Review: My Not-So-Still Life by Liz Gallagher

Tags: YA, contemporary, art, Seattle

Summary

Artistically talented and expressive Vanessa can’t wait to grow up, can’t wait until she’s old enough to leave her town and really live. Her current canvas is her body and her town, but she wants to get out there and have a purpose with her art. Vanessa’s desire to be older than her years causes a rift between her and her two best friends, Nick and Holly, and leads her to a job at her favorite art store along Oscar, Maye, and James, who seem to have the grown-up coolness Vanessa wants to be. What does it really mean to be grown up, though?

Review

I read Liz Gallagher’s first book, The Opposite of Invisible, and fell in love with her sparse but powerful and relatable prose. Therefore, I went into Liz’s second book, MY NOT-SO-STILL LIFE, with great anticipation. Perhaps a little too much—for while MY NOT-SO-STILL LIFE is a solid addition to the YA contemporary genre, it didn’t have the lasting emotional impact I had found in The Opposite of Invisible.

Given a few allowances, I think that Vanessa is a very relatable protagonist. She’s an artist, but her story doesn’t really revolve around art (which in fact was a little quibble I had with the book, the lack of depth the art aspect had). Instead, Vanessa struggles with the common adolescent desire to have more, to be more than the typical high school life. Vanessa is a warm-hearted girl: she has a great relationship with her family, which I appreciated, and she means well for her friends. While her problems with her friends arise from her trying to push what she feels is right onto their situations, I have no doubt that she is well-intentioned and loving. She wants the future to be now, and what teenager can really fault her for that?

My biggest disappointment in MY NOT-SO-STILL LIFE was that I guess I had wanted or expected…well, more. And by that I don’t mean page-wise: at less than 200 pages, MY NOT-SO-STILL LIFE still does a good job with character development. But for a girl who dreams of going out there and actually living, Vanessa’s troubles feel disappointingly small, easily resolved, even a little contrived. I had expected her to undergo a greater sort of revelation, but that was not what ended up happening.

MY NOT-SO-STILL LIFE is good for a quick read when you’re in between two heavier books. It didn’t resonate as well as The Opposite of Invisible did for me, but I’m still interested in what Liz Gallagher has for us next.

Similar Authors
Mariah Fredericks

Cover discussion: I hate this cover. It's beyond merely childish--it's tacky. Why is it that artistry or quirkiness in characters cannot be expressed on covers except through clownlike depictions?

Wendy Lamb Books / May 10, 2011 / Hardcover / 192pp. / $15.99

Copy borrowed from Doylestown Bookshop's Advance Reader Program.

Waiting on Wednesday (95)

My Not-So-Still Life by Liz Gallagher

Vanessa is wise beyond her years. She's never really fit in at school, where all the kids act and dress the same. She's an artist who expresses her talent in the wacky colors she dyes her hair, her makeup and clothes. She's working on her biggest art project, and counting the days until she's grown up and can really start living. That adult world seems closer when Vanessa gets her dream job at the art supply store, Palette, where she worships the couple who runs it, Oscar and Maye. And she's drawn to a mysterious guy named James, who leads her into new, sometimes risky situations. Is she ready for this world, or not? [summary from Goodreads]

A few years ago I stumbled across a slim YA gem called The Opposite of Invisible. (Also, that was back in the day when I wrote 4-paragraph summaries and one-paragraph reviews, so please excuse the review's youthful unhelpfulness.) Ever since, I have constantly kept one eye out for Liz Gallagher's further writing, so I'm excited for her next book to come out! She has a way of writing quirky, relatable, and utterly sympathetic characters. Her books may never be that long, but "less is more" definitely applies to Liz Gallagher's writings!

My Not-So-Still Life will be published in hardcover from Wendy Lamb Books on May 10, 2011.

Review: The Opposite of Invisible by Liz Gallagher

Tags: YA, love triangle, friendship, romance, art, Seattle

Alice and Jewel are the same person. Best friends since they can remember, they are both outsider artists; everyone thinks Jewel is gay because Alice is the only person he ever talks to, and Alice just doesn’t talk at all to anyone else. They both like the same quirky, gory, and eccentric stuff that can be found in Seattle. They are never apart, and yet no one else sees them. They are invisible.

However, as a high school sophomore, Alice is beginning to want something more. She has a major crush on Simon Murphy, a popular and gorgeous football player who is clearly out of her league. So Alice can hardly believe it when Simon starts talking to her. Pretty soon they are apparently an item—the oddest, most incomprehensible item the school has ever seen, perhaps. There’s no pretense about Simon when he’s around her, though. He is a genuinely good and sincere guy who understands his popular crowd is not all that great sometimes and envies the artsy crowd—Alice included—for being able to be themselves.

But her budding relationship with Simon puts a strain on Alice and Jewel’s friendship, which was so close they were practically a couple. A week ago Alice had no prospects; suddenly she is stuck choosing between two. Either she begins a new life with the guy of her dreams and explore a new social life, or she remains with Jewel and continues to be invisible to the rest of the world.

Which one will Alice choose? Or can she have both?

I absolutely loved this book because all the characters are so real. There are no annoying stereotypes because it seems like every character defies them. There are no easy answers because, well, that’s life, and Liz Gallagher portrays it so very sweetly. This is a short and quick read, but it will linger with you.

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Sara Zarr

David Levithan

Rating: 4 out of 5