Girl Detective

#39 in my book challenge for the year, and #15 in my summer reading challenge, was The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo. Rob is a young boy whose mother has died, and who has trouble with bullies at school. After he finds a caged tiger in the woods, and befriends Sistine Bailey, he has to decide if his previous coping mechanisms can still work for him. There is a great deal of sadness in the book, for Rob and for other characters as well. Additionally, unlike DiCamillo’s Because of Winn Dixie, the book goes beyond sadness and portrays glimpses into evil–cruelty for its own sake–as well. This is a sad, but ultimately rewarding book, with good emotional insight into difficult circumstances.

#38 in my book challenge for the year, and #14 in my summer reading challenge, though it wasn’t on my list, was Because of Winn Dixie by Twin Cities author and transplanted southerner Kate DiCamillo. Kate read for a community event over the weekend from this book, and did an extended Q & A for her audience, mostly kids and their parents. Because of Winn Dixie bucks convention because its the story of a _girl_ and her dog. Like the Littmus Lozenges of the story, Because of Winn Dixie is a mix of elements both sweet and sad. It includes some tragic stuff, like an alcholic absentee mom and a drowned child. Yet the main character, India Opal Buloni, and the reader are able to bear these because the story and its cast of characters are so strongly woven and supportive.

Toddler will not nap
Five month baby on the move?!
Oh my goddess, help.

The toddler did eventually nap, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing and posting this today.

For more motherhood haikus, visit Haiku of the Day, the site of Kari Anne Roy, author of Haiku Mama. The friend who gave me the book noted, and I agree, that it’s funnier now that I have more than one kid. I’m not sure why; perhaps because illusion and romance have worn off, and a sense of humor has become one of the best survival tools.

#37 in my book challenge for the year, and #13 in my book challenge for the summer, was Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. This was my second reading, and I felt again disappointed that I came to this book so late in life. I wish I would have grown up with it. I find it a fascinating book to compare and contrast with Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Both have social commentary, and charismatic, passionate couples. Yet where Austen focuses much on the comedy of manners and witty repartee, Bronte is crammed with literary references and a deeper exploration of emotions and sexuality. Jane Eyre was one of the first books written in part from the perspective of a child. Told in first person, with frequent addresses to the reader, it fits comfortably into the conventions of modern young-adult literature. It birthed the trope of the madwoman in the attic, deployed in modified form in DuMaurier’s Rebecca. I was reminded somewhat of the plot of Susan Howatch’s Glittering Images, a book (and consequent series) with interesting religion, but very problematic treatment of women. Additionally, I was put in mind of the myth of Adam’s first wife, Lilith, though neither of my editions mentioned this connection. I looked up Lilith on Wikipedia (see the section”Lilith as Adam’s first wife” about 2/3 of the way down). Lilith is also mentioned on the Bronteblog as part of a scholarly precis, which notes that Charlotte Bronte referred to Lilith in her later novel, Shirley.

I strive to post five times a week, but this week I am feeling thwarted, though perhaps by my own hand. Yesterday we had a friend of Drake’s over for a playdate, while I attempted to do six loads of laundry, mop the kitchen floor, make some progress reading Jane Eyre, and resurrect–and more importantly, de-crustify–the high chair now that Guppy is on the verge of so-called solid foods. Unsurprisingly, I was unable to read or write online, especially since Guppy’s idea of when to wake from his nap differed greatly from mine.

#36 in my book challenge for the year, and #12 in my summer reading challenge was Tam Lin by Pamela Dean. I started it once before, but had to put it down because some other book had to play through for a book group. Tam Lin is worth reading and I’m glad I did, but I think its problematic parts outweigh its praiseworthy ones.

What’s Good: This is an engaging girl’s college novel about Janet, the daughter of an English prof and an English major at Blackstock College, based on Minnesota’s Carleton College. My edition has a gorgeous cover, though the upcoming edition does not. The details of college life are well-drawn and frequently amusing. Janet’s insights into many and various works of English and classical literature are interesting, erudite, and might provoke me into expanding my reading list. Shakespeare fans especially will find much to savor. There are refreshingly realistic discussions of teen sexuality in several places that were not graphic. Also, the story of the campus ghost and the odd behavior of Classics majors and professors were intriguing, and kept me reading till the end to find out how the Tam Lin ballad would play out.

