Light the fuse! A guest post on GIDDY BARBER EXPLODES IN 11 by Dina Havranek

15-year-old Giddy doesn’t live up to her name because she never smiles. Equal parts drill sergeant to her nightmare younger brother and sister and unpaid household secretary to her mom and dad, Giddy’s home life is an overburdened mess of responsibilities her working parents can’t make room for. As a result she never makes it to school on time, sleeps through half her classes and what social time she does manage is monopolized by her equally dismal friends who’ve made her their personal whipping post.

Something has to change. 

Driven by an internet suggestion, she vows to spend 11 days doing the opposite of everything she would normally do. It should be fine – Giddy’s good at everything she ever attempts so doing the opposite of normal for 11 days should be a piece of cake. Some of the changes are simple – no more hot showers, only freezing ones. Walk to school instead of riding her bike. Listen to opera instead of pop. Stop preparing for math and science (those classes are easy anyway). Instead she’ll spend 11 days focusing hard on Art, English and World History – subjects that are a complete waste of her time!

And socially… 

Kiss a guy at school she’s pretty sure she doesn’t like. Kiss a girl next! Join the book club that’s reading Ulysses even though it’s led by her math rival. Crash a table of total strangers in the cafeteria and try to become a part of their crew despite their endless confusion over her. Eat only disgusting, greasy, hot foods each day for lunch (including a sardine-mayo sandwich atrocity) and try to keep them down despite having a historically weak stomach. 

And at home…

Refuse to walk her younger brother and sister to the bus or clean up after them or do their laundry or manage anything! Time to delegate everything she would normally do to her 14-year-old loser brother who does nothing and gets a free pass because he’s such an endless behavior problem at school! Giddy’s still the family cook but it’s about to get weird. This pizza and cheeseburger eating family is going to have to get used to more unusual choices, like South African bobotie and Asian chicken feet.

The chicken feet really don’t go over well.

Of course everyone thinks she’s lost her mind. Of course there’s rebellion! Her parents freak out and her 11-day avoidance of her toxic friends sparks a social media campaign aimed at destroying her. Her math and science grades tank because it turns out you do have to study. And when English, Art and World History wind up not to be as effortless as she thought they would be, Giddy questions whether she was ever smart to begin with.

The days count down… seven… eight… nine… 

Giddy feels the clues to happiness are all around her. She just needs to uncover them. It’s just an 11-day long experiment! It can all go back to normal when it’s over, can’t it?

Ten… ele–.

On day 11, something goes terribly wrong.

Who is Giddy? Giddy is an amalgamation of different girls I’ve taught Science to in the public school system over the course of 15 years. Some of them are late to school on a regular basis because they are in charge of getting younger kids to the bus stop. They are too tired to lift their heads off the lab tables for longer than minutes at a time. They are smart, so smart and hyper competent at all they try to do. Why else would so many people lean on them? They tell me privately, when I bring up their struggling grades, that at home they are excellent chefs, phenomenal housekeepers and they are proud, so very proud, of how much their parents depend on them. But I can tell they have never had a breath, a moment to ask themselves Who am I? What do I want? 

I wrote GIDDY during the Covid shutdown, at a time when I was seeing a surge in the parentification of teenagers, especially when parents were called out to work and kids learned virtually. Older children were put in charge and new responsibilities laid out. But the behavior continues. Counseling and help is available through schools for overburdened teenagers. The problem is, they have to realize something’s wrong. And they don’t want to feel weak or embarrassed so when they do seek answers, sometimes they choose to go it alone.

Like Giddy does.

GIDDY BARBER EXPLODES IN 11 is a love song to hyper-competent girls who try to fix everything on their own. I was a fortunate kid. I had room in my life to explore who I wanted to be, which would wind up being a mis-mash of things: I teach Science and I know how to build robots (I’ve even coached robotic competitions). I read compulsively: adventures, murder mysteries, nonfiction, love stories, literary classics both old and new. I’m not always fast – I’m five years into Moby Dick. I’m also an actress. Below is the promotional photo of me in a stage play version of Clue:

I made a pretty hot Mrs. Peacock. 

I also love crochet! Here’s an afghan I made. This took me three years:

I also love Lego Technics. And Warhammer. I love my two cats and my actor/director/Calculus/Physics teacher husband. I love my 21-year-old daughter who ran into the house from English class once shouting ‘Mom, have you read this short story? It’s called The Yellow Wallpaper!’ Of course I had. It was one of my favorites. It’s one of hers now, too. 

Mostly I love that, odd as I am, I know who I am. And for my students who are still figuring that out, I hope you find the time you need to get there. Spoiler alert: it takes longer than 11 days. But it’s OK. You’ll get there.

I know you will:)

Meet the author

Dina Havranek hails from Houston, Texas, where she teaches science to the excellent students at Timberwood Middle School. A former TV news reporter and local actress, she loves being onstage and has been a speaker at the DFW Writers Conference, where she is a regular attendee. She lives with her husband, her daughter, an out-of-control Lego collection, and a pair of extremely ungrateful cats.

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About Giddy Barber Explodes in 11

The hilarious and heartening story of a teen girl who makes several astonishingly terrible decisions in an effort to find the support she needs.

A spectacular YA novel from a long-time teacher and debut author, perfect for fans of coming-of-age stories like Radio Silence and The Rest of Us Just Live Here.

Giddy Barber knows with certainty she’s going to become a mechanical engineer. What she doesn’t know is the last time she smiled.

With her parents overworked and unavailable, it falls to Giddy to make sure her siblings stay on track. But she’s exhausted. When you’re the person everyone else turns to, what do you do when you hit a wall?

Giddy finds an answer online—if you can’t handle how things are going, shake them up. Is it sound advice? Unclear. But is Giddy willing to try anything? Absolutely. Putting eleven days on the clock, she’ll change her routine. But soon it becomes clear that some problems are bigger than what an online column can fix—her family is fracturing, her anxiety is mounting, and all she knows is this: Something. Has. To. Give.

In Dina Havranek’s Giddy Barber Explodes in 11, a long-time teacher dives into the issues of depression, overwork, and lack of support many of her students are dealing with. In a results-obsessed society, how much are we demanding of teens? And what happens when their burdens become too much?

ISBN-13: 9781682637142
Publisher: Peachtree Teen
Publication date: 10/08/2024
Age Range: 14 Years

Filed under: Guest Post