Flipped

Reader Response to Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen

Inside cover reads:
"The first time she saw him, she flipped. The first time he saw her, he ran. And from the 2nd grade to the 7th, that's how it was. She says, "My Bryce. Still walking around with my first kiss." He says: "It's been six years of strategic avoidance and social discomfort." But in 8th grade, their views of the world--and each other--turn upside down. He says: "I'd spent so many years avoiding Juli Baker that I'd never really looked at her, but now I couldn't stop." And she says: "I felt a cold, hard knot tighten in my heart. I was through with Bryce Loski." Is there hope for happiness in junior high? Have you flipped?"

My reaction:
Lovely. It's a classic version of he said, she said. I like the format of the novel, because we get the same story from two very different perspectives. I love both sides of the story, they each have their own interesting little quirks, and both seem to forget details that the other has deemed important. Juli tells her story in a very dreamer-like, descriptive way. Bryce is more blunt and sarcastic. I like how VanDraanen's protagonists are complex characters with real life problems. I could also identify with Lynette, Bryce's anti-social, angry-goth, older, teenage sister. None of that happy-go-lucky, I'm-going-to-save-the-world-if-I-put-my-mind-to-it BS a la Hoot in here. No, siree! One of the main reasons I enjoyed this book was the blunt humor and how VanDraanen shows the awkwardness of the middle school years. We're all little freaks during those years: hyper, obnoxious, dramatic, cruel, and idiotic. I'd have to say that middle school years are the toughest years (socially) in the entire education system. Everyone is out for blood. Well anyways. I would totally use this in my classroom. It gets the Word Nerd Seal of Approval.

Quotes:
"I was hoping for herds of teachers to appear so they could see the real Shelly Stalls in action, but it was too late by the time anyone arrived on the scene. I had Fluffy in a headlock and her arm twisted back in a hammerlock , and no amount of her squawking or scratching was going to get me to unlock her until a teacher arrived" (Juli 17).

"I was indeed a tree-climbing weenie" (Bryce 23).

"Between mushy chick disease, exploding eggs, and culling, this project was turning out to be the worst!" (Juil 69).

"There's nothing like a headstrong woman to make you happy to be alive" (Bryce's grampa to Juli in Juli's chapter 110).

"Mom glared at him. 'What I'm expecting is for you to behave like the gentleman I always thought you were.' Dad went back to his potatoes. Definitely safer than arguing with Mom" (Bryce 120).

"Black skirt, black nails, black eyes--for a nocturnal rodent, yeah, I suppose she was looking good" (Bryce describing his sister's fashion statement 147).

"It was definitely not caviar music" (Juli 165).

"But in my heart I knew that just like the new grass, I wasn't strong enough yet to be walked on. And until I was, there was only one solution: I had to stay away from him" (Juli 195).

"For the first time in her life, Patsy is seeing her husband for what he is. It's twenty years and two children late, but that's what she's doing" (Juli's mom explaining Bryce's mom to Juli 208).