Audacious by Gabrielle Prendergast

Audacious is a bold story about a girl struggling to understand herself, her place in the world and deal with the many problems in her life.

Sixteen year old Raphaelle's family moves to the wide open prairies when her father gets a new job as a professor of history at a university. Their new home is spacious, allowing Raphaelle and her younger sister Michaela to choose their own rooms. Life is supposed to be better, a fresh start for everyone.

Raphaelle is eager to move given that she has had a history of problems and acting out at all of her many previous schools. In an attempt to start over and remake herself, she changes her name to Ella and insists on attending the nearest public school, John Cretchly Collegiate rather than the Catholic one her parents want to send her and Michaela to. Michaela also decides to shorten her name to Kayli and will attend the Catholic Girls School.

Through a series of flashbacks told throughout the novel, we learn that Ella's family has had its share of struggles; Ella's mother lost a baby, a little boy named Gabriel shortly after he was born. Her mother has never seemed to recover from this loss which left her unable to have more children. She was a stay at home mom, but found it difficult to cope and so went out to work at the local public library. But in their new town, there are no jobs at the library and she begins to lose weight. Ella begins to suspect that her mother's struggle with bulimia has returned yet again. While all of this has been going on, Ella's father is mostly uninvolved, his focus being on trying to build his career as a professor.

On her first day at school, no one talks to Ella. She decides that there will be no pranks, vengeful practical jokes - nothing inappropriate, no challenging anyone's beliefs or morals. Ella will be the good girl; she will avoid controversy and blend in. In contrast to Ella, is Kayli, popular and happy, the sister who brings home two new friends the first week of school.

Ms. Sagal, Ella's art teacher is impressed by her drawing of a mandala. Sam, a boy in Ella's class also draws a mandala. Their serious approach to art attracts the attention of two classmates, Eugenia whom Ella nicknames "Freckle Arms" and a second girl she calls "Puffy Blonde". Sam and Ella are drawn to one another but their interest is affected by the strong cultural differences between them. Sam, as it turns out, is short for Samir and he is Muslim, the exact type of boyfriend Ella's family would not approve of. Sam tells Ella that he is serious about his faith, but that his family used to be more moderate until the 9-11 event.

Ms. Sagal tells Sam and Ella that she is in need of more pieces for the art exhibit. Ella who is struggling to cope with all the problems at home, reverts back to her bad behaviour and decides to do something controversial. The impetus for this comes from Sam whom Ella tricked into whispering into her ear resulting in him calling her "audacious". This gives Ella the idea for her art piece - nine pictures of women who go against convention. She will use the letters in the word, "audacious" to determine the subject of each picture. A will be Arab, u stands for unemployed, d for disabled and so forth. However, Ella has a shocking idea for the letter "c" - a crass, four letter slang to describe a part of the female body. Ms.Sagal approves of Ella's idea, without knowing about the subject matter for the letter "c".

Ms. Sagal's interest in Ella leads her to breakdown and confide in her teacher, telling her about the loss of Gabriel, her mother's bulimia and her father's refusal to acknowledge the problems within their family.

Ella begins her project, photographing various people for each of the letters in the word, "audacious", including Sam's older sister, Hala who represents "arab", Ms. Sagal's daughter, Marika who is disabled for the letter "d", and a homeless woman named the Phantom for the letter u which stands for ugly. For the letter "c", Ella takes a picture of her own body. Ella hangs all of her pictures but one up the day before the exhibition, returning early the next day to place the "c" picture in her artwork. Her idea is that although we use these different words to describe women, in reality these words are not who we are; in reality we are all very similar.

As it turns out, Ella is not the only student with a controversial piece of art. Samir's art is a statement for the creation of a Palestine homeland - controversial but not pornographic like Ella's work. While Ella's work is shocking, and Ms. Sagal seems to approve, the offending picture is removed from Ella's art, but the fallout is just beginning. One of the students takes a picture of the "c" picture and posts it to Facebook. Considered child pornography, Ella is arrested and charged and Ms. Sagal is suspended. This happens all before Christmas but only leads to a crisis of epic proportions within Ella's family. Her mother, whose bulimia is now life-threatening ends up in hospital and Kayli, the only seemingly perfect person in the family is failing in school. This crisis provokes their father to finally notice that the family is deeply in trouble and to act.

