Dora: A Headcase, by Lidia Yuknavitch.
The best part about having a library is choosing a book at random and wondering why in the world you ever bought it in the first place. I had to have purchased this one in 2021 or 2022 and even today, in 2024, the summary gets to me in a way that would still probably elicit a receipt. But I’ve read it, and I hated it. The protagonist is obnoxious in a way that makes you say “Good,” when you read the unfortunate things that happen to her. The writing is choppy but still so mesmerizing at points. There are slurs that made me grossly uncomfortable, and I get it being written from a teenager’s POV so that’s likely how they talk, but still. But still.
Anyway, I can’t really reconcile how I feel about this book. I am in love with its idea and its theory, but its execution really disappointed me, and yet I still recognize its necessity as it pertains to creating avenues where teenagers can be heard and listened to and considered and loved in the way they need to be loved — not how we adults want to love them. This book did such a great job of just being a teenager (I meant to write that). And if you can wade through the weirdness of it successfully, you’ll also locate the solid point it makes of how predatory that one industry is that makes media out of pathologizing people and broadcasting them and not even helping them throughout any or all of it (see Hoarders, Intervention, The Biggest Loser, My 600lb. Life). And if that isn’t enough, this book also includes the requisite undertones of a teenager who is simply doing all of this foolishness because she hasn’t been hugged by her mom in a really, really, really long time. Art imitating life, indeed.