Thoughts on Solitaire by Alice Oseman
Apr. 9th, 2022 08:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
between_time_and_42CW: This post talks about mental health and illnesses, including eating disorders, self-harm, depression, and suicide attempts. All of this is mentioned as things that happened in a book, without going into much detail.
I recently finished reading another book by Alice Oseman- her first novel, Solitaire, written when she was 17 and published in 2015, and with an updated edition supposedly released in 2020 (although I found VERY little information about that edition online so I'm not sure how to get my hands on a copy). Solitaire was the beginning of many things for Alice Oseman- not only her first published work, but the first appearance of her characters Nick Nelson & Charlie Spring, who would go on to become the main characters of her graphic novel series, Heartstopper. Back when I first discovered Heartstopper was a thing (which, side note, I realized recently I had seen more Heartstopper things isolated on tumblr than I had initially remembered- I used to think my introduction to it was from seeing the scene where Nick comes out to his mother out of context, but when re-reading it I realized that I had already previously seen both the flower shop AU comic and the comic set in the future where Nick & Charlie adopt a dog, and I suspect that what introduced me was the flower shop AU and, because I found it so cute, I went to the author's page and the most recent Heartstopper update happened to be the one where Nick came out, which was probably why that scene felt so familiar to me when I was reading it more recently)... I had found out that the characters from that comic were originally featured in Solitaire, so Solitaire has been on my TBR list for a while. But I also found out more recently, when browsing Oseman's website, that the original publication of Solitaire depicted mental illness in a harmful way, so I was wary when I got my hands on this book (as I said before, the edited version has apparently already been released but I can't find ANY information about it besides the one mention of it on Oseman's site, so I had no idea how to get a copy of it). It was, overall, an interesting read... but I'm still not really sure how I felt about it.
Solitaire is Tori's story- the older sister of Charlie Spring, one of the Heartstopper protagonists, who in this story is sixteen and having quite a rough time of it. When she's not half-assing her way through school or forcing herself to participate in social events with her schoolmates, she's up in her bedroom watching movies, drinking diet lemonade, and blogging (on a site that's not named, but its description is very tumblr-reminiscent). Nothing particularly satisfies or interests her, until several significant events occur- her old friend from primary school, Lucas, transfers into her school/grade; she crosses paths with another new transfer, the eccentric Michael Holden; and a series of pranks begin to take off around the school, organized by a mysterious group/figure known as Solitaire. The story is one part mystery, as those around Tori rope her into investigating Solitaire, and- despite its "This is not a love story" tagline- an examination of the growing relationship between Tori and Michael.
To start off, I think I'd like to get into the discrepancies between Solitaire and Heartstopper, of which there were several (and some are admittedly very nitpicky, but there was definitely one big thing that was noticeably different from how it was described in Heartstopper):
-The way Michael was described in Solitaire doesn't match the way he's drawn in Heartstopper- he's described as having slicked back hair with a side part, but in his appearances in Heartstopper, his hair is a mess of floofy curls. Then again, it did mention in Solitaire that he doesn't style his hair when he's not as school and that his hair looks a lot messier then, so it could be that the panel where he's introduced in Heartstopper wasn't supposed to show him and Tori at school.
-In Heartstopper, Charlie refers to Michael as "this new friend" that Tori's made, as if he's unfamiliar with him until Tori meets him, but in Solitaire, he and Nick have both heard of Michael, since Michael used to go to their school before transferring to the all-girls school.
-Speaking of which... this is extremely nitpicky, but Nick and Charlie seemed weirdly judgmental when Tori first mentions Michael, saying that they've heard Michael is nuts and Tori should probably stay away from him. I didn't think that was in character at all, given how open and accepting they usually are towards people adjacent to their friend group. (Charlie did make up for it later by telling Tori that even though he'd heard weird things about Michael, he still thinks he's a good friend for Tori.)
-Charlie called Tori "Victoria" almost exclusively. I didn't even know her name WAS Victoria when I was reading Heartstopper.
-Now here's the big one, which I think is probably one of the main things that has to have been changed in the new edition- In Heartstopper, Charlie stays for a while at a mental health facility, after working up the courage to tell his parents about his struggles with an eating disorder. In Solitaire, the reason that Charlie goes to the hospital is COMPLETELY different- Tori finds him after a suicide attempt. I actually thought this had a major impact on the plot of Solitaire (I'll go into it more in a bit), and if it had happened the way it happened in Heartstopper, Tori's reaction would have been significantly different. Then again... I suppose either way, it must be really hard to see your loved one's mental health deteriorate to the point where they have to stay in a hospital for a while, and that could easily make someone feel guilty, but the way it was depicted in Solitaire seemed almost like Charlie was sent there with no choice, whereas in Heartstopper, it was made very clear that he volunteered to go. (Now that I'm thinking about it, I do recall that Charlie mentioned he started self-harming while he was waiting to be seen by a doctor who specializes in eating disorders, so that COULD have been the incident referred to in Solitaire... but the way Tori described it made it sound like a suicide attempt, with Charlie having written a note to her and everything, and it's also never mentioned anywhere in Heartstopper that Tori ever actually witnessed Charlie self-harming, so...)
I think that's a good lead-in to what I mainly wanted to discuss with this post- was the depiction of mental illness in Solitaire as harmful as it had been described? Well, full disclosure, I've never suffered from the same disorders that Charlie & Tori have, so I don't know how it would come across to those who have. But some things did seem off to me. There was a scene (also mentioned in Heartstopper) where Charlie relapses into self-harming after an argument with Nick, and part of his relapse has him organizing all the food in the kitchen by size and color. I know Charlie has OCD, especially relating to food, but it seemed a sort of bizarre detail to add, like- people with OCD like to keep things organized, so here's Charlie organizing the food in the kitchen regardless of whether it actually made sense in the context of the scene for him to do that. (I'm not talking about how the act itself makes no sense, because that's sort of the nature of OCD- people who experience this disorder feel they have to go through certain rituals that, factually speaking, have no purpose and therefore don't make sense. I'm talking about how, after what was implied to be an emotionally-charged argument, Charlie had the urge to self-harm- and also arrange the food in the kitchen? I'm not ENTIRELY sure if that fit with the moment.) I dunno, I'm sure the mileage of readers who actually have OCD and/or an eating disorder would vary for this- and also, it's never mentioned what the argument was about so maybe what Charlie did made more sense depending on what they had argued about.
