Tag Line: He's not like all the other guys....From the Back of the Book: Till death do us part. From the first moment she sees him in class, Nicoletta is drawn to Jethro, fascinated by his dark, mysterious face. She is attracted yet repelled, interested but afraid. Nicoletta becomes obsessed, unable to think of anything but this strange boy. But she knows so little about him. Until she follows him to a deserted cave on the edge of town...and learns the truth. Jethro is not like the others. No, not at all. He has a terrifying secret. A secret no one must ever find out.
Sorry about the cover photo. This was a hard one to shoot because it's very shiny and reflective. I bought it used, so it has some condition issues as well.
This book was published in 1993. Aren't they all? I had never read it before this go through. I am thankful for that. I wish I hadn't read it at all. But what is read cannot be unread, so here we go.
We begin with our protagonist
Nicoletta. She's been called into the music room where the teacher
tells her that she's being cut from the Madrigals to make room for
new student and super-soprano Anne-Louise. Cooney really has a thing
for the name Madrigal. This is the second time it's popped up in one
of her books. Anyway, THIS Madrigal is a special choir group that
Nicoletta has been singing with for years. The group is super close.
They spend all their time together. And they are pretty well known.
They tour all over the state and sing to standing-room-only crowds.
This is really stretching my powers of imagination and it's only the
second page.
Nicoletta feels like she can't possibly
go on. All her friends are in the Madrigals. It's all she has going
in her life. She's nothing without it. I'm getting the feeling our
protagonist is a little on the dramatic side.
Apparently they had costumes. Get a
load of this: “She thought suddenly of her costume: the lovely
crimson gown with the tight waist and the white lace high at the
throat, the tiny crown that sat in her yellow hair.” Two
things. One, that outfit sounds hilarious. Two, who describes their
hair as yellow? I've really never heard this before. The word is
blonde, Cooney. Or blond, if you prefer. Not yellow. Never yellow.
Yellow is for sunshine and flowers and brick roads, not hair.
Nicoletta is having a bad time in life.
Her parents were forced to sell their enormous, well-decorated home
for financial reasons and now they are all living in a tiny, ugly
house. Nicoletta has to share a bedroom with her younger sister now
and all they do is fight. Now she has to pick a new class to fill
the time slot that choir used to fill. She hates all the choices.
She hates her parents for making her move, she hates the choir
teacher for cutting her from the group, she hates Anne-Louise for
taking her place and she hates the guidance counselor for trying to
guide her. She finally picks Art Appreciation. I'm sure she'll hate
it.
That night she gets supportive phone
calls from some of the Madrigals. Rachel (soprano) is crying, Cathy
(low alto) wants to boycott the group, and super hot Christo (lowest
bass) promises her that they'll rescue her from the hell of Art
Appreciation somehow.
Nicoletta goes into Art Appreciation
the next day and surveys the losers with great disdain and zero
interest. She's confident that she'll be back in the Madrigals in a
few days as soon as her stupid teacher realizes what a mistake she's
made. She doesn't know any of the kids in the class and is surprised
that it's half boys. Because boys can't appreciate art. That's
clearly something only girls can do, yo.
A boy in the next row catches her eye.
He moves his face around a lot and constantly seems to be touching
his skin as if he isn't sure it belongs to him. She
finds him fascinating but she can't seem to get a good look at him.
She says he casts his own shadow making it hard for her to
distinguish his features. What? That makes no sense
at all. Anyway, he leaves the room and Nicoletta dreamily thinks he
moves like a dancer despite being so big and manly.
After school, Nicoletta catches up with
Rachel, Cathy and Christo. She's expecting to hear that they've
convinced the teacher to give Nicoletta her spot back. Instead, they
nervously tell her how great Anne-Louise is. Nicoletta is crushed.
The invite her to go to Keyboard with them. It's an ice cream parlor
with a piano where the Madrigals hold court every afternoon and sing
their hearts out. They're so convinced that the entire town loves
this. Seriously. These kids are so full of themselves it almost
makes me angry. Nicoletta is grateful for the invitation and is
about to accept when Anne-Louise joins them. Everyone looks at her
with admiration and Nicoletta can't stand it. She decides to go
home.
