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Three Books That Didn’t Work for Me

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Michelle of Galleysmith has a phrase she uses to describe some of the books she reviews: “Michelle is from Mars, this book is from Venus.” I think that’s a great way to describe some of the books we read. In each of the books I discuss here, I address exactly why I didn’t care for the book, but I acknowledge that it will certainly hold appeal for another audience. Sometimes that audience will be a small one, or it will be a large audience that is much more forgiving of bad writing and sloppy plotting.

That said, some of the books I discuss in these sort of posts are bad (or mediocre) books, and some are just not to my taste. I think that’s an important distinction to make, and I’ll indicate it in my individual reviews.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin
What it’s about: Mara Dyer wakes up in the hospital with no memory of how she got there. She eventually learns that she and two of her friends were in an old building that collapsed. Her friends died, but Mara survived without a scratch. If you thought that the rest of the book would be dedicated to Mara’s investigation into what happened in the building, you’d only be half right. After Mara is released from the hospital, Mara and her family move to a new town, so Mara starts a new school and meets a new boy named Noah Shaw. Noah is good-looking, has an English accent and ridiculous amounts of money, and has slept with almost every other girl in the school. Naturally, he and Mara begin a relationship.

Why it didn’t work for me: The execution. I feel like this could have been a compelling novel with more judicious editing. The pacing is all off, a prominent character is written out of the book partway through for what seems like pure convenience’s sake, and the book has a prologue that doesn’t fit in with the rest of the story at all. The plot jumps all over the place and certain threads are dropped and never picked up again. Despite that, the book could have succeeded as a romance, but I found Noah Shaw so repellent I kept crossing my fingers and hoping for the scene where Mara would publicly tell him off. (It never came.) Example: Noah pursues Mara, who has told him to leave her alone, into the girls’ restroom at the school and tells the other girls in there to leave. They do, of course. I have many, many more examples, but I’ll stop there.

Who might enjoy it: Readers who can overlook messy writing (mostly the plotting) and who are drawn to the type of character that Noah is. I can’t see anyone primarily enjoying the paranormal storyline, but I can see someone enjoying it for the relationship between Mara and Noah. Many girls like to read about a bad boy every now and then, but Noah takes it way past my comfort level.

The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch
What it’s about: Stephen lives in a world post-Collapse. The US fought a war against China, and the US lost, partly due to the fact that China released a terrible plague upon the Americans (hence the title). Slavers roam freely, violence is rampant, and it’s a daily fight to stay alive. Stephen, his father, and his grandfather are scavengers, trading for what they need and keeping to themselves. Then his grandfather dies and his father is in an accident. Stephen is taken in by a community that calls themselves Settler’s Landing. The people in this community are attempting to rebuild some sort of civilization, complete with school for the children and a form of government. Not everyone in Settler’s Landing is OK with Stephen coming to stay, and Stephen forms a bond with another outcast, Chinese-born Jenny. Then a prank that Stephen and Jenny play upon the residents of Settler’s Landing has unexpected consequences, and violence erupts in the previously peaceful settlement.

Why it didn’t work for me: Oh, dystopias. I know so many of you are terribly mediocre, but I can’t resist your siren call. The main problem I had with the book is that Hirsch had the whole world of horrible (and by that I mean awesome) dystopian tropes at his fingertips, but he chose to tell this particular story. While Hirsch does describe how awful the world is, the book is mostly a story about two teens’ prank gone wrong. The prank has terrible repercussions, but I never felt its magnitude, and I wanted a story on a larger scale. The prank (which is alluded to on the flap copy) also doesn’t occur until about 2/3rds of the way through the book, so there’s too much time spent on Stephen’s acclimation to Settler’s Landing. Additionally, Stephen and Jenny are fairly well-drawn, but the ancillary characters are flat and mostly interchangeable.