For the most part, though, it wasn't Charlie's mental health that gave me some off vibes, but Tori's. And even that, I'm not sure if I'm overreacting and if other readers might find this okay... since there were some things I thought Oseman did right, or at least tried to. But there were some other moments that I thought were iffy. Throughout the book, it's pretty obvious that Tori is suffering from depression, although it's never stated that she is. She shows no interest in anything (even her watching movies and blogging is more of a habit than a thing she really enjoys), constantly talks down to herself in her head (calling herself "pathetic," an "idiot," etc.), and she also shows a deep disdain for... almost anyone who's not herself and her brother. And then at the end... I'm sorry, I can't talk about this book without getting into plot spoilers. I'll try to only mention what happens without any context that would give too much away. Anyway... at the end of the book, Tori considers and almost attempts suicide. So, yeah. Tori is depressed. And I honestly don't think the depiction of her depression is completely inaccurate, but... I guess it was more the message the book seemed to be trying to send about overcoming depression, and the reactions of the characters surrounding Tori, that seemed off to me.
-When Tori comes close to attempting/committing suicide, she's talked down when her friends show up, and when Michael tells her something along the lines of "you can't do this and leave me alone, I'll miss you." Maybe it's just my personal feelings, but I feel like that's a horrible, guilt-trippy thing to say to someone who is on the verge of ending their own life. It's good to show a person that you love them and that they are cared for... but to frame it in THAT way, in almost a selfish way, it just didn't sit right with me. And THAT is what convinces Tori not to do it. That, and Michael confessing that he hates himself too, for some reason hearing him say that seems to be what gets to Tori the most. Honestly, I really didn't understand that whole part. It all felt very abrupt, first going from Tori wanting to kill herself then suddenly, oh she doesn't want to do that anymore, she wants to be with Michael... Then at the end of that scene, she admits that she's not cured, that she still would rather lock herself in her bedroom and never emerge, but seeing her friends all together enjoying the day makes her feel better. THAT I thought was good, because it would definitely take more than a passionate speech from Michael to completely cure Tori's depression. But... I dunno, something about his speech was just very weird to me. And I also felt like it was a weird tonal shift to go from someone wanting to commit suicide to then seeing all her friends having fun and enjoying herself and admitting hey! Maybe the world's not so bad after all! I don't know, I can't say for sure, having never been in that headspace. But it did feel a bit whiplash-y. (Also, it's really hard to mention it without spoilers, but the entire setting of that whole scene made it very, very hard to read it as a positive thing- I kept thinking all the while "shouldn't you be getting out of there before something bad happens??" To explain further would be to spoil the climax of the book, but. It was a very weird place & time for such a heartwarming moment to be happening.)
-In the very last chapter, Tori says she still doesn't understand how her depression got so bad, because "I'm not traumatized. It's not like there was one event that changed everything." I think that was supposed to point out how in some stories, one Tragic Event in the past is supposed to be the reason for a character's many problems, whereas in real life, depression can happen just because a person's brain doesn't function the same way other people's do. I think it was good to point that out, HOWEVER... I thought, the entire time, that Tori WAS traumatized and just wasn't processing what had happened to Charlie the previous year, and that was a major contributing factor in her depression. Worth noting that Solitaire includes multiple shout-outs to The Catcher in the Rye- Michael's last name is Holden, Tori dreams about a boy in a red hat catching her every time she tries to jump off a cliff (referring to the protagonist of Catcher, Holden, wanting to keep children from losing their innocence), there's a part at the end where Tori's father references Catcher in the Rye and someone asks if anyone in the scene has read the book and none of them have. There's even a blurb on the front of the book that calls Solitaire "The Catcher in the Rye for the digital age." And in Catcher, Holden is much like Tori- a depressed teenager with a deep disdain for everything surrounding him, and no interest in most things. However, it's implied that Holden is deeply traumatized from the recent-ish death of his brother, which is the main reason for his depression. So I had the feeling, the whole time, that Tori was also traumatized from witnessing her own brother's suicide attempt and self-harm. So it made NO sense to me to read that part at the end where Tori states that she wasn't traumatized, and it didn't read in an "unreliable narrator" way where what they say is different from what's true- it felt like you were supposed to believe Tori when she said that. But honestly, I don't.
