Author: Diana Peterfreund
(Re-posted from my old blogger)
Prestigious Eli University is chock full of not-so-secret secret societies. Amy Haskel, junior and editor of the Lit Mag, is looking forward to being "tapped" by Quill & Ink, where all good little Lit Mag editors go, apparently. Only instead of Quill & Ink she gets tapped by Rose & Grave, a 177 year old society rumored to be akin to the Illuminati. This strikes our Amy as being more than slightly surreal. Rose & Grave are the elite, the rich and the powerful, who choose only the best and the brightest ... oh, yeah, and they're a "boy's club". So why are they interested in a girl from a middle-class background looking to become a magazine editor while secretly dreaming of writing the next Great American Novel? Amy isn't sure, but in an odd go-with-the-flow moment, she decides to accept their offer and join up. The initiation is beyond surreal, but almost instantly she begins to feel a bond with her fellow "Diggers" and is looking forward to learning all about her new brothers ... and sisters. It seems that Amy, Bugaboo to her fellow Diggers, along with 5 other women, are the first taps to include women. A revolutionary move for Rose & Grave. One that leads to some heartache for our Amy and her fellow Diggers. It seems that the board of trustees that runs the money behind Rose & Grave, made up of alumni Diggers, disagrees with the decision to tap women. Unbeknownst to the new taps, the senior class who tapped them, knowingly went against the board. Even though the seniors, being the active members, are supposed to be running things the board stages a sort of coup. They lock up the society's tomb (read: club house), cut off access to funding, and invalidate the membership of both the taps and the senior class. When they don't take it lying down, the old boys start wrecking their future careers and reputations, causing our girl Amy to lose her upcoming internship. At this point Amy's thinking it's all more trouble than it's worth. She's having problems with her room mate and her boyfriend over it and now the old boys are threatening to start wrecking her parents careers too. Will she quit Rose & Grave while she's got the chance or will she stick with it until the very possibly bitter end?
I just finished this today, so it's till pretty fresh in my mind. There were a few moments where I mentally shouted "Just shut your trap and keep it shut!" at our girl Amy during the whole initiation process. Mostly because she knew they were trying to mess with her head and yet she played right into it with all the carrying on. I just wanted her to suck it up, you know? Overall, I have to say that I liked this book. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. You see, I found her best friend secretive and annoying, her friend-with-bennies turned boyfriend, Ben, was way too good for her in the beginning and then goes all wrong when she's finally getting her act together. I found the dreaded Clarissa (Angel) much more to my liking than Amy's friend ... that's a commentary on her friend, not Clarissa ... even though she gets her shit together too when all is said and done. Demetria (Thorndike) was a little to much for me at times. She was a somewhat stereotypical "Afrocentric activist lesbian" chick with her kente cloth. The sub-plot with the spurned chick who was going to out one of the Diggers was a little weird, but I like how Amy handled it. And that's really what won me over, Amy. She wasn't the overdone sassy chick who always had something smart to say, though she did pull that off nicely in her taps interview. She was very real. She wasn't ridiculously stoic, or constantly practical. Sometimes she frustrated me with her actions and choices and sometimes she had me right there with her. She was someone that I wouldn't mind getting to know, if she were a real person, and sometimes that's more than you can say for a leading character.
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