Brave New Girl by Louisa Luna

Brave New Girl by Louisa Luna is a coming-of-age tale that was published by MTV Books in 2001. MTV Books also published Tunnel Vision by Keith Lowe, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.

The protagonist in Brave New Girl is 14-year-old Doreen Severna. The novel describes her life during the summer between 8th grade and high school. Doreen has an authentic voice of a teenager in the 1990s. She’s sharp, biting, and funny. Like most teens, she answers adults in short sentences, but she shares her full thoughts with the reader.

Doreen’s voice is comparable in many ways to Holden Caulfield’s in The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, a classic book about adolescence set in the 1940s. Doreen talks about The Catcher in the Rye below, and I really loved these lines. They made me laugh.

Like Holden Caulfield, Doreen does not fit in. The only person she trusts and cares about is her best friend Ted. Ted is an outcast too, and he has an alcoholic mother. Everyone at school considers them both losers. It doesn’t matter to Doreen and Ted though. They enjoy their time together, hanging out, joking with one another in Ted’s basement, listening to the Pixies, going to Tower Records, smoking, and eating junk food in the parking lot at 7-Eleven or Trader Joe’s. Their families and classmates all think they are dating, but they aren’t.

At home, Doreen’s father lectures her constantly, her mother wants her to be more feminine and have girlfriends, and her older sister Tracey is always unkind to her. Doreen is also troubled by the disappearance of her older brother Henry. He left home or was kicked out ten years ago when he was fourteen, the same age Doreen is now. Her family never talks about Henry, so Doreen doesn’t know where he is or even if he’s alive.

Tracey just graduated high school and is dating an older man named Matthew who is 21. Matthew shows an interest in Doreen and talks to her when others aren’t around. Doreen has a crush on him and is confused when Matthew tells her that he likes her more than he likes her sister. Eventually, Matthew’s behavior takes a dark turn when he rapes Doreen in her own bedroom. Doreen is unable to tell anyone, including Ted. Her family does not notice her pain and confusion. She’s silently suffering, hiding evidence of what happened, vomiting, bleeding, passing out, and crying.

Meanwhile, Ted is beat up by his classmates and is afraid and suffering too. In the end, Doreen finds a way to fight back by telling the truth, which helps her establish a relationship with her father. Unfortunately, her father didn’t take her to a doctor or the police. It was also disappointing that Doreen’s mother was so useless and unsympathetic and that her sister refused to believe her.

Somehow Doreen and Ted both survive their awful summer. I had to wonder where life would take them next.

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