As she's lined up to get on the bus,
she sees the mystery stranger from Art Appreciation walking away from
the school. The school is out in the middle of nowhere and there are
no houses within walking distance so Nicoletta is intrigued by this.
For no reason whatsoever, she follows him.
She can tell that he knows she's
following him. He doesn't turn around, but he speeds up, slows down
and stops here and there to see what she'll do. She matches his
every move without saying a word and it's fucking creepy. Do you
hear me, Nicoletta? This is seriously creepy behavior.
He ends up going up to a large boulder
in the woods. Then he finally turns to look at her. She awkwardly
tells him that she followed him. I think he figured that out,
Nicoletta. This isn't the brightest bulb in the string, y'all. She
tells him that she lost all her friends so she followed him. It
makes even less sense when she says it out loud. He responds in a
voice that's soft and golden like butter.
His voice is like butter.
Butter.
Sheesh, Cooney.
Anyway, he offers to walk her back to the road while she tells
him all about it. So he does and she does.
When they get
to the road, he asks her if she can find her way from there. She
asks him if he really lives down in the woods and he tells her it's
just a shortcut. From this, Nicoletta assumes he's very rich and
owns an ocean estate or something. Oh, and his mother is famous
actress or something. Because all shortcuts lead to opulent ocean
estates, obvi.
She tells him her name and asks his.
It takes him a long time to answer. He finally tells her that his
name is Jethro. She's never heard the name before. She decides he
must be from an old family that came across on the Mayflower. This
girl and her wild assumptions are wearing me out.
Nicoletta wants to kiss him but can't
bring herself to do it, so she invites him to lunch instead. He
seems confused and she wonders if he knows what lunch is.
Guys.
This girl. Seriously.
Before they part ways, he
touches her face and she's chilled to the bone because his hand isn't
the hand of a human.
Like really? Is it a hoof? Or a
tentacle? Or a paw? Or is this just another one of Nicoletta's
dramatical fancies?
For some unfathomable reason, that evening Nicoletta
tells her entire family about him touching her with a non-human hand
and her running all the way home. They all think she's being
ridiculous.
The next day, Nicoletta dresses
entirely in black for school. She's in mourning over the Madrigals.
She doodles Jethro's name all over her notebook like a mooning
schoolgirl. Which I guess she is. Christo comes to talk to her and
she finds him annoying now that she's not a Madrigal. Christo asks
her to go to a dance and she hesitates briefly because she's in
luuuuurve with Jethro. But she ends up telling him she'll go.
Their English teacher went to England
at some point and insists on showing them slides of his vacation.
One of the slides is of a gargoyle and Nicoletta dreamily thinks that
it reminds her of Jethro. That's....not a good thing, is it? I'm
confused.
Lunch arrives and Nicoletta spies
Jethro across a crowded lunchroom. She's thrilled that he's actually
come to meet her even though she took off running the day before.
Before she can go to him, though, Christo grabs her arm and steers
her to his table. Nicoletta realizes that by accepting the date with
Christo, she is ruining her chances to be with Jethro. Really?
Dating one boy makes it harder to date another? You don't say? I'm
learning a lot from this girl.
Jethro skips Art Appreciation that day
and Nicoletta has all the angst about it. Christo is waiting to
drive her home after school, but Nicoletta lies to him (about
something – we aren't told what) so she can go looking for Jethro
instead. She knows the Christo is in love with her and she knows
she's in love with Jethro but she does nothing to amend this
situation and I now actively hate her. I can't stand girls who do
this to guys. All she has to do here is tell Christo that he's a permanent resident in
the friendzone because she's intending to be Mrs Jethro 4 Lyfe.
Nicoletta heads through the woods. She
comes to the big boulder and thinks that it's sentient somehow
because this book is awful. Behind the boulder is a path and she follows
it, thinking it leads to Jethro's ocean estate. Instead, the path leads to
the bottom of a cliff. She discovers a cave entrance in the rock and
goes inside.
After walking for a long time, she
decides to turn back. The light disappears leaving her in darkness.
