The Plot: Stefanie Lyon's 2015 verse novel Dating Down tells the story of high school junior and daughter of a politician Samantha Henderson and her experience of falling in love with a "bad boy," who is referred to throughout the narrative as "X." Readers learn in the first pages of the narrative why Sam's love interest is referred to in this way:I will call him X.
X
for the reasons I crossed him out of my life.
X
for the number of times I plunged into self-destruction.
X
because his name would only give him a place in your mind
that he does not deserve (1).
The narrative follows Sam through the first time she sees X at a coffee shop where he works, through her first sexual experience with him, her discovery of his drug use and infidelity, her own participation in drug and alcohol abuse, and finally her decision to separate from X and move on with her life. Dating Down follows in the pattern of many verse novels for young readers in that it is part of the problem novel tradition.The Poetry: Lyon's narrative primarily utilizes free verse poetry throughout while making use of end rhyme and concrete poetry occasionally. Lyon also employs the format of dramatic verse in order to demonstrate conversations between Sam and other young characters in the narrative. Ultimately much of the poetry lacked lyricism or innovation. For example, in the poem "Sex," which details Sam's first time having sex with X, the poem relies on short, choppy lines and sporadic end rhyme to move the reader more quickly through the moment: "my bra / my shirt / the late-May air" and "His hands / my body / the canvas of me" (121). Ultimately, this approach is not effective in drawing the reader into the narrative or allowing the reader to linger in the emotion or intensity of Sam's experience.
The Page: Throughout the narrative, Lyon often makes use of the space across the entire page, presumably in order to allow the reader to linger in the white space or to slow down the eye in the reading process. But overall, this approach was not successful. The poetry in Dating Down fell flat and the narrative didn't succeed in pulling me in as a reader. In an over-300-page narrative, the lack of a compelling narrative made getting through Dating Down particularly difficult. I give Lyon's Dating Down two stars.