-Now, the worst part about the depiction of Tori's depression was actually nothing that the author did, but the way that certain people in her life reacted to her- namely, HER PARENTS. Tori's parents handled her mental health struggle in SUCH a terrible way, it made me so angry. First off, I do have to say that Tori's relationship with her mother sort of hit home for me, how she felt like her mother never paid attention to her and was always working on the kitchen computer and never really seemed to SEE her... It made me feel more sympathetic to Tori there, even though when I looked this book up, I saw a couple reviewers on goodreads talking about how they felt more sympathetic to her mother because Tori was acting like a brat. I have a feeling we're not supposed to take sides in that relationship, though... But anyway, it was the first scene with Tori's father that bothered me at first. After Tori had been in bed for most of the day, her dad came in and asked how she was feeling and if she had anything to do that day. She says she's fine and no, she doesn't have anything to do that day. He says she can talk to him if anything is bothering her, she stays silent. He... basically tells her that she needs to try to be more happy, and when she gives some snarky response he just sighs "Teenagers..." and leaves her alone. So in that scene, it bothered me that he didn't make more of an attempt to connect (after clearly noticing that something was wrong), and mostly, that he told her that her problem is that she doesn't try hard enough. Tori even counters that in her head, thinking "I am trying. I've been trying for years." That wasn't as bad as the next scene with Tori and her parents, though, where Tori has a breakdown in front of Charlie and Charlie tells their parents what happened and they go to talk to her. I don't even remember the specifics of that scene but I do remember her mother telling her she needed to smile and cheer up, and to stop being so melodramatic. After Tori was screaming and crying at Charlie, and he apparently told their parents all about that?? Why wouldn't they have been more concerned? I get that it's a realistic depiction of how some parents would react, how they minimize their children's struggles... BUT, considering they have a son who, in this version of the story, went to the hospital for a suicide attempt, wouldn't they have learned by now that "have you tried NOT being depressed?" is a terrible thing to say to a depressed person? How could they be so understanding about Charlie's issues and then minimize Tori's to such an extent? Even at the end, after Charlie tells their parents about what had just happened with Tori, her dad's response is to joke about how The Catcher in the Rye must have gotten into his bloodstream after reading it so much when he was younger and it's been passed down to the next generation. That... seemed like a REALLY terrible time for a joke, tbh. And again: Charlie went through the same thing and they help him, now Tori is struggling and they make jokes about it? What?????
There was one other part of the book, aside from the discrepancies and possible problematic aspects, that I didn't like, and that was the eventual result of Tori & Michael growing closer to each other. I really don't want to spoil anything, but... fuck it, I'll just say, there was no reason to make their relationship of THAT nature. I didn't even get the feeling that it was going that way until they did THAT. And then Michael says he thinks he's always felt that way about Tori, right from the start? Spare me... I just wasn't buying it. Tori seemed so indifferent to those kinds of relationships throughout the book and then ends up in one. It seemed arbitrary- they had a great relationship without throwing that into the mix. I was sort of hoping it would be more like Aled & Frances from Radio Silence.
Actually, that reminded me of another thing- Lucas' whole deal???!!! Tori was so right to run for the hills. Although this was another moment that felt very weird and whiplash-y, when after he told her what he told her, he then was basically like "but I'm all over that now!" I was like... wow, you gained a sense of perspective SHOCKINGLY quickly.
As far as the story goes. I figured out who was behind Solitaire pretty quickly, but there was still a twist thrown in later that surprised me. I only wish the book had either been about Tori investigating Solitaire, or about Tori and Michael growing closer, because I felt like the Solitaire part didn't jive with the rest of the plot. At first Michael was a bit of an overbearing character (at least, I imagined that if I met him in real life, I'd have to distance myself from him because he seemed like A Lot at first glance), but then I gradually warmed up to him much like Tori did, and I thought he was charming and relatable. He had some very sweet scenes with Tori that I liked. I never quite got a good grip on Tori & Becky's relationship but I'm satisfied with how they ended up. Nick didn't do much but it was nice to see him from time to time (also, I know Alice Oseman said that nothing in Heartstopper is going to spoil Solitaire, but I kind of hope a certain scene where Nick gets a proper bad-ass moment ends up in Heartstopper). Many of the Solitaire pranks I found to be unrealistic- how could they do those things without the school noticing?- but I could still suspend my disbelief there. The whole thing with Solitaire growing in popularity reminded me of Project Mayhem from Fight Club, and I wonder if that was the actual inspiration for it.
Mostly, Solitaire just left me with a really sad, dark feeling overall. It was sort of like something a co-worker told me about recently- how when he saw The Avengers, there was a fight scene where a car that had a sticker on it indicating that it belonged to a family got flipped over, and he was sad for days after seeing that, thinking about the poor family trapped in that car. I seriously felt the same way after reading Solitaire (and that's sort of how I felt after reading Radio Silence as well)- even though the ending was supposed to be uplifting, I was just so sad for the whole weekend after I finished it, thinking about Tori and her struggles. It really didn't put me in a great mental headspace, honestly. Definitely my least favorite Alice Oseman work so far. I'm glad I decided to read Heartstopper before Solitaire, because I feel like I wouldn't have wanted to continue if I'd read this one first. (Also I'm glad that Loveless was already a thing when I first seriously looked into Alice Oseman, because I feel like I might not have been as interested in her works if not.)
Now, I only had one more thought to share, and that is: now that I've read all of Heartstopper, Aled in Radio Silence makes me even more sad because what happened to his entire friend group??? None of them make appearances in Radio Silence (except Charlie & Nick are there very briefly in one scene, but they don't interact with Aled), which makes me think something must have happened for Aled to have distanced himself from them... In my head, Aled eventually reconnects with them and introduces Frances & Daniel to the group and the group is basically like "NEW PEOPLE!!!" and then Frances & Daniel have a bunch of new friends too. (Especially considering where we leave Aled & Daniel at the end of the story, I want to see how the Paris Squad would react to them...)
Which then reminds me of another thing- apparently Tori & Michael make cameos in Radio Silence and I completely missed it, but I'm also convinced that there are other Oseman characters who make cameos in that book and I don't know who they are. Particularly, there's a scene with a girl at a bar who says something cryptic that seemed like it was significant to another story, but I don't know if it ties in with any of her other books (especially since Radio Silence was only Oseman's second book and it takes place a few years after Solitaire, so neither of the plots overlap). Also, I realized that the first chapter of Radio Silence spoils something that happens in the climax of Solitaire, but I didn't realize that until after I'd read Solitaire.
Also: I need to read I Was Born For This!!!! I can probably get an e-book version of it somewhere, we'll see.
