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A review by solaria
A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing by Jessie Tu
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
I found the prose very boring. Nothing is shown. Everything is told. I don't have a problem with first-person perspective, but Jenna is such a boring protagonist. There's no opportunity to learn things about other characters or environments because she tells everything as it is, but without descriptive detail. Her environments are just given names with no physical descriptions and the supporting characters are extremely one-dimensional. But hey, at least we got an overly sexualised description of what they look like when they're first introduced! I know Jenna herself is a very monotone and "dry"(?) character, but damn her world seems so boring and unnoteworthy. Dialogue between characters is also very stale. And...my god, there is so much sexual content. A LOT is unnecessary. It felt like there was a sexual encounter in every chapter. It could've been cut down significantly. Most of these sex scenes taught me very little about the characters involved and contributed nothing to the story.
Jenna is a complicated character, which I liked, but she had ZERO growth. She didn't learn from her mistakes until the very end, and even then it's debatable if she really learnt anything. Her actions are clearly influenced by her upbringing where her mother was a manager instead of a parental figure, and her father was absent. I liked this, it's interesting and explains a lot! Most of her actions, which hurt people and herself, can be somewhat justified by her childhood and background. Yes, she's still wrong and definitely doing the wrong thing, but her loneliness, desperation, and upbringing can explain why she's making these decisions.
I wish that her travel to New York and feeling more at home in that city was used to make her realise that she needs to own up to her actions, the people she's hurt and herself and turn her life around. Instead, she continues to say "Sydney's bad, all my problems are in Sydney" and makes the exact same mistakes in New York. It makes her an incredibly frustrating narrator. I don't have a problem with reading the perspectives of characters who do bad things and aren't likeable, but my problem with Jenna is that she never grows. The only other character who calls her out is Olivia - and while Olivia definitely didn't call her out the right way - Jenna blames Olivia for the mistakes SHE is making. Characters like Val aid Jenna's worsening spiral and it's very annoying to see her wonder why she's lonely when all she does is push away the people who care and self-loathes by having sex, playing the violin for hours or watching porn.
She treats her friends and the people around her terribly and never apologises for it. She gets everything she wants, and if she doesn't, the narrative finds a way for her to get it anyway. Seriously, the ending was so bullshit. She wasn't accepted into the American orchestra, and I thought this would FINALLY be her wake-up call. It isn't. Nope. Somehow a friend finds a workaround for her to head back to the US. Great. Just great. Also, the "build-up" to her getting the phone call about the orchestra position was laughably predictable. She kept going on and on about how confident she was, and other characters reassured her that she'd get what she wants in the end. Of course, she'd get rejected after all that build-up, it was so obviously coming.
I was also not a fan of the implications surrounding sexual encounters and discrimination. It's no secret throughout that Mark is a Grade-A misogynist and racist. Jenna acknowledges this but ignores his problematic opinions about women and minorities just so she has someone to distract her from her loneliness via sex. Mark also repeatedly sexually assaults her and doesn't ask for her consent to perform certain sexual acts, but it is never treated as a bad thing. I don't know if any of these ideas - that being ignoring boundaries and also problematic behaviour - is the smartest idea to send to young adults who might be in vulnerable or lonely positions??
The book tries to tackle racism and misogyny in the music industry, although I don't think the execution was great. The themes felt too forced because Jenna never shows any real interest in them. Instead, they come off as weird observations she makes that add no new insights. If the book had more to say about racism and misogyny in the music industry, I wouldn't have this opinion. Instead, it regurgitates things we already know and have for many years now. I think a better route would be to explore these issues through Jenna's porn addiction and relationship with Mark.
Some other things I could point out are that I can't write whole paragraphs about:
- The ending was extremely anticlimactic and frustrating. Its only purpose is to set up a sequel that I don't think is necessary. The author quickly wraps everything up clumsily, and it takes away from what could've been a decent ending that had Jenna learning from her mistakes and finally growing.
- I liked the exploration of Jenna's music career. It was the most compelling aspect of the book and I wish the author did more with it. I wanted more scenes of Jenna as a teenage prodigy or in the American orchestra. Instead, we get dozens of unnecessary sex scenes. Also, because the book pivots towards a very dull ending that is open-ended, we don't get any closure about her music career.