Who might enjoy it: There’s definitely an audience for this book. Readers who get tired of dystopias’ fixation on giant wars or major rebellions may enjoy the smaller story recounted here. It’s more about creating community and fitting in than overthrowing corrupt governments. There’s also a dearth of dystopias told from a boy’s perspective, so this fills a gap.

The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab
What it’s about: Lexi lives in Near, a small, secluded town whose inhabitants distrust strangers. Then one night, a stranger – a boy Lexi’s age – appears on the moor. His appearance coincides with the disappearance of Near’s children, and the townsfolk are quick to blame the stranger boy, who has been taken in by two old women who live near the outskirts of Near. Lexi doesn’t believe the boy is responsible, and, with his help, she sets out to determine who is actually taking the children. If not the boy, could it be the Near Witch, whom the townsfolk supposedly destroyed years ago?

Why it didn’t work for me: The plot was a bit dull. I thought it was overly predictable and moved at a rather slow pace. Schwab’s writing is gorgeous and atmospheric, but I’ve always been the type of reader who needs a strong plot to stay interested. My ideal book would have both great writing and great plotting, so The Near Witch only partially satisfied me. This is one of those books that was more not to my taste than actually bad.

Who might enjoy it: Readers who value beautiful writing and don’t mind when it’s accompanied by a slow or predictable plot. I do want to emphasize how gorgeous Schwab’s writing is, so if you’re the kind of person who digs that, you might want to give this a shot.

First two books were review copies received from the publisher. Last book checked out from my local library. All books are available now.

The Survival Kit by Donna Freitas

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Shortly after Rose’s mom dies of cancer — a battle she fought for quite a while — Rose discovers in her mom’s closet a brown paper bag labeled “Rose’s Survival Kit.” The bag contains a number of items that she knows have some significant meaning to her. These are items her mom lovingly put together for Rose specifically, but even though Rose knows they’re meant to be comforting, she can’t bring herself to delve into them yet.

For two years, Rose and Chris have been in a steady and strong relationship. But once Rose’s mom dies, the relationship begins to falter. It’s not because of Rose’s loss. It’s just a matter of how these things go. And while Rose mourns the loss of this relationship — one that’s been a steady part of her life, especially while she dealt with the weakening of her mother — she’s found something in Will, her family’s hired yard work help, that has her intrigued. Will has been a constant in her life too, but one she’s been willing to overlook easily. She’s never thought about who Will is beyond the fact he works for her family. She’s missed that he goes to her school, that he has a wealth of interests, including hockey, and that he may understand her much more than she could ever imagine.

Donna Freitas knows how to write a story. She knows how to write characters. And she knows how to deliver whole heartedly on both. The Survival Kit tackles the issue of grief and growth, treading territory so many other contemporary titles in the last few years have done, but there’s something that sets this one just a little bit apart. Aside from a host of fully-fleshed and completely realistic characters who act and feel in ways that teens do, this story fully fleshes out the meaning of faith and belief without treading into spiritual or religious territory. It’s uplifting in a way that many books about grief aren’t.

Rose might be one of my favorite characters in a long time. She’s experienced a tremendous loss in her life, and she allows herself the opportunity to mourn. But rather than give up the entirety of her life to do so, she gives up things. She continues to go to school and continues to socialize and be a part of her friendships, but she gives up listening to music. It depresses her too much. She and boyfriend Chris break up, but she doesn’t swear off the idea of establishing relationships with other characters. In fact, she wants to do so. She’s isolated herself from tangibles in exchange for the intangibles of human connections. It sounds so simple, but what makes this powerful in the context of the story is just how well Freitas rounds out these characters.

It could be easy to make Rose a character to feel sorry for. She’s lost a lot in her life. But as readers, we feel her pain step by step because we care so much for her well being. We want Rose to move forward because she has so much to work toward. The stakes are high, even without there necessarily being huge things ahead for her. She’s average, and there’s something about that averageness that is so important to her. She’s relatable and she’s likable. She doesn’t have to be a superstar or a prodigy for us to feel for her.

