ramseelbird's Full Review: Joan Bauer - Rules of the Road
It's probably a bad sign when a character in the book you are reading screams, "I don't need platitudes", and you wish the author had listened to them. I'm going to begin this review with a bit of an explanation. I read author Joan Bauer's 2000 smash-hit, "Hope Was Here" not too long ago and found it to be a shallow two-dimensional work. The story was trite, the characters cardboard cut-outs, and the writing pedantic. So it was with great trepidation (and not a little prejudice) that I picked up her earlier concoction, "Rules of the Road". At first I was pleased and delighted to find that the book had all the good aspects of Bauer's writing with none of the bad. Then, as I read more into the story, I was increasingly disappointed by the book. I'm not saying that everyone is going to read, "Rules of the Road", with the same sinking sensation I felt. I'm just saying it's bound to let down anyone looking for a book that strikes straight and true to the heart.
Jenna is a tall teen with an incredible gift. Take a step into Gladstone Shoe Store and she'll fit you with a pair perfectly suited shoes for your life and needs. Though a saleswoman through and through, Jenna suffers from a world of heartbreak. Her father's an unapologetic alcoholic who periodically drops into her life to embarrass and crush her. Her beloved grandmother has come down with Alzheimer's and doesn't remember anything anymore. Plus her mom works double time to feed the family and her sister got all the good looks. That leaves Jenna with the one thing she loves to do and do well. Sell shoes. So when the owner of the Gladstone Shoe Store chain, Mrs. Gladstone, offers Jenna the chance of being her driver on a cross country road trip, the girl leaps at the chance. Along the way she discovers a nasty plot by Mrs. Gladstone's son to increase the company's profits and reduce their quality. She is also able to look at her life and sort out her problems. And finally she acquires a strength she never knew she had and an ability to take charge of matters.
All well and good when you look at it. I read this book, as I mentioned before, after I read "Hope Was Here", which I am now certain was a mistake. "Rules of the Road" must've been a kind of template for Bauer's later works, since the storylines are more than mildly similar. In "Rules of the Road" a teen with a disappointing parent who lives with a female relative is really good at selling shoes (relating them to life), meets a father figure who dies, participates in a big stockholder's vote, and gains self-respect. In "Hope Was Here" a teen with a disappointing parent who lives with a female relative is really good at waitressing (relating it to life), meets a father figure who dies, participates in a big election, and gains self-respect. "Rules of the Road" starts off well too. Sure I was bugged that a teen in 1998 (the cusp of the new Swing movement of the late 90s) would find her employer's big band music torture to a "sophisticated teenager". Talk about not knowing your audience. And there's an Imelda Marcos reference that puts the dictator's wife in a distinctly positive light. But these were lightweight concerns. In the end, a book comes down to how well it conveys its message. "Rules of the Road", rather than subtly persuading you that the world is full of sorrow yet there's still good in it, hits you over the head with its message like a ton o' bricks. Subtle, it's not.
First of all, the story contains one of Bauer's perfect mature-beyond-their-years teens. Jenna Boller does not read like a sixteen-year-old girl. She read like a thirty-six-year-old girl. At no point does she do anything even mildly selfish, wrong, or headstrong. She forever places the needs of others beyond her own, continually sacrificing her happiness for everyone else. Yet she stands up for herself in a remarkably mature way, continually. She is not a typical teen in the least, though Bauer has attempted to make her a kind of everygirl. The book suffers from rendering a complex message (life is messy) in a pat perfect way. Every character that is good is good right from the get-go. Mrs. Gladstone is persnickety but with a heart of gold. Her son is a weasel who looks bad, acts bad, and is bad. There's no grey area in this book. People either do right, like Harry Bender the world's greatest shoe salesman, or they do badly, like Jenna's repeatedly drunk father. I guess my greatest objection to this book is that no one in it really changes. Jenna and Mrs. Gladstone grow stronger through their mutual acquaintance, but they were always strong to begin with. No one accepts that they were wrong here or even tries to change to meet the needs of others. The world of "Rules of the Road" is a static one. What you see at the beginning is what you get at the end.
Which isn't to say the book is a hopeless case. Bauer's trump card has always been her sense of humor. She's funny, in the end. Jenna has a good sarcastic bent at times and the situations in which she finds herself are often humorous. I'm a big advocate of funny books, especially funny teen books. There really aren't enough out there. But while I found, "Rules of the Road" to amuse me, it wasn't enough. A book needs more than to merely point out the foibles of this topsy-turvy world. It has to speak to the heart and the mind without preaching. This story fails to do that. For some people, Jenna's penchant for spouting wisdom at her elders will strike them as pure and good and true. For others, like myself, it's just hard to believe. Jenna's like a kind of wise woman, forever pouring the balm of her sixteen-year-old understanding into the wounds of the adults around her that need it. It's didactic, false, and more than a little annoying.
I didn't care for "Rules of the Road" because the author failed to convince me that I should care about the book. That's the long and short of the matter. For some readers, humor is all they need to approve of a book. For others, a message of hope (no matter how poorly executed) is all they require. I personally prefer books that present humor and hope and present them well. "Rules of the Road" fails to do this. I believe many people would love this book in spite of its flaws. I am not one of them.
Family - General Juvenile / Children's Fiction - Sixteen-year-old Jenna gets a job driving the elderly owner of a chain of successful shoe stores from...More at Barnes and Noble
When Madeline Gladstone, the elderly president of Gladstone shoe stores, hires Jenna as her driver for the summer, Jenna jumps right into the driver s...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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