What’s Not So Good: This novel, at 468 pages, is about twice as long as it needs to be. Pacing and proportion are serious problems that negatively impacted the almost non-existent plot. Set from the fall of Janet’s first year to Halloween of her fourth, the book spends far too long on freshman year–sophomore year doesn’t start till page 318! The overlong descriptions and analyses of the plays Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and The Revenger’s Tragedy could have been cut with no deleterious effects. The latter especially, though it featured prominently in the story, was more annoying and unbelievable than not. Janet is the best-drawn character. While the others aren’t so flat to be two-dimensional, many don’t quite achieve a credible complexity. There are also rather too many significant looks and stifled comments since the reveal takes so long to arrive. While the threads of the Tam Lin story are spun from the beginning, they grow so thin from being drawn out that the end of the book is rushed, and most of the relevant, ballad-related action and information takes place in the last fifty pages. This made for a less than satisfying conclusion, and left me with many unanswered questions about this book’s take on the faerie folk and the humans who attend them.

#35 in my book challenge for the year, and #11 in my summer reading challenge was The Finishing School by Muriel Spark. Disappointing, and overlong even at just 180 some pages. I much preferred the other Spark books I’ve read. The Finishing School wasn’t quite funny or dark enough to be compelling. Instead, I found it boring.

#34 in my book challenge for the year, and #10 in my summer reading challenge was I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier. One of the classics of the YA genre, this novel reminded me that really good YA should be a good read at any age. This was a great mystery novel, skillfully written. It had three main narrative threads: a story told in first person, present tense; transcripts of interviews from an unspecified time; and interspersed narratives to flesh out the interviews, told in third person past tense. These three weave together until they finally meet up (or do they?) at the end. The ending gives credit to the reader by leaving the interpretation open. My sister Sydney told me that when she read the book for a class in grade school, she’d called the phone number that’s listed toward the end of the book; it was Cormier’s own. She got to discuss the book and its ending with the author himself.

#33 in my book challenge for the year, and #9 in my summer book challenge, was The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark, currently being discussed by the Slaves of Golconda at Metaxucafe. Like the other Spark novels I’ve read, The Driver’s Seat and The Abbess of Crewe, the story begins toward the end, loops back, then moves forward and back, until myriad facts accumulate that illuminate the entire story. It’s an impressive way to tell a story, and Spark once again does so flawlessly. The tale of a charismatic teacher and her select students, the novel is at times dark, funny, and poignant. Brodie is one of the more complex characters I’ve read.

#32 in my book challenge for the year, and #8 in my summer challenge, was The Prop by Pete Hautman. This is a rock solid mystery novel about poker. The plot, the characters, the setting, and the mystery all unfolded seamlessly. I attended a reading at which Hautman said he wrote the book to see if he could write from the point of view of a middle-aged woman. I found Peeky Kane not only believable, but utterly likeable. I stayed up way too late to finish it, and sleep is so precious of late that this is a high compliment.

#31 in my book challenge for the year, and #7 in my summer reading challenge was The Abbess of Crewe, a satire of Watergate. There will be an online discussion of Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and other works at the end of the month, at Metaxucafe.

Abbess is dated, both by its subject and the electronic equipment it references. Spark nevertheless makes her story timeless by setting the power struggle in the removed culture of an Abbey. It has snarky one liners, and a deluded Abbess who is so funny that she is hard to dislike, even as she runs roughshod over the rights of the rest of those poor nuns.

Such a scandal could never arise in the United States of America. They have a sense of proportion and they understand Human Nature over there; it’s the secret of their success. A realistic race, even if they do eat asparagus the wrong way.

A friend asked me recently why I chose to write a young adult novel. I responded that I’d always been a fan of the genre, and that my story centered on a high school girl, so that usually made for a YA book. When I gave it more thought, though, I realized that my answer wasn’t entirely accurate. In my very first draft of the novel, the main character was a woman in her twenties. I wrote the backstory of a relationship she’d had in high school. The backstory got very long. As I kept writing, I found I didn’t want to return to the original story. The backstory turned into the main story, and because it was set in high school, the novel became for young adults. Realization one was that my novel had NOT always been YA, rather that’s what it turned into during the writing of it.

Once I realized my faulty memory about that, I also recalled I had not “always” been a fan of the genre. I read some YA when I was a young adult, and some YA much later, like Francesca Lia Block’s books. I liked children’s literature long beyond when I was technically a child, and I oversaw the children’s section for the year I worked in a used bookstore. But “always” was an overstatement that brought me to realization two: I became a fan and reader of YA because I was working on a YA manuscript, which has only been since November of 2002. I’m not obsessive or completist about it. I occasionally visit the Young Adult Library Services Association home page; it has good book lists. I also read Avenging Sybil, a weblog about young adult novels, and more specifically about portrayals of female sexuality in YA.

