Jason's women - Softcover

Jean Davies Okimoto is the recipient of the American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults Award, the International Reading Association's Reader's Choice Award, the IRA/CBC Young Adults' Choice Award, the Parents' Choice Award, the Washington Governor's Award, the Maxwell Medallion for Best Children's Book of the Year, and is the author of two Smithsonian Notable Books.

Grade 7-9 Jason at 16 is a self-professed wimp and has difficulty approaching and talking to girls. He handles this problem by reading How to Fascinate Women and 5000 One and Two Liners for Any and Every Occasion and by answering personal ads in a local Seattle weekly. Three of these ads lead to dates; two are failures and one produces a job, that of campaign manager for 81-year-old Bertha Jane Fillmore, candidate for mayor of Seattle. Bertha Jane is too ill to run much of a campaign, so Jason spends time weeding her flower beds and tutoring a young Vietnamese girl sponsored by Bertha. Bertha dies, Thao moves to California, and Jason has supposedly matured. Plot development and mood are very uneven, jumping from the farcical (Jason's dates) to the serious (Jason's realization during talks with Thao that others have had greater hardships in life than he). Okimoto's first-person narrative has missed its mark of being hip and humorous, instead producing thoughts and dialogue that are emotionally monotonic. Characterizations rarely rise above stereotypes. While the concept behind this novel is valid, its development and execution fall below Okimoto's previously demonstrated abilities. Allen Meyer, Vernon Area Public Lib . District, Prairie View, Ill.
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