Part of what makes Rose so sympathetic, though, is the way she approaches everyone in the story. The way she builds them up in her mind makes her grief almost more aching; where it would be easy to make Chris to be a bad person in the midst of their breakup, instead, she continues to respect him and even love him a bit. What was between them is over, but it’s not. It’s a part of who she is and it’s part of what has shaped her life. When Rose begins to talk with Will and learn his story, she realizes, too, how much his story is part of her story. She embraces him, even admitting to herself that she’s always overlooked what was right in front of her unfairly. She’s never looked down on him, but she’s never sensed the opportunity for connection with him. But the thing is, she makes that connection when she most needs to, and it serves her well in understanding her own grief. I must also give Freitas huge points, too, for not falling into the boy-that-saves-the-girl trope here. Rose figures everything out for herself. Her relationship with Will is merely an extension of understanding her own self and emotions. It’s not the catalyst. Admittedly, I found the romance to be a little convenient (how could it not be?), ultimately, that didn’t matter. Everything else in this story worked so well that the moments of convenience were easy to overlook.

The Survival Kit is pitch perfect in pace, and it mimics Rose’s processing of grief. What made this work was the survival kit Rose finds, addressed to her from her mother. The kit included a number of items, such as an iPod with pre-loaded music, a crystal heart, a box of crayons, and a paper kite, among other things. Each of these carries huge meaning, and as Rose works through the challenges in front of her, she understands the weight of the items. She realizes that the physical, tangibleness of things isn’t what matters — what matters is the meaning and the value within them. That is to say, of course, that while Rose’s mother is no longer a physical being, what her mother meant to her will never be gone. What her mother gave to her in meaning was beyond the tangible. Never once did this feel forced, either; Freitas is careful in implementing the items into the story so that it never becomes meaning upon symbolic meaning. It just is.

This story has really stuck with me since finishing it. There’s respect for the story and characters, matched only by the respect for the readers. Freitas’s writing is very reminiscent of Dana Reinhardt’s, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of my reading experience with The Things a Brother Knows when I finished. Though the topic is so heavy and challenging to read, the feeling of hope that emerges at the end — both for the characters and for the world outside the story — is commendable. This book is its own survival kit.

Hand this one off to those who love realistic fiction, ala Sarah Dessen, Siobhan Vivian, and Dana Reinhardt. While it will appeal to a wide range of readers, I think those who enjoy a bit of a challenge with their reading will find much to dig into here. Moreover, I cannot help but also note this book has one of my favorite covers in a long time. It perfectly captures the story, and it has wide appeal to it. There’s much crossover appeal on this book, as I think adults will find this as enjoyable as teens will. I could see this being a fantastic choice for a mother-daughter book discussion, and I don’t mean that in a way to belittle it. It has so much to it and begs its readers to talk and connect with one another.

Advanced reader’s copy received from the publisher. The Survival Kit is available now.