It was interesting that my brain had created this revisionist history. Perhaps it is my age, coupled with the fatigue of caring for an infant. Or perhaps, like so many things in my life now, my manuscript and my affection for YA novels have become so important to me that I have a hard time remembering life before them.

#s 28, 29, and 30 in my book challenge for the year, and 4, 5, and 6 of my summer reading challenges were the three Scott Pilgrim volumes. I read and reviewed #s 1 and 2 last year, and re-read them before #3 because I couldn’t remember who was who. The Scott Pilgrim stories are young adult graphic novels that reference music, magic, and video games. While manga is the obvious influence, I was more than once strongly reminded of Trudeau’s Doonesbury.

Scott is an amiable goofball who has a way with the ladies. He is still traumatized by his breakup with Envy Adams, he did a bad job of breaking up with his high school girlfriend Knives Chau, and he is trying to date the mysterious Ramona Flowers, but he must first defeat the league of her seven evil ex-boyfriends. The graphic novels are all fast reads, and I still highly recommend 1 and 2. I laughed out loud during both several times, and read bits aloud to my husband.

From Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life (Vol. 1)

“It’s…It’s her shoes. She was wearing these shoes. These HAUNTING SHOES.”

“What’d they look like?”

“They looked…really…uncomfortable.”

From Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (Vol. 2)

“What kind of idiot would knowingly date a girl named Knives?”

From Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness (Vol. 3)

“N…No way! Bionic arm?! Knives…!Oh my God, Knives! Your hair! She punched the highlights out of your hair!”

#3 tells the backstory of Scott’s ex, Envy Adams. I didn’t think it was as great as 1 and 2. The back and forth between present and past was jarring. Envy wasn’t at all likeable, as is Knives Chau–seventeen years old–Scott’s more recent ex. It is funny, especially some bits about Envy’s boyfriend (and Ramona’s evil ex #3) Todd’s veganism. I found it more sad than funny, though. Perhaps I should have expected that, given the subtitle.

While I was less enamored of #3, I still like the books and these characters, and I want to know what happens. What is in Ramona’s past? Who is Gideon? What’s going to happen with that guy who kidnapped Kim when she and Scott were in high school, and who shows up at the end of #3? What’s the deal with Kim–will this cool drummer chick be more than just an ex of Scott’s?

If Scott has to defeat one evil ex-boyfriend in each volume, and if each volume comes out once a year, there’s four more years till the end of the story. Perhaps author Bryan Lee O’Malley can put two boyfriends in each of the next two volumes, because four years is too long to wait.

#27 in my book challenge for the year, and #3 in my summer reading challenge, I feel abashed that I couldn’t finish Catcher in the Rye over the weekend for a 48 hour reading challenge, but I did finish it Monday. I wanted to read it prior to reading King Dork, but the library due date for KD made that inadvisable. I definitely recommend reading both, with Catcher first.

First, I am not a member of the Catcher cult, as it’s called in KD. I wasn’t forced to read Catcher in high school. Whether this says something good or bad about my high school English education is debateable, but I think it was bad. Over four years, the required reading list was short–probably what I’d go through in a month or two nowadays. Instead of entire novels, I remember reading a lot of excerpts from big hardback textbooks with shiny pages. I read Catcher on my own at some point as part of my self-education (or autodidacticism, as it’s called at Mental Multivitamin) to compensate for deficiencies in my schooling.

Catcher, like KD, does a good job portraying what a social horror high school is, and how difficult it is to survive. Catcher is also historically important, not just as a good novel, but because it helped to establish the Young Adult novel paradigm–it gave a distinct voice to a teenaged character who told the story in first person, and sometimes in present tense. It also proved to publishers that teenagers were legitimate members of a critical reading audience.

Because I have affection for the YA niche, I thought I would love Catcher. Perhaps I was negatively influenced by the de-pedestalizing of Catcher in KD, but I finished Catcher feeling profoundly ambivalent. I started the book annoyed at Holden and his affected voice. I then realized it was bluster, not unlike Gatsby’s, and that it hid a character who seemed to have a good head and a good heart. As the story wore on, though, I began to sense the presence of the writer showing off by creating a singular character, and having him repeat, ad nauseum, some suspiciously Salinger-esque negative opinions of phony people, Hollywood, and society in general. What bothered me most, though, was Holden’s repeated idealization of childhood. This novel is supposed to be about the difficult transition from childhood to adulthood, but I found Holden’s view of childhood at least obsessive, if not fetishistic.

