So for Christmas I spent a lot of time thinking about random gift ideas for heap or unique--not for anyone else but for myself... I decided I was going to try and come up with a list of random books from my childhood to track down--which you can do pretty easily nowadays--and my first attempt was the entire Caitlin Series by Francine Pascal...
So here's the deal--the Caitlin series consists of three trilogies (or a trilogy of trilogies?) that covers the high school, college and early adult years of Caitlin Ryan. The series was seemingly created by Francine Pascal but each trilogy had its own author... I'm going to start with just a straight out review of the first trilogy in it's entirety because I'm suspecting I don't want to spend this much time with these characters after this first trilogy...
So the Love Trilogy is about poor little rich girl Caitlin Ryan--an orphan being raised by her wealthy and powerful grandmother Regina which makes her the heiress to the Ryan Mining Company... She lives at an exclusive Virginia boarding school, is a riding champ and all-around bitch. If anything, Caitlin is the cool great aunt to Blair Waldorf of Gossip Girl--she is smart, witty, observant and motivated with a side of cruelty and high 80s fashion
The story kicks off as Caitlin meets and falls for a new student at the boarding school--Jed Michaels--who is unique because he is a wealthy rancher's son and from Montana... He isn't swayed by the sweet face/devil's heart that Caitlin has going on so she decides to do anything she can to make him want her... But she is somewhat foiled when she realizes he has feelings for a scholarship student named Diana--who Caitlin hates for being poor and having to do a work study on campus.
Yeah this is our heroine.
But the other side of the story is about how Caitlin is an orphan being raised by an indifferent grandmother who seems to blame her because of her mother's death in child birth. She is constantly being molded to become the future head of Ryan Mining which she doesnt want, is always put in her place by her grandmother for never being enough like her mother and when the books take her to the family estate all of the guile and headstrong aspects of Caitlin disappear. This is a huge thing that saves the novel from just being about a bitch--she becomes more rounded.
Now without giving away anything too juicy, throughout the three books basically Caitlin accidentally set a handful of things in motion that result in someone being crippled, someone leaving in disgrace, someone else using an disguise to cure disease, a lesson on the effects of strip mining and an actual case of anorexia for someone else--this is the MOST 80s BOOK EVER.
Without the simple morality of a Jessica/Elizabeth Wakefield plot.
That being said--I actual found myself rooting for Caitlin because she is an interesting mix of bravada and sadness that actually twists and changes throughout the story. Joanna Campbell does a great job of taking us inside the head of Caitlin--one part the constant observer who uses other's passions and weakness to get what she wants, another part the sad little girl who turns into herself as she struggles to find someone to love her.
The writing for this trilogy is pretty standard for 80s Young Adult, the fashions are crazy and very 80s, and some of the issues that are brought up seem a bit After School Special--but the plot itself is surprising at points and really kept me turning the page... Also the interior life of Caitlin is interestingly written, complex with a slew of issues and understandable faults--she really does feel like the first true anti-heroine of young adult literature and that alone makes the series worth a read...
The only thing disappointing? The next series, Caitlin: Promises, is written by another author and it shows.
No comments:
Post a Comment