This week was back to work time. Boo. This isn't really fun for anyone. I will say that all these meetings definitely put a strain on my reading time. However, I FINALLY finished this book yesterday. After a lot of time searching and trying to choose just the right author and just the right book, I finally settled on Polymorph by Scott Westerfeld. While it is true that I have only read one other of Westerfeld's books, he is quite popular among teenage girls (believe me, my students told me). The book I have previously read by him is Uglies, which is the first in a four-part series.
Polymorph tells the story of Lee (one of many names) who is, what she has deemed herself, a polymorph. This means that she can change her physical appearance to look however she'd like. It sounds like it would be pretty cool. While the book takes place in "present time," the society we know is quite different from the book. Lee is in her early 20s and is able to support herself by collecting welfare/disability on behalf of one of her identities.
Because Lee has no real responsibilities, she spends her time clubbing and stealing clothes from her "lovers" -- both male and female. It is at one of these clubs that Lee discovers that she is not the only polymorph. She has spent so much of her life hiding who she is and thinking she is the only one, until Bonita/o shatters her world.
I will be totally blunt here, I didn't like this book. The first few chapters had these crazy sex scenes that I feel were complete unnecessary. They really had nothing to do with the plot and I feel like they were just a waste of paper. A review on the front of the book says, "...I devoured Polymorph in one sitting." No way could I have done that. Even if I had all day to devote to it. As the story went on, some of the action/suspense picked up, but most of the book was blah.
A big part of the problem I had with this book (besides the unnecessary sex scenes), was that I didn't really care much about Lee. She was very guarded and it was hard to get a good feel for who she really is. I think that made for a very disconnected feeling. The only character I really cared for was Freddie who did everything he could to help Lee -- without question. Bonito was a monster. I also don't really feel like the book was complete. Lee was so interested in tracking Bonito down because she wanted to find others like her, but besides a short journal entry about others like her, this plot line doesn't ever play out. The questions are left unanswered.
All of this being said, Scott Westerfeld is not popular without reason. Uglies is a good book. I enjoyed that one when I had to read it for school. I'm pretty confident that if I picked up some of his other books, that are all over the school library, I would find others that I like just as much. So, don't count him out. This first novel is not an accurate depiction of what he can do.
1 Star