Status Updates From All Shook Up: A Novel

Voicey. Kind of strange and aimless but it’s obviously intentional since it’s strange and aimless in the exact same ways as Cather in the Rye.

How could he know that? A grown-up I'd never met knew how I felt. My parents didn't. My teachers didn't. But a man I'd never met knew me. The thought made me so happy. So hopeful. Maybe life would turn out better than I thought. Maybe there was a place where I would fit in.

Paula’s father: I don’t want that evil to be a part of your life. I wanted the past to stay in the past. I wanted you to have the future.

Heh. Barbara’s mom is Jewish too

Was that all there was? Trying? I suddenly understood what I never thought about before. Holden didn't escape. He was only gone for a couple of days. It seemed longer. But today seemed longer, too, although it was only a few hours. And then Holden wound up in a mental hospital. After the book ended, he just went home and grew up. And so would we.

Our great plans had failed. Maybe they weren’t such great plans after all.

Barbara is a disaster.

Barbara is fifteen.

Were people really this obsessed with going to college in the 1950s? That feels like a newer invention.

“Too bad Germany lost the war. They had the right idea.”

Jesus

The word echoed in my brain. Germany. I'd spent my whole life walking around a giant pit in the middle of our lives called Germany. Germany. A dark place where people died.

Barbara Montalvo

Up until a few months ago, my life was so boring I thought nobody could have a worse life. Well now I knew that having problems is worse than being bored. I had so many problems, I didn't have a second free for boredom.

April 12, 1934
Hans and Lena Levy with baby Sophie.

You may think from what I just said that I didn't like our living room very much, and you would be right. I thought the living rooms people from America had were much nicer- small, light, wood tables and soft cushions on the sofa. Margaret's living room looked just like ours, although the sofa was comfortable.

Is Paula having a dream about a gas chamber or one of the death trains???

Really capturing the drama though. It’s giving anything’s and full frontal snogging. Voicey

Also the irony of two girls obsessed with Holden Caulfield also being so obsessed with appearances … like???

What’s so great about Barbara?

Elvis!

I had no idea what was going to happen, but I knew it would be the greatest day of my life.

I guess if Paula’s mother is making a big deal about growing up in the Depression she’s American Jewish? And the father grew up in Germany and came to America after the war … so … are we going to talk about the Holocaust?

On the morning I'm thinking of, Margaret's big brown eyes looked seriously at me, but if you knew her as well as I did, you would know deep down inside, she was laughing a mean laugh. It was the look she got whenever she was about to say something she knew would upset me. It seemed like upsetting me was her favorite hobby.

Margaret's eyes were too large to stay neatly inside of her head, like other people's, and her frizzy black hair never stayed in her barrettes. Mothers loved her because she was always doing the stuff they thought their daughters should do-homework, Chemistry Club, and wearing shoes that made her feet look like a duck's. But they didn't know what she was really like.

Paula: my friends won’t read it ‘cause they think it’s a dirty book.

Barbara: My friends won’t read it ‘cause it’s a book.

Meeting Barbara (Not Barbie or Barb): I had just said more truth to someone I’d known for about twenty seconds than to anyone else. Ever.

But there it was. And even though the book was squished and only half sticking out of her pocket, I knew what book it was from the gold-and-red cover. Catcher in the Rye. All beat-up, it looked exactly like my copy. Like the copy I always kept with me in my book bag because everyone thought it was a dirty book. My mother would've had a heart attack if she knew I'd read it even once, let alone four times.

I am so torn here because I think a lot of this is pulled from the author’s life based on her bio /land cues about age but it also feels like it’s pulled from … Grease comparing Sandy and Rizzo

Paula skipped a grade so she’s a sophomore and looks/feels younger than the cool kids.