The main character in CASTRATION CELEBRATION is Olivia, a 17 year old who walked in on her professor father messing around with one of his students. She is on a rampage about the poor behavior of sex-crazed men, and, as she is attending a fine arts summer camp at Yale, has decided to use the time to write a musical called (you guessed it) CASTRATION CELEBRATION.
The other main character, Max, is an actor, and he’s intending to use his acting skills to snag a girl at camp. Just his luck – he is smitten with Olivia on the very first day, but she has sworn off all men. Will writing her musical get the anger out of her system, thus opening the door for Max to walk through – or close it forever?
I’m having a hard time with this one.
First of all, despite it’s HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL-esque cover, this isn’t for tweens. I mean, the title probably gives that away, but I feel the need to say it anyway.
Second of all – well, I don’t know who it’s for, really. Adults is my best guess, but it’s published as YA, and I just don’t know what to do with it.
It’s funny. It’s definitely funny. At times it is actually laugh out loud funny, which I rarely say about a book. Usually when I find a book funny I’m chuckling to myself, but with CC I did actually laugh out loud several times.
But this book doesn’t just contain what I would call “content.” It’s not just “older.” It is raunchy. Dirty. Seriously so. Button-pushing, sending that envelope right over the edge dirty. Then there’s the rampant pot smoking (one character seems to do nothing but smoke pot), and the binge drinking. Where is this book going to go? Not in the vast majority of school libraries, that’s for sure, and I’m betting a lot of public librarians gave it a pass, too. I didn’t order it for Pudd’nHead’s YA section, and I know Children’s Book World didn’t either, because 95% of the time we are selling books to kids with their parents present, and I don’t know any parents who are going to buy this book. (And honestly, I wouldn’t sell it to a kid alone, because I’ll bet you anything we’d get quite an earful from that parent later.)
I don’t know what to DO with books like this. Jake Wizner’s a heck of a writer, and man, he is FUNNY. I, a 37 year old theatre geek, loved it. I’m planning on passing it on to some of my (adult) friends, who I’m sure will find it hilarious. But I absolutely cannot sell this book to kids, and I’m wondering why Random House thought I could. I’m sure kids are finding it, at big box stores or at some libraries, and I’m sure some independents bought it, but…are people out there handselling this to kids? (Please, comment and tell me if you are, and how, and to who – I really want to know.) But is this book really going to sell well? Random House certainly must have thought so, or they wouldn’t have published it, let alone published it in hardcover – but boy, would I like to talk to someone about the thought process behind letting a book this raunchy go out as YA.
Don’t misunderstand me. There’s a lot of good stuff here. The character relationships are good, and the emotional journeys ring true. And as I said above, Wizner can really, really write, and he’s funny, and funny is not easy. Also, the content doesn’t bother me. I’m 37. I’ve read far worse than this, and heard far worse. (And incidentally would like to have a long sit-down with the online reviewers who are complaining about homosexual characters in this book, because it’s 2009, so can we please stop with the bigotry already?) The fact that this book contains oral sex (and discussion of same), full-on sex, drug use, drinking, lewd conversation with every sexual term imaginable and an absolute freight train of profanity does not bother me, the reader. As a reader, I give this a very high rating.
But as a bookseller? A children’s bookseller? How do I review a book so over the top I actually can’t sell it?
(I am actually kind of dying for sales info on this one – who’s buying, who’s selling, where it’s going, and is it a success in the intended market.)
June 27th, 2009 - 12:41 pm
I can’t help you sell it. . . but I sure as hell want to read it!
June 27th, 2009 - 5:03 pm
Oh yes you do! I’ll stick it in the box with Speak and the sequel to Airhead, you know, if I ever mail that box.
June 27th, 2009 - 7:15 pm
You’ve asked a lot of great questions. I don’t know who we could handsell this to. We discussed this book a lot among our staff, and it was a classic case of ‘who is this book actually for?’ I think for us it came down to the question of shelf space: do I put a novel in our tightly packed YA section that I might be able to sell to one or two customers (maybe), or a book with slightly broader appeal? I’ll be interested to hear if others are having luck selling it.
June 29th, 2009 - 10:12 am
Wow. I don’t know what to say. I’ve been out of the children’s literature world for a good 6 years now, just barely keeping my toe in the water by rubbing elbows with friends in the industry…
But I used to work for an indie bookstore in No. Jersey (which is no longer in existence). We had a very strong children’s section and a number of employees who had a passion for kids’ books.
This one would have made one of our saleslady’s heads explode! (Okay, let me explain that VERY grammatically incorrect sentence: one saleslady, who only had one head to begin with, it would have exploded!)
Aside from the title, which might indeed put off a few parents, I can tell you without a shred of embarrassment, that even though I am as anti-book-banning as you can get, this one just wouldn’t have sold to one single customer in our store.
Not because the owner wouldn’t have bought it (our claim to fame was that we could sell anything to someone!), but because none of us would have sold it! We would have avoided selling it. We would probably have said to the parent, “If you want to read it, please show me some ID, but we’re not selling it to you for your tween-aged daughter!”
This is a hard age – too grown up for kids’ books, too young for adult content.