Recently Read

Deep
by Susanna Vance

See, here's what happens when you collect your readings from those "recommended reading" lists that show up in your library, or newspaper, or (possibly) the Hot Topic store at the local mall.

Deep

How else to explain middle-aged male me reading Deep by Susanna Vance--a book aimed squarely at the thirteen-year-old girl population? Not that Deep is particularly girly in tone or subject, or unworthy of attention; it is an adventure tale--though with a distinctly distaff leaning--and relatively well-written at that.

Deep follows the not particularly parallel paths of two teenage girls: comfortably suburban Oregonian thirteen-year-old Birdie Sidwell; and lonely, seafaring Norwegian near-nature-child seventeen-year-old Morgan Bera. The two threads of the tale are told alternatively, each girl trading off chapters of first person narrative in which they relate the details of their wildly dissimilar lives, until circumstances bring the pair together in a fight for their survival.

Birdie is a charmer. As the book's ostensible protagonist--Morgan, though billed equally, gets slightly less screen time (so to speak) and focus throughout--Birdie tells her story with a glib, breezy voice that instantly appeals. All of the elements of her young life, both good and bad--her possibly psychosomatic asthma, a complicated relationship with her grade-school friend Kirin, her aspiration to be a renowned writer, among others--come together to draw a picture of sweet girl the reader is bound to root for.

Morgan, by contrast, is something of a drag. Her voice comes off the page in serious, almost dour tones. The details of her backstory--born to vagabond parents in the Caribbean, witness to the deaths of two siblings, and finally the author of her own escape from her parents' defeated, drunken stupors--make that tone appropriate, but the reader still feels brought down by Morgan's presence in the narrative. Thankfully, a character who could be the book's biggest burden is redeemed at the climax, when Morgan's independence and strength play pivotal roles in saving not just her self, but the more appealing Birdie.

The danger arises when the Sidwell family takes a long anticipated, year-long vacation to the Caribbean--and Birdie is almost immediately kidnapped by a scalawag named Nicholas. The reader never really learns why the smuggling, forging, pirating, at least slightly disturbed Nicholas hauls off with Birdie; his character is given many facets, yet remains unfinished, or sketchily drawn. Although the sophisticated--that is, adult--reader may come up with a handful of motivations for Birdie's abduction (in addition to the list Birdie produces herself), her treatment at the hands of her captor never really sinks to depths as harrowing as real life suggests it would. Nicholas, as depicted, never shows enough menace to give Birdie's dilemma the edge it needs. Only when Morgan, seeking forged documents from Nicholas, barely escapes his drunken attempt to rape her, only then does the villain's character approach true evil. The rest of the time, the bad guy stands as a manikin of "evil lite"--bad enough for a book aimed at young girls, perhaps, but too lightweight to put the fear in any other readers.

Still, aside from that failing, Deep offers a good, entertaining read that will undoubtedly appeal to its target audience. Perhaps the main takeaway from Deep are the models represented by the two girls at the story's center: the charming, fun, appealing Birdie, in whom those thirteen-year-old readers can see themselves, and the nearly grown-up Morgan, who serves as an example of the good-hearted, capable young women those readers can grow up to be. If Deep helps produce girls who can stand up for themselves and make their way safely through this world, then author Vance has indeed succeeded with her work.