Tyler is caught between the girl he has and the girl he wants. Since the very first day of freshman year, he’s been completely, head-over-heels in love with beautiful, wounded, and enigmatic Becky. He yearns for her, creates endless stories about who he believes she is and the perfect romance they’d have if she would just notice him, and goes through his high school days telling himself that it’s enough to be be her only friend. And since winter break of freshman year, he’s been in a comfortable, all-too-easy, autopilot relationship with Syd. Syd is smart, mature, and for reasons Tyler can’t explain, into him. She pursued him, she steered their mutual love of Honors English into a friendship which has lead to a 2+ year relationship, and Syd always takes charge when Tyler waffles. Outsiders might say he’s got a great thing going on, but they don’t really know how much he wishes his life were different.
When one of the more emotionally charged, highly autobiographical stories that Tyler has written about his true feelings for Becky is published in a national literary magazine, the secrets that have long been buried are going to have to be dealt with. Tyler’s hanging out at the local park, celebrating with his two best friends, and is being barraged by calls and texts from Syd. She’s read the story and wants to confront Tyler; but he’d rather be comforting Becky, who is alone at home and devastated again by her insensitive, hateful parents. As Tyler jockeys calls and texts from the two girls, he’s consumed with memories of the last two years, from the first time he saw Becky in the cafeteria, eating only the broken animal crackers in her lunch, to the all-but-inevitable way his relationship with Syd developed. Tyler slowly realizes over the course of the night that, mostly through what seems to be his main problem in life – a lack of “testicular fortitude” (38) – he’s ended up caught between what he does and doesn’t want, and he’s not sure if it’s too late to fix it.
manicpixiedreamgirl, Arizona author Tom Leveen‘s latest, gives us a guy, Tyler, who is authentic, and whose emotions, insecurities, and lack of engagement in his own life are easily identifiable and relatable. Balancing the romantic tradition of unacknowledged and unrequited love (I kept thinking about Ducky in Pretty in Pink) and a guy who simply lets his life happen to him, Leveen’s protagonist is a high-school-everyman whom you’ll root for, empathize with, and want to pick up by his boot straps and shake the living daylights out of once in a while.
- Posted by Cori