She screams Jethro's name a bunch of times. Then she falls into some
kind of slime pit and imagines that she's being dragged into an
alternate universe. Sigh. Thankfully she tells herself to get a
grip. I'm not exactly hopeful that a grip will actually be gotten but at
least she recognized that she's gripless.
Sure enough, there is no grip. She
just continues to panic and scream. Then, suddenly, something is
there with her, lifting her up. She can't see it, but she can smell
it and feel it. I'm just going to quote this. This book is hella
dumb, y'all.
“Its skin rasped against hers like
saw grass. Its stink was unbreathable. Its hair was dead leaves,
crisping against each other and breaking off in her face. Warts of
sand covered it, and the sand actually came off on her, as if the
creature were half made out of the cave itself.”
It carries her out
and then tells her not to come back ever again because it's not safe.
She catches sight of it finally and screams her head off. The
features are humanoid but its skin dripped with slime. Screaming in
the face of your rescuer is just bad manners, Nicoletta. Get it together.
Nicoletta pauses
outside the mouth of the cave. She can see the shadow of the
creature and she begins to feel sorry for it. Here she is moaning
about sharing her room with her sister while this poor thing is
forced to live in a dark cave. She thinks he must be lonely and asks
if he's all alone. He replies that alone would be better and insists
that she never even think about returning to the cave.
That night,
Nicoletta discovers a new-found appreciation for her house and her
family. She decides not to tell anyone about the cave or the
creature. For one thing, she knows she'll get a huge lecture about
going into a cave (or abandoned mine or whatever it was) alone. For
another, she's doubtful that anyone will believe her about the
creature. She wonders if Jethro has ever gone to the cave and met
the creature and decides that he probably has.
Oh, honey, he probably
IS the creature. Haven't you ever read a Cooney before?
At school,
Nicoletta fakes interest in Christo while only thinking of Jethro and
caves and creatures. She's appalled at herself but doesn't do
anything to change her behavior. I hate her so much. Just tell him
you'd rather spend your life with a slimy sand-man. Poor Christo.
In Art
Appreciation, Nicoletta kneels by Jethro's desk and apologizes to him for
missing their lunch. She asks if they can walk together after school
and talk about things. He doesn't respond. He just trembles as if
he's afraid of her or afraid of what she wants to talk about.
They do end up walking together after school. Nicoletta tells
Jethro all about the cave and the creature. She wants to go back again and she wants him to go with her.
He tells her that caves are dangerous and she should leave and never
come back into the woods. Nicoletta knows that she loves him and she
knows that he loves her. Because....well, there's NO reason for her
to even think this. None. Zero. This girl is killing me.
“He loves me, thought Nicoletta.
Still holding his hand in one of hers, she lifted her other hand to
his face. As if reading mirrors, he did exactly what she did.
Fingertips approached cheeks. Nicoletta and Jethro shivered with the
heat of first love's touch.”
This book is so
bad.
He tells her that
she has beautiful hair. It's described as yellow again. It's
fucking blonde, Cooney. OMG.
Christo drives up
for no reason at all. He shouldn't be there. I think he followed
Nicoletta which is wrong and creepy. WHY are all the boys in these
books so creepy??? He has no right to follow her around. Anyway,
Nicoletta introduces them and the boys shake hands. Jethro asks Christo
to drive Nicoletta home and he repeats that she should stay out of
the woods because they are dangerous. I hate it when boys make all
the decisions for girls. I hate it even more when they do it for
our own good. Simply possessing a uterus does not automatically
make us incapable of taking care of ourselves.
Nicoletta gets into
the car with Christo and notices him shaking his hand out. When she
asks him what he's doing, he says that Jethro's hand was covered in
sand.
The next day,
Nicoletta hides in the library until Christo goes home. When she's
sure he's gone, she runs directly back to the cave/mine. It's
snowing and the water nearby is iced over. The creature is there.
“It was stone, and yet it walked.
It was snow, and yet it bore leaves. It was a person, and yet – It
was the creature.”
Sigh.
The creature orders her to leave. She
insists she wants to find Jethro. This goes back and forth way
longer than it should. The thing goes back into the cave and she follows
it. It gets angry and yells at her to leave. She says she needs to
see Jethro because she loves him. The creature gets teary-eyed. I
am too, but for a much different reason.
