Title: It's A Different Movie
Author: Audrey Haynes
Publisher: Christocentric Publishing
Reviewer: Tanya Batson-Savage
EVEN IF one shuns the preface (and such things are sometimes best left for after a book has been consumed because they often contain spoilers) it soon becomes evident that Audrey Haynes' It's A Different Movie is written for one purpose only: to promote abstinence among adolescents.
As such, it is a well intentioned novel. Of course, good intentions often lead to the nether world and unfortunately, much of the first half of the novel is so awkwardly written that reading it approaches going to hell.
It's A Different Movie is the story of two young women in Guadeloupe over the course of the summer vacation. One is originally Jamaican and the other French Canadian. Priscilla (the Jamaican) has been brought up in a very Christian Jamaican home and as such has very clear views about sex outside of marriage. She is adamantly opposed, and outright scared of it. Her pen friend Monique, on the other hand, believes that people should be free to do what they want to and thus shuns Christianity.
As such, the book attempts to set up Monique and Priscilla on these polar paths and highlights how sticking to Christian values keeps one safe, while attempts at bohemia will lead to a broken heart. The books bi-polar view is a symptom of the cataract obscured view that works behind this novel.
SEX AND ADOLESCENT
Undoubtedly, good Christian values provide a foundation for building a life of abstinence. However, what It's a Different Movie fails to do, but claims to, is adequately deal with sex and adolescents.
Two male characters are shown battling with their sexual drives, which are called 'The Tiger'. Yet the female characters seem to engage in no such battle. Sex is presented as something that boys want, and girls say yes or no to.
This is further complicated by the writing style which is at best awkward. The narrative has the feel of a very young writer in this first imitative state of the art, when you write how you think one should. As such, the book, though clearly a Jamaican product, is written in a eurocentric viewpoint.
This comes out in very subtle ways, such as the wanton use of the term 'native' (a term which brings to mind Europeans about to unleash smallpox and imperialism) to describe the Guadeloupeans. Another is that every black person in the text is introduced with colour a marked part of their descrip-tion, while this rarely plays a part in the description of white people. It plays into the narrative bias where white people are people (no adjective) but non-white people must be placed along the colour scheme.
Additionally, style is completely missing and the bi-lingual attempt, though an admirable effort, makes the novel even rockier terrain to cover. Some passages actually have the feel of having been written as a part of a language learning text. This appears to be particularly so as the writer confuses an expansive vocabulary with the artful engagement of words. Further more, better editing could have saved the book from running aground on accidental stream of consciousness.
In short, its Christian orientation is not It's A Different Movies' problem. It's the author's inability to see into the humanity which Christianity attempts to speak to, and govern and express that in relation the protagonists' attempt to negotiate their entry into adulthood.