Catcher in the Rye deserves to be a classic. It’s well written and historically important. It does not deserve to be uncritically lauded as an every-person’s book, though. There is some creepy, disturbing stuff in there, and I don’t think all of it was intentional.

Here’s another piece on the British study that asked men what their watershed novels were. The researchers found that many men (surprise!) didn’t read novels. It’s a follow up to a study last year of what women’s favorite novels were.

I found a few things interesting. One, they seemed to conflate watershed and favorite, which, as I’ve mentioned before, can be two different things. There are books I’ve read that helped me make life decisions, and while they’re among my favorites, they might not be the one(s) I name when asked for a favorite. Two, this article notes that while men don’t read novels, they still are in control of most of the novel-producing and -awarding machinery out there.

This article discusses the study as well, but it gets interesting more than halfway down when it talks about why we read. Some literary critics have gotten together with scientists, and they’ve found proof (and use abstruse lit-crit jargon to talk about it) that we read novels in order to try to know our minds, and the minds of others.

There are lots of reasons to read, of course, but the one they name is probably my primary one. Temporary escape of reality is ranking rather high for me, lately, especially on days when both boys cry at once. The screaming toddler plus the wailing baby is so loud, and so awful, that it’s almost, but not quite, funny. It makes me long for a book during naptime.

My results on the 48 hour book challenge were disappointing, but not surprising. Our family had a lot of things to do this weekend, it was Father’s Day, plus there have been the usual shenanigans with 2 small kids, and there was not nearly so much reading as I would have liked. There was, however, still reading. I was heartened that, even with everything else going on, I kept trying. Here’s when and what I read from Friday morning to Sunday morning:

Friday

8:42 to 8:46 a.m. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, while nursing Guppy, who seems to be protesting the “read while nursing” thing by popping on and off randomly and in general becoming a far less enthusiastic and conscientious nurser. He’s just four months old, though, and this is consistent with development, as they suddenly become much more aware and distracted by what’s going on around them. It does interfere with reading, though. My 2yo Drake was having some out-of-diaper time, and chose this time to pee on the floor. He did get a towel and wipe it up after I asked him to, though. Total pages read: 3. Very annoyed by Holden’s voice, and aware that if it were written today, all the “goddamn”s would be “fucking”s.

11:10 a.m. to 1:10 p.m. had a friend and her 2yo over so she and I could discuss Sense and Sensibility. No reading done, but definite book talk, in between toddler discipline sessions for jumping on furniture, screaming indoors, throwing toys, not sharing, etc.

1:35 to 1:50 p.m. Read books to Drake before his nap. He chooses from our current selections from the library as well as from his own library.

Sheep in Wolves Clothing by Satoshi Kitamura. I love Kitamura’s art, and this is a fun, clever book with wool-thieving wolves who knit and listen to jazz. It’s a long-time favorite of Drake’s.

Two Old Potatoes and Me by John Coy. Coy is a Minnesotan author, and Drake has asked to hear this library book over and over. The story, about a dad and daughter who try to grow new potatoes from old ones, is told in simple prose with striking graphics; many of the words are incorporated into the pictures. There’s a short interlude that reveals the girl is visiting her dad and usually lives with her mom. It could easily have seemed thrown in, but both the art and sensitive dialogue from the father to the daughter help this spread mesh with the book, and deepen the reader’s appreciation for the characters.

Farmer Duck by Martin Waddell, ill. by Helen Oxenbury. I saw this at Book Moot alongside the Oxenbury-illustrated We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, which was another recent library favorite of Drake’s. Farmer Duck works the farm because the farmer is too lazy. Drake has listened to Farmer Duck so many times in the few weeks we’ve had it in the house that he’s memorized several pages of Waddell’s inviting, poetic prose. I enjoy the cadence of the words as I read aloud, and Oxenbury’s textured watercolor illustrations are charming without being at all cutesy.

1:55 to 2:00 p.m. Read books to Guppy before his nap.

Moo, Baa, La, La, La by Sandra Boynton One of our first board books from when Drake was a baby, with Boynton’s usual cute animals and sense of humor.
See the Rabbit and Baby Sleeps, by Janet and Allen Ahlberg. Simple phrases and illustrations of babies doing all the baby-ish things.