Nicoletta hears a rifle being cocked.
The creature tells her it's hunters and they will shoot him because
they think he's a bear. If he looks like rock or sand or whatever, why would they think he's a bear? Get your own story straight, Cooney. Then he says they'll shoot her if she moves even though she looks nothing like a bear.
She suggests they go further into the cave where they'll be safe.
He tells her she can't go further into the cave or the same thing
that happened to him will happen to her.
The creature pulls her into a small
cavern and holds its hand over her mouth so she can't make a sound.
It smells bad and tastes bad and feels gross and Nicoletta just wants
to escape and throw up but maybe not in that order. The hunters
pass, talking about how they're going to tell everyone about this
place after they shoot the “bear”. They get to the end of the
path and Nicoletta hears them scream for help as they get swallowed
up by that slime that nearly swallowed her the other day. When there are no more screams, the
creature carries her back out of the cave.
The creature walks her back to the
boulder. He tells her she can't come back again. She notes that he
has dark eyes and she's sure Jethro said those exact words to her
earlier. Hmmmm....
The day of the dance comes and
Nicoletta gives zero fucks. She feels like she's Christo's prisoner
but she doesn't care because she doesn't care about him. Jamie is
scandalized by this. All the middle school girls are in love with
Christo and she can't believe her sister isn't more excited to be
dating him. Nicoletta can't figure out why the middle school girls
even know who Christo is. He's just a Madrigal. Nothing special.
Jamie informs her that Christo is a football star and he lead his
team to the regional championship the year before. His picture is in
the paper all the time. He's an athletic god. Nicoletta is stunned.
She didn't even know he played a sport. To her, he was just a
Madrigal. Nicoletta is so self-involved I can't stand it. I can't.
Nicoletta enjoys the dance even though
she can't stop thinking about Jethro. When they leave, Christo
starts to drive her to the road in the woods. Nicoletta thinks he
wants to make out with her. She thinks he'll probably park at the
end of the road where that boulder is and then the boulder will see them
kissing and the boulder will tell Jethro.
- Can't. Even. With. This. Girl. Anymore.
Then she has this thought.
“How she wanted Jethro to see her
in this gown! For she was beautiful. She had been the princess of
every girl's dream at that dance. She had been as lovely as if spun
from gold, as delicate as lace, as perfect as love.”
Seriously, Cooney. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN??????????
She was the
princess of every girl's dream?
I think Cooney meant that
she was the princess that every girl dreams of being
but it mostly just sounds like all the girls were hot for Nicoletta.
Which is fine, but super progressive for a Point Horror.
Christo parks and starts to make
out with Nicoletta. Because she's a truly horrible person, she only
thinks of Jethro the whole time. Cooney tells us that she accepts
Christo's passionate kisses but doesn't return them. I hate this
girl. I hate every girl who thinks it's okay to toy with a guy this
way. (I'm looking at YOU Bella Swan!) She's going to break Christo's
heart and there's no reason it ever had to get to this point.
They kiss for awhile and then she
thanks him for a beautiful evening and gets out of the car. He's
confused and thinks she's forgotten they're in the woods and not at
her house. She dances and swirls down the path without a coat or
proper shoes but it's okay because she knows the snow would not dare
get inside her shoes. Christo follows but as he passes that damn
boulder, Nicoletta tells us that it shrugs its shoulders and drops a
huge amount of snow on Christo which slows him down.
If he were a
normal person in a normal book written by an author who wasn't awful,
he would probably be worried that Nicoletta had lost her ever-loving
mind at this point. But because he's in a Cooney, all he can think
about is how gorgeous she is dancing away in the moonlight and how
much he wants to catch up with her and kiss her again.
I declare from this day forward that Caroline B. Cooney is my
nemesis. And not in a cutely affectionate way like Perry the
Platypus and Dr Doofenshmirtz either. Like Donkey Kong and Mario. I
want to throw barrels at her head. I NEED to throw barrels at her head.
