her behind. One day a hooded, silent boy with slightly-scary white face make-up sits at her outcast table. She's content to leave him alone, but Gabriel continues to chat to the boy merrily without so much as a friendly look back in his direction. Chester, standing up for Gabriel, tears into the quiet guy, giving him a piece of her mind just to have him be abrasive back. Little does she realize, the stand-offish guy is former prep Jason. She has conflicting feelings. On the one hand, she doesn't want anything to do with him - he's a popular boy playing dress-up as a scary outcast. On the other hand, he's having a personal crisis after losing his two best friends to a drunk driving accident. Being pushed from multiple sides to accept him and try to help him in her own odd way, Chester grits her teeth and reluctantly plays nice only to find out Jase can be a good friend.
The Good: The good outweighs the bad for sure. The banter between the characters was well done and entertaining. I liked how Chester and Jase really can't stand each other in the beginning, and the author does a good job of showing a believable transition from dislike to a reluctant stalemate to friendship to crush. Really, so many books have trouble getting such a seamless and subtle, convincing change from one stage to another. I was very impressed with how smoothly it was done in this one. It was probably the thing I liked best about the story.
I liked the characters, which were also quite believable. They were realistically flawed and imperfect, which I love. Chester is caring but kind of abrasive, she's awkward and lacking in some social norms. Even though she embraces her weird, she's got many insecurities based on some abandonment issues. Jase is at heart a good guy but admittedly a self-proclaimed jerk at times. He has to be mindful of how much of a jerk he's being, yet is loyal and protective of the ones he cares about, and he's sadly dealing with a tragedy the best he can. Ashley, Jase's ex, is a fresh breath of air. Instead of being the vengeful ex, psycho-prep, she's very sweet and does everything she can to help Jase get better. Even when she knows she isn't the one he wants, she's a big enough person to realize others are the better solution to his problems, and she steps back, supporting him from afar. Jase's mom was trying to balance between doing what a normal mom might do and just being happy that her son was starting to act normal again. I thought the most stereotypical and one-dimensional characters were Gabriel and Chester's mom.
What was great about this book was, for the most part, you never quite know how something was going to take place or how someone was going to react. That's a good thing. It was a lot less cliched because of that. Chester and Jase, even in their relationship, keep up their barbs and insults (good-naturedly) and don't hold punches with the truth. The characters don't try to be sickeningly sweet or overly romantic. The date wasn't trying to be magical or fictionalized...it was very much like a teen date at a noisy, low-level Mexican food place; the characters didn't try to dress up to impress or do the I-love-her-now-because-she-looks-hot-in-that-outfit thing; they were super-awkward because they didn't know if they should try to act differently now that it was a date and not just a friendly outing; and so forth. I'm telling you, so much in this book was a refreshing change to so many cliched tropes in other stories.
The Bad: Let's get the one negative out of the way. To me, it's a big issue because Chester focuses so much on aspects of it in the book. How the aftermath of an assault was handled was very unrealistic. So, Chester's friend Gabriel is gay, and he had been hospitalized a year or two prior from a beating. During the book, Gabriel gets beat up again and back in the hospital. My problem was how it said both times nothing was done about the assaults. I'm sorry, but if he got put in the hospital and injured that bad with broken bones, the police would have investigated, whether the school cared about the investigation or not. The victims just would have had to report it to the police. Why didn't any of the character report it? I saw this as very unrealistic to say that no one would do anything or not care, especially from my school teaching background. Even if the principal himself were a bigot, something like that would never go by the wayside so easily. You'd have the superintendent involved, the school board, other teachers, the police...I'm telling you. If there was some small chance nothing was done by the school, that would bring down a legal nightmare for the school district, at least in the state I live in. Schools never want that, legally or for negative publicity. It's easier and safer for the district to investigate themselves and cooperate in a police investigation rather than try to ignore an issue or cover it up. But, none of this was thought about in the book, and nothing was ever mentioned about the victims themselves involving the police, which they should have. Okay, that is my biggest gripe with this book and the most unrealistic thing I saw in it. It just kept irritating me everytime it was brought up.
Displaying 1 of 1 review