Can Ella come to terms with who she is and with the realities of life? Can she and her family pull back from the abyss they find themselves teetering over and find a way to heal and help one another?

Discussion

This novel in verse is well written, the prose sometimes rhyming and very well done. The subject matter is for more mature, older teens and touches on themes of bullying, forgiveness, acceptance, and identity. The theme of identity is especially reflected in Ella's journey of discovering and accepting herself and is also mirrored in Samir, a Muslim who experiences conflict between the personal freedoms secular society offers and the duties his Muslim faith requires of him.

Facing a crisis in school, charges in court and a deteriorating relationship with Samir, as well as her art provoking a possible hate crime, Ella questions the suffering people experience in life and the existence of God. She also begins to comprehend the consequences of her actions not only for herself but also for others who were innocent. The reality of this doesn't sink in until she goes to visit Ms. Sagal who has been suspended over the art exhibit. Ella sees that she is a single mom who needs her job to be able to support her disabled daughter and that's when she begins to think about somebody besides herself. This is a significant step in her journey towards maturity.

The theme of identity is especially prominent in the novel and Prendergast employs the pink chiffon dress that Ella mentions at the beginning of the novel as its symbol. Prior to their move to the country, Ella as Raphaelle discovered this pink dress at thrift store and loved the long sleeves and high collar as well its bright colour. The dress becomes a symbol of her identity - her desire to not conform to please others and a symbol of her rebellion. Raphaelle wore this "floaty, hot pink vintage dress/To a black and white ball...", making her stand out in a sea of black. The other girls in junior high lured her into a room underneath the stairs with a bottle of whisky and then locked her there, until her dad came with the police to rescue her. 

With the move and the fresh start, Ella decides to give the dress away, but Kayli rescues it, recognizing that it is an integral part of who Ella really is. When Ella is packing to run away with Samir to New York, she discovers the dress and decides to keep it, recognizing and accepting what her sister did months ago. As proof of this, Ella decides to wear this dress to the Phantom lady - Charlotte Connelly's  funeral. Charlotte Connelly was a woman who lived life on her own terms - even if that meant being on the street. Given the significance of the pink dress to Ella's life and to her inner struggle, its unfortunate that the cover art doesn't really capture that significance, especially given the title of the novel. For someone like Ella, a more flamboyant pink dress might have worked to engage readers.

Prendergast tackles many controversial topics in Audacious including the "Arab question", art vs. pornography, and the feminist notion of a woman's right to control her own body, as well as the nature of suffering and the existence of God. Despite all these weighty issues, the story doesn't feel bloated with too much substance because Raphaelle is a character who seems to be truly struggling to figure herself out. Her questions about the nature of God and suffering are especially pertinent because many people, not just teens, struggle to understand this mystery and it is often a serious roadblock to faith.

Audacious is the first in a series of books, the second to be titled, "Capricious", which seems fitting given the ending of this novel. 

Book Details:
Audacious by Gabrielle Prendergast
Victoria, B.C.: Orca Book Publishers 2013
327 pp.

The Opposite of Hallelujah by Anna Jarzab

Sixteen year old Caroline Mitchell, known as Caro is angry that her older sister, Hannah is coming home to live after an eight year absence. Hannah left home at the age of nineteen to enter the Sisters of Grace, a fictitious contemplative order located in Middleton, Indiana. Narrated by Caro, The Opposite of Hallelujah begins her story when she was nine and told classmates at her Catholic school that her older sister was dead, earning her the nickname "Caroliar". When Caro's parents confronted her over her lie, she tried to defend her actions. She has now rationalized her behaviour those many years ago by indicating that she was never given the words to know exactly what happened to Hannah.

Now in high school, Caro doesn't want her sister home and she doesn't want to go with her parents to meet Hannah at the train station. Caro hasn't seen her in four years, having refused to visit Hannah at the convent. Caro's parents haven't said much about why Hannah has left Sisters of Grace so Caro doesn't really know what has happened to cause her to leave.