I recently finished reading another book by Alice Oseman- her first novel, Solitaire, written when she was 17 and published in 2015, and with an updated edition supposedly released in 2020 (although I found VERY little information about that edition online so I'm not sure how to get my hands on a copy). Solitaire was the beginning of many things for Alice Oseman- not only her first published work, but the first appearance of her characters Nick Nelson & Charlie Spring, who would go on to become the main characters of her graphic novel series, Heartstopper. Back when I first discovered Heartstopper was a thing (which, side note, I realized recently I had seen more Heartstopper things isolated on tumblr than I had initially remembered- I used to think my introduction to it was from seeing the scene where Nick comes out to his mother out of context, but when re-reading it I realized that I had already previously seen both the flower shop AU comic and the comic set in the future where Nick & Charlie adopt a dog, and I suspect that what introduced me was the flower shop AU and, because I found it so cute, I went to the author's page and the most recent Heartstopper update happened to be the one where Nick came out, which was probably why that scene felt so familiar to me when I was reading it more recently)... I had found out that the characters from that comic were originally featured in Solitaire, so Solitaire has been on my TBR list for a while. But I also found out more recently, when browsing Oseman's website, that the original publication of Solitaire depicted mental illness in a harmful way, so I was wary when I got my hands on this book (as I said before, the edited version has apparently already been released but I can't find ANY information about it besides the one mention of it on Oseman's site, so I had no idea how to get a copy of it). It was, overall, an interesting read... but I'm still not really sure how I felt about it.
Solitaire is Tori's story- the older sister of Charlie Spring, one of the Heartstopper protagonists, who in this story is sixteen and having quite a rough time of it. When she's not half-assing her way through school or forcing herself to participate in social events with her schoolmates, she's up in her bedroom watching movies, drinking diet lemonade, and blogging (on a site that's not named, but its description is very tumblr-reminiscent). Nothing particularly satisfies or interests her, until several significant events occur- her old friend from primary school, Lucas, transfers into her school/grade; she crosses paths with another new transfer, the eccentric Michael Holden; and a series of pranks begin to take off around the school, organized by a mysterious group/figure known as Solitaire. The story is one part mystery, as those around Tori rope her into investigating Solitaire, and- despite its "This is not a love story" tagline- an examination of the growing relationship between Tori and Michael.
To start off, I think I'd like to get into the discrepancies between Solitaire and Heartstopper, of which there were several (and some are admittedly very nitpicky, but there was definitely one big thing that was noticeably different from how it was described in Heartstopper):
-The way Michael was described in Solitaire doesn't match the way he's drawn in Heartstopper- he's described as having slicked back hair with a side part, but in his appearances in Heartstopper, his hair is a mess of floofy curls. Then again, it did mention in Solitaire that he doesn't style his hair when he's not as school and that his hair looks a lot messier then, so it could be that the panel where he's introduced in Heartstopper wasn't supposed to show him and Tori at school.
-In Heartstopper, Charlie refers to Michael as "this new friend" that Tori's made, as if he's unfamiliar with him until Tori meets him, but in Solitaire, he and Nick have both heard of Michael, since Michael used to go to their school before transferring to the all-girls school.
-Speaking of which... this is extremely nitpicky, but Nick and Charlie seemed weirdly judgmental when Tori first mentions Michael, saying that they've heard Michael is nuts and Tori should probably stay away from him. I didn't think that was in character at all, given how open and accepting they usually are towards people adjacent to their friend group. (Charlie did make up for it later by telling Tori that even though he'd heard weird things about Michael, he still thinks he's a good friend for Tori.)
-Charlie called Tori "Victoria" almost exclusively. I didn't even know her name WAS Victoria when I was reading Heartstopper.
-Now here's the big one, which I think is probably one of the main things that has to have been changed in the new edition- In Heartstopper, Charlie stays for a while at a mental health facility, after working up the courage to tell his parents about his struggles with an eating disorder. In Solitaire, the reason that Charlie goes to the hospital is COMPLETELY different- Tori finds him after a suicide attempt. I actually thought this had a major impact on the plot of Solitaire (I'll go into it more in a bit), and if it had happened the way it happened in Heartstopper, Tori's reaction would have been significantly different. Then again... I suppose either way, it must be really hard to see your loved one's mental health deteriorate to the point where they have to stay in a hospital for a while, and that could easily make someone feel guilty, but the way it was depicted in Solitaire seemed almost like Charlie was sent there with no choice, whereas in Heartstopper, it was made very clear that he volunteered to go. (Now that I'm thinking about it, I do recall that Charlie mentioned he started self-harming while he was waiting to be seen by a doctor who specializes in eating disorders, so that COULD have been the incident referred to in Solitaire... but the way Tori described it made it sound like a suicide attempt, with Charlie having written a note to her and everything, and it's also never mentioned anywhere in Heartstopper that Tori ever actually witnessed Charlie self-harming, so...)
I think that's a good lead-in to what I mainly wanted to discuss with this post- was the depiction of mental illness in Solitaire as harmful as it had been described? Well, full disclosure, I've never suffered from the same disorders that Charlie & Tori have, so I don't know how it would come across to those who have. But some things did seem off to me. There was a scene (also mentioned in Heartstopper) where Charlie relapses into self-harming after an argument with Nick, and part of his relapse has him organizing all the food in the kitchen by size and color. I know Charlie has OCD, especially relating to food, but it seemed a sort of bizarre detail to add, like- people with OCD like to keep things organized, so here's Charlie organizing the food in the kitchen regardless of whether it actually made sense in the context of the scene for him to do that. (I'm not talking about how the act itself makes no sense, because that's sort of the nature of OCD- people who experience this disorder feel they have to go through certain rituals that, factually speaking, have no purpose and therefore don't make sense. I'm talking about how, after what was implied to be an emotionally-charged argument, Charlie had the urge to self-harm- and also arrange the food in the kitchen? I'm not ENTIRELY sure if that fit with the moment.) I dunno, I'm sure the mileage of readers who actually have OCD and/or an eating disorder would vary for this- and also, it's never mentioned what the argument was about so maybe what Charlie did made more sense depending on what they had argued about.
