Anyone But You (Twisted Lit #3) by Kim Askew & Amy Helmes (Merit Press, 2014, 224pp.)
In this third installment in the “Twisted Lit” series, the authors pay due to Shakespeare’s best-known play, Romeo and Juliet, by modernizing it and setting it in 20th century Chicago. Anyone But You follows two love stories separated by decades of history: in 1933, young Nick Monte struggles to thrive despite anti-Italian sentiment, while 80 years later, Gigi Caputo, daughter of impoverished restaurateurs, is forced to decide between familial duty (obeying her parents by dating the son of a snobby venture capitalist), or following her own heart (which is telling her to pursue her crush, Roman Monte). By entwining two stories of prejudice, thwarted love, and family, the novel succeeds by virtue of honoring the spirit of the original story rather than the letter, allowing the authors to explore modern, relevant ideas while still keeping the story fresh. Recommended for readers ages 14-Up.
Exposure (Twisted Lit #2) by Kim Askew & Amy Helmes (Merit Press, 2013, 224pp.)
In the second installment of the “Twisted Lit” series, Shakespeare’s Macbeth is relocated from medieval Scotland to a modern-day high school in Anchorage, Alaska. Wallflower Skye Kingston, photographer for the school newspaper, is content to quietly crush on her friend, Craig MacKenzie, one of the populars and a member of the hockey team. It’s all she can do, really, since he’s already been claimed by Beth, one of East Anchorage High’s most imposing Queen Bees. Skye’s life takes a turning point when she attends a wild, off-campus party where Duncan Shaw, the hockey team’s captain, meets an unfortunate end. (The meaning of the title— “Exposure”—will become evident when the reader finds out how he died.) For most of the high school, Duncan’s death is shrouded in mystery, but three students alone know the truth—Craig and Beth, who perpetrated the deed, and Skye, who overhears their frantic conversation after the event takes place. Skye tries to be supportive with Craig, but he becomes increasingly hostile with her and others. Should Skye stay loyal to her friend and keep her silence, or should she go to the police?
I have to admit, at first glance, I was a bit mystified as to how the authors would manage to follow-up their first novel, the romantic comedy Tempesutous, with a novel based on a classic tragedy filled with violence, suicide, greed, and murder. However, Exposure manages to provide an interesting variation of its origin story without being too glib or too dark. In the original play, Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis and servant to King Duncan, is confronted by three witches, who predict that he will soon be king. When it turns out that this won't happen in the near future, his ambitious wife, Lady Macbeth, decides to speed things along, and goads her husband into murdering Duncan while the royal party spends the night at their house. In Exposure, the death turns out to be accidental, and happens entirely off-screen. As for the three witches, they make a sort of cameo appearance as Skye’s friends, a trio of teens of Yup’ik (Eskimo) descent who are making tribal masks for a school project. As they explain:
“Our ancestors were Yup’ik people... One of their traditions was to carve masks like these for ritual dances. The masks were embodiments of a spiritual vision, and they were said to imbue the wearer with the spirit they represented.” (22)
Overall, a solid, teen-friendly version of Shakespeare’s tragedy. In fact, I think I actually like Exposure more than Tempestuous. I am definitely interested in seeing what else this series has to offer. Recommended for Ages 15-17 for Language.
Tempestuous (Twisted Lit #1) by Kim Askew & Amy Helmes (Merit Press, 2012, 224pp.)
“Anyone who says leprosy is a disease that’s been eradicated hasn’t set foot in a high school lately.” (64)
For Miranda Prospero, a former member of Eastern Prep’s elite “in-crowd,” life has become boring, but not exactly unbearable. Just recently, the school administration discovered that she and her friends were running a secret matchmaking service that paired up geeks with the academically challenged cool kids (for a price). To save their own skins, her boyfriend and friends produced Miranda as the ringleader of the operation. The school demanded that Miranda pay back all profits she earned from her little business, so at present, she finds herself sentenced to minimum-wage labor at a greasy hotdog stand at the local mall.
But things aren’t so bad. She’s managed to make some friends her own age there, including Ariel, her sweet, cheerful manager/co-worker; Colin, a waiter who works in the hell that is Cheeze Monkey Pizzeria; and Caleb, a brooding, frustrating, yet incredibly attractive game-store employee. Shortly after the story’s beginning, Miranda, her new friends, and a handful of other teens (including her now ex-boyfriend and a few other treacherous classmates) get snowed in by a massive blizzard. Since Miranda had planned to throw a surprise birthday party for Ariel, she and her friends unleash the festivities in the mall—and at the same time, take vengeance on her former in-crowd compatriots by increasingly juvenile means (tormenting a girl terrified by rabbits in an elevator with a pet-store bunny; asking Ariel to lure a few “mean girls” into the mall beauty salon and give them bad makeovers.). The fun turns sour, though, once they realize that a dangerous assailant is trapped in the mall with them—someone who steals mall merchandise and then acts violently when someone tries to catch him in the act.
Tempestuous, the first book in a series that plans to focus on putting a “modern-day spin” on Shakespearean literature, centers on the comedic play The Tempest. For those who haven’t read it, Tempest takes place on an enchanted island where Prospero, the bookish, exiled Duke of Milan, now spends his time dabbling in magic. His only companions are his daughter, Miranda; Ariel, his faithful spirit-servant; and Caliban, the crafty, deformed monster-servant intent on betraying him and claiming the island for himself. When a ship carrying the makers of his social undoing—Alonso, king of Naples; Duke Antonio, Prospero’s usurper brother, and others—comes within distance of his island home, Prospero decides that he wants revenge and creates a storm to shipwreck everyone on the island. He then spends the rest of the story leading the castaways through a series of tests to call them out on their past transgressions, leading them to see the error of their ways. He then gets his old job back, and he even manages to arrange a marriage between his daughter and the king’s son, Ferdinand.
Tempestuous proves to be a very faithful, if at times, somewhat problematic interpretation of the Bard’s work. In this updated version the authors have combined Prospero, the original magician, and his daughter Miranda to make the story’s hero young and female. Like her literary component, the YA novel’s heroine “works magic” by matchmaking, manipulating situations to her liking, and punishing her enemies— though in her case, it seems like each prank is carried out in a fit of mean-spirited vengeance against clichéd villains rather than with the well-meaning spirit of the Bard’s comedy.
This isn’t to say that Miranda herself doesn’t gain some sense of humility in the end, however. As she sheepishly admits at the conclusion of her adventures: “Justice [is] always preferable to petty revenge” (169).
Knowledge of the origin material gives the story’s somewhat silly and extravagant antics a degree of credibility, though taken as an original standalone piece, readers more interested in “reality-based” fiction may call their suspension of disbelief into question. But, now that I think about it, I can’t really image many teens interested in anything remotely “reality-based.”
Who will enjoy it? I think I can safely say that this book will appeal to shy, young loner-types who feel they don’t fit in, who enjoy a light read on occasion, and who love seeing snooty popular kids reduced to caricatures. Reading The Tempest isn’t required to get the overall gist of the story, but as a former English major, I can’t resist urging those unacquainted with the Bard to rent a copy of it. Recommended for Ages 15-17 for Language.
