Wednesday, 24 July 2013

80 Books No.56: Janie Face to Face by Caroline B Cooney


You know when you had a really brilliant holiday somewhere and then you go back to try and replicate it and it's never the same? This book is that for me. It's not that I hated it (you know you'd know about it if I hated it) but I was disappointed.

A bit of background would help with this.

Caroline B Cooney novels are a bit of a special thing. As in, something not everybody is ever going to get on board with. Here's a selection of the book covers of her books I have read in the past:


 
 
Check out the hair and the high-waisted jeans. Wonder how on earth I ended up with a German version of Don't Blame the Music. Cringe at the dodgy titles. These are 80s-90s YA fiction, completely unashamedly cheesy but endlessly entertaining. I mean endlessly: I must have borrowed Cooney's books from the library on almost a repeat for the best part of two years when I was about twelve or thirteen. I even bought Camp Reunion and Don't Blame the Music off the library when they threw them out: even my local library thought they were outdated.
 
However, it would be entirely remiss of me to laugh at these novels. Yes, they read a bit clunkily, but they were far from disposable YA chick-lit. In reality, they were quite something else. I was just graduating from pony books by the Pullein-Thompsons (a whole different brand of vintage) and then I came across these, which felt so much more grown-up. The best way I can describe them is a little like The Babysitters' Club, only grittier. In Summer Love/Camp Reunion, girl meets boy and sometimes boy turns out to be a complete let down. The stunningly attractive girl or boy might be nice or not. In Don't Blame the Music, sisters become dangerous to their entire family. This was high-drama and bitter-sweet endings. I was obsessed.
 
And my obsession was mainly centred around the Janie Johnson series, books I touched upon in a review very recently. This series revolved around Janie, an ordinary girl who recognises her own face on a missing poster and then realises that her parents are not a real family. The novels trace her search for her 'real' parents and the explanation over what happened, as well as her tentative relationships with her long-lost siblings, parents and how her 'adoptive' parents cope with this revelation. Not to mention how her boy-next-door boyfriend supports her - but then completely screws her over. There was a made-for-TV movie which was awful but brilliant at the same time.
 
Frankly, I LOVED these books.
 
I was vaguely aware that there were some more books in the series published much more recently, but it was only when I found this at the most recent book sale I attended that I gave it much thought. I've skipped Book 4 and the e-book and gone straight for Book 5, which Cooney is adamant will be the last one. Frankly, it should be.
 
Here, Janie is at college. Her boy-next-door boyfriend is in her life but they're not together. She's trying to juggle both families, but basically abandoning her now elderly and sick 'adoptive' family. And then a true-crime writer contacts everybody she knows asking for help with writing her story. Interspersed with this story, is what happened to Hannah, her 'adoptive' parents' real daughter and Janie's kidnapper.
 
This could have had legs. It would have been more interesting to see Janie co-operating with the true-crime writer, than what she actually did - generally paying it no attention whatsoever. Indeed, Janie is largely oblivious to most of what really happens in this novel due to her sudden decision to marry the boy-next-door boyfriend in ten days. It is therefore left to all the other characters to maintain any real link to the original story. Perhaps somebody close to her selling her out would have been fun, although already explored in Book 3. Hannah's narrative could have been more interesting if it was given more time and she was allowed to develop more as a character. Cooney very much kept her as comic-book villain rather than a real threat, something highlighted particularly by the complete lack of a climax to the story.
 
Also annoying was the time-scale of this series. Book 1 came out mid-90s and the action here was supposed to be set five years after those events. So why did everybody have Facebook, iPads and mobile phones? So much action revolved around these things (sometimes in a very interesting manner, it has to be said) that it jarred with the origins of the series. It was as though Cooney forgot herself. She also forgot herself with some characters. A good proof reader should have picked up that Brian claimed he'd never worn a tuxedo as he never went to prom, but three pages later detailed he didn't need to rent a tux as he already had one from his days in a choir. Shocking continuity.
 
Ultimately, I'm not sure who this book is aimed at. People like me, who read the originals, are really too old for this book now, but the YA audience are likely never to have heard of the Janie Johnson series.
 
Also, I don't get the cover.
 
Please, Cooney, leave this series alone.

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