4:34 to 4:40 p.m. Nursed Guppy, read another three pages of Catcher.

5:05 to 5:10 Snuck in another two pages of Catcher while the boys were happy and occupied.

5:30 to 5:50 Read board books to Guppy while he had tummy time:

The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss Seuss’s rhymes, while different in board book form, are still some of the best.
1, 2, 3 by Tana Hoban Great photo illustrations
Go, Dog, Go by P. D. Eastman. Completely different in board book form, but still fun, though the final rhyme is forced.
Hey, Wake Up by Sandra Boynton When Drake was younger, he would laugh and laugh at the “broccoli stew” line. Though he eventually stopped, I will always love this book for that.
Mighty Movers: Diggers and Dumpers One of Drake’s favorites. Hardly an intellectual challenge.
The Snowy Day Beautiful prose and lovely illustrations.
A to Z by Sandra Boynton has some charming combinations: Frogs Frowning and Hippos Hiding are two favorites.

7:55 to 8:00 p.m. Read board books to Guppy for bed, while my husband read to Drake.

Pajama Time by Boynton is a decent bedtime book, but writing it up here makes me realize it’s only OK, and probably doesn’t deserve a permanent spot in the rotation.
The Going to Bed Book by Boynton, though, has both fun illustrations and a good rhyming cadence, with an amusing interlude. This was Drake’s final book before bed for a long, long time.
Goodnight, Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. I love reading aloud Brown’s rhymes, which are never forced. I find the illustration OK, but it’s the words that make me love this book.

8 p.m. to 11 p.m. Various grown-up stuff that I can’t get to while the kids are awake, like showering and watching a TV show.

11:00 p.m. Read eight pages of Catcher to get to the end of a chapter, but was too tired to read more. Depressed to have only made it to page 16 by the end of the day.

Saturday

I didn’t write down the times I read, but I had several errands to run, so there was much less reading in general. I read a few pages of Catcher each time I nursed Guppy, and Drake asked me to read him the graphic novel Scott Pilgrim #3, so I did a few pages while expressing milk. I had to euphemize some of the language, and I read just enough to realize I’m going to need to re-read #s 1 and 2 before tackling 3.

By the time the boys were in bed, I’d read enough of Catcher to come to appreciate Holden, and to see through the annoying bluster of his language. He’s a decent guy, I thought, more empathetic than most. Not a jerk, though certainly capable of aggravating. When I continued to read, another throught crept in, which was an awareness of the writer behind the scenes, creating this character who is vulnerable and kind to women. I began to suspect Salinger of the same thing that is one of Holden’s many pet peeves:

If you do something too good, then after a while, if you don’t watch it, you start showing off. And then you’re not as good anymore.

I finished the night at only page 76, a little more than a third of the way through my mmpb edition, but too tired to read more.

Sunday morning

Guppy woke to nurse around 6, then went back to sleep. I grabbed Catcher and went downstairs and got in another thirty pages or so by the time he and Drake got up, which put me at about half way through. Began to wonder if it was Salinger who hated social artifice and the movies, and if he ventriloquised through Holden.

So for the 48 hour challenge between 8:42 a.m. on Friday and 8:42 a.m. on Sunday, I read 3 picture books, 13 board books, about 20 pages of Scott Pilgrim #3, and 106 pages of Catcher in the Rye. I don’t have either a complete page count or an exact time count, though I think it added up to about 4 hours. I’d hoped to do more reading for myself, but I did persevere in spite of myriad errands, tasks, and interruptions.

Added later: I know mine wasn’t exactly congruent with the book challenge–committing time to check out the unread YA books in one’s life. But since that’s part of my overall summer challenge, and since getting through a busy weekend and re-reading Catcher and reading to the boys is what I have to do to clear the way to the unread YA books, I think I still fell within the spirit of the challenge.

A few things have slowed down my comic reading: the birth of Guppy, several deadline-driven books to read, and a slowly growing sense of comics ennui. Lately I’m reading comics out of habit, not for fun. Several of the titles I’ve enjoyed in the past just don’t excite me: 100 Bullets, Ex Machina, Fables, Queen and Country, Y the Last Man. Are they in a rut, or am I? Most comic-book people I know have experienced the ennui, as I have before, and I know that it usually passes.

It could be me. I took the time to read one of the best reviewed comics of the year, Ganges, and I was not blown away. It was good. It was thoughtful. It has very good art and a beautiful presentation. But, truthfully, I was kinda bored by it. It reminded me of James Kochalka’s work. It’s less crazy, and more polished, but also less wackily charming.

