I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Me, Him, Them, and It by Caela Carter Published by Bloomsbury on February 26, 2013
Genres: Contemporary YA, Pregnancy, Young Adult
Pages: 310
Format: eARC
Source: the publisher via NetGalley
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ME is Evelyn Jones, 16, a valedictorian hopeful who’s been playing bad girl to piss off THEM, her cold, distant parents. HIM is Todd, Evelyn’s secret un-boyfriend, who she thought she was just using for sex – until she accidentally fell in love with him. But before Evelyn gets a chance to tell Todd how she feels, something much more important comes up. IT. IT is a fetus. Evelyn is pregnant – and when Todd turns his back on her, Evelyn has no idea who to turn to. Can a cheating father, a stiff, cold mother, a pissed-off BFF, and a (thankfully!) loving aunt with adopted girls of her own help Evelyn make the heart-wrenching decisions that follow?
Teen pregnancy is a tough subject to write about, friends. Mostly because I feel like there’s bound to be something unpleasant surrounding it: angry parents, a boyfriend who ditches the pregnant girl the second he finds out, school bullies, etc. Always, on some level, you’re dealing with teenagers (OBVS) who, no matter how mature they are, don’t always deal with this kind of life-changing event in the best ways. ME, HIM, THEM, AND IT by Caela Carter has just such a main character in Evelyn. It ALSO has parental issues and baby daddy issues, too, for good measure. I liked Caela Carter’s debut, but the characters didn’t make it easy for me. I might get a little ranty, friends, because Evelyn…well, you’ll see.
In a nutshell, ME, HIM, THEM, AND IT is about Evelyn, a goody-two-shoes whose parents basically hate each other’s guts. In an effort to get her parents’s attention, Evelyn starts doing drugs, drops out of her extracurriculars at school, and starts sleeping with this guy Todd. They have an agreement to keep things emotion-free. In fact, people at school don’t even know they’re FRIENDS; they are strictly sex buddies. Well, that is until Evelyn starts to have the feels for him and rely on him when her parents are being horrible to each other. After one such bad day, Evelyn winds up calling Todd over to console her, and she doesn’t make him use a condom. This becomes a recurring thing, and BOOM! Whaddaya know. PREGNANT EVELYN. Evelyn talks with a counselor at Planned Parenthood a little bit, and when her mother finds out, she arranges it so that Evelyn can go spend her pregnancy in Chicago with her aunt, an adopted lesbian, and her partner, who have two adopted kids of their own. Because, you know, people can’t find out that Evelyn is PREGNANT! *Gasp* Does this mean she won’t be valedictorian anymore?! Anyway, I won’t say too much more because it’s kind of spoilery, but there it is.
Basically the story of ME, HIM, THEM, AND IT is Evelyn’s story of how she got pregnant, how she handled being pregnant, and her back and forth about whether or not she’s going to keep her baby. Tough issues, friends, and Caela Carter creates a character who toes that line between realistic teenager (which I give props for) and selfish, irritable sort-of whinypants (which I do not). There’s lots of other issues going on here, but I’m going to focus on Evelyn for a second because she really is the centerpiece. Todd too, to a lesser extent. Since this is a book about teenage pregnancy first and foremost, that’s where I’m going to spend most of my time here.
So. EVELYN. She’s infuriating and broken and empathetic and tough. She’s SUCH a teenager. Which, as most of us know, means that sometimes she does things that make you want to slap her silly and yell and scream, and sometimes she’s so sad and scared that your heart breaks and you want to hug her for days. Evelyn’s got a chip on her shoulder for sure, but you know why it’s there. Her family life sucks, her relationship with Todd is complicated, and, of course, SHE’S PREGNANT. There are things she does to herself, to her family, and to her baby that made me angry and mad at her, but then I reminded myself that she’s a scared, unprepared teenager. Seriously–now, I don’t have kids myself so I can’t speak to the actual truth of this–but it totally made me feel like what I imagine a real-life mother of a teenager must feel like: I loved Evelyn and was ENORMOUSLY frustrated with her at the same time.
And you know what? I felt the same thing about Todd. He was a conflicting character for me. Because yeah, no one at school knows that Todd and Evie are friends, let alone have been sleeping together for a long time. They both mutually decided to keep it a secret and have been denying that they both have some feelings for each other for ages. But when they’re alone, he’s sweet with her. He talks to her. Knows that her family life stinks and asks her about it while they cuddle. I thought he could have reacted WAY worse to Evie telling him she was pregnant than he did: he didn’t yell, he didn’t call her names, he didn’t get angry. But he also told her more than once that he wasn’t going to help with the baby because he couldn’t, which basically was him being scared and chickening out.
Both of them were super concerned about normal teenage things that shouldn’t have mattered: sports teams, grades, their reputations, getting in trouble with their parents. But you could tell that Todd was a good kid who was doing really jerky things. It always seemed to me that he felt bad that he was doing them but didn’t think he would be capable of doing anything else. And he kind of redeemed himself a little bit at the end, too. The truth is that I can’t hate either one of them, even though they both made me furious.
*Sigh* Now that I went on that rant, I hope that it’s clear how conflicting the characters in ME, HIM, THEM, AND IT are. Sometimes this bothers me more than other times, and I’d have to say that Caela Carter’s book is pretty much right down the middle. As I mentioned before, there are other things going on in ME, HIM, THEM, AND IT, and they aren’t bad at all. I really liked the supporting characters quite a bit, I thought the book was definitely well-written, and I have to confess to crying a little bit at the end. But it was Evelyn and, to a slightly lesser extent, Todd, who left the biggest impression on me, and I can’t decide if that’s a good or bad thing. Hopefully you’ll read this book and have a better time of figuring that out for yourselves.
Check out these other reviews of Me, Him, Them, and It by Caela Carter
Magan @ Rather Be Reading: “Evie was so full of spunk and so unparalleled that she immediately caught my attention from the beginning pages.”
Jen @ A Book and A Latte: “Me, Him, Them, and It is one of the most honest and realistic books I’ve read that deals with teen pregnancy.”
Molli @ Once Upon A Prologue: “I have never felt so utterly let down and insulted by a book since I started blogging.”
It trips me out that people like this one, BUT it’s good as well, that there are different opinions and view points. I’m finally having that experience where others liked/loved a book and I just don’t GET it. I’ve been on the other side of that a lot since I started blogging. I guess I’m an optimist, so I always try to find something I liked in a book, even if it was bad. With this one, although it infuriated me, I really DID like the relationship that developed between Evelyn and her aunts, and little cousins. I thought that was sweet. 🙂
I really didn’t like Evelyn and thought that although she was supposed to be a smart girl, I just didn’t see it because she made so many stupid decisions.
Books about teenagers getting pregnant are always touch and go for me. It sounds like I’d be majorly frustrated with Evelyn if I read this one, so thanks for the heads up! It’s always interesting when an author is able to do an authentic teenager voice though, seriously.