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A review by hxs623
Juno Loves Legs by Karl Geary
3.75
What would happen if Just Kids by Patti Smith was set in Ireland and instead of getting famous, the characters would just get more and more sad? The answer is this book.
I have a unique place in my heart for books like Juno Loves Legs: slow, sad studies of class struggles fused with a coming-of-age narrative. Pairing children and poverty is a simple trick to make your readers cry, and I fall for it every time.
The titular character, Juno, is the novel's main strength. A temperamental, fierce young girl whose relationship with her faith, family, and best friend Legs was an ambitious attempt to summarise in 200 or so pages.
The book deals with a lot of intriguing themes: religion, platonic love, and violence. The prose is beautiful but not distractingly poetic. There is still an underlying feeling that Geary kept the narrative surface-level, the imagery a bit too on the nose, and the message too easy to decipher. At times, it felt like I was reading a creative writing assignment rather than a story someone wrote on their own accord. It left me wishing for more at the end.
As an English teacher, I kept thinking of how much my high schoolers would enjoy this novel and how it would be wonderful material for a class to teach a variety of literary devices. As a reader, though, I wished for a more balanced pacing as the passing years between the three parts were jarring, often the shifts in relationships were left unexplored and unexplained, which ultimately ended up hurting the emotional impact of the story.
My reading experience was slightly tainted by having read Just Kids a few weeks prior. It was difficult not to compare the two and notice where Juno fell short in creating a compelling female voice and establishing a deep connection not only between boy and girl, but also between book and reader.
I have a unique place in my heart for books like Juno Loves Legs: slow, sad studies of class struggles fused with a coming-of-age narrative. Pairing children and poverty is a simple trick to make your readers cry, and I fall for it every time.
The titular character, Juno, is the novel's main strength. A temperamental, fierce young girl whose relationship with her faith, family, and best friend Legs was an ambitious attempt to summarise in 200 or so pages.
The book deals with a lot of intriguing themes: religion, platonic love, and violence. The prose is beautiful but not distractingly poetic. There is still an underlying feeling that Geary kept the narrative surface-level, the imagery a bit too on the nose, and the message too easy to decipher. At times, it felt like I was reading a creative writing assignment rather than a story someone wrote on their own accord. It left me wishing for more at the end.
As an English teacher, I kept thinking of how much my high schoolers would enjoy this novel and how it would be wonderful material for a class to teach a variety of literary devices. As a reader, though, I wished for a more balanced pacing as the passing years between the three parts were jarring, often the shifts in relationships were left unexplored and unexplained, which ultimately ended up hurting the emotional impact of the story.
My reading experience was slightly tainted by having read Just Kids a few weeks prior. It was difficult not to compare the two and notice where Juno fell short in creating a compelling female voice and establishing a deep connection not only between boy and girl, but also between book and reader.