White Lines Review

TITLE White Lines
AUTHOR Jennifer Banash
PUBLICATION April 4th 2013 by Putnam Juvenile
READ March 06 to 07, 2013
SOURCE From Penguin USA for review

A gritty, atmospheric coming of age tale set in 1980s New York City.

Seventeen-year-old Cat is living every teenager’s dream: she has her own apartment on the Lower East Side and at night she’s club kid royalty, guarding the velvet rope at some of the hottest clubs in the city. The night with its crazy, frenetic, high-inducing energy—the pulsing beat of the music, the radiant, joyful people and those seductive white lines that can ease all pain—is when Cat truly lives. But her daytime, when real life occurs, is more nightmare than dream. Having spent years suffering her mother’s emotional and physical abuse, and abandoned by her father, Cat is terrified and alone—unable to connect to anyone or anything. But when someone comes along who makes her want to truly live, she’ll need to summon the courage to confront her demons and take control of a life already spinning dangerously out of control.

Both poignant and raw, White Lines is a gripping tale and the reader won’t want to look away.

We all know that I have an intense relationship with YA contemporary issue books, so you can imagine my surprise when I sat back to think about it and realized that I had never read one that dealt with drug abuse. I’ve read all kinds of issue books; eating disorders, physical abuse and emotional abuse, among others, but White Lines is my first venture into drug abuse territory. I hadn’t been too sure what to expect with this one as I had read nobody's thoughts on it nor had I seen any number ratings for it and I have to say that that whole experience was very "middle-of-the-road" for me.

Cat lives in New York and is a “club kid”; she works the door at the underground clubs and is not afraid to put anything up her nose. She hasn’t had the easiest of lives, with an abusive, mentally ill mother and a father who doesn’t give a crap, she has ended up living in downtown New York in her own apartment at 17 years old. I felt bad for her, when it was deemed that she could no longer live with her mother her father simply signed a lease and never even entertained the idea of her going to live with him and his new girlfriend. Being thrown away like that at such a young age has taken it’s toll on Cat and she has been losing herself in her nightlife. I think Cat’s way of dealing with her situation was handled really well; she has a lot of issues with intimacy and just conversing with others. She has a few good friends who are there for her along the way in Giovanni and Sara. I liked both of these characters. Giovanni was pretty cliche as the gay best friend who is always dressing her, but I loved how present he was in her life and his willingness to hold her hair as she vomitted at 4 AM. I loved Sara for her brutal honestly, she didn’t sugar coat things and when Cat was acting like an idiot she was the first to let her know.

While I did like the characters in the novel, I think what I took issue with the most is the pacing. There was a lot of reminiscing right in the middle of scenes. Cat would pick up the phone, hear her mother say “hello” and then we would go into a two page memory from when she was living with her mother before getting back to the conversation. This happened a lot and while I did enjoy getting the back story in the beginning, it became quite draining from the middle on because I just wanted to the story to progress, to actually go somewhere. There isn’t much of a plot here, it’s more the story of some time in Cat’s life as she slowly delves down to rock-bottom. I appreciated watching this unfold, but I was constantly in a state where I wished I had something to look forward to, an end point that I could work with I guess. It felt a little aimless at times I guess is what I am trying to say.

There is a bit of romance here and even hints of a love triangle. Not too much happened in this department because of Cat’s inability to open up but I did really like her time with Juliann and watching her figure out that she was being an idiot with the creepy Christoph. I did enjoy this glimpse into Cat’s life and the ’80’s references were pretty fun but I found myself getting bored from about the 50% mark on. I would have liked a bit more of a story and little less back story. This was a touching read about a young girl forced to grow up way too young, but one that I don’t think I will remember a month down the road.