But then I read the four issue series Batman 100 by Paul Pope. Pope’s distinctive art infuses a frenetic energy into his dark, future Batman story. The four issues are satisfyingly long, with a lot of text intos and outros. The whole story is great. I can’t say it’s dispelled my comics ennui, but it has reminded me why I love the medium, as did recent issues of Daredevil, and Fell, the latter by my husband G. Grod’s favorite comics author Warren Ellis.

I’ve been checking out a few new book and reading blogs lately. Today at Book Moot I found a link to MotherReader’s 48-hour reading challenge. Since the challenge arose from her reading backlog of literature for older kids/teens, and since I have several of that kind of book already on my summer reading challenge list, I think I’ll give it a shot. I’m also interested in showing when and how I read, because I hear other moms say they don’t have time to read. I’ve got a four-month old and a 2 year old, and I make time to read for myself, in addition to the reading I do to them. Other things go undone, but reading ranks right up there with eating, sleeping, childcare and writing. Most everything else is negotiable.

#26 in my book challenge for the year, and #2 in my summer reading challenge was Sense and Sensibility by Austen. I very much enjoyed Pride and Prejudice and Emma, so I was surprised by how little I liked S & S. The first few pages of the book are entirely concerned with explaining in detail why the two heroines, Elinor and Marianne, are poor. The book finished stronger than it started, but I was not at all surprised by its surprise and the characters did not engage my interest. The two heroines and their love interests are the four “best” characters in the book, but I found none of them very complex or compelling. Almost without exception, all the other characters are mean-spirited, stupid, or both. S & S was published before P & P, but parts of them were written concurrently. I think the later publication of P & P allowed Austen valuable time to develop as a writer. Like P & P, S & S is about issues of class, and public/private life. They both began as epistolary novels. But in S & S, Austen did not yet have the light touch with her non-central characters that enabled them to be interesting, sympathetic or funny even though not as well-behaved and insightful as the main characters.

#25 in my book challenge for the year, and #1 in my YA-centric summer reading challenge was King Dork by Frank Portman, which I first saw recommended at Blog of a Bookslut. King Dork is Tom Henderson, a sub-normal high school kid who spends a lot of his days trying to avoid getting beaten up or ridiculed. Things get complicated for him after he discovers his dead dad’s copy of The Catcher in the Rye, kisses a mystery girl at a party, and gets his own guitar. Tom and his alphabetical order friend Sam Hellerman have been talking about being in a band for years. Once they actually get guitars, they discover the real challenge:

I don’t know how real bands manage to have three or more people all play the same thing at the same time–it was clearly beyond our capabilities.

Like David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green, this is a teen-boy story that at times sounds a little too knowing. But I found it so funny and likeable that I forgave the occasional lapse in voice. I was pleasantly reminded of the television show Freaks and Geeks.

A reader review that Portman links to from his blog chided the book for its sexism.

…but what of the ladies? There is not a single admirable woman or girl in this novel, not even any hint that perhaps women are more than simply things to look at. They all come across as crazy in one way or another, with very few (non-physical) redeemable qualities.

I didn’t find the female characters crazy and unredeemed. I think Portman did a good job conveying how baffled Tom was by them, which said more about Tom than them. I found the female characters complex, funny, and demanding, especially his mom, his shrink, and his younger sister. Yes, one of the things the main character obsesses about is sex with girls. But when he actually begins to be sexual with girls, they are the ones calling the shots, and demanding physical and emotional things of him, not the other way ’round. In the first sexual encounter in the book, the girl had Tom bring her to orgasm, and she did not reciprocate. There are some later blowjobs, which the previously quoted review dismisses as meaningless. I saw them as part of teenagers learning about sexuality. Additionally, while it might seem biased or gratuitous that there was fellatio but not cunnilingus, I think that’s for practical reasons–the former is usually lower on the sexual learning curve than the latter.

King Dork the book, and King Dork the character, have a lot going on. While the narrative wanders, the story and its characters are always engaging, and I frequently laughed out loud. I think my favorite character was Little Big Tom, King Dork’s stepdad. “Ramoning” and “glad all over” are hilarious and apt euphemisms. I found the ending satisfying, even while it’s not tidy, and perhaps because it isn’t.

Further reading:
The King Dork Reading List, and Discography, both with Tom Henderson commentary