That’s Debatable
If you survived your high school’s debate team, That’s Debatable will take you back to your teen years – in both good and bad ways. This is not the breezy book that the blurb hints it is, though, and in fact might alarm and upset young readers who think they’re picking up a lighthearted romance only to be confronted with something that’s anything but.
Millicent – Millie – Chambers is the queen of her debate team. This is the fourth time she’s been up for nationals, and as far as she’s concerned she’d climb a mountain to ensure that she gets there again, no matter how much dead weight she has to drag up the mountain behind her.
Taggart – Tag – Strong is Millie’s worst nightmare, a teammate who couldn’t care less if they actually win a debate and is just alright at the extracurricular. He drives her crazy, but in the clutch, he has talents. And he knows how to use his Twitter prowess to get people buzzing about the debate team.
Then Millie and Tag live through a lockdown due to an apparent school shooting (which turns out to be a false alarm), and he “saves her life” by pulling her into a supply closet. Through this is a harrowing bonding experience, they begin to spend more time together, and eventually begin to date. Can Millie make Tag a better debater?
The blurb describes a tournament taking a “shaky turn”, but gives no indication that the book includes a school shooting incident which turns out to be a false alarm, and which the author uses as an awkward point of flirtation for the two leads. I had no idea when I picked up the book that such a scene would be included, and I can’t imagine how kids looking to escape the reality of lockdown drills at their own schools might feel about suddenly being confronted with such a situation right at the beginning of the story.
The prose feels very sparse, providing a quick read. There are quoted social media chats, fliers, and other sorts of media which broadens the reader’s experience, and bite-sized, snappy-feeling prose should definitely appeal to its target age group. But it’s hard to overcome the way the book employs the school shooting. I’m guessing a teenager might find it a more relatable way to meet one of their peers, but it left sour old adult me with a turned-up nose.
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Recent Comments
Having just been through an experience where we had a student on campus with a firearm (thank God the situation was resolved without violence), I can assure you there is absolutely nothing remotely fun/romantic about a lockdown (false alarm or otherwise). This is the big problem I had with Roni Loren’s The Ones That Got Away series: growing romances from the soil of a school shooting just didn’t sit right with me—no matter how sensitively handled or how far removed from the original incident. Using a school shooting (or even a false alarm) as the basis of a romance novel seems lazy at best and reprehensible at worst. So, for a variety of reasons, I’ll be giving this one a hard pass.
This was my problem with What You Wish For. I read romance for joy and there is zero joy for me around school shootings.
See, I don’t mind it in the Loren series, because that felt like a realistic portrayal of trauma. School shooting survivors do move on and have adult lives, and I thought Loren did a good job of portraying the nuances that happen there. Here it felt like it was used as a meet-cute, which made my skin crawl. Also I’m glad you’re safe, Deb!