But when Hannah arrives home it is obvious that something is terribly wrong with her. In Caro's words, Hannah "looked gaunt and drawn, tired and pale and fragile, like a porcelain doll that had been badly propped in its stand." Neither her parents nor Hannah will really open up about about what is going on. When Father Bob comes to the house for a visit, Caro is at first cynical towards him but after talking to him, she wishes her sister would talk to their priest.

Caro's personal life isn't going so well either. Her boyfriend Derek is also returning home at the end of the summer after being away for almost two months at camp. Caro wanted to meet him instead of going to pick up Hannah but that wasn't an option. So when he doesn't call or text her, she calls her friends Reb and Erin to ask them if she's going to get dumped by Derek. In an attempt to beat Derek to the punch, Caro shows up at his house to break up with him only to have him break up with her first.

But this frees Caro to forge a friendship with a much more interesting and caring boy named Pawel Sobczak, who speaks Polish and French. At first Caro isn't too open with Pawel about her family, carefully avoiding any mention of having an older sister and not inviting him over. But eventually she can't hide this fact forever, and Pawel guesses that she is not an only child. In order not to look mean and uncaring and so as not to have to explain her sister's difficult situation, Caro once again takes to lying. She tells Pawel that her older sister has just returned from working in the Peace Corps in Africa. This is a lie that will come back later on to haunt her.

Meanwhile at home, Hannah's fragile emotional condition continues to spiral downwards. She spends most of her time in her room and doesn't eat much. When Caro is asked by her mother to clean her bedroom closet (what mother doesn't ask her daughter to do this?) she discovers some of Hannah's old boxes in the garage. It is there that Caro unearths a hint of what may be troubling her sister.

Eventually, everything comes to a head in Caro's relationships with Pawel and Hannah. Caro's parents insist she invite Pawel over for dinner and it is at the family table that Caro's lie comes back to haunt her. When her family learns what she has done they are horrified. This time Caro cannot claim she doesn't have the words to understand. She must face up to why she keeps lying about her sister. Caro's explanations to Pawel ring hollow and destroy his trust in her. Caro is forced to finally talk to Hannah and apologize.

When Caro seeks out Father Bob for "confession" he helps her understand that her choice to lie has repercussions, some of which might be permanent. Caro is worried she is not a good person, but Father Bob tells her that this choice and that her past choices do not dictate her future. He also suggests that God's universe is a work in progress and suggests that Caro try creating something instead of always destroying things. Can Caro redeem herself and heal her relationship with Pawel? More importantly, can she discover what happened to Hannah and help her and her family heal?

After Caro confronts Hannah about what happened years ago, Hannah becomes seriously anorexic, requiring hospitalization and a feeding tube. Caro's conversations with Father Bob help her to understand how Hannah may have ended up so ill and how to help her.

Discussion

The Opposite of Hallelujah handles the unusual premise of a young woman returning home after leaving the convent with sensitivity and in a refreshing way. The positive portrayal of a Catholic priest has to be one of the outstanding features of The Opposite of Hallelujah. Father Bob of St. Robert's Parish (an unfortunate co-incidence of names) is a genuinely caring priest who through his conversations with Caro, intelligently discusses, some very heavy concepts including free will, discerning the will of God, the nature of the universe, the different types of religious life, and the complementarity between science and faith, the nature of forgiveness and suffering and guilt.

Their relationship is probably the most interesting in the novel. Caro is initially quite cynical and even a bit disrespectful towards Father Bob. He doesn't have any profound words of wisdom for her. But she finds herself seeking answers to tough questions from him and it is through intelligent discussion with Father Bob that Caro begins to understand her sister and many other things too.

Caro doesn't really understand what her sister's contemplative order was like and why her sister might have joined one. Through Father Bob, readers learn what a contemplative order is (the focus of the vocation is prayer) and how it differs from active orders which work in teaching and nursing for example. Father Bob doesn't have the answer as to why Hannah might have joined a contemplative order. He does offer some interesting ideas though, 'It appears that the contemplative life didn't' bring out Hannah's best self," Father Bob said. 'It didn't fulfill her in the way it should have if it was her true, lifelong vocation. That's nothing to be ashamed of.'

Father Bob eventually helps Caro to understand how Hannah, consumed with guilt, couldn't forgive herself and ultimately shut God out of her life. Father Bob tells Caro not to run away from what scares her and to face her mistakes because in the end they must be dealt with.

