Another Side of Chicago:
Simone Elkeles’ Young
Adult Novels
| (Photo courtesy Orbitz) |
Evelyn Smith
MS in Library Science, University of North Texas (2012)
Ph. D. in English, Texas Christian University (1995)
While Veronica Roth's Divergent trilogy features a female protagonist who lives in a Dystopian Chicago sometime in the future, Simone Elkeles’ Young Adult romances pair upscale, present-day, Chicago-area, White Anglo-Saxon Protestant or Jewish female leads with Israeli, bad-boy, or Hispanic boyfriends while along the way almost all the major teenage characters have to work through common adolescent problems--divorced or never married parents, new schools, and the angst of trying to fit in but not always being part of the in crowd.
Since I was lucky enough to win a complete run of autographed
Simone Elkeles’ Young Adult romance novels at the Texas Library Association
Convention in April 2013, in retrospect, I'm pleased to announce that last
summer I donated them to the West High School Library. As readers may recall, an explosion of an ammonium
nitrate plant in West, Texas, on April 17, 2013, killed 15 residents and destroyed
or damaged 150 buildings, including the town's middle and high school. Although Elkeles’ novels might seem like an
unusual choice to give to a rural, Texas high school, Texas teens, like
everyone else, compare their lives with other young adults elsewhere. Indeed, these novels might serve as a guide to
what wealthy Chicago-area teenage girls are wearing.
In October 2013, Macmillan published Elkeles’ latest
romance, Wild Cards, a formulaic-story that
follows her usual feisty female protagonist as she falls in love with a stereotypical bad boy: This time, Elkeles pairs Ashtyn, the tom-boy captain
of a suburban Chicago-area high school football team, with Derek, a quarterback who is struggling to come to terms with an absentee military dad and a new step-mother he despises. While
Elkeles’ novels interest high school readers, they often have lower reading
levels; for example, Rules for Attraction
has a 5.2 reading level. She also hypes
her audience's interest by releasing videos dramatizing or publicizing her novels on YouTube.
The How to
Ruin series, however, is perhaps Elkeles’ best series because she
is more at home here. Elkeles’ first-person
narrative tells about a world that she knows, the life of an American Jewish Princess with a most probably “unchurched” WASP, vaguely-feminist, advertising executive mother, who can afford to gift her Jimmy Choo shoes, even if Elkeles indulges in a bit of over-the-top fantasy: Amy Nelson-Barak’s dad
is also a former Israeli Commando turned security consultant. One of
the videos Elkeles has put on YouTube discloses her strong ties to a local
Jewish synagogue.
The How to Ruin series sees Amy grow from a self-absorbed
teenager preoccupied with the latest designer clothes to a more mature and
focused young woman. This transformation begins to occur after she falls in love with an Israeli soldier while simultaneously discovering her Israeli roots one summer on the kibbutz where her dad's family lives. Subsequent novels follow Amy as she moves in
with her dad back home in Chicago after her mother marries. In the third novel, Amy volunteers to serve as a ten-day
volunteer trainee for the Israeli Defense Force, so she can be nearer her boyfriend. Along the way, Amy investigates Judaism and
joins a Jewish youth group that accompanies her back to Israel, although I suspect that Elkeles wrote the novel after seeing Private Benjamin.
The third novel in this first-person trilogy might be a little too risqué for middle school students since Amy and Ari, the Israeli soldier she falls in love with, spend a night together. Even so, the trilogy--as well as each separate book in it--tells a classic Coming of Age tale as Amy starts to care more about others than herself. The series also underlines the idea that American Jews like other early 20th-century immigrant groups while proud of their ancestry are thoroughly assimilated.
The third novel in this first-person trilogy might be a little too risqué for middle school students since Amy and Ari, the Israeli soldier she falls in love with, spend a night together. Even so, the trilogy--as well as each separate book in it--tells a classic Coming of Age tale as Amy starts to care more about others than herself. The series also underlines the idea that American Jews like other early 20th-century immigrant groups while proud of their ancestry are thoroughly assimilated.
Elkeles has grouped her work into the following
collections, which readers might wish to read in sequence:
How to Ruin Trilogy:
- How to Ruin a Summer Vacation (2006)
- How to Ruin My Teenage Life (2007)
- How to Ruin Your Boyfriend's Reputation (2009)
Leaving Paradise/Return to Paradise Series:
- Leaving Paradise (2007)
- Return to Paradise (2010)
Perfect Chemistry Trilogy:
- Perfect Chemistry (2008)
- Rules of Attraction (2010)
- Chain Reaction (2011)
Wild Cards Series:
- Wild Cards (2013)
Awards
and Recognition
Additionally, Elkeles has received the following
awards and recognition:
- Author of the Year by the Illinois Association of Teachers of English (2008)
- Illinois “Read for Lifetime” Booklist for Chain Reaction (2012-2013)
- New York Times Best Seller List for Rules of Attraction and Return to Paradise
- RITA Award for Best Young Adult Romance for Perfect Chemistry (2010)
- USA Today Best Sellers List
- Young Adult Library Service Association (YALSA) Top Ten Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers List for Chain Reaction (2012)
- YALSA Popular Paperbacks List for Perfect Chemistry (2012)
Selected Simone
Elkeles' Videos
Elkeles markets her books with
official and semiofficial videos while fans have also prepared their own video
tributes:
Author: Simone Elkeles on Tape with
Rabbi Doug. (2008, Dec. 7). YouTube.