Texas Book Festival 2011

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I wrote about my experience at the Texas Book Festival last year, and I was fortunate enough to be able to attend this year as well. The weather was almost perfect – slightly cloudy, a little breezy, and only too hot when you couldn’t find shade. The House and Senate chambers were open once again (a plus), although security gates and guards were still placed at each of the four entrances. The security lines at some points during the day were so long they stretched outside, down the steps, and onto the sidewalk. I really do miss being able to walk right into the Capitol building (my favorite building, as I mentioned before).
Despite that, this year’s experience was rich and rewarding. Here’s some highlights.
Saturday
I started the day off with a nerd panel: The Secret Life of Pronouns with James Pennebaker in the Capitol Extension. Pennebaker is a psychologist who became drawn to how people’s use of pronouns relates to their personalities. A few interesting tidbits: women tend to use “I” more frequently than men; men tend to use “we” more frequently than women; the more frequently a politician uses the word “we,” the less well-regarded he is by voters, and conversely, the more frequently a politician uses the word “I,” the more well-regarded he is. He also gave us some analysis of Barack Obama’s speaking style, and I’ll never listen to him speak in the same way again.
Next up was “Playing With Your Fiction” with Meg Wolitzer and Louis Sachar. I got to nerd out a little since Wolitzer’s book, The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman, is about a kid who goes to a Scrabble competition, and typically, I’m a big Scrabble fan. There were a few interesting moments, but overall I felt this session lacked the energy and interest that I expected. Sachar was there to speak about The Cardturner, but the kids in the audience only wanted to talk about Holes. Something I did appreciate about this session was each author had a chance to read an excerpt from the book, and Sachar did somehow find a way to make the game of Bridge interesting. Both Sachar and Wolitzer said they don’t read kids’ books, which I found very surprising (and a little disappointing).
We got some lunch and wandered the tents before heading to hear Jay Asher, Ellen Hopkins, David Levithan, and Jessica Lee Anderson talk about book challenges. The most interesting parts of this panel were the stories of the author’s first or most memorable book challenges. David Levithan shared the time when people showed up at a library he was speaking at to protest Boy Meets Boy with picket signs and everything. Most of the conversation was preaching to the choir, but the four authors had great camaraderie and were cracking jokes, so it was lots of fun. 
The last author session of the day that I chose to attend was Gabrielle Hamilton’s Blood, Bones and Butter. Luckily, my boyfriend Matthew had read the book and filled me on its contents, because otherwise I would have been totally lost. The moderator did not address what the book was about and conducted the session as if the audience had already it. It mostly just confused everyone. That said, Hamilton was a good speaker and had some interesting thoughts to share about food television (“Won’t you come to my restaurant even if I’m not on tv?”).
I had planned on going to the Texas State Cemetery to hear all of the festival’s YA authors talk about their books at 9 PM, but instead I chose to head home, eat Chinese food, and have a drink. I’m sure it was an awesome session, but I’m an old woman at heart and the prospect of a 45 minute program just wasn’t enough to get me out of the house (and make the 60+ minute drive) again.
Sunday
Sunday started off with a fantastic session with Newbery winners Rebecca Stead and Kate DiCamillo. Stead shared that she got the idea for the time-travel aspect of When You Reach Me from a story in the New York Times about a man with amnesia. She also mentioned that DiCamillo’s books were part of her inspiration for writing for kids. As in all the best sessions, there was a lot of laughter. DiCamillo loved the spotlight, and the moderator actually ended the session by saying, “I’d like to thank our moderator, Kate DiCamillo.”
Next up was a panel with four fantasy/science fiction writers for adults: Charles Yu, Thomas Mullen, Erin Morgenstern, and Lev Grossman. The TBF likes to give themes to their panels, and the theme for this one was the tension between literary fiction and genre fiction. The four panelists were all pretty cool with being called genre writers, so the theme felt a little forced. The lack of pretension was refreshing. Lev Grossman is a huge Harry Potter fan and actually mentioned how he did not in any way intend his book to be a critique of Rowling’s. Also, two of the panelists wrote books about time travel. Awesome.
We headed back down to the Extension to see Kenneth Oppel speak. He read a little bit from This Dark Endeavor (it made me want to finally start my copy) and shared how his first book was published at age 18. Evidently he had been writing a book – like a lot of teenagers do – without any real intention of publishing it. A friend of his family’s knew Roald Dahl and decided to show Oppel’s book to him. Dahl liked it, the book got an agent, then it got a publisher, and thus began Oppel’s career. He actually refused to tell the audience what the title was, but Wikipedia tells me it’s probably Colin’s Fantastic Video Adventure. The funny thing about this tidbit is that he only told the audience this story after being prompted by a stupid question (yes, they do exist). A man had walked in about half an hour late and started his question with, “So this is your first book?” Oppel’s reply: “No, it’s my 27th, but close.” 
I’m actually really disappointed by how sparsely attended Oppel’s session was – the man came all the way down from Canada, after all. He was a great speaker and his books are popular with kids as well as being critically acclaimed. I think it was because he was relegated to late Sunday afternoon, a dead zone for TBF. 
We closed out our TBF experience with some Amy’s ice cream and a talk by Dava Sobel, author of A More Perfect Heaven, in the House Chamber. She talked about Copernicus’ life and her research, as well as her visit to Poland to see the original handwritten manuscript of De revolutionibus. Evidently very few people get to see it in person, but she was allowed, and she told the audience of how she looked at the page where a hole had been made in the paper because the writer had used a compass to draw several concentric circles. It’s just the detail book nerds love.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I was pleased with the quality of the audience’s questions. Many times, audience members get up to speak and instead of asking an interesting question, they relate a personal story, make a statement about the author’s books, ask a question that was already answered in the presentation, or are simply incoherent. The audience this time did themselves proud, with the notable exception of the man in Kenneth Oppel’s session.
I noticed that this year’s festival seemed to attract fewer people, despite the beautiful weather and big-name authors. It was probably due to the record number of festivals going on that weekend in Austin (I think there were at least five in addition to the TBF). Still, many of the sessions were packed and the tents were full of book-buyers. I’ll definitely be heading back next year. 