By creating an intelligent priest character and making him have a degree in astrophysics, Jarzab has created a character whose intelligence is never in doubt. He is both scientist and priest and he shows the complementarity of science and faith. Father Bob helps Caro grow from the self-absorbed girl who cares only about what she can get from others to someone who is trying to be better and to think about how others perceive her actions.

The overall character development in this novel is excellent. Even secondary characters such as Reb, Erin, Derek and Pawel are well drawn. Although he has a small part in the novel, Derek evokes strong emotions (for being a jerk) and the exchanges between Reb and Caro are realistic and filled with humour.

There are many other interesting topics readers may be introduced to in the novel including Rube Goldstein machines, the paintings of Escher, and single-bubble sonoluminescence. The Opposite of Hallelujah is one of the best books this year. It's long, at 449 pages but well worth the effort. Highly recommended for readers who enjoy novels that focus on relationships.

Book Details:
The Opposite of Hallelujah by Anna Jarzab
New York: Delacorte Press        2012
449 pp.

Catholicism: A Journey To The Heart of The Faith by Father Barron

In Chapter 3: "That Than Which Nothing Greater Can Be Thought": The Ineffable Mystery of God, Father Barron explores the concept and nature of God. He begins by relating Moses' encounter with God on Mount Sinai.

Father Barron explains only one of Thomas Aquinas' five arguments for the existence of God by considering the principle of contingency. Every thing in this world is "contingent" upon something else for its existence here. Every living thing and every inanimate thing begins and ends, it has a cause to start it and eventually an ending. "Such things do not contain within themselves the reason for their own existence. If they did, they would exist, simply and absolutely;they would not come and go...in regard to contingent things, we have to look outside of them, to an extrinsic cause, or set of causes, in order to explain their existence."

Catholicism. A Journey To The Heart Of The Faith by Robert Barron

Chapter 2. Happy Are We: The Teaching Of Jesus explores some of the teachings of Jesus Christ by considering the eight beatitudes presented in the Sermon on the Mount. Father Barron goes through the "more 'positive' formulations" first; essentially he considers these beatitudes as helping us achieve a right ordering of our lives with God central and foremost.

These beatitudes are "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.","Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.", "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will by satisfied.", and "Blessed are the peacemakers,for they will be called the children of God.".

From these "positive" beatitudes, Barron moves onto those beatitudes which help to reorient us towards God. In our fallen nature, "we sense within ourselves the hunger for God, but we attempt to satisfy it with some created good that is less than God." Those substitutes are usually one of the following four; wealth, pleasure, power and honour. We usually discover that, as we seek to fill the void created by a lack of God, with one of the above four or any combination of them, our lives become more disordered and more directed towards achieving that substitute. Barron terms them addictions that block our path to developing a closer, more meaningful relationship with God.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." is a directive towards detachment from material goods.

"Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted." is a summons to avoid the "addiction to good feelings". These feelings can be anything pleasurable in the realm of physical,emotional or psychological.

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land." is a warning against seeking power in life as a substitute for God. The desire for power is probably the strongest and most irresistible, probably because power often brings about more of the other three.

"Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." exhorts us to shun the love of honour.

Barron goes on to further explore Jesus' exhortation to love one's enemies. Jesus' directive, "But I say to you, offer no resistence to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on (your) right cheek, turn the other one to him as well.', is not an instruction to acquiesce to evil, or to do nothing. Instead, he challenges his followers to try a different approach - that of standing our ground and showing the aggressor the injustice of his actions. The intent is possibly to reform that aggressor.

Father Barron concludes this chapter with an excellent discussion of the parable of the prodigal son and the parable of the sheep and the goats contained in chapter 25 of Matthew's Gospel.  I will leave the reader to discover these gems on their own.

Catholicism by Father Robert Barron

The book Catholicism and its accompanying television series of the same name, have been the talk of the Catholic world for some time now. Pre-publication reviews for Father Robert Barron's books were unlike that for any other Catholic publication in recent years. His documentary series offers viewers both Catholic and non-Catholic alike, an inside look at the Catholic faith in a way never quite presented to the world.