Chain Reaction book trailer by
Simone Elkeles OFFICIAL. (2011, July
20). YouTube.
How to Ruin a Summer Vacation. (2006, August 16). YouTube.
Retrieved from
How to Ruin Your Boyfriend’s
Reputation by Simone Elkeles Book Trailer.
(2010,
Interview with Simone Elkeles—YouTube. (2011, April 26). YouTube. Retrieved from
“Lightning Round” with Simone
Elkeles. (2011, May 6). YouTube.
Retrieved from
Rules of Attraction by Simone
Elkeles Official Book Trailer. (2010, March 8). YouTube.
Simone Elkeles—Perfect Chemistry Rap
Video Book Trailer. (2008, December 8). .
YA Author Simone Elkeles and her
‘hero’ is interviewed. (2010, August
4). RT
Wild Cards Ep. 1 based on the Wild
Cards novels by Simone Elkeles.
(2013, September 13). Enomis
Entertainment. YouTube. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bfSfG5AECY
Wild Cards Ep. 2 based on the Wild
Cards novels by Simone Elkeles.
(2013, September 17). YouTube. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oks51v6kXwk
Wild
Cards Ep. 3 based on the Wild Card novels by Simon Elkeles (2013, September
21). YouTube. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFrC8SSq7k4
Wild
Cards Ep. 4 FINALE based on the Wild Card novels by Simon Elkeles. (2013, September
30). YouTube. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTprmMExA6A
Simone Elkeles
Annotated
Bibliography
Annotated
Bibliography
Bush,
Elizabeth. (2006, December). How to Ruin a Summer Vacation
(review). Bulletin
of
the Center for Children Books, 60 (4), p. 167. doi: 10.1353/bcc/2006.0000. Project Muse.
Retrieved from http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/bulletin_of_the_center_for_childrens_books/v060/60.4bush01.html
Bush finds the character overdrawn, but she feels that
the tale shows how the heroine’s vacation in Israel helps her bond both with
her dad and her Jewish heritage
.
Coats,
Karen. (2009, May). Perfect
Chemistry (review). Bulletin of the Center for
Children’s
Books, 62(9), p. 36. doi: 10.1242/bcc/0098. Project
Muse. Retrieved from
Coat
notes that the stereotyped protagonists, the suburbanite
cheerleader and Hispanic gang leader/chemistry partner are both the strengths and
the weaknesses of this novel.
Creel,
Stacy. (2013). Talk dirty to me: Why books about sex and relationships belong in
libraries. SLIS
Connecting, 2(1), Article 5. Retrieved
from
Creel
cites Elkeles’ Return to Paradise and
Rules for Attraction as appropriate
novels for teaching young adults about sexual relationships.
Cummins,
Jane. (2011, Fall). What are Jewish boys
and girls made of? Gender in
contemporary Jewish
teen and tween fiction. Contemporary Children’s Literature
Association Quarterly, 36(3), 296-319. doi: 10.1356/chq/2011.0033. Project Muse.
Abstract retrieved from http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/childrens_literature_association_quarterly/v036/36.3.cummins.html
Cummins singles out Elkeles as just one of the relatively recent YA authors
who “glibly deals with Jewish identity issues” faced by a Jewish protagonist in a
contemporary setting instead of focusing on early 20th-century immigrants or
the Holocaust.
Ivey,
Gail & Johnston, Peter H. (2013, March 20).
Engagement with young adult
literature: Outcomes and
processes. Reading Research Quarterly.
doi:
10.1002/rrq.46. Wiley Online Library. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/rrq.46/abstract
Ivey and Johnston examine students’ perceptions of self-selected, self-paced reading in a
classroom setting, including a reader’s review of Perfect Chemistry.
Read
for a lifetime booklist. (2012-2013). Cyberdrive. Retrieved from
Rock,
Jeana Terry, McCollum, Amanda J., & Hesser, Gregory. Professional
Resources. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy,
53(1), 87-92. doi:
10.1598/JAAL.53.1.10. Retrieved from http://www.englishcompanion.com/pdfDocs/JAAL_Reviews_EC_Ning.pdf
The
authors mention that Elkeles “Perfect Chemistry Rap” is available for both teacher information and entertainment purposes (p. 89).
*Rules
for Attraction. (2013). Book Wizard. Scholastic. Retrieved from
*Simone
Elkeles. (2013). Goodreads.
Retrieved from
*Simone
Elkeles. (2013). Linkedin. Retrieved
from
*Simone Elkeles. (n. d.). Retrieved from http://simoneelkeles.com/about/
*Simone
Elkeles. (2014, January 14).
Wikipedia. Retrieved from
*Simone
Elkeles. (2013). Zoominfo.com. Retrieved
from
*Wild Card (Wild Crds#1) by Simone Elkeles. (2013, October 1). Goodreads. Retrieved from https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13065327-wild-cards
------
2014
Lists for Best
Young Adult Fiction
Chilton,
Martin. The 36 best young adult books of 2014. The Telegraph.
Retrieved from
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/11030589/The-best-young-adult-books-of-2014.html
For a British take on the most outstanding Young Adult novels for 2014 access this link from The Telegraph.
The following selections
make YALSA's best young adult books list for 2014.
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