Double the Fun

I remember being really upset that I didn't have double eyelids. My sisters (all three of them) had them and advised me to stick tape on my lids to produce the desired "fold". I seem to remember trying this method and others too, including applying baby oil to the lids and "encouraging" a fold by drawing it on with the blunt end of a toothpick!

This was when I was in primary school so I shall blame my shameful and ridiculous behaviour on ignorance and youth.

By the way, my efforts with toothpicks, tape etc did not pay off. However, I ended up with double-eyelids anyway. I can't remember when they appeared, but according to a character in An Na's The Fold, it sometimes happens when you grow older and the skin on your eyelids become thinner!

From StarMag, 13th July 2008

Review by DAPHNE LEE

SKIN DEEP
By E. M. Crane
Publisher: Delacorte Press, 273 pages
(ISBN: 978-0385734790)

THE FOLD
By An Na
Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 280 pages
(ISBN: 978-0399242762)

IN the social hierachy of her high school, Andrea Anderson falls between "Too Lame to Invite to a Party" and "Too Ugly to Go Out With". She doesn't really mind. It's better not to be noticed than to make a bad impression or to be laughed at: "I AM plainish, boring, nervous," says Andrea. "Average student. No school activities. Andrea Anderson, a Nothing. I just am."

But Honora Menapace disagrees with Andrea's assessment of herself. Honora is Andrea's neighbour. Diagnosed with cancer and undergoing chemotherapy, she hires Andrea as an assistant. Honora remarks that the word "and" occurs twice in the name Andrea Anderson. To Honora this means that there is always more to come. Andrea is "not a surface person". ""You are continuing",' she says.

Honora is unlike anyone Andrea knows and, thanks to her, Andrea starts to view the world and people differently. The fact that Honora herself turns out to be totally unlike what Andrea and the rest of the neighbourhood imagined, forces the teenager to re-think things. And as she gets to know Honora better and allows her employer into her life and her thoughts, Andrea finds herself looking more closely at her schoolmates, her teachers, even her own mother, and noticing things about them that she never stopped to consider before.

Honora's trust and belief in Andrea boosts her self-worth and -belief and gives her the courage to open up to others. Her newfound willingness to connect with another human being, something she'd always viewed with dread, makes her new friends that she would never have dreamt of connecting with. She realises that she has been judging her cute neighbour Roger, and Ashley, the pretty cheerleader, based on their looks and popularity in school. Their friendly overtures towards her are, at first, viewed with suspicion and apprehension, revealing not only prejudice on her part but also a lack of self-esteem that prevents her from seeing herself as worthy of their attention and friendship.

It turns out that Ashley is also going through change. For her, it is a more conscious one as she strives to break out of the seemingly perfect world that she inhabits.

'"It's not me,"' she tells Andrea at one point. '"I need a damn intermission from it all so I can take a break, My life just turned out this way, and this way is so incredibly boring and competitive and frivolous, I need a break."'

It seems that it's not just the "plain", "boring", "nothing" people who don't get a chance to reveal their hidden depths.

Skin Deep, like most young adult novels, is about self-realisation. Here it is portrayed through the experiences of Andrea and also, to a lesser degree, Ashley, as well as Andrea's mother who, although a grown-up, is also struggling to find her identity and role in life.

E. M. Crane has created a rich cast of characters, all of whom are vividly portrayed through their words and actions. Often, you get a powerful sense of what a character is like simply by Andrea's reaction to him or her. Mr Diego, Andrea's homeroom teacher, for example, leaves a deep impression although he is in just two short chapters. His suicide early in the novel makes every moment he spent on the page significant in hindsight. (I went back and re-read Mr Diego's scenes, searching for clues.) His death causes Andrea and the reader to think of him as more than just a bad-tempered, bitter man. It made me acutely aware of how easy it is to dismiss people, to simply take them at face value, never for a moment wondering or even caring what causes them to behave the way they do. Someone shouldn't have to die before they are noticed and their feelings considered, but, sadly, this is often the case and Andrea's reflections on the dead Mr Diego shed more light on the man, and the attitudes of those around him, than the few lines that portray him when he was alive and kicking.

Andrea, as the central character, is easy to sympathise and empathise with. Although at first thoroughly unremarkable, she is likeable - shy but curious and thoughtful, fearful yet brave, self-effacing and unsure yet open and eager. I very quickly started caring intensely about Andrea, wanting the best for her, hoping for triumphs and revelations that would leave her breathless and transformed.

Honora's friendship does change Andrea, and by the end of the book you believe that she is well on her way to being the sort of person who takes the road less travelled, touches lives, makes a difference and tries to see in others what is often missed. And you wish you were that sort of person too.

Joyce, in An Na's The Fold, is, on the other hand, someone you wouldn't really want to be like. In fact, she is someone I probably was a lot like ... once ... when I was a teenager - a time of life I would pay good money to not revisit.

Joyce is a American-born Korean who believes she is a failure because she is not as pretty as her older sister, and John Ford Kang, the half-Caucasian, half-Asian boy from school, doesn't know she exists. She wants so badly for JFK to notice her that she seriously considers going for an operation that will give her double-eyelids. Aigoo!

Joyce's insecurity, her envy, and depression are realistically portrayed, but she is really annoying and I wanted her to either get the operation and shut up already, or have her big moment of realising she's beautiful just as the good lord made her and ... well, shut up already too. I guess the difference between Andrea and Joyce is Andrea just gets on with things whereas Joyce whines constantly. The whining is quite off-putting. Whenever it got too much, I'd to stop reading so it took a while to finish the book. Luckily, Joyce has family and friends who are nicer and more patient than I am. They stick by her no matter how annoying she gets.

I badly want to spank Joyce and, unfortunately, I know several Malaysian teens whom she reminds me of. They would so totally relate to her dissatisfaction with her looks, her wish to have more Caucasian features and her partiality to boys who don't look totally Asian. I don't know if they would want to read about Joyce though. They are so into the whole idea of being white that the problems of an Asian girl, no matter how similar to their own, would probably not appeal to them. The average Malaysian teen would be more willing to scrape the surface of Skin Deep than to be part of The Fold.