Christo sees her approach the face
of the cliff and he's stunned when he sees a giant rock step forward
and begin to dance with Nicoletta. He watches, confused and then
calls out her name. The rock turns at the sound and Christo sees
that it has a face.
The creature is mad that she's
betrayed him and brought Christo there. Nicoletta has figured out
that the creature is Jethro (finally!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and she tells
him she loves him. He's super pissed, though, and tells her to go
convince Christo that he didn't see what he saw. Nicoletta goes back
toward Christo and they both end up falling through the ice. Christo
is able to haul himself out and he saves Nicoletta. Pity, that.
Nicoletta is glad the boulder ignores
them on their way past.
Sigh.
For some reason those hunters cross
her mind and she realizes that they'll never be found and their
families will never have answers unless she tells someone what
happened to them. Then, because she's truly an idiot, she thinks to
herself that she has to go back to the cave and go deeper in and
down. I don't know if she thinks she's going to rescue them or what. It doesn't tell us why she wants to do this.
In a very unsurprising coincidence,
there is a story on the news the next morning about the hunters being
missing. A frantic wife is shown hysterically telling the reporter
that her husband and friend never came home. He has small children.
Nicoletta goes back and forth about whether to tell the police what
she knows. She knows they are dead now and nothing can be done to
help them. She thinks to herself that they are buried deeper than
any cemetery would bury them.
“It
was not funny. Not funny at all. And yet a snickery laugh came out
of her mouth and hung in the air like frost. She had to pull her
mouth back into shape with both hands.”
How do you have to pull your mouth
back into shape with both hands? This makes absolutely zero sense.
Cooney gives zero fucks about her writing. She got paid for this,
y'all, and it makes me want to scream.
Rachel shows up at the house and
Nicoletta is pissed.
“Nicoletta
could not believe this was happening to her. First she had to make
breakfast with her sister. Now she had to waste time with her best
friend.”
She is the worst. She is just the
absolute worst.
Cathy is with Rachel and they want
to hear all about the dance and Christo. Nicoletta doesn't know what
to tell them and has an obnoxious inner dialogue about only being in
love with Jethro. Then Christo shows up. Nicoletta is afraid the
girls will leave her alone with Christo, so she suggests they all go
to the mall. Christo suggests they invite Anne-Louise too so the
whole gang is together and Nicoletta agrees even though she'd like to throw Anne-Louise into the cave pit.
Christo tells everyone about seeing
a Bigfoot or a Yeti in the woods the previous night. They laugh at
him. He says he wants to go back and capture it. Or shoot it. He
doesn't much care which. Nicoletta is panicked. She tells the
others that Christo was seeing things and there was nothing there.
Christo gets pretty angry and insists that the monster was by the
cave. When the others hear about the cave, they instantly know
that's where the hunters disappeared. They have NO IDEA where the
cave is or if the hunters were even in that area but they KNOW. They
want to go to the police but Nicoletta keeps insisting that the cave
and the monster don't exist.
Christo is planning to go monster
hunting the next morning, so Nicoletta sneaks out of the house that
night to go to the cave and warn Jethro. It's completely dark when
she arrives at the woods. She calls out for Jethro but gets no
answer. She imagines that the rocks and trees are hostile beings.
At one point she feels something take her hand and lead her down a
path and she is grateful for the assistance. Then she discovers
she's just holding a stick that she doesn't remember picking up.
What? A stick held her hand and
led her down a path? Cooney, you're killing me here.
She hears a voice telling her not
to be afraid because the trees and sticks and things are only trying
to help her.
Is this book really happening to
me? {whimper}
She warns Jethro about Christo but
he seems unconcerned. He says Christo will just end up at the bottom
of the cave and he can keep the hunters company down there.
Nicoletta is stunned to hear the hunters are alive. She wants to
call a rescue squad in but Jethro says it won't help. No one ever
leaves the cave. She points out that he leaves the cave and he tells
her that it took him 100 years to learn to do it.
Jethro tells her that long before
the pilgrims, ancient explorers from ancient lands discovered the
cave and decided to search it for gold. Some fell to the bottom of
the cave and could not be rescued. They were left there alive. In
their society, the soul could not die unless they were burned at sea
with their ship. So they never died but their bodies dissolved and
the men just became made of the cave itself. They put a curse on the
cave that whoever entered would be abandoned by the world like they
had been.