For the most part, though, it wasn't Charlie's mental health that gave me some off vibes, but Tori's. And even that, I'm not sure if I'm overreacting and if other readers might find this okay... since there were some things I thought Oseman did right, or at least tried to. But there were some other moments that I thought were iffy. Throughout the book, it's pretty obvious that Tori is suffering from depression, although it's never stated that she is. She shows no interest in anything (even her watching movies and blogging is more of a habit than a thing she really enjoys), constantly talks down to herself in her head (calling herself "pathetic," an "idiot," etc.), and she also shows a deep disdain for... almost anyone who's not herself and her brother. And then at the end... I'm sorry, I can't talk about this book without getting into plot spoilers. I'll try to only mention what happens without any context that would give too much away. Anyway... at the end of the book, Tori considers and almost attempts suicide. So, yeah. Tori is depressed. And I honestly don't think the depiction of her depression is completely inaccurate, but... I guess it was more the message the book seemed to be trying to send about overcoming depression, and the reactions of the characters surrounding Tori, that seemed off to me.
-When Tori comes close to attempting/committing suicide, she's talked down when her friends show up, and when Michael tells her something along the lines of "you can't do this and leave me alone, I'll miss you." Maybe it's just my personal feelings, but I feel like that's a horrible, guilt-trippy thing to say to someone who is on the verge of ending their own life. It's good to show a person that you love them and that they are cared for... but to frame it in THAT way, in almost a selfish way, it just didn't sit right with me. And THAT is what convinces Tori not to do it. That, and Michael confessing that he hates himself too, for some reason hearing him say that seems to be what gets to Tori the most. Honestly, I really didn't understand that whole part. It all felt very abrupt, first going from Tori wanting to kill herself then suddenly, oh she doesn't want to do that anymore, she wants to be with Michael... Then at the end of that scene, she admits that she's not cured, that she still would rather lock herself in her bedroom and never emerge, but seeing her friends all together enjoying the day makes her feel better. THAT I thought was good, because it would definitely take more than a passionate speech from Michael to completely cure Tori's depression. But... I dunno, something about his speech was just very weird to me. And I also felt like it was a weird tonal shift to go from someone wanting to commit suicide to then seeing all her friends having fun and enjoying herself and admitting hey! Maybe the world's not so bad after all! I don't know, I can't say for sure, having never been in that headspace. But it did feel a bit whiplash-y. (Also, it's really hard to mention it without spoilers, but the entire setting of that whole scene made it very, very hard to read it as a positive thing- I kept thinking all the while "shouldn't you be getting out of there before something bad happens??" To explain further would be to spoil the climax of the book, but. It was a very weird place & time for such a heartwarming moment to be happening.)
-In the very last chapter, Tori says she still doesn't understand how her depression got so bad, because "I'm not traumatized. It's not like there was one event that changed everything." I think that was supposed to point out how in some stories, one Tragic Event in the past is supposed to be the reason for a character's many problems, whereas in real life, depression can happen just because a person's brain doesn't function the same way other people's do. I think it was good to point that out, HOWEVER... I thought, the entire time, that Tori WAS traumatized and just wasn't processing what had happened to Charlie the previous year, and that was a major contributing factor in her depression. Worth noting that Solitaire includes multiple shout-outs to The Catcher in the Rye- Michael's last name is Holden, Tori dreams about a boy in a red hat catching her every time she tries to jump off a cliff (referring to the protagonist of Catcher, Holden, wanting to keep children from losing their innocence), there's a part at the end where Tori's father references Catcher in the Rye and someone asks if anyone in the scene has read the book and none of them have. There's even a blurb on the front of the book that calls Solitaire "The Catcher in the Rye for the digital age." And in Catcher, Holden is much like Tori- a depressed teenager with a deep disdain for everything surrounding him, and no interest in most things. However, it's implied that Holden is deeply traumatized from the recent-ish death of his brother, which is the main reason for his depression. So I had the feeling, the whole time, that Tori was also traumatized from witnessing her own brother's suicide attempt and self-harm. So it made NO sense to me to read that part at the end where Tori states that she wasn't traumatized, and it didn't read in an "unreliable narrator" way where what they say is different from what's true- it felt like you were supposed to believe Tori when she said that. But honestly, I don't.
-Now, the worst part about the depiction of Tori's depression was actually nothing that the author did, but the way that certain people in her life reacted to her- namely, HER PARENTS. Tori's parents handled her mental health struggle in SUCH a terrible way, it made me so angry. First off, I do have to say that Tori's relationship with her mother sort of hit home for me, how she felt like her mother never paid attention to her and was always working on the kitchen computer and never really seemed to SEE her... It made me feel more sympathetic to Tori there, even though when I looked this book up, I saw a couple reviewers on goodreads talking about how they felt more sympathetic to her mother because Tori was acting like a brat. I have a feeling we're not supposed to take sides in that relationship, though... But anyway, it was the first scene with Tori's father that bothered me at first. After Tori had been in bed for most of the day, her dad came in and asked how she was feeling and if she had anything to do that day. She says she's fine and no, she doesn't have anything to do that day. He says she can talk to him if anything is bothering her, she stays silent. He... basically tells her that she needs to try to be more happy, and when she gives some snarky response he just sighs "Teenagers..." and leaves her alone. So in that scene, it bothered me that he didn't make more of an attempt to connect (after clearly noticing that something was wrong), and mostly, that he told her that her problem is that she doesn't try hard enough. Tori even counters that in her head, thinking "I am trying. I've been trying for years." That wasn't as bad as the next scene with Tori and her parents, though, where Tori has a breakdown in front of Charlie and Charlie tells their parents what happened and they go to talk to her. I don't even remember the specifics of that scene but I do remember her mother telling her she needed to smile and cheer up, and to stop being so melodramatic. After Tori was screaming and crying at Charlie, and he apparently told their parents all about that?? Why wouldn't they have been more concerned? I get that it's a realistic depiction of how some parents would react, how they minimize their children's struggles... BUT, considering they have a son who, in this version of the story, went to the hospital for a suicide attempt, wouldn't they have learned by now that "have you tried NOT being depressed?" is a terrible thing to say to a depressed person? How could they be so understanding about Charlie's issues and then minimize Tori's to such an extent? Even at the end, after Charlie tells their parents about what had just happened with Tori, her dad's response is to joke about how The Catcher in the Rye must have gotten into his bloodstream after reading it so much when he was younger and it's been passed down to the next generation. That... seemed like a REALLY terrible time for a joke, tbh. And again: Charlie went through the same thing and they help him, now Tori is struggling and they make jokes about it? What?????
