Keil, Melissa The Incredible Adventures of Cinnamon Girl,
298 pages. Peachtree Publishers, 2014.
$17.95. Language: R (55 swears +
45 “f”, although the “u” has been replaced with “e”); Mature Content: R
(underage drinking, reference to sexual activity); Violence: G.
Alba has recently graduated from high school, and is looking
forward to a summer filled with drawing comics and working in her mother’s
bakery. She lives in a sleepy Australian
farming town called Eden Valley, and it is no secret that some of her friends
are anxious to escape to the wider world of college or work. When a hack
internet “prophet” predicts the end of the world and spouts the coordinates of
Eden Valley as the only place on earth to escape the apocalypse, thousands of
benign sketchers descend on the tiny community, including a home-grown TV star
who returns for the spectacle. These
events complicate Alba’s tortured thoughts about whether to stay in Eden
Valley, or go away to college.
The author is talented at description, bringing
personalities to life with quippy references to the t-shirts and shoes they
wear, capturing place and mood using words and songs that illustrate particular
moments, and referencing specific artists, which can either make a reader feel
“with it” or “out of it”. But contrary
to the title, there is very little adventure to be had in this book, and Alba’s
moodiness and indecision gets repetitive.
Even as the characters criticize the “navel gazing” pointlessness of
stressing about the future, the reader is subjected to it to an extraordinary
degree. She has created likeable
characters, and the Australia-rich dialogue makes the reader feel they are a
part of this tight friendship group, but the lack of any real tension or action
coupled with the utter predictability of her decision make this an optional
read.
HS – OPTIONAL.
Reviewer: JA
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