This book is cuter than any book about middle schoolers falling in love ought to be. Set in a New York City exactly as diverse as it is in real life, A Song for Bijou is about the sweetest white boy you'll ever meet, Alex's crush on a recent Haitian immigrant who thinks she's too practical for boys, Bijou. |
Obviously, they date. Alex makes French flashcards. Bijou asks her cool older brother to supervise a date and sneaks away from a friend's house to go to a movie with boys. It's all really, really, cute, from Bijou learning English via soap opera to Alex being terrified of the scary movie they go to. Bijou's traditional uncle and the requisite popular jerks provide antagonism without outright villainy, though the big misunderstanding feels disproportionately harsh in comparison with the lightness of the other parts of the novel.
My main problem with this book is that, despite the title, it's not about Bijou. A Song for Bijou is definitely Alex's story, and Bijou herself suffers from it: she doesn't get much in the way of plotline besides dealing with her culture and burgeoning romance, whereas Alex gets romance, friendship and a cool new talent (Haitian drumming). This book spends so much time exploring Haitian culture that it doesn't explore Bijou. I'd like to see Bijou being introduced to exotic American things, and discovering new talents, and learning how to interact with new friends. If she was more reticent about performing in public in the first place (or wanted to), for example, she could have a plotline about stage fright or dance that makes her going onstage at the end of the book about more than romance.
Rating: Four out of five. A good book, but not the book I wanted.
Turd rating: Two out of five, for the popular middle-school jerks.
My main problem with this book is that, despite the title, it's not about Bijou. A Song for Bijou is definitely Alex's story, and Bijou herself suffers from it: she doesn't get much in the way of plotline besides dealing with her culture and burgeoning romance, whereas Alex gets romance, friendship and a cool new talent (Haitian drumming). This book spends so much time exploring Haitian culture that it doesn't explore Bijou. I'd like to see Bijou being introduced to exotic American things, and discovering new talents, and learning how to interact with new friends. If she was more reticent about performing in public in the first place (or wanted to), for example, she could have a plotline about stage fright or dance that makes her going onstage at the end of the book about more than romance.
Rating: Four out of five. A good book, but not the book I wanted.
Turd rating: Two out of five, for the popular middle-school jerks.