Monthly Archives: September 2008

Do any other readers have trouble at the beginning of a book establishing the speaker’s gender? I always seem to immediately assume the speaker is a female — but Getting the Girl by Susan Juby is narrated by Sherman Mack, a ninth grader at Harewood Technical School. He’s just started High School, and as he lusts over a new friend Dini, his best friend Vanessa (and all the other girls at Harewood) are terrified of being Defiled. No, we’re not talking about sexual molestation, we’re talking about social alienation. Every so often a girl’s picture shows up on the mirrors of the bathroom with a D for “defiled” written on it. Then the rumours start, and eventually everyone starts ignoring her — the Defiled become invisible. When Dini starts going out with Lester (a popular lacrosse player, affectionately nicknamed “Lester the Molester”), Sherman takes it upon himself to protect her. When he ends up just making an utter fool of himself, Vanessa suggests that he investigate the Defilings and stop them. Sherman agrees thinking that if he uncovers the Defilers and save Dini from social alienation, he’ll win her affection. However, it gets much more complicated than that, and much more dangerous… can boys get Defiled? The social commentary in this book is very strong. It shows how just a small rumour or embarrassing photo can get out of hand very quickly. I think that this is an important element to the book, and if a class was to study [...]