{"id":4256,"date":"2014-12-19T22:01:23","date_gmt":"2014-12-20T03:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.slj.com\/printzblog\/?p=4256"},"modified":"2014-12-19T22:01:23","modified_gmt":"2014-12-20T03:01:23","slug":"althea-and-oliver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.slj.com\/printzblog\/2014\/12\/19\/althea-and-oliver\/","title":{"rendered":"Althea and Oliver"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Althea and Oliver<\/em> by Cristina Moracho<\/strong>
\n Viking, October 2014<\/strong>
\n Reviewed from final copy<\/strong><\/p>\n

This book really amazed me by being a story that is bigger and harder and rougher and rawer than I thought it would be. It\u2019s been named for two year\u2019s best lists, and garnered three starred reviews, so it\u2019s not just me feeling amazed. Althea and Oliver<\/em> is a debut book that went far darker than I expected, and did so intelligently and memorably. While it’s not a perfect read, the more I think about this one, the more impressed I am.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s some great characterization, particularly Althea, though the supporting high school friends are well drawn, too. Moracho\u2019s commitment to writing about hard-to-talk-about love is impressive. The difficulty that both Althea and Oliver have in communicating their feelings is so believable and relatable; prickly Althea and passive Oliver have such strong personalities that conflict so powerfully and yet so subterraneanly that the stakes of this story are high from the start. The choices Althea and Oliver both make make sense, and their actions force them to believably grow as characters. Their choices drive the story and the plot unfolds in a way that feels organic, natural. Their twisted, toxic friendship is so sad and so loving and when they are finally able to see that, finally able to feel that they can step away from each other, it is a significant moment. That ending is powerful, and well-earned.<\/p>\n

What I\u2019d want to know most about at the table: the rape scene and its book-long aftermath. In conversation with each other, and in talking independently, Althea and Oliver both reject the term rape. Which. I mean. I get why Althea rejects it, and I would even argue that she doesn\u2019t believe what she’s saying although she does say it; it\u2019s so clearly defensive and angry when it flies out of her mouth; it\u2019s obviously been on her mind. I can respect when Oliver \u201cdoesn\u2019t argue with her, not on that point. Something about that word doesn\u2019t feel right. It\u2019s too broad, not specific enough to describe what Althea did to him.\u201d Because in the moment, he\u2019s not ready to say \u201crape.\u201d Because maybe he\u2019s still working through it all and maybe he wants to define his experience for himself and I can respect that ethically and also respect it as an artistic authorial choice.<\/p>\n

But later on, Oliver accepts Will\u2019s description of \u201cgot laid\u201d — or anyway doesn\u2019t argue with it. And then, although Althea does apologize — sincerely — that\u2019s really all the conversation they have. Maybe it\u2019s just not fair of me to want two raw teenagers to debrief the rape that changed everything. At one point, Althea acknowledges to Matilda how not-OK it was, and that she understands that she\u2019s been forgiven but that also she can\u2019t change the past. But Althea and Oliver never have that conversation together, not explicitly, and not where Oliver gets any say on his perspective. While I don\u2019t want to turn this book into a book about rape — because it\u2019s a book about a lot of things, including a rape — I did want some more acknowledgement, and some more insight into Oliver\u2019s processing the rape.<\/p>\n

Part of this, for me, comes down to how clear and how detailed Althea is as a character. Oliver, throughout the story, felt murkier. Reactive. I felt distanced from his character, and when his foil is so vibrant, so emotional and flawed and relatable and combustive, this distance is even more noticeable. Some of this is due to his KLS, which keeps him out of the plot and off the page.<\/p>\n

There were a few things that felt just a bit too convenient — it was so easy that Althea fell in with such sweet slackers and ne\u2019er do wells. And although there are some great descriptions of the filth of the group house, the overall romanticization of Althea’s newfound Bohemian phase is a little hard to take. The parents, too, are the missing\/dead\/emotionally absentee sort; this is most obvious during the Althea-Garth phone confrontation at the end.<\/p>\n

All in all, I could see this with a silver sticker; there are a few flaws, but I\u2019d say they\u2019re minor. Althea and Oliver<\/em> takes some big risks and I think they mostly pay off. This is another title I\u2019d be very interested in hearing about at the table…if I were at that table; obviously here I\u2019d \u00a0like to know what you thought! Let’s go to the comments!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Althea and Oliver by Cristina Moracho Viking, October 2014 Reviewed from final copy This book really amazed me by being a story that is bigger and harder and rougher and rawer than I thought it would be. It\u2019s been named for two year\u2019s best lists, and garnered three starred reviews, so it\u2019s not just me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":4257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[182,8],"tags":[820,821,239,111,687,4,263,187],"class_list":{"0":"post-4256","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books-to-look-for","8":"category-fiction","9":"tag-althea-and-oliver","10":"tag-cristina-moracho","11":"tag-debuts","12":"tag-historical-fiction","13":"tag-october-2014-pubs","14":"tag-printz","15":"tag-three-star-books","16":"tag-viking","17":"entry"},"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/blogs.slj.com\/printzblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2014\/12\/alando-600x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/blogs.slj.com\/printzblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2014\/12\/alando-600x600.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Sarah Couri","author_link":"https:\/\/blogs.slj.com\/printzblog\/author\/scouri\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.slj.com\/printzblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.slj.com\/printzblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.slj.com\/printzblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.slj.com\/printzblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.slj.com\/printzblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.slj.com\/printzblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.slj.com\/printzblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.slj.com\/printzblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.slj.com\/printzblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.slj.com\/printzblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}