There was one other part of the book, aside from the discrepancies and possible problematic aspects, that I didn't like, and that was the eventual result of Tori & Michael growing closer to each other. I really don't want to spoil anything, but... fuck it, I'll just say, there was no reason to make their relationship of THAT nature. I didn't even get the feeling that it was going that way until they did THAT. And then Michael says he thinks he's always felt that way about Tori, right from the start? Spare me... I just wasn't buying it. Tori seemed so indifferent to those kinds of relationships throughout the book and then ends up in one. It seemed arbitrary- they had a great relationship without throwing that into the mix. I was sort of hoping it would be more like Aled & Frances from Radio Silence.
Actually, that reminded me of another thing- Lucas' whole deal???!!! Tori was so right to run for the hills. Although this was another moment that felt very weird and whiplash-y, when after he told her what he told her, he then was basically like "but I'm all over that now!" I was like... wow, you gained a sense of perspective SHOCKINGLY quickly.
As far as the story goes. I figured out who was behind Solitaire pretty quickly, but there was still a twist thrown in later that surprised me. I only wish the book had either been about Tori investigating Solitaire, or about Tori and Michael growing closer, because I felt like the Solitaire part didn't jive with the rest of the plot. At first Michael was a bit of an overbearing character (at least, I imagined that if I met him in real life, I'd have to distance myself from him because he seemed like A Lot at first glance), but then I gradually warmed up to him much like Tori did, and I thought he was charming and relatable. He had some very sweet scenes with Tori that I liked. I never quite got a good grip on Tori & Becky's relationship but I'm satisfied with how they ended up. Nick didn't do much but it was nice to see him from time to time (also, I know Alice Oseman said that nothing in Heartstopper is going to spoil Solitaire, but I kind of hope a certain scene where Nick gets a proper bad-ass moment ends up in Heartstopper). Many of the Solitaire pranks I found to be unrealistic- how could they do those things without the school noticing?- but I could still suspend my disbelief there. The whole thing with Solitaire growing in popularity reminded me of Project Mayhem from Fight Club, and I wonder if that was the actual inspiration for it.
Mostly, Solitaire just left me with a really sad, dark feeling overall. It was sort of like something a co-worker told me about recently- how when he saw The Avengers, there was a fight scene where a car that had a sticker on it indicating that it belonged to a family got flipped over, and he was sad for days after seeing that, thinking about the poor family trapped in that car. I seriously felt the same way after reading Solitaire (and that's sort of how I felt after reading Radio Silence as well)- even though the ending was supposed to be uplifting, I was just so sad for the whole weekend after I finished it, thinking about Tori and her struggles. It really didn't put me in a great mental headspace, honestly. Definitely my least favorite Alice Oseman work so far. I'm glad I decided to read Heartstopper before Solitaire, because I feel like I wouldn't have wanted to continue if I'd read this one first. (Also I'm glad that Loveless was already a thing when I first seriously looked into Alice Oseman, because I feel like I might not have been as interested in her works if not.)
Now, I only had one more thought to share, and that is: now that I've read all of Heartstopper, Aled in Radio Silence makes me even more sad because what happened to his entire friend group??? None of them make appearances in Radio Silence (except Charlie & Nick are there very briefly in one scene, but they don't interact with Aled), which makes me think something must have happened for Aled to have distanced himself from them... In my head, Aled eventually reconnects with them and introduces Frances & Daniel to the group and the group is basically like "NEW PEOPLE!!!" and then Frances & Daniel have a bunch of new friends too. (Especially considering where we leave Aled & Daniel at the end of the story, I want to see how the Paris Squad would react to them...)
Which then reminds me of another thing- apparently Tori & Michael make cameos in Radio Silence and I completely missed it, but I'm also convinced that there are other Oseman characters who make cameos in that book and I don't know who they are. Particularly, there's a scene with a girl at a bar who says something cryptic that seemed like it was significant to another story, but I don't know if it ties in with any of her other books (especially since Radio Silence was only Oseman's second book and it takes place a few years after Solitaire, so neither of the plots overlap). Also, I realized that the first chapter of Radio Silence spoils something that happens in the climax of Solitaire, but I didn't realize that until after I'd read Solitaire.
Also: I need to read I Was Born For This!!!! I can probably get an e-book version of it somewhere, we'll see.
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Date: 2022-04-09 10:01 pm (UTC)Thanks for this post, it was really interesting and informative! ^^
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Date: 2022-04-10 12:29 am (UTC)Take all the time you want responding. I'm glad I could inform you!
