Paige: Hi everybody! It's Wednesday. Normally I review books by myself, but not today!
P: I have my friend Kathy here with me! Kathy: Hi!
P: So we're gonna be reviewing two books today, one on this channel and one on Kathy's
channel, so you can go and find that video in the cards up here and also in the description below.
Today on our channel we're going to be reviewing Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy because it was
one of my favorite books that I read in the last couple of months.
K: It was a good excuse for me to finally read it, because I picked it up a couple months ago.
P: Yeah, and as soon as I saw that I was like, "Yes, yes okay this is the opportunity to
actually have Kathy on our channel and to do more for your channel!"
Because, when we were in California, Sarah and I lacked in the collab area.
So Ramona Blue is about a girl named Ramona - her hair is blue. Her name is not actually Ramona Blue.
She is a working class teenager, she's a senior in high school in…Mississippi?
K: Yeah. P: Okay.
P: They talk a lot about [Hurricane] Katrina, which is a big thing here.
She has a sister who is pregnant and working, and they live in a very small house…trailer with their father.
Their whole [lives] were changed by Hurricane Katrina and Ramona is a lesbian!
She meets a friend that she's had since she was a kid.
She doesn't really have a lot of other friends, so having this character, Freddie, back in her
P: life is really important to her. K: Yeah, I love Freddie. I would be friends with him IRL.
P: Have you seen Dear White People on Netflix? K: Not yet. It's on my very long list of things to watch.
P: [laughing] There's one actor in the show - he plays Lionel - he reminds me of Freddie physically.
Like, the way that he physically plays a character reminds me of the way I read Freddie.
K: Excellent, I will already like this show. There you go.
P: I really [exaggerated] really love Ramona…for a lot of reasons.
You know, the first being that she's an LGBT[+] main protagonist.
K: I know, right?! P: She's great!
P: She deals with a lot of things in her life, and like any teenager, everything is a big deal.
P: But, like…it is for her. K: It's interesting because in a lot of these books that you'll read it's like,
"Oh, this is the biggest deal ever!" But it's something that, as an adult reader, you know is super, super trivial.
But with her, that's not necessarily the case. Her socioeconomic status,
the fact that she's a 6'3" woman? That's never gonna go away.
P: A lot of the things that I liked about Ramona's character is that a lot of her
issues deal with control and loss of control. Coming out is a form of gaining control over a part of yourself.
And so her being out is something that she has a say in and she can do what she wants with it.
K: Exactly and it's something that she's had for such a long time, too.
She came out fairly young and was one of, like, three kids in her school who did.
So she's always had that identity - or not always, but she's had it for so long that
it seems very set and, like, "This is the first thing that most of my high school peers know about me."
P: It's like one of two things that anybody that isn't her friend knows about her.
And the other is that she lives in a trailer.
As an adult and as somebody that doesn't have a lot of money myself, that's a stupid
thing for high schoolers to judge other students about, but I know that they do.
And speaking of her two friends who are the only other LGBT people in town…they're both great!
Ruth and…oh my god you reminded me of his name. K: Saul. P: Saul! Yes!
K: Ruthie and Saul - oh my god, they're the cutest siblings ever. P: I know! I love them!
And Ruth comes off very prickly, but in an endearing way.
In the kind of way that she's guarded and you know why -
in a way that Ramona refuses to be guarded.
K: Yeah, and Saul is just such and open, loving human and when he moved out, Ruthie was like,
"What the crap am I gonna do now?!" [laughs] P: Yeah, yeah.
K: She depended a lot on him being there and then he wasn't - even though he was.
It's not like he was moving out of town.
P: Julie Murphy's done a really god job to give them traits and events in their lives
that make you sympathize with them and really care for them.
Like, Ruthie is the only other lesbian in the school and Saul is…his boyfriend works
on an oil rig out in the middle of the ocean and he never knows if he's actually gonna
come home because oil rigs are really dangerous to work on.
Freddie lives with his grandparents because his parents are absent.
Actually, it's his grandmother and her new husband, and he's not super close with her new husband.
K: Any form of step-parent and now you have to get to know this new person who doesn't
mean a lot to you personally, but means a lot to somebody who means a lot to you.
P: Freddie's grandmother is the absolute best. And I don't not like her new husband.
He's not really around that much. I get the feeling that he's much more communicative with her
than he is with other characters, and that's totally fine with me.
K: As a reader, you don't get to know him very well, just like Freddie doesn't get to know him very well.
I got a super introverted vibe off him. If you spent a decent amount of time with him, you'd get to know him,
but that's not his thing. Especially [at] the baby shower, and he just…goes fishing.
K: Which is a super old-man thing to do. P: Yup!
P: One of the biggest things that really got me to read the book was a lot of reviews from,
specifically lesbians online - and this is not a judgement on lesbians
or people that didn't like the book for whatever reason. It's just a response to those reviews, mostly.
A lot of people were complaining that it was toxic to lesbians because it was about a character
who identifies as a lesbian - THIS IS A SPOILER ALERT [jump to: 7:53:14] - at the beginning
of the book, and by the end of the book, [does] not.
There were a lot of people that were saying that Freddie is the magical straight guy that
comes into Ramona's life and changes everything for her, and suddenly she's cured of her
"gayness" which is not actually what happens in this book.
K: No. If you actually read the book, you know that it's made very clear that she's like,
"No, I still really like girls. I don't know exactly what label I wanna use - if it's bi, if it's pan, if it's just queer.
"...I like girls, and I also happen to like this boy." P: Yes.