Barron is a visionary in the use of social media and electronic media to push forward the new evangelization that John Paul II challenged all Catholics to undertake in the new millennium. His website, WordOnFire, is the virtual home for his nonprofit Catholic ministry dedicated to "draw people into or back to the Catholic faith." Word On Fire is a beautiful, tantalizing cornucopia of Catholicism at its best and I highly recommend it. There are articles, commentary, radio and video, and Father Barron definitely continues the tradition that Mother Angelica pioneered with her television station EWTN.

In 2008 Father Barron began to film a 10 part series about the Catholic faith, utilizing his travels throughout the world. The trailer for the series which ran on PBS in 2011 is below.



I'm reading the accompanying book, Catholicism. A Journey To The Heart Of The Faith. The timing of this book couldn't be better, with Catholics and the Catholic faith itself under intense pressure by many different segments of society today.

I'll be reviewing this book over the next two weeks.

There are ten chapters in the book; the first titled "Amazed and Afraid: The Revelation of God Become Man.
This chapter's focus is on God become man: Jesus, and his mission on Earth. Father Barron explores the Jesus' mission in the context of the expectations of the nation of Israel. Jesus' purpose or mission what four-fold:

"He would gather the scattered tribes of Israel; he would cleanse the Temple of Jerusalem; he would definitively deal with the enemies of the nation; and, finally, he would reign as Lord of heaven and earth....that through these actions Yahweh would purify Israel and through the purified Israel bring salvation to all."

Gather the scattered tribes of Israel.
Father Barron then commences to demonstrate just how Jesus fulfilled each of these purposes. He begins by discussing the uniqueness and even peculiarity of Jesus who unlike other "prophets" asked the daring question, "Who do people say that I am?". His intent was to draw people to himself, unlike others before him who focused on words and actions. Only God, or the God-Man would do this; in effect showing us what it means to be a Christian disciple. When we understand who Jesus is, we can begin to comprehend why he behaved as recorded in the Gospels. Jesus went against the social conventions of his time to establish the importance of forming the Kingdom of God here on Earth. This was to transcend duty, family, religious ritual - in short, everything.

Cleanse the temple.
Father Barron demonstrates how God chose a people - the descendants of Abraham to form a "priestly nation" to model the Kingdom of God.

"The people Israel were shaped primarily according to the laws of right worship and derivately by the laws of right behavior so that they could model to the nations how to praise and how to act."

However,time and again as Israel failed in its mission to bring God to other nations, and as its faith was corrupted, so was its worship.
The temple was a symbol of the Garden of Eden (when man was in union with God) and represented Israel's mission to evangelize or as Barron states, to "Eden-ize" the pagan world. With Jesus on earth, he redefined the temple - as himself.

"If Jesus is, in his own person, the true Temple, then he should be the definitive source of teaching, healing, and forgiveness, and this is just what the Gospels tell us."

Jesus' actions of cleansing the Temple and his response that "in three days I will raise it up" when confronted by the Pharisees suggest that he was "telling the people that the entire purpose of the earlier temple would be transfigured in him, transposed, as it were, into a new key." There is also a wonderful exposition of how there is no way to explain the development of Christianity as a messianic movement without the resurrection. All the apostles, save one, died in their efforts to evangelize the world. They did not die for a "good man" who "symbolized the presence of God" but for a man who was both man and God.

Definitively deal with the nation's enemies.
The ancient nation of Israel had many enemies and had been overpowered and sugjugated by numerous nations throughout its history. The Jewish people therefore,had a strong expectation that the Messiah would be a military conqueror. As did C.S. Lewis, Father Barron suggests that the baby Jesus was born in a quiet, backward town to very humble parents so as to "slip in behind enemy lines". And as the Gospels indicate, the military leaders took seriously the prediction of a great kind out of the Jewish nation, to the point that they slaughtered all the children 2 years of age and under.

Reign as King of heaven and earth
Barron demonstrates that the circumstances of Jesus birth redefined the nature of "kingship" from one of power and self-interest, to that of love, sacrifice and "the willingness to be bound for another." He contrasts "two very different personifications of power" by describing Augustus Caesar and Jesus Christ.

This first chapter was rich with wonderful insights into the life of Jesus Christ and sets the stage for the next chapter which discusses the teachings of Jesus. For although the "Christian faith centers on who Jesus is", his teachings have transformed the world and continue to do so.