Good day, my friends. In an unexpected turn of events, the day has finally come. My Trouble is a Friend of Mine review is here. Buckle up, please.
If you’ve known me longer than about a month at any time between this day and 9th grade, I can almost guarantee you’ve heard me talk about these books. They are everything I always needed, a constant recommendation, a forever favorite. I have a slight problem. I can explain. Every once in a while I come across a book that grabs me so hard I am forced to reckon with what made it so compelling; I turn characters, plot, pacing, setting and everything in between over and over in my brain. When I have sucked the text dry of every possible subtext and interpretation, I vomit it out all over anyone who will listen. This happens to be you guys today!
Leah, you may ask, why are you focusing on this trilogy when you’ve read it upwards of 13 times since its publication? Why not then? Dear reader, I’ve recently found myself at an intersection of many topics and themes in my academic work and focus in life. Blackness, black girlhood, coming of age, teen culture, how the internet has compounded all of the former and many more fill my waking hours more often than not. Believe me, I have much more to share with you, but this book trilogy is merely one current offshoot of a glorious web of thoughts and ideas I’m forming right now. Don’t worry, you’ll get to hear more long before I write my senior thesis in 3 years.
I’m also learning to examine what I consider to be significant literature to myself personally. Is it culturally relevant, masterfully written, sentimental in value and timing? I feel as if these books check all the boxes. I can read something and have FUN doing it! I can notice new subtext and foreshadowing with every close reading I do! I can understand future implications of the canon presented to me and it inspires me in my own work! What more could a girl want? Without further ado, I’ll jump right in.
On August 4th of 2015, Stephanie Tromly made history. She did so thrice, actually, but this date was the publication of the first of three young adult fiction books she authored; this book is named Trouble is A Friend of Mine. Well prepared by her career as a screenwriter for television (more on that in a moment), she entered the ring with a strong debut. TIAFOM begins the story of Zoe Webster, the quintessential girl next door. She leaves Brooklyn with her recently divorced mother for the sleepy upstate suburb of River Heights, right before her crucial junior year of high school. She has the preppy Manhattan Prentiss Academy in her sights for transferring, in an effort to follow in her father’s footsteps as an attorney. Just as she thinks the last interesting thing to happen to her has already passed, she meets our male lead: Philip Digby.
I’m gonna pause right here. This is not a love story in any conventional sense. This isn’t a bad-boy-good-girl moment, nor a transformation that brings life into an otherwise cardboard character, and I thank the heavens for it every day. I could go on about the tiredness of those tropes, but to be succinct: Tromly firmly establishes characters before relationships every time, which is crucial for me. I’m so assured in calling this a coming of age because of the telling elements it contains, but many other reviewers of this book seem to have gotten lost in the romance- typical. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy turning my shipping brain on for an hour or two and simply enjoying the textual content, but there is so much more in these books to digest. That’s what I plan on doing today.
Back to Digby. He is inherently manic, wolfishly hungry, more than a bit rude and just a little pathetic. Brilliant on weekdays only. His family had faced ridicule and excommunication in the River Heights community ever since he was 7 years old when his younger sister Sally was kidnapped overnight after her birthday party. He and his abusive alcoholic father relocated to Texas while his mother descended into madness back in their River Heights home. Digby has returned at the beginning of the book with a renewed fire and fierce motive: to find out what happened to his sister. It just so happens that our heroine Zoe ends up right in the middle of that. I won’t bore you with thorough details of every scene just yet, but I will break down the key themes and points of each book (light spoilers included, nothing life ruining) for context’s sake moving forward.
The first book in the trilogy brings Zoe and Digby together, all too reluctantly for the former and conveniently perfect for the latter. Digby drags Zoe into his master plan (half baked, as usual) to connect the missing persons case of an affluent River Heights teenager named Marina Miller to that of his sister’s ten years prior. The pair also employs the aid of Henry Petropoulos. Henry is (1) Marina’s ex, (2) Digby’s estranged former best friend and (3) the quarterback adequately definined as tall, Greek and dumb. With the additional help of River Heights queen bee Sloane Bloom, nosy gossip Bill Lowry and savant nerd Felix Fong, the gang sets out on a series of break-ins, break-outs, conspiracies and school dances to find out the truth- and of course rack up some serious tension. The excerpts I’ll put below describe said events pretty well.
Image Description 1: White letters on black text read: Actually, to be precise, I’m having an epic second semester. My first semester was a series of fiascos, all courtesy of my friendship with Philip Digby. Though, honestly, I’m not even sure Digby ever considered me his friend. Accomplice, sure. But then he kissed me, which made us what? More than friends? Something other than friends? I hate semantics.
Image Description 2: White letters on black text read: By Thanksgiving, he’d gotten me arrested, then kidnapped, and then blown up in an explosion. On the upside, we’d also dismantled a meth operation and found a missing girl. We didn't find Digby’s sister, though, so he left town to keep looking for her. But not before he scrambled my brains with that kiss. And then- nothing. Not a peep from the jerk for the last five months.
As you can imagine, all this noise in her first semester is kinda ruining Zoe’s plans to settle down and have a quiet year until she can transfer. The second book reveals a very different life for her, complete with a backup QB for a boyfriend, two minions to flank her every move and a sufficiently Digby-free environment. Of course, he shows up to ruin that all about 5 pages in. Fresh out of federal prison and following a new lead on Sally’s disappearance, he appears, motivated to uproot Zoe from her Cinderella story.
