Rose Of No Man's Land

What a rush! A strange, hilarious, and dangerous ride inside the mind of a disaffected poor neglected misfit who finds herself and some truths by the end of the book. I was wearing an evil deranged grin all the way and was cheering for her by the last two pages. As Pete Townsend said, "The kids are alright." and the kid in this book certainly qualifies. If you are now and have ever been a snotty cynical marginalized teenager, You have to read this.

This young adult novel lacks the all-tied-up ending, much like real life. You'll love watching the teenage lesbian relationship evolve.

Rose of No Man's Land is this fabulous rush of book - full of energy and emotion and brilliance and GREAT writing. Wow. I have no idea how she keeps the pace so fast in a novel where nothing really melodramatic happens. I read that she does a lot of spoken word performances, so maybe that's where she tests out whether her audience is getting the rush or not. Girlfriend died laughing all the way through this book. I watched her giggle her head off for hours. Girlfriend is from a lower middle class background and really related to the class stuff in the book. The main character has an older sister, Kristy, who is relentlessly upbeat, pretty and determined to escape her crappy welfare-mother family. Girlfriend is Kristy, positive affirmations and all. Me, I could relate to running crazy in suburbia while off my head on drugs - there is a scene where the protag and her friend are on crystal and break into a putt-putt golf course that I could swear Tea ripped right out of my own teen years. Buy this book. Read it. Love it. You won't regret it.

The other Michelle Tea books I'd read were Passionate Mistakes and Valencia. Even though the writing was really good, the books weren't that enjoyable because they were just shapeless descriptions of the author's life. As I expected, when she finally wrote a fiction book it was amazing. I liked the characters and plot (especially the bizarre ending), and the way Trisha's life completely changes in one day. But what really got me was the narration. For ex., the book starts with a truly awesome monologue wherein Trisha moves from grievance to grievance: her family's neglect, her mother's boyfriend's grossness, her mother's hypochondria. There are several places in the book, especially towards the beginning, when Trisha complains about things and you just sit there with a big grin on your face, wondering if she could possibly be any cooler. When the prose isn't critical, it's beautiful. The only negative thing I can think of is that the grammar was pretty bad. This usually annoys me, but Michelle Tea's writing is so weird and wonderful I barely noticed.

Think of the whimsy and the magical alignment of lost souls that one might find in a Francesca Lia Block book. Toss in some dark twists a la Chuck Palahniuk or David Lynch. Bring in an innocent yet observant (and witty!) narrative voice like that in Speak or The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and you arrive at a hint of Rose of No Man's Land. Don't infer that it is formulaic, or that it can be strictly compared to any one of these books. I was swept away by this book, and every time I had a handle on what it was about, the narrator's life would wrest out of her control and the direction of the story would change. Our 14-year-old narrator Trisha is a loner, happy to wear the same beat-up oversized t-shirt all summer. Her mom hasn't left the couch in years as she self-diagnoses herself with infections, with autism, with Tourette's, and any number of other TV-news-topics-of-the-moment. Mom's loser boyfriend Donnie spends his days working on his car, storing merchandise that fell off a truck in Trisha's bedroom, and letting Trisha steal his lukewarm beers when she needs to escape from life. Trisha's older sister, currently filming herself to audition for The Real World, makes Trisha her new project, and transforms her into someone who can get a job at the hottest, trendiest store in the mall. Rose of No Man's Land is the story of Trisha and Rose, who meet at the mall. Rose is a whirlwind of activity who shoplifts, steals, hitchhikes, and does whatever comes to mind in the moment. The third member of the action is absent throughout the entire novel, but central to the plot. Kim Porciatti, a girl high above Trisha's social strata, is all the buzz in town because tried to kill herself. It is Kim Porciatti's absence that allows Trisha to have a trendy mall job, and it is Kim Porciatti's cell phone callers who open up a world of adventure for the bored and listless Trisha and Rose. If you are ready to handle a unforgettable night of underage alcohol, destruction, drugs, friendship, sexuality, love, and tattoos that will change Trisha forever, pick up Rose of Man's Land. Trisha's narration is poignant and the action is unpredictable, yet believable. Any Boston native will recognize the slang, customs, and Route 1 neon hang-outs that the story of Trisha and Rose is set in.