Horror that sneaks up on you

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We’ve been talking about horror on Mondays here, and this week, I thought I’d take this idea somewhere just a little bit different. Instead of talking about the traditional horror novel, I thought I’d highlight a handful of titles that are haunting for a different reason: it’s unclear what’s real and what’s not. They’re novels that tiptoe the line of real and not real. There’s something slightly off about them.

It’s that psychological taunting that, I think, is scarier than traditional horror. With a standard horror novel, much can be explained via some outside force; but a psychologically haunting novel forces the reader to question not only the story but to question themselves. The ultimate question becomes whether the book is about the character or if it’s about the reader.

Lark by Tracey Porter is the story of Lark, a 16-year-old who’d been kidnapped from her home and left to die in a snowy forest. Her two best friends, Eve and Nyetta, find themselves haunted by her death; Eve feels somehow responsible for it, while Nyetta feels responsible for freeing Lark’s soul from limbo.

This short book is one that I’ve thought a lot more about than I thought I would. I finished it quickly and while I got it, it didn’t haunt me as much as I wished it would. Until, now months later, I’ve found myself wondering if my interpretation of the novel has been wrong. In reading reviews of this novel, I’ve found people use the words “fantasy” and “paranormal” to describe it; not once in my reading experience did I feel this. Lark, to me, was grounded in the contemporary world. While Lark speaks as a ghost and while there are elements of the fantastic in this story, so much within the book, particularly within Nyetta’s drive to “free” Lark, was completely within our world. For me as a reader, this story was about Nyetta and Eve’s mental struggle to cope with the loss of their friend. The stages were quite classic: both girls felt that in order to grieve properly, they needed to accept responsibility for what happened. In the end, the symbolic closure sealed this story as more real than fantastic for me.

Though the story itself didn’t completely work for me (I wanted a lot more heft to it, given how much commentary there is within it about the symbolic power of women and bodies and loss), when I went back through reviews and saw how many people talked about the ghosts in the novel, it left me much more haunted. Had I read the story completely wrong? Was I the crazy one? That’s when I realized this book did precisely what it needed to do: it left me questioning. The goal was less about the story itself and more about making the reader wonder about their own thought processes. If, months after finishing, I was wondering about my own interpretation, then the book had taken on a story far greater than the one it told. Lark begs for a second reading.


Tighter by Adele Griffin follows 17-year-old Jamie as she takes a summer job on a removed New England island as a full-time babysitter. When she arrives, she quickly learns about the death of a young couple, and she’s hell bent on figuring out why they died. The further she goes into uncovering their stories, the more Jamie realizes she looks like the dead girl and the more she senses she can talk to the ghosts of the couple. Jamie becomes more and more entrenched in their stories and as she does, the more she becomes twisted within her own thoughts and her own understanding of the difference between reality and fantasy.

