Measuring Up
The Age
Saturday September 5, 2009
Measuring Up G. J. Stroud Scribe, $19.95 JONAH is 17 (18 in August, as he reminds a 26-year-old he thinks he might score) and his mind is taken up with the usual teenage stuff €” sex, year 12, family and friends. But just as unhappy families are unhappy in their own way, so too are stressed out and hormonally ravaged adolescents stressed out and hormonally ravaged in their own way.Jonah is dealing with his older brother's secrets, new-found love for the girl-almost-next-door whose mother is dying, a newly voracious appetite for alcohol, a frankly loathsome mate who is turning to the wrong side of the law, and a fracturing friendship circle. Most of all, he is trying to cope with his constant desire for sex. But while Jonah as narrator overtly scoffs at political correctness, Jonah as character shows many of its traits, generally respectful of the young women around him.G. J. Stroud has various strategies to ensure Jonah doesn't lose credibility with the male readers she is surely hoping for (girls will read it too), with colloquial (and sometimes coarse) language and some realistic ambivalence about sex and sexuality.Set in the NSW South Coast holiday town of Merimbula, Measuring Up is a sand-and-surf incarnation of the young adult novel. Jonah finds escape and solace in the breaks and Stroud finds metaphors and allegories in the waves and rip of the ocean.
© 2009 The Age