- The big reveal about her mother doing that study when she was a baby was random. I think it was supposed to be the emotional climax that informed me of why their relationship is so strained. But it fell flat and didn't offer the information I was craving about Jenna's mother.
- The whole bit about Jenna wanting to be raped was concerning and very weird??
- Why did her peers in the orchestra not have names? Why was Tuba called Tuba the whole time, or is Oboe called Oboe? I can't remember if their names were said at all, but if they were, why were they just referred to by the instruments they played?
Jenna is a complicated character, which I liked, but she had ZERO growth. She didn't learn from her mistakes until the very end, and even then it's debatable if she really learnt anything. Her actions are clearly influenced by her upbringing where her mother was a manager instead of a parental figure, and her father was absent. I liked this, it's interesting and explains a lot! Most of her actions, which hurt people and herself, can be somewhat justified by her childhood and background. Yes, she's still wrong and definitely doing the wrong thing, but her loneliness, desperation, and upbringing can explain why she's making these decisions.
I wish that her travel to New York and feeling more at home in that city was used to make her realise that she needs to own up to her actions, the people she's hurt and herself and turn her life around. Instead, she continues to say "Sydney's bad, all my problems are in Sydney" and makes the exact same mistakes in New York. It makes her an incredibly frustrating narrator. I don't have a problem with reading the perspectives of characters who do bad things and aren't likeable, but my problem with Jenna is that she never grows. The only other character who calls her out is Olivia - and while Olivia definitely didn't call her out the right way - Jenna blames Olivia for the mistakes SHE is making. Characters like Val aid Jenna's worsening spiral and it's very annoying to see her wonder why she's lonely when all she does is push away the people who care and self-loathes by having sex, playing the violin for hours or watching porn.
She treats her friends and the people around her terribly and never apologises for it. She gets everything she wants, and if she doesn't, the narrative finds a way for her to get it anyway. Seriously, the ending was so bullshit. She wasn't accepted into the American orchestra, and I thought this would FINALLY be her wake-up call. It isn't. Nope. Somehow a friend finds a workaround for her to head back to the US. Great. Just great. Also, the "build-up" to her getting the phone call about the orchestra position was laughably predictable. She kept going on and on about how confident she was, and other characters reassured her that she'd get what she wants in the end. Of course, she'd get rejected after all that build-up, it was so obviously coming.
I was also not a fan of the implications surrounding sexual encounters and discrimination. It's no secret throughout that Mark is a Grade-A misogynist and racist. Jenna acknowledges this but ignores his problematic opinions about women and minorities just so she has someone to distract her from her loneliness via sex. Mark also repeatedly sexually assaults her and doesn't ask for her consent to perform certain sexual acts, but it is never treated as a bad thing. I don't know if any of these ideas - that being ignoring boundaries and also problematic behaviour - is the smartest idea to send to young adults who might be in vulnerable or lonely positions??
The book tries to tackle racism and misogyny in the music industry, although I don't think the execution was great. The themes felt too forced because Jenna never shows any real interest in them. Instead, they come off as weird observations she makes that add no new insights. If the book had more to say about racism and misogyny in the music industry, I wouldn't have this opinion. Instead, it regurgitates things we already know and have for many years now. I think a better route would be to explore these issues through Jenna's porn addiction and relationship with Mark.
Some other things I could point out are that I can't write whole paragraphs about:
- The ending was extremely anticlimactic and frustrating. Its only purpose is to set up a sequel that I don't think is necessary. The author quickly wraps everything up clumsily, and it takes away from what could've been a decent ending that had Jenna learning from her mistakes and finally growing.
- I liked the exploration of Jenna's music career. It was the most compelling aspect of the book and I wish the author did more with it. I wanted more scenes of Jenna as a teenage prodigy or in the American orchestra. Instead, we get dozens of unnecessary sex scenes. Also, because the book pivots towards a very dull ending that is open-ended, we don't get any closure about her music career.
- The big reveal about her mother doing that study when she was a baby was random. I think it was supposed to be the emotional climax that informed me of why their relationship is so strained. But it fell flat and didn't offer the information I was craving about Jenna's mother.
- The whole bit about Jenna wanting to be raped was concerning and very weird??
- Why did her peers in the orchestra not have names? Why was Tuba called Tuba the whole time, or is Oboe called Oboe? I can't remember if their names were said at all, but if they were, why were they just referred to by the instruments they played?
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Sexual harassment
Moderate: Racism and Sexism