THE TEENAGE BRAIN by Frances E Jensen MD

 THE TEENAGE BRAIN by Frances E Jensen MD

Review copy provided by Harper Collins Publishers NZ via Booksellers NZ.




The teenage brain? What sort of word trickery is that? Well, all logic tells you there is a brain of course, nestling inside the head of that child of yours, but it is not a brain, Jim, as we know it. And that is the totally bizarre thing about teenagers - after all we were all one once angst ridden, tormented, self absorbed, idealistic, misunderstood, unloved - so you think we would have no problem some years down the track dealing with our own teenager's tormented souls. And that is the conumdrum of it all. Our brains, unbeknown to us, moved on from being teenage brains somewhere in our 20s (hopefully), maybe by our 30s (more likely). But now that our wiring is different, we have no understanding really on what is going on in our darlings' brains.
This book attempts to redress this lack of knowledge and understanding to us - parents, teachers, other significant grown ups. Frances Jensen is a professor of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania. Blessedly, she is also the parent of two fine sounding young men who were once teenagers. It would seem, from her biography blurb at the back of this book, that she is a specialist in the developing brain and age specific therapies. So, not so much a handbook on how to deal with your teenager(s), more a handbook on what is going on inside their heads and so lead to some understanding. So this may seem like a medical book and not for the average teen parent, but it is extremely readable, probably because it was co-authored with a Pulitzer Prize winning science writer who writes for the Washington Post and so well used to turning medical language/concepts/theories etc into  everday language for us mere mortals.
There is plenty of brain terminology in this book - amygdala, frontal cortex, cortical map, hippocampus, hypothalamus, myelin, how they all work, how they change and interact with each other during the teen years to produce a different type of brain at the end of it all. And most importantly how all these changes lead to and directly cause the behaviours that we see so frequently in our teens - their flawed decision making, impulsiveness, inability to be rational, sensible, that boys' brains are different from girls' brains, why their body clock is out of whack. As I have said, Ms Jensen is a scientist, not a psychologist, so not much in this book on how to deal with teenagers. But I found myself regularly referring to NZ psychologist and author Nigel Latta's writings on parenting teenagers, with his Mad Uncle Jacks and Mad Aunt Janes, which gives plenty of advice on dealing with all this weird and alarming brain change. So I think the two complement each other very nicely.
There were some sections of medical terminology and explanation when I felt my eyes glazing over, but throughout the book the authors are constantly referencing the biology with the evidence, that is what we see, and so it does all gradually come together, and I do know a lot more about the functioning of the brain than previously.
A lot of issues are covered in this book that affect teenagers differently from children and adults.  How the brain learns, sleep patterns, risk taking, the effects of alcohol and cannabis, mental illness and the digital invasion. The two chapters that I found the most alarming and that I think all parents should have an understanding of are stress and its impact on teenage wellbeing, and the danger of sports and concussions. This book is written by an American and published in America, but many of the issues in high schools and colleges there are also in New Zealand schools. With an 18 year old and a 20 year old, our time in the dark, never ending teenage tunnel is thankfully nearing an end, and the light is getting brighter and closer. But there is an increasing obsession in our schools to be the best in sport and/or academics to the detriment of the students supposedly earning that glory. As  these two chapters reveal, the impact of this endless race to the top can take a serious toll on our young ones, physically, mentally and emotionally. As parents, the ones closest to our teens, we really do need to be mindful of how things can go wrong inside their heads that may take some time to actually show up.
There is a lot of very good stuff in this book, reading it will certainly increase your arsenal of information about teenagers, and hopefully your understanding and communication with them.

WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES by Karen Joy Fowler

WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES by Karen Joy Fowler

Shortlisted for The Man Booker Prize 2014

I heard about this book on the radio. It was being reviewed by a woman who was almost beside herself as she felt unable to tell much about the book due to a significant fact that is disclosed on page 77. At that point I decided not to listen anymore - intrigued - and when given the opportunity to read this, took it up instantly. All I knew from the few minutes of the review that I heard was that the story was narrated by a young woman called Rosemary, whose family had suffered great loss, and is now about as dysfuntional as you can get. She once had a brother, Lowell and a sister, Fern. But now they were no longer part of the family. I was not at all sure what to expect - murder? random death? disease? overseas travel? misadventure? abduction by aliens?  The impending arrival of page 77 weighed heavily as nothing was being disclosed, the clues were virtually non-existant, the choppy and confusing style of writing was beginning to drive me crazy - jumped around from the present to the past, characters appearing and disappearing again. I had to keep rereading what I had read just a couple of pages previous as it had no relevance to what was taking place. But that whole page 77 thing kept me hooked in. And the reveal is a huge reveal, so huge I actually went back to the beginning and skimmed those 77 pages again just to see if I had really missed the clues, which apparently were there, but I still could not see them.

So the reveal is too big to disclose, and I won't say what it is. Suffice to say that the trauma of the event when Rosemary was five years old transformed her from a bright, chatty, articulate, loving little girl into a guilt ridden, lonely, silent and deeply unhappy child. Her childhood disappears, her family shuts down, she has trouble at school, she grows into a young woman, not sure who she is, what she should be doing. The story is narrated by Rosemary, now a 22 year old college student, studying a random assortment of subjects - she doesn't know who she is, so naturally doesn't know what she should be doing or where her life is supposed to be going.The sudden reappearance of her brother Lowell into her life opens the doors in her mind and soul wide open and she gradually begins to learn what happened all those years ago, and to come to an understanding of herself, as well as her parents, her brother and Fern too.