Like Lark, Griffin’s story is short and twisted. The plot is tight and leaves the reader questioning right along with Jamie. Is she onto something? Is she uncovering a great ghost story? Or is Jamie herself becoming mentally unhinged at every turn of events?

Although I saw the ending coming from a mile away, this is the kind of book that will leave many haunted. This book is a revisioning of Henry James’s classic The Turn of the Screw, and while I’ve never read the original tale, the story itself tread some familiar psychological territory. But again, what I find completely fascinating about the book is less the story and more the reactions other readers have had to it. In reading reviews of this one, it’s clear that there’s a divide between reading this as a straight up ghost story and reading it as a psychological thriller. Unlike Lark, though, I find it hard to buy this as a ghost story with the ending as it stands; however, Griffin is successful in executing a story that blurs the lines between fantasy and reality and gets to the readers themselves. It’s much less about Jamie and much more about whoever is reading.

Wonderland by Joanna Nadin has sort of slipped under the radar this year, and it surprises me because what this novel does is precisely what a couple of other books this year do (and yes, if you click those links, that’ll be a downright spoiler to the book, so consider yourself warned). An interesting trend to note, to say the least. Nadin’s novel, though, does so without sacrificing the writing itself, and in fact, the writing may itself aid in building the deceiving world of the story.

Jude aches to get out of her small town and make her way to London, where she’ll go to school at the prestigious Lab and make a name for herself. But she lacks a lot of willpower to do so, partially because of the loss of her mother and partially because she’s so alone. Living with her dad isn’t helping, either, as he’s been in mourning for a long time.

Lucky for Jude, though, her best friend Stella wanders back into her life one day; Stella’d never been the most stable or reliable of friends, but her return makes Jude more happy than she could have imagined. The problem is that Stella is wild — she does things she shouldn’t. She’s reckless and uninhibited, and often, she drags an unwilling Judge into scenarios in which she’d otherwise never involve herself. The truth is, Jude loves the attention that she gets when Stella’s around. But can Stella take her power over Jude too far?

I called the ending of Wonderland at page 4 or 5, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying how Nadin got there. The story left me questioning my thoughts much more than other variations of this story have, simply because the language wrapped me up within it. More than that, though, Nadin threw in enough twists and turns, and made it seem like my predictions were maybe too simple and straightforward. Even though the story wrapped up as I suspected it would, I didn’t end up feeling disappointed. Instead, I wanted to go back to page one and start again. There were strings of other stories within Jude’s that begged for more attention, and I suspect a second reading would still leave some of the questions I had unanswered (which is not a bad thing). A good story can leave some strings unanswered and have that be more than satisfactory.


We’ve already talked about Nova Ren Suma’s fantastic young adult debut Imaginary Girls here. As much as I adored this book and thought it achieved something huge, I knew it was a winner when I came back to it and reread it. Not only did I reread this one, but I reread all 350 pages in one sitting. This time, it was a completely different and much more psychologically haunting story than the first time.

Where the first time I read the story I thought it wrapped up a little cleanly (and bought the idea that indeed, Ruby was a crazy character without much more than that), the second read left me much more tormented as a reader. Was I wrong the first time? Did Ruby indeed exist at all? Was Chloe really the one begging for help the entire time? As I read, I picked up many subtleties I didn’t catch upon the first time; specifically, I found myself enraptured by the dropping of gray hairs throughout the story. These left me further questioning who or what I believed. I had to believe Chloe because she was telling the story. But the more I read, the further I had to separate myself from that idea. There were gray hairs throughout the book, and it was the deceptive and gorgeous writing that cast a sheen over me as a reader. Maybe I’d misread Chloe. Maybe I’d misread Ruby. Maybe I’d misread the entire story.