K: And I can identify with that from the other side of bisexuality.
If I had to put labels on the two binaries - because that's a whole other issue - I'd
be like maybe 90% men, 10% women, but then also I'm Demi, so I just don't like anyone
[laughs] until I get to know them!
P: I think a lot of the conversation that needs to happen surrounding this book needs
to focus on how sexual fluidity works into the narrative, and how that coincides with adolescence
and life, basically, and how that's totally okay to face within our life.
So I think a lot of those reviews were very quick to just jump to conclusions.
And I don't know if a lot of those people actually finished the book.
K: I can see a lot of people maybe got part way through the book, got to them getting together
and going, "Nope! I thought this was about a lesbian but she's kissing a man and I just don't understand!"
P: The blurb basically tells you that she's into girls, Freddie comes in, she's confused,
and I think a lot of people can get turned off by that. I think even I was a little bit turned off by that.
I still bought the book and wanted to read it because I really like Julie Murphy.
K: One of the things that she made sure of when she was writing Freddie's character
was that it was very important to her that it was somebody from Ramona's past and not
just some magical straight dude who comes to town and changes the lesbian.
She was like, "No, that is not the narrative. This is somebody that she's known since childhood
K: and the feelings grow." P: It's somebody that she has an emotional connection to.
K: Exactly. It's not just some "magical" dude.
P: And like I said before, she has Ruthie and Saul and her sister, but otherwise she
doesn't have a lot of friends and she makes a point to say, "I don't really talk to
people at school because they judge me based on these two things."
So Freddie coming back into her life is not only, like, she has an emotional past with
him, but also he accepts her regardless of what the other kids at school are saying about her.
K: Yeah, because before school started, she was super afraid that he was going to get
to school, realize what a "loser" she was in everyone else's eyes, and then not
like her anymore and she would go back to just having two friends instead of three friends.
But that's not what happens because he knew her ahead of time and already liked her as a human.
P: He's not the magical black character that comes in and not only subverts stereotypes
but breaks her free of the LGBT chains or whatever. Freddie is also a flawed character.
He's also a round character that comes in and moves things. I wanted to hug Ramona
every other page because…such a sad child.
K: Yeah, and she's constantly having to take care of her older sister who is pregnant.
And the father [of her sister's baby] seems like…not a great human.
P: His mom I liked a lot, even though she's only there for about five minutes of the whole book.
K: Yeah, she seemed pretty into it which was great because it seemed like
she wasn't going to be at all. It always just baffles me.
P: There's only one adult character in this that I don't like, and that's Ramona's mother.
She's the deadbeat not-great mom. But then you have, like, he's not overbearing, but
Ramona's father is very caring, quiet and passive but not because he's a deadbeat dad,
he just has a lot going on for himself.
K: Yeah, you did not get to see him a lot on the page because he's working all the time,
but when you do see him, you know he's there for them. You know he cares.
P: He does what he can for them, which is, unfortunately, living in a trailer and working
ungodly hours in a hotel because they live in a beach town.
They're obviously right on the coast because they're worried about hurricanes destroying
the town, they have a beach that Ramona goes swimming at. Which, swimming, that's another big thing
in this book. Is water not… generally associated with healing?
K: Water with healing, also fluidity, because the sexual fluidity of the character, the
fluidity of situations based on things like the weather. The weather plays such a big part in this,
not just in the past of the characters, but also it does things during the course of the book.
P: It also comes in and literally moves things, but also moves Ramona as a character.
K: I really loved that her going swimming with Freddie was another thing to add to her
schedule, but really it's the only time she has to herself - when she was swimming laps.
It is such a solitary thing to do, even though you're doing it at the same time as other people.
P: Because, unfortunately we're not mermaids.
Or at least Ramona's not a mermaid, so she can't talk underwater.
So the weather comes in and moves things and is a sign of fluidity and healing, in a way
that the characters aren't, and I like that specifically people aren't meant to directly
change Ramona as a person. It's not Freddie coming in and being a Manic Pixie Dream Boy
and saying all these great things to Ramona and making her feel good about herself.
It's just him being a genuinely good person.
The weather and the pool don't have words and they can't talk to her so they're
not the ones that are telling her to change, it's just a natural occurrence that happens to her.
K: Over time, like weather does. P: Exactly.
K: Any final thoughts? P: I love this book.
I wrote a very nice review of it on Goodreads as soon as I was done reading, just to be
like, "A lot of these complaints are valid in the context of the greater literary world.
Not necessarily for this book specifically, but I digress.
K: I think as soon as you finished reading this, you were just like, "Oh my god! This book is so great!
"Everyone needs to read it!" And I was like, "I will put that on my super long mental list of things to look into."
Then I saw it when I went on my road trip and went to Powell's and I was like, "That is mine now!"
P: So those are our thoughts on Ramona Blue, which, if you haven't read it, you definitely should.
Thank you so much for watching this video! If you liked it, please give it a thumbs up.
In the comments below, let us know what your thoughts on Ramona Blue were if you've read
it, or if you've read Dumplin' let me know that as well because I love Dumplin'.
If you're not already subscribed to The Princess and the Scrivener, please do so down
below, especially if you'd liked to see more videos on Disney, intersectional feminism,
pop culture critiques, and more! And if you're not subscribed to Kathy, either, go ahead and do that!
Her channel is in the cards, as well as below in the description.
She does lots of BookTube videos, so if you like books, definitely follow Kathy.
The Scrivener will see you next week!
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