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Date: 2022-04-11 08:14 pm (UTC)I'm glad that Oseman appears to have changed the nature of Tori and Michael's relationship, since I've seen quite a few reviews complaining that, like you said, it turned out to be a love story despite the tagline. And the impression I got of Tori and Michael in Heartstopper was also that they were in that stage of a fictional romantic relationship in which the people haven't yet admitted their feelings, but it's clear to everyone that they'll end up together. It'll be nice if she changed it to something less obvious.
Speaking of impressions I had while reading Heartstopper, one of my very few complaints about the whole series is that I felt (and it may just be that I missed something) like Charlie's eating disorder came a bit out of nowhere. I only understood later that it had to be there to fit with his plot in Solitaire (and it apparently didn't do that), and I wish she'd put in some hints since Volume One (it seems like that might happen in the live action adaptation, and I'm excited about it.)
Still talking about Charlie, I feel like organizing the food in the kithcen may make some sense if it happened before the self-harm. It might have been a failed attempt to control something else or distract his mind in a way that kept him from self-harming. I apologise if this is TMI, but having mild OCD I have done rituals as a way to calm down from the urge to self-harm, and it works sometimes.
Now, about Tori... I haven't read the book, but going by your description it sounds like the portrayal of her mental health (and of her parents' reactions!) was quite flawed indeed. Having been suicidally depressed, I can confirm that "you can't do that because I'll miss you" is one of the worst things you can say to someone in that state (I want to shout out Stardew Valley for getting this right by stating that you made things worse if you attempt to talk Shane down from a suicidal mindset by saying he's responsible for his goddaughter. Sorry for going off topic, I just really like that scene), and my life has been a LOT better since I cut off the one person who tried that shit on me. If someone is unwell enough and unhappy enough with their own life that they're considering ending it, this situation has to be about them, not anyone else, and besides being really manipulative, when the person says "you can't leave ME" it sounds like "I don't care how miserable you are, you have an obligation to make me happy, and I have none to help you." It's really disheartening that Michael saying that was portrayed as something that worked. And it's too close to "love cures mental illness", even if there were scenes later on saying otherwise. I'm really glad Oseman learned more about this, and gave us that scene in Heartstopper with Nick's mom explaining to him why he can't expect to cure Charlie's problems by himself, with the power of love and nothing more.
And while I'm always happy to see storylines in which someone gets depressed "without reason", because that is how brains work and there's still a lot of stigma around people who have depression without having suffering any traumatic life events, I agree that that's definitely not the case with Tori. If finding your brother after a suicide attempt doesn't count as traumatic, I don't know what does.
And as for the parents... Wow. When you first mentioned they handled things badly in this book, I thought that was in line with their portrayal in Heartstopper, and that maybe they hadn't noticed Tori's issues like they didn't notice Charlie's until he literally wrote them a letter asking for help. However, that was before I knew Charlie had attempted suicide in Solitaire. You put it perfectly how absurd it was that they took Tori's mental health lightly after what should have been such a gigantic wake-up call. Sadly there are a lot of parents who think "just smile and TRY to be happy" is a good thing to say to depressed people, and the Springs sound like they would be that type of people before Charlie's issues happened. But there is no explanation or excuse for them to disregard Tori's issues in such a way after what happened to him, let alone JOKE about it.
It sounds like the book has quite a few problematic aspects that mean I won't be reading this edition. Thank you so much for letting me know about these problems. To end this on a positive note, I'm really happy that Nick got a badass moment! I love it when he gets Ben off Charlie, and would really like to see him getting other chances to be that badass. :)
Here's hoping the edited version is better! I'll keep looking for it, and will let you know if I find it. :)
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Date: 2022-04-12 02:22 am (UTC)“My brother doesn’t like food. Or rather, he likes it, but he likes it so much that it has to be perfect all the time, and it makes him anxious. It made him so anxious that he decided that it would be better if there wasn’t any food. But that’s not right, you’ve got to have food to live, so one day he just decided to get it over with… And he wrote me a card saying he was so sorry but also so happy that he was doing this, and you know the funny part? The card had a picture of a cake on it.” (obviously she was being sarcastic when she said it was funny. Side note, I guess the card with a cake on it did make it into Heartstopper, but in a different context… also wow, just typing that out, even though it was paraphrased from the top of my head, sort of shows how harmful it was for Oseman to use Charlie’s mental illness in a sort of sensational way- I’m not sure if I can put how I feel about this into words but I want to try to mention it more later)
I was reading through some of the last chapter of Heartstopper last night to see where this could have fit into the plot. And I noticed that there was a part where Charlie talks about self-harming while on the waiting list to be seen by the specialist, and how there was one incident where he had to go to the emergency room, and that was when his health was assessed and they decided he might be better off staying in the hospital for a while. So, that was probably supposed to refer to the suicide attempt, except it wasn’t a suicide attempt in Heartstopper, I don’t think. And there was no indication in Solitaire that Charlie had been open about his mental illness to his family prior to that. It didn’t go into too much depth but it seemed like Tori was taken completely by surprise when that happened. Like one day, Charlie’s fine, the next- she finds him at the absolute lowest point. All coming out of nowhere. (I guess that’s part of what I was trying to say before- I’m still not sure if I’ll be able to say it right but… I feel like that plot point was added almost for shock value. I know it wasn’t, and it was probably genuinely supposed to depict mental illness in a balanced way, but it was like… what can we do to make this work more mature and edgy? There just didn’t seem to be any thought put into this, the nuances of Charlie’s eating disorder and why he would get to the point where he’d want to end his life… it almost felt like it was just included to give Tori an excuse for her own poor mental state, which then makes it even weirder that there was a line at the end specifically saying she wasn’t traumatized. Very conflicting mixed messages there. Anyway, I don’t think that’s how an author should treat such a subject.)
Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you knew that Charlie definitely still had an eating disorder in Solitaire (and it was mentioned a few more times besides those lines from Tori). It was just depicted much more dramatically and probably harmfully. So I agree that it was probably added into Heartstopper to fit with Solitaire better (and I agree that it seemed like it came out of nowhere and some foreshadowing in the first two chapters would have been helpful).
