(#39) / Seventeen / (edited) by Ann Shoket / (Magazine)

Opening

Bibliographic Information:

Seventeen / (edited) by Ann Shoket

ASIN: B005MKB3L8 / Hearst Magazines  

p. 152 / $1.99 (Amazon)

2011 (October issue)

Body of Content

Summary: The magazine breaks down into various categories – such as the topical areas of fashion, beauty, love life, personal advice, and miscellaneous.  Unlike the two previously mentioned magazines (cf. Under the Radar and GamePro), Seventeen magazine is filled with advertisements – easily equal if not more than the volume of articles.  This issue features a “Seventeen’s Hot Guy Special” – with Taylor Lautner, Kenny Wormald, and Joshua Bowman draping the pages with page-sized photos and candid interviews.  The fashion section includes page-sized photos of various outfits; the beauty section focuses on makeup products and application techniques; the love life section focuses on advice and straight-forward confessions; and the personal advice section covers a wide range of topics.  

Critique: The magazine is marketed towards teenage girls.  But the magazine also feels like it is written by teenage girls.  I do not necessary mean that as an academic slam.  Still, it feels like the majority of the narratives come from teenagers themselves, companies marketing products at teenagers (who are pretending to be their friends), or adults behaving like teenagers.  In this way, the magazine is a safe place for teens to “talk/read” through their (own) issues without having to worry about parental judgment.

All the same, the advice columns and confessions have a tonality to them that few 30-year-old adults would provide to teens looking for guidance.  The level of advice is not abhorrent – but it does not contain the balance that an older perspective can offer.  One statement, in particular, from a college freshman, in essence, providing “advice” to teen readers about their first year in college, states, “I got into the habit of going out all night then sleeping … even through class … I was so dazzled by my new freedom that I didn’t notice I was being irresponsible until I bombed my finals …Now I make sure partying is just one part of my routine – not all of it” (p. 148 italics mine).

And that is supposed to count as sage-like wisdom?  Now, the magazine is not a fashion-advice version of The Lord of the Flies – but it does sponsor a lax attitude that teens have the rational and experiential capacity to entirely self-govern themselves and form well-reasoned decisions.  The perspective of the magazine allows teens to feel at ease reading it.  But a lack of actual content – i.e. advice from experts or psychologists – lets marketers and pop culture define the teenage experience for teens in a way that lacks social accountability or self-actualization – and steers teens towards a pleasure-defined, existential, consumerist version of worth.      

Teaser: A mix of fashion tips, relationship advice, and pop culture low-down, Seventeen offers everything a teenage girl needs. 

Information about the Author: Ann Shoket is the 39-year-old editor of the magazine. She started her professional ventures as a reporter for The American Lawyer.  She later branched out on her own with the creation of Tag – a web-based magazine.  Additional editor roles occurred within various publications like Parade and CosmoGIRL!  More recently, Shoket served as a celebrity judge on the TV show America’s Next Top Model.  The chief editor hails from Pennsylvania – having attended New York University for her undergraduate degree (Wikipedia, 2011).  

Supplemental Material

Genre: Pop Culture / Fashion / Advice

Curriculum Ties: Social studies – pop culture trivia / Psychology – advice columns

Booktalking Ideas: 1) Catch the latest fashion trends – and see if they fall within your budget 2) Taylor Lautner is a hot, hot hottie – catch his interview and free poster – inside this issue of Seventeen magazine.

Reading Level: Heavily-oriented towards teen girls – aged 13-19.

Challenge Issues and Defense: Some may object to the relationship advice based upon views of sexual mores.  But the magazine is not as “sketchy” as other advice magazines aimed at girls/women – like Cosmopolitan. 

Personal Reasons for Inclusion: Believe me – as a male – I didn’t want to read this magazine … or face the librarian when checking it out … But I needed a balancing factor to GamePro …

Last Thoughts

References:

Wikipedia. (2011). Ann Shoket [Webpage]. Retrieved from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Shoket

Listening to (Music):

Artist – Jennifer Knapp/ Album – “Kansas”   

(#3) / Tantalize / by Cynthia Leitich Smith / (Book)

Opening

Bibliographic Information:

Tantalize / by Cynthia Leitich Smith

ISBN–10: 0763627917 / Candlewick /

p. 336 / $ 6.80 (Amazon)

Body of Content

Summary: An orphan girl by the name of Quincie Morris moves into the household of her Uncle Davidson, and in the process, inherits the family business.  Once an Italian eatery, the restaurant is undergoing remodeling and remarketing efforts as a vampire-themed establishment.  In this small-town setting, more than meets the eye – as mythological creatures abound of the book’s pages.  After the murder of the chef incumbent, Quincie’s world grows even more complicated.  The police start an investigation into the murder of the chef.  Faced with an increasingly unreliable family (Uncle), ever absent best friend (Kieren), and a strange replacement cook (Brad), the protagonist must grip to separate her feelings from reality.  Pressured by impeding deadlines, Quincie must balance her school work with business responsibilities.  But with murders and monsters looming around the turn of each page, more than the fate of one character rests in the decisions made by Quincie.        

