Keren is encouraging me to read this as well...I've heard it's misery from cover to cover, but I'm almost 200 pages in and so far it's a sad, though great read. Thanks love! 

I'm so so so tired. I can't believe that I'm this tired. I'm sitting in my work clothes still, almost an hour after I got home, I have a Harry Potter movie on my television, I'm hungry, but my body feels like lead, I don't want to move it. I've needed to document my most recent read: Kathy Dobie's The Only Girl in the Car, but I haven't had the time or energy this week to do it justice, and though I feel compelled to do it now, I'm not sure that even at this moment I'm going to be a fine reviewer of this novel. I'm filled with loneliness, longing, I miss my girl. I miss her arms, I miss her smile, I miss her comforting words. And my eyelids are drooping(possibly due to low blood sugar, must remedy that soon). However, this work deserves my words as much as any other that I've read since I started this blog, it would be unfair to not write a bit, especially when there is a fair amount to say. Keren lent me this book, because, I believe, the protagonist reminded her of my sister. Well, the young Kathy Dobie reminded me not only of Jill, but also of myself, and of all young girls who are all too aware that they are different in some way. Kathy grows up in an all too normal and seemingly happy Catholic family outside of New Haven, CT. It is when she is an early teen that her desire to stand out(possibly?) and her desire for boys starts to lead her down a path for which a much older and wiser narrator hints that she might not be ready. A secret life of late-night rides in cars with boys who drink beer and feel her up, hidden from even her closest Catholic school girlfriends, culminates one night in the horrible gang rape of the 14-year-old Kathy. It is an experience that ruins her, socially(she is pursued constantly and called "slut" by any and everybody, including the boys who did it to her, hiding probably behind their own shame), mentally and it is apparent that it haunts her all the rest of her days. What a horrible mess. It leaves one to wonder. What happened? What drove her to find and create relationships with boys(men even) who would only use her for sexual exploitation in which she herself admits to having shared no pleasure? Her family seemed to be functional, seemed to be loving...why? Many people asked me the same of my sister when all the tragedy slapped the family unit in the face, dragged it through the mud and left it so battered we all wondered if as a unit we would ever speak again. I know that I felt like the cheese in the Farmer in the Dell song, I stood alone, in my rage, in my grief. But, after reading Kathy Dobie's memoir(and this has crossed my mind before), I can only imagine what my sister felt like in her self-imposed isolation with a manchild who abused her both mentally and physically. My sister seems to have recovered fairly well from the terrible relationship and the physical scars that he left her with(HPV, permanent head damage), she is in a stable, healthy relationship with a man she loves, she's doing well in school, working hard at internships to further her future career. However, not too long ago, she did confess to me of her dreams of killing her ex-boyfriend if he were ever to come near her again(he threatened her and stalked her for quite a while after they broke up, he definitely saw her as a meal ticket, and when she left...), I think, like Kathy Dobie's past, it is one that my sister will never leave behind. The main difference though, with the story of Ms. Dobie and my sister, is that Kathy seemed to be very alone, her family was not involved in her situation, probably did not know what pushed her into her long-term depression and complete personality turnaround. My family fought it all out down and dirty, in the therapist's office, in the bedroom, out in public, all except for me. I removed myself as completely as I could, continuing with my own life, making virtually no contact with my family for monthes as I evaluated my own sexuality and struggled with myself. My immediate family is a strange combination of silent sufferers(my father and I) and in-your-face sufferers(my mother and sister), though my father and I, when we get pissed...it's almost worse because we've held it in for so long. Since I came out(which was after much of the drama with my sister), I've gotten better about confrontation and not holding back, but I guess I service my own frustrations with the pen and the computer keyboard rather than shouting like my mother and sister. One of Keren's teachers compared Kathy Dobie's memoir to Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, though, and that was something that didn't sit well with me. First of all, Salinger's novel is just that, a novel...though based in fact, it is pure fiction. J.D. Salinger also wrote about a boy and his coming of age, which though it shares some very superficial similarities(same locale, adolescents in angst, imposing some form of self-alienation), I think that a boy's coming of age and a girl's cannot be compared in several ways. A girl has sex with many boys and she is forever A SLUT. A boy has sex with many girls, he's a "player". Society embraces and encourages masculine characteristics in MALES, discourages it in girls. The only types of people who might have it as hard as the marginalized straight girl are the feminine gay boy and the overly masculine(beyond tomboy)young lesbian, though the gay boy might have it worse because they tend to be abused by the king of patriarchal society: the athletic white male, since they(the gay boy) are the epitome of what the "king" is not. Anyway...I think I'm becoming delirious with hunger and fatigue. Quotes, quotes, quotes. Kathy Dobie is an amazing writer, and the prose was such a breeze in comparison to Edward P. Jones'...The first quote I found very interesting: "It was tricky figuring out the best way to be a girl. Love and loathing were aimed at her in equal strengths" (Dobie 85). The last two quotes came at the very end. The first reminded me of my own high school experience: "They owned the senior lounge, they'd come into their inheritance. The rest of us were looking ahead. The future was ours--it always belongs to those who are unhappy in the present" (ibid 217). And the last quote is the quote of a quote, which reminded me of myself and my dreams and desires. "There is a quote that hangs on my computer--I no longer know where I got it, or who it's from, but it reads: 'No interesting project can be embarked on without fear. I shall be scared to death half the time'" (ibid 225). I know I felt that way the first time I moved away from home(to Montreal!), the day I decided to pursue a relationship with a woman for the first time, and of course moving to Seattle...but, look where it got me! Dammit...I need food, enough with the ramblings already...