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zinelib 's review for:
These Bodies Between Us
by Sarah Van Name
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Yes
Another page turner from Sarah Van Name. This summer coming-of-age novel focuses on a foursome: narrator Callie, her local best friend Talia, their summer best friend Cleo, and Cleo's new local bestie Polly, who is joining them for the summer for the first time. Callie and Talia (and Cleo's grandparents) live in a North Carolina beach town. It's the summer between their junior and senior years.
I liked July. It was the only month of the year that had no school on either end. It had no landmarks: the tide of renters came in and went out on Saturdays, and the town held a cookout for the Fourth of July, but otherwise nothing much happened. In July, no one had birthdays or crises. It was pure, undiluted summer, molten and sweet like ice cream at the edges.
Every summer they undertake a group project. Callie had radio DJing in mind, but Cleo's proposal--learning to disappear kind of trumped Callie's idea. Callie goes along, even though she's thinks corporeal evaporation seems like a tricky goal. But, it's her crew. Cleo and Polly seem really convinced and have videos to prove it.
It would only be one more year, after all, before we graduated and scattered into the rest of our lives.
Thinking about it now, I may like this book even more than the first SVN I read. The metaphor of girls wanting to disappear is powerful. Makes me think of how in power imbalances, sometimes the only way to "win" is to absent yourself.