My choices of books and television programmes recently are
starting to make me wonder about my mental state. On the same evening I
finished reading this book, I watched a documentary about Fred and Rosemary
West and said I’d quite like the box set of Pretty
Little Liars for my birthday. It’s probably no surprise I had some really
quite dark and frightening dreams off the back of finishing Torn. It, like Thirteen Reasons Why, is a book that many adults would think
perhaps too disturbing for its teenage audience.
As I mentioned at the end of my last post, Torn and Black Rabbit Summer share some similar themes: growing up, first
love, family relationships and death. Somehow, though, I found Torn so much more disturbing and
unsettling, and I’m trying to work out exactly why.
The premise of the book is that Alice, the narrator, goes on
a school trip with her best friend. They end up sharing a cabin with two girls
they don’t know very well, and one girl they know all too well: the Queen
Bee/Bitch of the school, and Alice’s former best friend. A series of events
leads to one of their cabin mates being humiliated at the Queen Bee’s hands,
and they devise a plan to pay her back. The plan, however, culminates in a
horrendous tragedy, and the four girls return to school determined to keep
their secret.
Ultimately, of course, things get beyond their control and
their secret is in danger of being exposed. Alice doesn’t make it any easier
for anybody by falling in love with the Queen Bee’s brother. The scene where he
discovered the truth behind the lies was, for me, the weak link in the book
which is a shame as it was the climax of the entire novel. Jack’s reactions
didn’t seem realistic – but then I suppose I have no real standard to measure them
against! In contrast, the final moments of the novel where Alice finally tells
her father the truth were heart-breaking. Her comments as she steeled herself
to speak over how differently the evening could have gone if she just kept her
mouth shut were so sadly mundane and true: her dad would watch Match of the Day, she’d go to bed. The
love between father and daughter were what really made this novel for me, only
marginally damaged by the seemingly pointless subplot of the father’s love
life.
This could be seen as a sort of modern day, female Lord of the Flies, and perhaps this is
where the disturbing element arrives in. Whilst Golding’s classic did haunt me
when I read it two years ago, it also bored me to some extent as I just couldn’t
see the events happening in real life. With Torn,
the events were brought scarily close to home: these girls text and wear skinny
jeans and consider throwing memorial dances as a suitable way to grieve for
dead classmates. It’s all so typically twenty-first century teenager that it’s
terrifying. This could happen.
Maybe what makes this most disturbing though is the fact
that it’s girls who are involved. It’s no surprise to me that girls can be ten
times more poisonous than boys, yet to go to the lengths detailed in this novel
is still perhaps a step beyond what I can quite cope with. When Piggy is
murdered in Lord of the Flies it is
blood-thirsty and upsetting, and yet somehow almost understandable, as boys are
traditionally seen to be more physical. Girls can be bitchy and nasty and cruel;
this is something else, and yet at the same time, so believable that it sends
shivers down my spine.
Without a doubt, Black
Rabbit Summer was better written and
I’d read something else by Kevin Brooks in the future. I’m less convinced by
Cat Clarke’s writing, but in terms of her plot and thought processes, Torn is a book which will stay with me
for longer than many others. Truly a reminder that the female of the species
can be more deadly than the male.
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