Alex Flinn brings back Caitlin as a Diva
Diva by Alex Flinn
Caitlin knows what she wants to be and it isn't a cheerleader or the girlfriend of the hottest guy in high school. Caitlin wants to be a diva — the kind who sings opera while being showered with roses. She has the voice and the training for it — what remains to be seen is whether she can overcome her shyness and insecurity.
Readers of Alex Flinn will recognize Caitlin — she's the abused girlfriend from Flinn's critically acclaimed first novel, Breathing Underwater. She makes a reappearance in Flinn's latest book, released this month from HarperCollins, Diva. It's being billed as a companion book and not a sequel as it now picks up Caitlin's story with Nick being only on the periphery. We do get to see more of his recovery and learn more of what becomes of their relationship, but this book firmly belongs to Caitlin.
In some ways, it is almost as if Flinn wanted to go back and give her character a happy ending — or at least a happier one. She starts out the novel in the clutches of her new friends, cheerleaders who obsess over every calorie and are as catty as they come. Caitlin rightly decides she needs to escape from both these new friends and from the constant presence of Nick against whom she still has a restraining order. She makes the escape by pursuing one of her dreams. She auditions for and then attends a performing arts high school where she is surrounded by other kids with similar interests and dreams to herself.
Diva is a very readable book written firmly to its target teen audience. While the talk of makeup and fashion may give it more appeal to girls, there is stuff for boys as well. The book is far more about pursuing one's dreams and healing from past hurts than it is about being a girl.
The novel's conflicts are primarily internal with very few real roadblocks put into Caitlin's path that she doesn't erect herself. There are some clashes with a catty girl at school, but nothing that presents a severe distraction to her. It is Caitlin who holds herself back.
The relationship with her mother is complex and interesting. It captures rather well the interplay between a teenage girl and her mother, neither of whom can quite connect even when they want to. The resentments and assumptions that both carry keep getting in the way. Flinn does grant them a little bit of a break-through, but only enough that is realistic for the characters and relationship established.
Diva explores many issues that are of relevance to teenagers, foremost among them the obsessions with dating and weight. It takes Caitlin a long time to figure out that 115 pounds is not fat nor is it any reason to panic. She keeps a daily record of her weight in an online journal and obsesses over every bite she consumes. It's hard to blame her, though, when she is surrounded by voices that make her feel like a "fatgirl." Flinn takes a pretty realistic look at the pressures a teenager can get that distort self-image completely out of proportion.
At a book signing, Alex Flinn says she hopes that girls who read Diva will take from it that there is something more to life than boyfriends. It's a lesson that Caitlin seems a little slow to learn at first, showing a willingness to bypass incredible opportunities on the chance that she'll have more time to spend with a particular guy. However, life continues to throw her curves which make her realize that there are other things in life than just dating, a lesson she learns even before her mother does.
Diva is an easy-to-read book with a streak of breathy humor running throughout it. It's peppered with online journal entries (which I kept expecting someone else in the novel to stumble across). Those entries are written in the annoying, but realistic, Internet-speak that constantly replaces "to" with 2.
Alex Flinn does an excellent job of writing an entertaining story that gives teenagers something to think and talk about without lecturing or talking down to them.