There is a lot going on in this story, and it is frustrating that I cannot elaborate further. Family dynamics, parents who bring their professional life into the home, teenage dislocation, sibling rivalry, search for one's self, forgiveness and redemption. It's good, but for me, not fabulous. Not entirely sure why it made Man Booker short list. It could be the unique subject matter, and the way the story is unfolded, but I feel I have read better. 

THE TENDERNESS OF WOLVES by Stef Penney

THE TENDERNESS OF WOLVES by Stef Penney

This is such a good book, lots of tension, drama, diverse characters, red herrings galore. And perhaps most amazingly, written by a Scottish woman who suffers from agoraphobia and has never been to the frozen wilderness of Canada. 

I can't begin to imagine how grim life would have been in winter in Canada in the 1860s. Bitterly cold, frozen ground, long periods in darkness, no electricity of course, boring and mostly preserved food, little to do. Grim sums it up pretty well! And the people who chose to live in this part of the world had to be tough, strong, focussed, and true to the job of staying alive. Plus trust those around them in this struggle to survive.

But small communities did thrive, relying primarily on trade of local resources - furs and food. Large trading companies had small bases set up in remote locations to manage the plunder of local resources, mainly fur, and their traders, as well as keeping the local indigenous population under control/observation.

This story opens with the death of one such trader, Laurent Jammet, and the discovery of his body by a woman, Mrs Ross. Her 17 year old son, Francis. who has gone missing, was a good friend of the dead man, and is immediately under suspiscion for the death. Is it relevant that the dead man was scalped, thus pointing the finger at a native Indian? Or is it relevant that it looks as if the dead man's belongings have been gone through, obviously looking for something, but what?

In a small community a murder is rare, and reliance on those around you is high, so to feel that someone in the community has betrayed that essential trust turns the place on its head. A native Indian is arrested, the trading company's local representative and his entourage turn up to undertake a man hunt for Francis Ross, a local family also become involved in the mystery of the trader's murder, a religious community in the middle of nowhere becomes a place of refuge for those on the man hunt, and a remote trading station all have equal billing. 

The reader is led on a circuitous route to discovering who the murderer is and the back story to the murder. The solving of the murder is told from the view point of a number of different characters, some in the first person, some in the third, but this method does not detract at all from the power of the story, or the gradual solving of the mystery.

The most powerful force in the story is the environment, how everything that these people do both in their day to day lives, and in an emergency situation is dicatated and controlled by the extremes of the climate and harsh landscape. It is frankly, terrifying, and it is hardly surprising that such an environment affects the moods and personalities of those living in it. There is a constant sense of forboding, danger, that any minute something awful and fatal is going to happen. And the writer is a master at conveying this atmosphere. Great read.

THE WEDDING WRITER by Susan Schneider

 THE WEDDING WRITER by Susan Schneider

Chick lit? With a cover like that? You bet. Light and fluffy but not necessarily frothy. The dark side behind all those gorgeous and lavish bridal magazines - the ladder climbing, the back stabbing, the pressure for perfection - no magazine subject matter would appear to be immune.

The bridal magazine is 'Your Wedding'. Grace is the editor, probably modeled on Anna Wintour or Amanda Priestly, has been at the helm of the magazine for many years. Not old - 56, but perceived as being past it by the men who run the show, she is brutally replaced by Lucky (annoying name), who is young, ambitious, talented and far too skinny. From the start she charges through with the changes she wants to make, in the process alienating the other staff. There are two other women who have been on the magazine for a long time - Sara, early 40s, looking for love, and Felice, similar age, married with a teenage son going through his own teenage dramas. The magazine, the changes taking place and the impact these have on the lives of these four women are the core of the book. But we also learn quite a lot about the back stories of each of these women. As well as a fair bit about the nasty world of magazine publishing.

It's hardly literary fiction, but it is not so bad as to not be an enjoyable read.  There is quite good commentary on the ageing process while working in the beauty industry which is essentially what bridal magazines are, being single/married/a mother/ working in such a ruthless industry. And how we define our own personal image when we are surrounded by fantasy images which of course is what us average mortals face every day, but much more so in a bridal magazine where everything is about creating a fantasy. And finally, is it all worth it really?

THE WOMAN HE LOVED BEFORE by Dorothy Koomson

THE WOMAN HE LOVED BEFORE by Dorothy Koomson

Another stunning story from the wonderful Ms Koomson. If you have not read anything by this British writer, then get started. Libby is a smart, lovely woman, nuts about her just as perfect husband Jack. She knows Jack was married previously to the beautiful and mysterious Eve, who died accidentally and who Libby feels is an ever present  shadow in her marriage to Jack. However it is not until Libby and Jack are involved in a car accident, during which Libby is seriously injured that she begins to seriously question the unspoken presence of Eve in their marriage. And whether Jack is over his first wife, or even if he was complicit in some way in her death.

Told in the present, and in flash backs, Libby, while recovering at home from her accident, gradually discovers the truth about Eve, her life, and how she came to die. I so can't give anything away as to the story line because then all the surprises and suspense will be gone! So trust me on this, it is a great story, plenty of suspense, twists and surprises. Libby and Jack are both great characters, and who knows where the guilt lies or how much Libby's mind is playing tricks on her. But Eve is the outstanding character, and clearly the author is deeply attached to the person she has created. This is a page turning and riveting read, and you may well be hooked on this writer for quite some time.