Book #40

The Life and Crimes of Bernetta Wallflower
by Lisa Graff


Last library review book, I think, until the fall, though this one was just Jaime soliciting an opinion, not a full-on review. Overall I think it's a cute book; there are definitely some flaws in it, many of them related to the genre, but it has a nice feel to it and the writing was quite good.

The basic story is about a twelve-year-old girl with the unlikely name of Bernetta Wallflower (First problem there -- trying for a memorable name is fine, as long as the book isn't trying to be realistic, but this one is. Bernetta is wacky enough; give her a real last name.) who gets framed for a cheating scam at her private school and gets her scholarship yanked. So over the summer, despite being grounded, she tries to earn enough money to pay for her own tuition the following year, because she wants to be like her older sister, who she worships, and who was the valedictorian at the same school. But since she is twelve, she can't find a job, and since the tuition is $9000 a year, there's no way she can earn enough money over three months, anyway. So she takes up a life of crime, joining a young grifter who watches too many con man movies, and they pull change scams and such at all the local stores. Bernetta's ability to grift comes from the fact that her father is a stage magician, and she has learned both quick hands and the art of misdirection.

And that's fine as far as it goes. But the villain is just too villainous, and the amounts of money involved are, to me, unrealistic. These two kids earn over $5000 in a month, grifting at a local mall and a pier where tourists go; I'm not sure I believe that, though I suppose it's possible. But the villain, who framed Bernetta, earned $5000 from blackmailing students for cheating off of papers that she fed them herself, and I do not believe that a 6th grader could find that many people to blackmail without one of them turning her in before she gets up to that number. She gets her comeuppance, of course, but it isn't anywhere near enough; they grift her out of all of her money, but she doesn't get beaten to a bloody pulp, nor arrested. I also don't accept that her parents bought the cover story, that Bernetta was actually babysitting, for a couple who only needed her to amuse their two children while they worked from home (because she's too young to be in charge of kids all by her lonesome) and this was going to earn her $9000 over the summer. I want that fucking job. Plus, as an author, I was vastly disappointed when the author missed a perfect opportunity for a good moment: there's a scene when Bernetta and her older sister are talking, when Bernetta is despondent because the life of crime is not working out, and the sister gives Bernetta her valedictorian speech to read -- and the speech is about Bernetta and how much she means to the sister. But the speech isn't there. It just says something like, "Bernetta read the speech." How could you miss a chance to put in some real writing, a poignant and sophisticated essay in the form of a valedictory speech, in the middle of this simplified YA pablum? Ridiculous.

However, the con stuff was very good; this is actually a credible way for three young kids to get into a life of crime, and a believable end to it, in most ways. I didn't like any of the characters other than Bernetta and her family, but I did like the Wallflowers a lot. And I like the resolution: Bernetta gives up on her attachment to the private school, since that had been the source of her criminal obsession, and just looks forward to what she can learn and experience at the public school. It was nice.