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YA Book Review: Beat The Band

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Title: Beat The Band
Author: Don Calame
Author’s Website: www.doncalame.com
My Age Recommendation: 14+
Publisher: Templar Publishing
Publication Date: February 2012
Pages: 432
Rating: 3/5

AMAZON SYNOPSIS
In this hilarious sequel to Swim the Fly, told from Coop’s point of view, it’s the beginning of the school year, and the tenth-grade health class must work in pairs on semester-long projects. Matt and Sean get partnered up (the jerks), but Coop is matched with the infamous “Hot Dog” Helen for a presentation on safe sex. Everybody’s laughing, except for Coop, who’s convinced that the only way to escape this social death sentence is to win “The Battle of the Bands” with their group, Arnold Murphy’s Bologna Dare. There’s just one problem: none of the guys actually plays an instrument. Will Coop regain his “cool” before it’s too late? Or will the forced one-on-one time with Helen teach him a lesson about social status he never saw coming?

BEN’S REVIEW
Don Calame does one daring thing with Beat The Band. He chooses a protagonist who’s kind of a douche. It’s the one brave decision in an otherwise formulaic, if entertaining novel.

Coop – the wacky sidekick from Swim The Fly – is elevated to pole position here, so much so in fact that the rest of the gang are barely mentioned other than to drive the plot forward. He’s a collection of big ideas and self-created slang, the kind of person who thinks the world should bow down before him and can’t understand why they don’t.

With his first novel, Calame struggled with writing the female characters, but that’s something he’s managed to overcome here. Helen Harriwick has echoes of Diane Court from Say Anything, a girl hemmed in by public perception and desperate to cast off those shackles. Helen’s journey here is more interesting than Coop’s, though his obliviousness to her plight rings scarily true.

Calame has captured the solipsism of teenage boys to a tee in Coop, a kid who happily undermines the girl who both fancies him and offers him salvation through her singing ability. But Coop’s blinkers – and the way in which teenagers can perpetuate a stereotype even when no-one really understands why they’re doing so – is accurate and clever.

Still, the author falls foul of a rudimentary plot and whisper-thin supporting characters (another hangover from his time as a screenwriter) and it’s still not very funny, even if the final hurrah will satisfy (kind of) every geek who wanted to inherit the Earth.

As with Swim The Fly there is a suggestion of something deeper here, bullying for example, but I imagine Calame is quite happy for his audience to simply pile through a book which is slightly overlong though very pacey.

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REVIEW: Swim The Fly by Don Calame

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Synopsis
Fifteen-year-old Matt Gratton and his two best friends, Coop and Sean, always set themselves a summertime goal. This year’s? To see a real-live naked girl for the first time. But this mission impossible starts to look easy in comparison to Matt’s other challenge: to swim the 100-yard butterfly and impress the gorgeous Kelly West.

Ben’s Review 
As someone of the male persuasion, it’s always pleasing when a book of the non-action, non-supernatural variety about teen boys plops through the letterbox. Amazingly, despite the success on-screen of The Inbetweeners, Superbad et al., the YA male-skewed comic novel still continues to be a rarity, particularly in this country, where it’s practically non-existent. One male YA author told me that his comic boy novels are mostly read by girls anyway, which is probably why publishers aren’t all that keen.

Swim The Fly is by an American author (who lives in Canada) and it’s certainly a valiant stab at sating the appetites of those who wish their male protagonists to be average kids, rather than ones affected by illness, bereavement or vampirism.

The central trio of friends feel real and while the conceit is something we’ve seen a million times before (kid gets good at something to snog the girl of his dreams), there’s a reason it’s a format revisited over and over again. It works dramatically. 


Where author Don Calame (a former Hollywood scriptwriter) falls down is in his throwaway handling of Kelly West, the perfect woman protagonist Matt is supposed to be changing his life for. She doesn’t feel real and you never get a sense that a relationship is ever on the cards. She’s immediately cast as a superficial buffoon, which you can get away with in a movie, but not in a 300-plus page novel.

Personally, I didn’t find it all that funny, despite my penchant for toilet humour (of which there is plenty). And there’s a sense Calame is throwing too many ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks, rather than trying to get into the heads of these characters. That’s why the banter works, but the emotions don’t.

Ultimately, that’s the difference between a decent romp, which this is – and something a little more impactful. Still, it’s the author’s first go and it’ll be interesting to see where he heads.

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INTERVIEW: Kody Keplinger, author of The DUFF

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Kody Keplinger wrote her YA book, The DUFF while still at high school in Kentucky. Standing for Designated Ugly Fat Friend, it’s about 17-year-0ld Bianca Piper, who ends up falling for a man she hates. It’s been optioned as a potential movie, with the involvement of McG, the director of Charlie’s Angels amongst many others. Her second book, Shut Out, will be out later this year.

Did you have a movie of your book in mind when you were writing it?

While I always write somewhat cinematically – seeing how the scenes would play out in live action as I put the words on paper – I definitely didn’t think of THE DUFF as ever being a film. At least not one outside of my head. I was honestly completely shocked when I learned that anyone was interested in adapting it to film.

Do you think “teen” films, which by their nature are generally PG and appealing to the widest possible audience, can adequately deal with the complexities of a YA novel?

I think a lot of it really just depends on multiple factors – the book in question, the person adapting, the studio’s vision for the project, etc. There are some wonderful adaptations of YA novels into teen movies out there, ones that capture the books perfectly. I definitely think it’s possible if all the right factors are in place.

How are you finding the process of book to film?

In my case, it’s been a lot about patience. I knew going in that an “option” didn’t necessarily mean a film would happen, but that a producer was interested. That interest, for me, was flattering enough. While my fingers are crossed for the best, I’m honored enough that by the option, so the waiting game is well worth it.

To what extent are you involved in the production, or are you of the Tom Wolfe-style belief you should take the cheque and then let the film be its own thing?

I’m not very involved at this point, which is, for now, how I prefer it. I don’t know enough about film to be involved, and the people handling the production are the experts. I”m content to sit back and see what they decide to do!

Do you have actors you think would be good for the movie in your head? If so, who?

As I said before, I write with a film reel going in my head, so I tend to cast almost everything I write, just to get a good image. When it comes to THE DUFF, I always envisioned either Ellen Page (Juno) or Mae Whitman (Parenthood) in the role of Bianca. That said, I love to see who others would cast because one of the best parts of writing a book is seeing how it is interpreted by others. I’ve had a few fans write to me and say they imagined Emma Stone in the lead role!

Is it potentially damaging that YA books are so popular for the movies right now that people might be writing them specifically because they think they’d be good films, rather than as a novel in their own right?

I guess it’s just hard for me to imagine someone doing that – writing a book just so it becomes a film. Seems a bit of a waste when they could just write the screenplay! The way I see it, if it’s a good book, it’s a good book, no matter the intent of the author. That said, I wouldn’t encourage anyone to write YA with film hopes, I’d encourage them to write it because they honestly love the genre.

Why do you think that YA books are so popular in Hollywood right now, when previously teen flicks have tended to be original stories (John Hughes etc.)?

YA is booming right now. From Twilight to the Hunger Games, the entire genre is just exploding. I think it’s because there are so many wonderful books being published in the genre right now, books that interest teens and adults alike. Clearly, Hollywood producers have noticed the boom, too, and have seen what wonderful material is out there. How could any producer read The Hunger Games and NOT want to make it into a movie?  I think the abundance of great storytelling in YA is catching attention from everyone, and I’m eager to see the awesome films that come out of it.

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