Bibliographic Information
Publisher: Collins
Publication year: 2004
ISBN: 978-0060529383
Reader’s Annotation
Zoe is a freshman in high school, chubby, awkward, and brilliant with the written word. She describes her high school experience from exploring downtown Portland with her best friend to becoming a part of the queer literature scene.
Plot Summary
Writing under a pseudonymous last name, Zoe Trope begins her memoir by describing her freshman year in high school. She and her best friend, nicknamed Linux Shoe, have adventures riding the MAX train in downtown Portland, exploring book stores and Mexican restaurants. The winding narrative eventually finds its way to a story about Zoe falling in love for the first time, with a girl named Scully. She finds her identity as a queer teen, attending the pride parade and embracing the LGBTQ+ culture for herself instead of in support of Linux, when Scully reveals she will be transitioning from female to male. At the same time, Zoe is getting used to local literary fame as her chapbook is published and begins appearing on bookstore shelves.
Critical Evaluation
The style in which Please Don’t Kill the Freshman is written can be seen as poetic or problematic depending on the reader. Trope hovers around a point for several pages, sometimes inserting page breaks or seemingly unrelated imagery at random. In order to appreciate her style, it would be wise for the reader to interpret it as poetry rather than prose. The choice to give her characters nicknames (Linux Shoe, Scully, Plum Sweater, etc.) contributes to the air of anonymity for which Trope strives. Her style authentically communicates the very real feeling of being unsure about one’s identity during adolescence. This memoir is an excellent example of a seldom seen classification within a genre: young adult literature being written by young adults.
Author Information
Zoe Trope was born in 1986. She graduated from high school in Oregon in 2003. That same year, HarperCollins published her high school memoir, Please Don't Kill the Freshman. Since then, she has written for magazines, newspapers, and anthologies.
She graduated from Oberlin College in 2008 with a Bachelors in Art History and completed her Masters in Library Science in 2010. Zoe is a reference librarian at a community college in Washington state and welcomes correspondence at ztrope at gmail.
Source: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/193859.Zoe_Trope
Genre
Memoir
Curriculum Ties
Language Arts
Booktalking Ideas
Ask the audience if they can imagine becoming a published author before they graduate high school, then explain Zoe Trope wrote this book throughout high school and had it published in her senior year. Read a passage from part one detailing an average day in her life to emphasize the authenticity of Trope’s writing style. Then give a rating from 1-5 and tell the audience why this is my rating, and take questions.
Reading Level/Interest Age
School Library Journal: Grade 10 and up
Challenging Issues
LGBTQ+
Language
Preparing for Potential Challenges
http://jeselynsminiyacollection.blogspot.com/p/preparing-for-potential-challenges.html
http://jeselynsminiyacollection.blogspot.com/p/preparing-for-specific-challenges-lgbtq.html
Why the Item Was Chosen
Trope keeps the reader engaged in the story as they try to make sense of her dreamy poetic style or prose and descriptions of the Portland area from the perspective of a young teenager. Her voice as she describes the monotony of high school and her fellow students is instantly relatable to teenage readers. Also, acceptance of her queer identity, coming out, and first love with a girl who transitions into a boy are important for representation of the young LGBTQ+ community. I included this book in my collection because it was an important addition to my personal library when I was a teenage reader, and because queer visibility is an invaluable aspect of the young adult section of a library.
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