I didn’t walk away with any more answers on the second read. I walked away with more questions, and they were much less about the plot and story and much more about me as a reader. How was I making my interpretations? What inside the story was something I grasped onto and pulled conclusions from? If I read this again, would I see something else entirely? Perhaps the biggest question it left me with was how many ways can we as readers see inside a story? For me, this was one of the rare novels that made me see something so many different ways and not just that, but it left me okay and maybe even satisfied with that because I had to be. Suma’s novel is the definition of a psychologically thrilling story, though I’m more apt to label this novel as fantasy than the others above (magical realism, to be precise).

While I love a good horror novel and a good dark Gothic tome, for me, the best kinds of scary are those which push the boundaries of reality and fantasy. Those which straddle the definitions are the scariest because they can’t easily be defined. More than that, though, these stories make the reader question their own comprehension of both and question their own sense of understanding. I live for a challenge, and the more a story can challenge me to think about how I think and interpret, the more likely it is to stick with me, whether the story itself is successful or not. True horror is walking away with more questions about myself after reading a book than answers.

Have you read anything along these lines? I’d love to find something as tormenting as any of the titles above.

Everybody Sees the Ants by A. S. King

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Lucky Linderman is experiencing some tough things in his life. He’s always been bullied by Nader McMillan, the school’s resident asshole, but lately Nader has ratcheted it up a notch. His parents notice and care, but they’ve taken a hands-off approach that isn’t working. Lucky’s dad is more absorbed with his obsession over his father – Lucky’s grandfather – who went MIA in Vietnam and was never found. 

Lucky has had vivid dreams about his grandfather since he was a little boy. The dreams are so realistic that Lucky actually wakes up clutching physical items that he has somehow carried back from them. In the dreams, Lucky’s grandfather is a prisoner of war in Laos. Lucky’s belief that these dreams have some effect on real life convince him that he will be able to use the dreams to rescue his grandfather and bring him back home. These attempts are chronicled by number throughout the novel and provide a way for Lucky to work through things in his life with his grandfather, who has developed into his best friend (even if he is imaginary – or is he?).
Lucky’s also begun seeing ants, and not just during his dreams. They’re dancing on the furniture, following him to the grocery store, dressing up and giving him life advice.
After an argument between Lucky’s parents, his mom decides that a vacation with her brother and his wife – without Lucky’s dad – is just what they need. The novel jumps in time between the particularly bad summer preceding the trip, the dreams in Laos, and the visit to Lucky’s aunt and uncle.
The best thing about this novel is Lucky’s voice. He’s a
mess of contradictions. He’s depressed, but he’s maintained a wry sense of
humor. He claims he’s able to keep his head above water, but in reality he’s
floundering. He’s frustrated that his parents don’t seem capable of helping
him, but he doesn’t blame them. He feels sorry for himself, but he doesn’t
wallow. Basically, Lucky is the kind of guy you’d want to be friends with. He’s
the kind of guy you’d want to help – not because he seems pathetic, but because
he’s a good guy who’s struggling.
Though this is Lucky’s story, King does not people it with
flat ancillary characters. Everyone – with perhaps the exception of antagonist
Nader – is a fully-realized person with nuances. The subplot involving Lucky’s
aunt and uncle is a perfect example. At first, Lucky gets along swimmingly with
his uncle and can’t stand his aunt, but Lucky eventually learns a lot about
both people, and it broadens his understanding of them and their situation.
King is a whiz with interesting, meaningful metaphors. By
that I mean she uses devices like Lucky’s dreams and the ants to talk about the
Important Things like depression and bullying, but she also uses them to have
fun. The ants are frequently hilarious and Lucky’s dream-adventures with his
POW grandfather are action-packed and thrilling. It’s literary fiction with
popular appeal.
King is a master at what she does. Unlike many other
books I’ve read lately, there aren’t any rookie mistakes or places that could
have used more judicious editing. The book as a whole is so well done, instead
of putting it down and thinking, “I could do better than that,” I put it down
and thought “I wish I could do that.” Highly recommended, and I hope it gets a little Printz love at awards season.
Review copy provided by the publisher. Everybody Sees the Ants is available now.