This is a good time to note that some less eagle-eyed readers may observe Zoe as passive until this time. She could be a Mary Sue, dragged along into the commandeering desires of a boy who nevers speaks for herself. Without bearing down on you with 20 textual references, I can firmly say that this is not the case. Most of the time, Zoe acts to keep her eye on the prize: Prentiss. It’s a mantra to her, a source of tension between herself and her parents for varying reasons, and a legacy that weighs her down over the course of the trilogy. Her sardonic narration and witty motivations are precise, she stands up for herself when needed and she knows what she wants.
Of course, this goes hand in hand with how active of a character Digby is. He shows up on her doorstep, outside her house, at her school, all of the above. He comes up with clues, he engineers the plans. He’s more than a little Sherlockian, which I’m not ashamed to say is part of his charm and a better portion of his character design. These moments when paired with the rare displays of vulnerability he shares with Zoe make him so magnetic, and a compelling presence on the page overall.
Back to the plot! Book Two does not fail to pack the same punch that its predecessor does, as new character dynamics establish a novel playing field. Zoe attempts to have her cake and eat it too, “dating Austin and bickering like wifey with Digby” as Sloane would say. You can probably conclude that this doesn’t end well, but one arson attempt, multiple fights and an undercover PI later, the partners in crime finally become real partners! We get an honest confession, a good old house party scene and a confrontation with the zillions-of-old-Dutch-money tycoon who orchestrated Sally’s kidnapping in order to obtain Digby’s mother’s bionanotechnology research. The way that Tromly builds on the bonds and distinct personalities she established in the first novel is what makes this one so endearing to me. The gang is back together, trying to fit into new roles amidst the pressures of growing up and making wrongs right.
This speed hurtles into the third book, a satisfying finale of all finales. There can be a lot of pressure to solve a mystery, bring a satisfactory end to each character arc and neatly tie up all loose ends under 500 pages, but Tromly manages just fine. She depicts Zoe’s conflict over accepting her Prentiss admissions offer or not, Digby’s unraveling and mental decline as he gets closer to the truth, and how being so close to the prize throws the gang off their game. This book also solidifies the relationships these characters engage in, familial or otherwise. Without giving away too much of the ending, our beloved heroine and her friends are released to move towards healing and a bright future.
Now that I’ve laid some groundwork, I need to restrain myself from most of the final commentary I could make. I’m going to focus on themes and moments that were most compelling to me, but trust that an open dialogue between me, myself and I is always running regarding these books.
Lately, I’ve been really into paternal burdens and legacies. In the most normal way possible. Seeing how Zoe and Digby respectively defy their fathers and their expectations for them is delicious to read, and this doesn’t go without equally complex relationships with their mothers!
Zoe’s father is a looming, dominating presence for the beginning of the trilogy. Zoe wants to emulate him, to follow him as a lawyer and “run with the wolves” like he does. As she and her mother work to survive on their own, they both wake up to his serial manipulation, cheating and scamming and work on unlearning the impact he has had on their lives.
Digby’s father is abusive, drinks too much, and hasn't properly spoken to him in years. In a penultimate scene in the third book, this man still strikes potent fear into Digby, but he draws on boundaries and the support of his mother whom he loves to break free from that.
These cycles build on each other and complement each other, as do the mental journeys of healing for both Zoe and Digby. A couple who helps each other breathe during panic attacks together stays together!
Tromly doesn’t rely too heavily on tropes to fill out her cast of characters, but she knows her rights. Sloane’s top girl status is perfectly cruel, but she receives her due backstory in Book 2. Henry is a dependable friend and hard worker, and his insecurities are revealed as a result of one of the gang’s missions in Book 3. Tromly spoke on how writing Felix Fong, a nerdy Asian kid who helps the group with formalities and tech, was therapeutic and near autobiographical for herself as an Asian woman in publishing. These details bring the characters to life, and it’s all supported by the dialogue just the same.
Another thing that makes the Trouble series interesting is that it manages to masquerade as an ensemble trilogy but it’s still always Zoe's story. She can get swallowed up by Digby’s antics, Sloane can break into her house and demand things, Henry and Felix show up asking for help at inconvenient times, Bill is a thorn in her side and they all go on heists together, but it’s still her story. It’s told by her through and through.
It also helps that vague physical descriptions and such distinct character voices yield to creative headcanons! They’re all black because I said so.
Speaking of the dialogue, the amount of gems that come out of this book astound me. My favorite quotes could fill a book of their own, but I love the attention to detail Tromly includes. She spoke about how she would shadow teens in her local mall to draw inspiration while drafting; talk about fieldwork! About references! Ethnography even!
Lastly, it is rare that I actively enjoy an audiobook. I don’t usually use them to consume a book for the first time, and my finicky complaints about one bad narrator can ruin the entire thing for me. These audiobooks (unfortunately only offered for the latter two books of the trilogy, something that haunts me to this day) have the exact opposite effect. Ten seconds of Kathleen McInerney’s dulcet tones can soothe me like an infant led to slumber. Every voice detail, narrative quirk and character mannerism is spot on. Her Digby portrayal single handedly sustains me on bad days. I’m so serious. I listen to these about as often as I read the books, if not more.
That’s finally all for today. Check out this conversation about the series between Tromly and her editor Kathy Dawson, I love it! I also love you, have a wonderful week.