Critique: [Spoiler Alert] The book Tantalize contains a literary feature common in many YA novels – that of the ambiguous ending.  In adult literary works, it is common to write a very well-defined conclusion – whether it includes an event like a birth, a death, a wedding, etc. – or more simply, an impression like a character coming to realization of their identity.  YA books (often) include less direct approaches when forming their conclusions.   

In Tantalize, no one dies. Well, in fairness, basically everyone in Quincie’s life dies before the last chapter – but the last chapter does not resolve anything – as she, Brad, and Kieren all live to fight another day.  The ending of the book contains an ambiguous nature since the reader learns of all three fates – the characters soon separated by geography, but all alive: Quincie stays; Brad runs to San Antonio; and Kieren roams the nation in his herd.  Such features also create a lack of “falling action”.  Without a clear intentionality to the book’s conclusion, the climax of the book is muddled, too.  Typically, a novel contains a few chapters of falling action – after the climax.  But for Tantalize, the ending feels rushed.

Personally, I enjoy novels with clear endings.  This holds true partially due to the reading satisfaction – i.e. the book offers a resolution to the story’s events.  But further, it reminds me that the author had a story worth telling.  Ambiguous endings are more than a stylistic error; they reveal a lack of content.  Instead of offering a well-thought out thesis, ambiguous endings (often) only deliver topical significance.  Books are meant to have a beginning, middle, and ending.  Indirect resolutions start to negate more than just the ending of the story.  While I respect the author as a person, the novel Tantalize did not provide a satisfying conclusion – and like slaying the dragon at the level-five castle in the original Super Mario Bros – I realize that my princess resides in a different (literary) castle.         

Teaser: Quincie is a high-school girl growing up quickly in the real world – filled with murders, business responsibilities, and love interests. Can she keep her head or become the latest victim in a string of murders?   

Information about the Author: Cynthia Leitich Smith writes YA books along with illustrated books aimed at younger audiences.  She is mostly known for her series of books that developed from Tantalize.  Many of her works deal with issues related to Native Americans, partially due to her own heritage from the Muscogee Creek Nation.  Currently, the author also is professor at Vermont College of Fine Arts – teaching courses dealing with writing and YA program concerns (Wikipedia, 2011).  Smith resides in Austin, Texas – and her living experience there helped shaped some of the background details of the novel’s setting (Smith, 2011b).  

Smith holds a varied writing past – having attended college for degrees in journalism at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, along with time spent at The University of Michigan.  As part of her college time, Smith spent time abroad in Paris.  She also has lived in various states within the U.S. (Smith, 2011a)   

Supplemental Material

Genre: Horror / Paranormal Romance / Dark Comedy / Crime Drama

Curriculum Ties: Cooking / Mythology

Booktalking Ideas: 1) Can Quincie learn the identity of Vaggio’s murderer? 2) Will Quincie fall for the mysterious Brad – or the allure of Kieren?      

Reading Level: Grade 8 up – as assigned by School Library Journal (Amazon, 2011).  The darker themes of the novel – kidnapping and rampant death – make this a novel more for older teens.  Yet, the interest in paranormal romance will likely mean younger readers will, at the least, have a desire in reading the book.

Challenge Issues and Defense: The book deals with a handful of adult themes – from alcohol consumption – to language – to sexuality – to kidnapping – to horror-themed violence.  This is a book that would have difficulty receiving placement in the children’s section of a library, but overall, would fit reasonably well in the YA section of a public library.  It is difficult to defend the book on artistic merit – for the inclusion of such themes.  Perhaps by looking at the intentionality of humor by the author would lessen the perceived “dark” quality of the novel.   

Personal Reasons for Inclusion: I wanted to include some novels which I didn’t enjoy – and this book represented the antithesis to my joyful experience with the two books in the Hunger Games canon.

Last Thoughts

References:

Amazon. (2011). Tantalize [Webpage]. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/Tantalize-Cynthia-

Leitich-Smith/dp/B003D7JSZU/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

Smith, C. L. (2011a). About the author: Cynthia Leitich Smith [Webpage]. Retrieved from

http://www.cynthialeitichsmith.com/CLS/about_cyn.html

Smith, C. L. (20 October, 2011b). LIBR 265 [Class Interview]. Retrieved from

https://nexus.sjsu.edu/index.html

Wikipedia. (2011). Cynthia Leitich Smith [Webpage]. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Cynthia_Leitich_Smith

Listening to (Music):

Artist – Katy Perry / Album – “Teenage Dream”