Lock and Key

Reading Lock and Key has emphasized the fact that I should definitely do my research about the literature I choose to read before doing so.  I was sitting at the library baffled with no idea what to get contemplating which book may be the best judging by the size, color, and title.  It was not the best decision I later discovered, and in a rush, I blindly picked up the book Lock and Key hoping it would be something of interest.  So far, I’m not a fan.

Lock and Key is a typical book for the day-dreaming teenager looking for a nice fantasy.  Ruby, the main character, has been taken from her past rough, poverty stricken lifestyle and thrown suddenly into an elite school, a perfect family, and a million dollar house when moving in with her long-lost sister.  Most people would find it to be the ideal fantasy and change of pace, but of course, to create an unsettling inner conflict; Ruby does not like her new life.  She finds herself wandering back to her old house and taking the long bus rides to see her old friends, and the adjustment to the new life is made all the more difficult.  She doesn’t fit in at the new school in all ways from appearance to personality, and her new home life is filled with a constant underlying awkwardness.

Just like every wistful teenage girl novel, there’s an “unexpected” love interest.  Following the stereotypical plot line, Ruby is interested in a boy named Marshall that is low, trashy, and shallow.  Her overbearingly confident belief that she’s in control of her whole situation blindly leads her into believing that he is everything she needs and she can handle their estranged, unusual relationship.  On the other side of things, she meets a boy named Nate who is the definition of the ideal man.  With an athletic body, friendly personality, broad intellect, and high placement on the high school food chain, its obviously assumed that most every girl would be interested in him except, of course, for Ruby.  Although I am not far enough to know where they’re relationship is headed, it’s obvious that the old idea of opposites attract is at play.  As different as they may seem, it already appears that they are being drawn together, and maybe later in the book similarities will reveal themselves and bonds will be made.