There were so many things going on in this book.
Essentially, WiseHeart by Claudia Ermey is about a teenaged boy named Jed. He's the son of a sperm donor and single mother. His aunt and younger female cousin live nearby. He's infatuated with Dora, a classmate. And he thinks he's a Jedi Knight.
The problem - or one of the problems - is that this is supposed to be a young adult novel. And if the story had only followed Jed and his point of view, then I would have totally understood that. It's written as if it's a young adult novel, but for some reason, in the beginning of the book, the narrative shifts from Jed's perspective to his mom's, and you're reading about his mom catching her boyfriend cheating on her.
But then, the chapters stop going back and forth between Jed and his mom, and the rest of the story is all Jed.
Ohhhhkay.
Other things I didn't like about this novel, aside from the many typos in the free ARC I received, were:
- I didn't believe the relationship between Jed and Dora. It seemed to develop too much off the page, so they are just walking home together after school and talking, and then a few pages later, they're dating and Jed is wondering how long they have to wait to have sex.
- The author kept making references to very old TV shows (I Dream of Jeannie) and movies (An Officer and a Gentleman) that I know today's kids will not get.
- There's this whole thing about Jed having a "wise heart". But we rarely see it in action, and I wish there had been more interaction between Jed and his sensei.
- I couldn't really tell what this book was supposed to be about. It deals with the topics of cheating, fathers (or lack thereof), teen pregnancy, immigration, school shootings, Vietnam War veterans, sisters, military families, husbands (or lack thereof).
Here's what I would have liked to see from this book:
- Alternating perspectives between Jed and Dora. Heck, maybe even from the other youth in the novel, Jed's cousin Penny. Everything is from Jed's perspective (with the exception of those random chapters about his mom.) and quite frankly, Jed is a selfish prick. The women in his life forgive him WAY too easily. I was surprised that this was written by a woman. I mean, this is a kid who cheats on his girlfriend, doesn't fess up to it, and basically gets away with it; gets his girlfriend pregnant and then is mad at her that she didn't tell him while she was off in Mexico dealing with her father getting deported; and slut shames his cousin after he got it on with a married woman. Not the most appealing character, and yet we're supposed to sympathize with him ... because he doesn't have a dad?
- Work on the dialogue. There were way too many times when I just shook my head because there is NO WAY today's teens talk like that.
- Clean up the timeline. Sometimes a chapter would end, and it would seem like the next chapter was picking right up, but it actually wasn't. The next chapter had moved forward in time a whole bunch. Instead of giving the chapters titles, I think just numbering them would have been fine, and then separate the chapters into "parts" divided up by time. So if we're starting in January, the first set of chapters would be January. Then the next set of chapters would be February, etc.
I'm not quite sure what the author's intent was with this book: to show teens that getting pregnant isn't all that bad, that you can still go to college even with a baby at home, that sperm donors are all dead beats, that you can cheat on your girlfriend and she won't find out? I think narrowing down the main message of the novel (and having it NOT be any of the above) would have been very helpful for this book. Another round of editing was required.
WiseHeart is published by US Books Publisher and is available now to purchase. I received a free e-ARC to review.
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