Reviewed by Me for TeensReadToo.comNovels told in verse usually fall into two categories: those that simply tell a story with poetry, and those that manage to capture a life so eloquently in verse that you fall headfirst into the story. THE GEOGRAPHY OF GIRLHOOD, thankfully, falls into the latter category. Kirsten Smith has managed to pen, through verse, the story of fourteen-year old Penny Marrow, a girl you will laugh with, cry with, and get to know very, very well within the pages of this book. Penny's older sister, Tara, was blessed with the beauty, and the ability to cut her sister down with only a glance. Her father's hope is simply that his daughters will have listened to him enough to stay away from bad boys and make a place for themselves in the world. And as for her mother? She left when Penny was six, and the only thing Penny has to remind her of her mom is a snow globe. Now she has a stepmother, and a younger stepbrother, and a family life that can be summed up with "don't be like your sister." For Penny, life is confusing, with the fights her friends have regularly and the first kiss that makes her faint and the huge infatuation she has on her sister's boyfriend. But behind it all is the wish that her mother would just come home, would be returned by the aliens who abducted her or whatever, and make everything better. For Penny, watching her father change and her sister change and herself change is too much to take without a mother. But years pass, and when she finally gets one thing that she wants--which is Bobby--it's not at all like she expected, and she loses friends and gains new acquaintances and still, in the back of her mind, she wants her mother. THE GEOGRAPHY OF GIRLHOOD is sweet and bitter, a poignant story filled with joy and heartbreak about growing up and learning to let go and first love. Thankfully, this is a book told in verse that you won't soon forget, a definite recommended read.
The benefit of the novel-in-verse is that it pauses to examine moments in detail. Without prose you lose the narrative force and the explanatory background, but you gain a collection of feelings, sensations, dots in an impressionist painting. In connecting the dots, we become participants in creating the story. Of course the downside of most novels-in-verse is that most novelists are such crappy poets but here, for once, the poetry is actually good. Tonight, my dad calls me outside.At first I think he's found outwhere I was last nightor what I did,but all he wants to say is thattonight there's a meteor shower,big bath of starsthat comes once a century.I knock out a laugh of reliefand we stand under the night skywhich seems to be falling to pieces all around us.He pulls me close and says my little girland for a moment it's as if he knowsthat I'm not anymore. That poem (preceded by a more graphic one) is confirming for us, more or less, that she's just lost her virginity. Sometimes, good poetry comes at the expense of story-telling. In a regular novel, when your worst high school enemy suddenly decides to be your friend, some explanation is required. Not here. From one poem to the next, relationships can turn on a dime. And we don't even get to see the dime. It's a quick read about an engaging girl with enough plot developments to fill a much longer novel. I wish we'd had a few more moments examined, maybe filling in more of the gaps, but really I complain too much. This is a most enjoyable book.
Do You like book The Geography Of Girlhood (2007)?
3.5 This was an interesting book written in prose. It was short and sweet and to the point. It's amazing how Smith knew exactly how a teenage girl thinks. She really channeled thar thought process with the main character Penny. Penny is a stereotypical teenage girl who believes that she knows everything there is to know about making the right decisions. Smith shows readers through the important time period in Penny's life where she learns how to be a teenager. How to take things one step at a time and enjoy the experience. The Geography of Girlhood was a book that felt real and emotional.
—Amanda
The Geography of Girlhood is simply about a girl growing up, becoming a young adult, without certain "guides". At a young age, Penny's mother left her and her family, leaving her, her sister and her father behind. Just like most sister relationships, Penny secretly looks up to her older sister while the two bicker and fight all the time. Penny struggles with all the little and large aspects in growing up as she starts high school. Kirsten Smith's use of Free-Verse offers a new point of view and way of relating to a teenage girl coming of age. Her clever use of geography images and symbolizes defines the truth that most girls (and women) are not as clearly defined as one may think. Just like Geography and Nature, a girl's emotions, thoughts, and adventures are anything but simple and normal. While there were a few times when it was unclear what Kirsten Smith was trying to say, through her use of over done symbols and imagery, one message beyond "geography" rang true in this Verse Novel: Mother. As Penny maps out her life without the guide (a key so to speak) of a mother she learns that does not need to be reliant on such a key and finds her own way to create her own individualistic "map". Overall, The Geography of Girlhood was a nice quick read that the entire female gender can relate to in one way or another - whether that be the many "loves" we go through, the "it's the end of the world" attitude about things, and even the realizations that come with growing up. For me the use of symbolisms was a bit overdone. It did get confusing at times - for example, how exactly did Penny's best friend become crazy and why? Certain aspects such as this would have contributed to making the novel better if more detail was given. But again, poetry and verse are not always apparent and push us to read between the lines. In the end, Smith's novel was a very nice read and recommended for everyone.
—Patricia (Patricia's Particularity)
A poignant coming-of-age story, written as a series of poems in a 14-year-old girl's diary. An easy, quick, enjoyable read."When I break up with Randall, everyone wants to know whyI'd do something so dumb.What I want to know is,haven't they ever heard a songor read a poem or watched a movie?If they had, they'd knowthat love is a schoolwhere the only curriculum is kissing,love is the first day of sunafter a whole winter of rain,love is a secret thicket of small treesjust outside of town,love is how you are born,love is how you ruin your life.So when people ask, I want to tell themthat whatever this was,it definitely wasn't that."
—Antonia
