Book Review—Shrimp by Rachel Cohn

Cohn's Feisty Follow-Up to Her Award Winning Book Gingerbread

Oct 23, 2009

Cyd Charisse is back from New York with a whole new attitude and a mission to win back her pint-sized surfer dude Shrimp in Rachel Cohn's sequel to Gingerbread.

In Shrimp's prequel (the YA novel Gingerbread) irrepressible punk princess Cyd Charisse proved to be too much for her stressed-to-the-max family. She left her San Francisco home and went to New York City to spend the summer with her biological father (who she barely remembers) and her step siblings (whom she'd never met.)

Shrimp (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2005, ISBN 0-689-86612-7) continues the story as Cyd returns from NY with a fresh perspective and a renewed ambition to catch (and this time keep) her ex-boyfriend Shrimp. Told with uncensored candor and truly clever wit, Rachel Cohn's follow up to her breakout hit Gingerbread is total teen entertainment.

Cyd Charisse returns from summering in New York with her bio-dad and step siblings with a new name (“CC”) and a new mission: to devote senior year to her true love and soul mate, the tiny surfer-dude named Shrimp. There's only one problem: Shrimp, who broke up with CC before she left for NY, is missing, making it hard for CC to convince Shrimp of their one true love.

To find Shrimp, CC must confront the enemy, Shrimp's female friends, who know his whereabouts. The jealousy which ensues is predictable; but the first-female-friends-ever-for-CC relationships are anything but.

When Shrimp returns (bringing his AWOL parents with him) he thwarts CC with a “let's-just-be-friends” line. CC turns her focus to the awkwardly budding relationship between her and her two new girl friends. As graduation approaches and CC feels pressure to take the next step, she will have to decide what kind of future she wants with, or without, Shrimp.

The push-pull relationship between CC and her mom is predictably present; mom wants CC to fill out college applications and CC wants to just drift. Gingerbread revealed why Nancy wants a solid education for her daughter so she can take care of herself; and this revelation opened up an opportunity for the mom-Cyd relationship to be more thoroughly explored. The “moment” in Gingerbread could have opened a doorway for Cyd to step through and meet her mother halfway but apparently this isn't in the future for Cyd quite yet.

Startling and honest, Cohn's frank “in your face” narrative is revealing and funny. Although the cultural references and up-to-the-minute language probably won't make sense to readers a few years from now, the story about growing up, finding oneself, and moving from the “completely self-absorbed” stage of adolescence to the “looking slightly outside of self” stage will be relevant and appreciated for years to come.

The copyright of the article Book Review—Shrimp by Rachel Cohn in Teen Fiction is owned by Francine Morrissette. Permission to republish Book Review—Shrimp by Rachel Cohn in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.