Yeah, it's hard to know for sure but the one review I found that specified that it was a review of the edited version made a big point in repeatedly saying how great it was that the MCs do NOT get into a relationship, how there was nothing romantic in their interactions, and even how it was reminiscent of the main relationship in Radio Silence. So I really, really hope this means that the edited version removes their out-of-nowhere kiss and Michael's line which says something like "I think I've always liked you [actually he might have even said "love" but I don't remember and I hope not], I just mistook it for curiosity" (which I thought was a bizarre thing to say anyway, like usually it's the other way around for one, and also I feel like being curious about someone can lead to developing romantic feelings for them, it's not like the two are mutually exclusive? Ehhh *shrugs*). Otherwise it was exactly like something we talked about before- how some fictional couples have to kiss for you to know they have feelings for each other.
I'm glad you were able to weigh in about Charlie organizing the food int he kitchen- it makes more sense to me when you put it that way. Tori only witnesses the aftermath so it's not clear what he may have done first.
Yes, that is exactly how I feel, it's such a selfish thing to say. And I really loved that scene in Heartstopper, because that's how it should be, I think. It's unrealistic to expect to solve someone's problems by loving them, and I can only see that ending badly. Also yes, like I said, she was definitely traumatized, it was so weird how obvious it was to me and then the last chapter tried to claim she wasn't.
And I have nothing else to say about the way their parents handled Tori's struggle that I didn't already say, I'm just glad you're reinforcing my feelings with your perspective.
What's weird is that I feel like I understand where Solitaire came from (not like, the personal inspiration for it, but how it could end up being written the way it was), because I wrote some things when I was a teenager that handled mental health REALLY badly, and even once I started learning things like how depression isn't always defined by one traumatic event and one person's love can't cure a person's mental illness, I still incorporated those topics into my writing without considering or bothering to display all the nuances that come with that. Not to mention, the way I wrote romance was also very much "he's a boy, she's a girl, they kiss, obviously they're in love" lol, so I feel like I know where the awkwardly shoehorned-in romance came from too. I understand how Alice Oseman wrote this at 17, and I appreciate that she's decided to go back and edit it to present a less harmful message (which is something I've been wanting to do with my story about depression, even though I've already edited it once now, but anyway I'm cutting myself off here before I keep talking about it). I just think it's disappointing that it somehow got published in its current state and apparently, no editor raised any objections. But, I really hope the edited version rectifies those errors, and hopefully you can find it and please let me know if you do! (It may be easier just to look at the front of the book for the publication date, or any mention that the text may have been updated, than to search through the text itself, especially not really knowing the story. There's supposed to be an author's note at the beginning of the new version explaining what was changed, so maybe you could look for that.)
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Date: 2022-04-17 08:30 pm (UTC)I fully agree with you that the way it came out was sensationalized. I also wrote some toxic things as a teenager, so I can easily understand how a 17 years old wrote something like a shock value suicide attempt, but you're right that it's absurd of the editor, an adult who should know a lot better, to have published it like this. I'll have to reread Heartstopper to see the part with the cake card and the self harm incident (that will probably/hopefully have been changed to self harm in the new edition of Solitaire), because I have only a vague memory of them. Thank you for letting me know about the author's note in the beginning of the new version, I'll look for that. I'm supposed to take my grandmother (who got addicted to romance novels during the pandemic) to a bookstore soon, and I'll look for Solitaire (and Radio Silence) while I'm there. It's really great that Oseman was willing to re-edit it to make it less harmful, and I'm looking forward to reading the edited version if I can. It'd be really nice if you re-edited your story too, if you'd like to update it. :) I'm not interested in doing the same with my teenage stories, but I find it so cool when people manage to recicle their stories like this.
I'm relieved to hear that Tori and Michael's relationship appears to be completely platonic in the edit. It sounds like the romantic part came completely out of nowhere and is also something that an editor should have either nipped in the bud or insisted on a better build-up to. That line from Michael sounds really bizarre, and definitely a case of "he was a boy, she was a girl, could I make it any more obvious?" and "lol, they're the main characters and of different genders, of course they have to kiss and be in love." I hope it did turn out more like Radio Silence, in which from what you said the relationship between the leads is really nice and well written.
I just read the first chapter of Solitaire in Portuguese on the Amazon preview, and there was unfortunately no author's note, so that may mean it's the original version. I'll try again at the bookstore, and if I don't find it I'll flip through the book to try to find the kiss or Charlie's suicide attempt. Hopefully I can still find the edited version. I'll let you know!
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Date: 2022-04-19 07:16 pm (UTC)I do hope the print version is the edited version, it would be unfortunate to miss out on learning more about the Heartstopper characters by not reading Solitaire... but also unfortunate to read something problematic like that. Also it would be great if the edited version was the one more widely in circulation, so it could be the one people are exposed to before the other...
"He was a boy, she was a girl, could I make it any more obvious?"- hahahaha, that's unfortunately accurate... (also the more I think about it, the less I like the idea that that was what their relationship developed into, because I like the thought that Tori enjoys Michael's company enough to not feel as bad as she usually does when they're together, but making it romantic turns it more blatantly into "love will cure you...")
Also I appreciate your encouragement about the story I wrote- I edited it once but, like I said, it was still pretty problematic, and I'm not sure if I want to revisit it after that but, maybe someday.
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Date: 2022-04-19 09:11 pm (UTC)"I like the thought that Tori enjoys Michael's company enough to not feel as bad as she usually does when they're together, but making it romantic turns it more blatantly into "love will cure you...""
That's a good point, and yet another way in which the original book seems to be really problematic. I'm happy she changed it, according to that reviewer.