ReadOut Reviews

Maryfield Academy

Carla Tomaso

Alice Street Editions/Harrington Park Press

Maryfield Academy, a straight-laced Catholic girls school, isn’t used to controversy. The last big scandal there was when the school council president got caught kissing her girlfriend in the parking lot, and the most serious offense the current crop of seniors can come up with is kidnapping each other’s fake babies in parenting class, demanding play money ransoms. But now anonymous letters are flooding the school, accusing one of faculty of sexual impropriety. And there are lots of suspects. The principal spends fruitless hours masturbating in search of her first orgasm, the dean of students is a nun with a taste for online bondage fantasies, and one of the English teachers has just published a book of hard-line erotic lesbian poetry.

Author Carla Tomaso is a writer of significant talent. She peoples Maryfield with a variety of kooks and creeps, lending a dry humor to even the most dismal of situations. Engaging up to the last chapter when Tomaso is forced to tie up loose ends a bit too quickly, Maryfield reads like a delicious peek up a naughty schoolgirl’s skirt. —Olivia Flores Alvarez

My Heartbeat

Garret Freymann-Weyr

read by Christy Carlson Romano

Random House Listening Library

A different kind of love triangle, My Heartbeat follows 14-year-old Ellen who adores her older brother Link and his best friend James. When someone at school asks her if the two boys are in love with each other, Ellen starts down a long, slippery road. Less flustered by the boys being a couple than by the fact that she never noticed, Ellen stocks up on “when someone you love is gay” primers, confident that she can underline her way to political correctness and enlightenment. But being in a family that avoids any direct discussion at all costs, her wanting to understand her brother comes at a high price. Link jumps into the arms of a convenient cover girlfriend, pushes both James and Ellen away, and the once happy trio slinks into confused, opposing camps before the story comes to an unexpected but understandable conclusion.

In this book for young adults, Freymann-Weyr provides a well-constructed storyline, quirky, three-dimensional characters, and a realistic view of adolescent afflictions, but two things detract from the audio version of her book. The “he said, she said” construction, so necessary on the page, becomes cumbersome when spoken. And Christy Carlson Romano, who has a long list of Broadway, television, and screen credits to her name including a starring role on Disney’s Even Stevens, sounds more like a young New York socialite than a geeky high-school freshman. She lacks the vocal versatility that playing out all the roles requires, making the three hours plus reading seem even longer. Still, if as Ellen says that “a good book is a reflection of some kind of truth,” My Heartbeat is a very good book. —OFA

Gravel Queen

Tea Benduhn

Simon & Schuster

A remarkable debut novel, Gravel Queen shrieks, grumbles, and whispers its way off the page and into readers’ hearts.

A touching, aching look at first love, Gravel Queen is home to Aurin who wants to make a film about her life as soon as she actually has a life, her best friend Kenney who coordinates not only their social life but their wardrobe as well, and Fred who knows he’s gay but too afraid to do anything but look longingly at the gorgeous guys who play Frisbee in the park. When Neila comes along and stirs something in Aurin no one knew was there, Kenney resents being pushed out as self-proclaimed leader, star, and social director and forces Aurin to choose between the two.

Although sometimes painful, this book for young adults is far from a tragic tale and is instead an uplifting and mostly accurate picture of the teenaged heart. Its “this is not a happy ending yet” ending signals the exciting, if bumpy ride, through adolescence still to come.

Benduhn, who says she wrote the book she wished for as a teenager—a celebration of discovering sexual desires without condemnation or disastrous consequences—is an exciting new storyteller who leaves her readers hungry for the next page. —OFA

The Summer Book

Sarah Gish

Weather Camps. Self-esteem Camps. Peace Camps. Chess Camps. Fencing Camps. Music Camps. Reading Camps. Nature Camps. Free camps.

In Houston, camps for all interests will soon begin again, and they are all in The Summer Book, a new directory of day camps and classes. Published for the first time in 2003, the book includes almost 200 camps and classes, organized alphabetically by category and by dates.

The concept was the brainchild of Sarah Gish, owner of a marketing firm in Houston. Gish, also one of the cofounders of the Houston Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, recognized a need to compile a separate, stand-alone directory of summer day camps and classes in Houston and decided to produce one for parents of children 5 to 12 years old. “I chose that age group since children of that age don’t always go away for overnight camps and are not in school during the summer,” she says. “I also was driven by a strong personal need to find interesting camps for my older child, since he is not a sports lover, and typical sports summer camps wouldn’t do for him.”

The Summer Book ($10.77 with tax) represents over two years of research, part of which involved sending surveys to more than 400 day camps and organizations that hold summer classes for children. Much of the information included in this directory was taken directly from surveys returned by summer camp directors and was then supplemented by some secondary research. Gish discovered all kinds of camps and a city bubbling over with things for kids to do in the summertime.

The Summer Book is available through www.gishcreative.com and these locations:

• Brazos Bookstore, 2421 Bissonnet

• Children’s Chapters Bookstore, 4868 Beechnut

• Fundamentally Toys, 1963 West Gray

• Greater Houston and Convention Visitors’ Bureau gift shop, 901 Bagby, Suite 100

• The Train Store, 2511 University Blvd.

—Troy Carrington

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