Years pass and one day Jethro and
his father are out in the woods. They go in the cave and his father
falls into the bottom. Jethro bargains with the spirits and offers
himself in exchange for his father. It's all a beauty and the beast
kind of arrangement. If love saves the day in this book and
transforms Jethro back into a real boy, I might throw up. Anyway,
the spirits allow it. Jethro's dad promises to come back and rescue
him and he believes that will happen. His father never returns.
Jethro can only become a real boy
on sunny days. That's why he's only in school on sunny days. It's
like the opposite of the Cullens who only go to school on cloudy
days.
Holy Yeti. I just made TWO
Twilight
references in a single recap. What has this book done to me??
{plaintive wail}
Jethro tells her that every tree
and stone and lake in the forest had once been a person. So I guess
she wasn't so wrong about that magic boulder after all. He tells her
that she can't come back because the spirits know about her and they
will guide her steps until she falls into the pit.
Nicoletta walks out of the woods at
dawn. Two cars are coming down the road. The first belongs to
Christo and the second is a news team. Nicoletta can't figure out
what to do, so she throws herself out in front of the news van and
lets herself get hit. Later at the hospital, Nicoletta tells Christo
she was there to see him in action and begs him not to do anything
until she can go with him. Her leg is badly broken and in a huge
cast, so she's hoping this buys her a few weeks.
Jethro comes to visit at some
point. I think it's nighttime so he must be in monster form. Did no
one notice a small mountain walking through the hallways? What kind
of hospital is this? Nicoletta has a plan. She wants to blast the
cave. Then the spirits will be burned and maybe that will end the
curse. She's conveniently forgetting the boat and sea part but
whatever.
Some time later, Nicoletta is back
home. The Madrigals have arrived to take her on a surprise snow
picnic. Why? I mean, why? They're going to freeze and Nicoletta is
casted and on crutches. This seems hella dumb but I guess it's in
keeping with the rest of the book. Christo heads for the woods, of
course.
Before they get there, Anne-Louise
reveals that they are actually going so Christo can hunt the monster.
She's flirting pretty heavily with Christo who either doesn't notice
or doesn't mind. Nicoletta tries to get them to change their minds.
The boys carry her through the woods and put her down near the cave.
Anne-Louise goes in first. They
hear her scream and Nicoletta figures she's at the bottom of the pit
now. But she comes back out. She says the monster caught her and
carried her back. The others insist that they leave. Christo
doesn't want to leave without bagging the monster, but he finally agrees. He'll just come back
later.
Time passes. One day in school the
teacher who kicked her out of the Madrigals approaches. She tells
Nicoletta that Anne-Louise has quit and she'd like Nicoletta to
rejoin the group. Nicoletta isn't sure she wants to. Even though
Jethro has not returned to school, she doesn't want to leave Art
Appreciation where she first met him. She tells the teacher she'll
think about it. The teacher is a little enraged at this response and tells Nicoletta that's she's cutting off her nose to spite her face.
When Nicoletta goes to talk to
Anne-Louise about why she quit, Anne-Louise says that she's going
back to the cave. Nicoletta goes with her and Christo ends up
following. They are standing near that magic boulder when Christo vows
to never stop hunting the monster. All of a sudden, the woods start
to move. They think it's an earthquake. The boulder rolls over and
lands on Christo's ankle, pinning him in place. There's an
incredible boom and Nicoletta realizes that Jethro has dynamited the
cave.
The cave and the cliff are
destroyed. No one can ever go in again and get trapped but Jethro
can no longer get out. Nicoletta knows his sacrifice to protect her
and all the other people in the world is evidence of his love. She
vows to love him forever and the book mercifully ends.
Final Thoughts: Wow, this book sucked. I know I quoted more than usual and it was because I didn't feel adequately equipped to convey the stupidity of the words in this book. Cooney should be arrested for attempted murder because she nearly killed me with this crapfest of a book. I will never recover from the trauma of having read it. I would say more but I think this work speaks for itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment