At the start of Getting the Girl, Cameron Wolfe is alone and lonely: he’s never had a girlfriend, and he doesn’t really have any friends outside his family. His best friend is his older brother Rube, and he’s friendly with his oldest brother, Steve, as well, but he’s also overshadowed by them: he’s not a footballer like Steve, or popular with girls like Rube is. Rube has a new girlfriend every few weeks; at the start of the book he’s with his latest, Octavia. They don’t last long, which is no surprise because Rube’s relationships never last long, but what is surprising is that she then shows an interest in Cameron, who’s busy mooning in front of the house of a girl who’s never been into him. So it seems like Cameron has a shot with a girl, which is new. What’s also new is that Cameron has just started writing: it’s this secret thing he does, when words come to him: he writes and keeps what he’s written all folded up in his pocket. Cameron’s family lives in Sydney, and I’d call him a flâneur except that the connotations of that word maybe don’t fit with his working-class teenagerdom. But he walks through the city and he sees the city and he writes about the city, and about himself, and his writing gives him a moment of connection with Octavia.
Despite the title, though, the book isn’t really about Cam’s relationship with Octavia: it’s more about his relationship with Rube (who is none too pleased when he finds out that Cam and Octavia are seeing one another) and with himself, with his identity as a striver/underdog/outsider. I don’t read very many books with teen boys as narrators/protagonists, and I don’t know what else I’ve read that has brotherhood at its center like this book does. Cameron’s first-person narration means we don’t fully get a sense of Octavia as a person, because he doesn’t have a full sense of her as a person (yet), and I sort of wanted more of her, but at the same time the way the book focused on Cam and Rube and Steve (and their sister Sarah, a little) felt right. Cam’s descriptions of Rube are particularly satisfying, things like:
My brother never really had to say or do anything. He just had to stand somewhere or scratch himself or even trip up a gutter and a girl would like him. (5)
Or this: “The cold night air seemed to get out of his way as he walked through it” (229).
I also appreciated the lists in this book (things Cam is thinking about after getting a haircut; ways Cam and Rube show their love for their neighbor’s ridiculous Pomeranian, Miffy). Also, this description of Miffy (and everything else about Miffy, really):
Miffy got fur balls a lot, which made sense, since that dog seemed to be made up of ninety percent fur; a couple percent flesh; a few percent bones; and one or two percent barking, whingeing, and carrying on. Mostly fur, though. Worse than a cat. (105)
Side note: this book was originally published in Australia as When Dogs Cry, and while I actually like the US title slightly better, I really dislike the cover of the edition I read. This Australian cover is maybe a tiny bit better, but guys, that’s not a Pomeranian. The winner, as far as I’m concerned? Totally the cover of the Dutch translation.
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