Fourteen-year-old Sophie Sophia and her mother just moved from San Francisco to the small town of Havencrest, Illinois (roughly 50 miles north of Chicago) after spending the bulk of their lives in Brooklyn, New York. Sophie is obsessed with eighties music, with dressing however the heck she feels like, and with figuring out what happened to her father.
Sophie’s super-smart, passionate, and strange physicist dad disappeared just a few years ago, and that’s what set her and her mother off on this series of cross-country moves. It was less about getting away and more about finding. Finding themselves. Finding a way through the grief. Finding a way to build something new.
It doesn’t take long before Sophie’s made herself a new friend in her physics class named Finny. But it also doesn’t take long before she starts being visited by her shaman Panda named Walt. Is Sophie crazy or can these trips to a parallel world full of spiritually-guiding pandas be the way to find and connect with her long-long father?
The Theory of Everything is an enjoyable read, but it won’t be one of my favorites. I certainly see how it’s been compared to books like Going Bovine or even The Perks of Being a Wallflower, but I think it falls short of being a strong read alike to either of those titles. In many ways, Luna’s debut novel fails to fully form Sophie as a memorable character in and of herself, which both Bray’s novel and Chbosky’s do. Much of what makes Sophie a character are the things surrounding her, rather than who she is in and of herself. More than that, she’s hard to buy as a 14-year-old with the sort of knowledge and wisdom she has in consideration of the larger story, and secondary characters throughout the novel don’t blossom beyond certain tropes.
The bulk of Luna’s novel is realistic — it’s about Sophie learning to cope with big changes in her life. She’s recently moved, and now she has to learn to fit into a small town where she is, of course, under the belief she’ll be the only eccentric girl there who loves 80s music and funky clothes because no one in a small town has any culture to them. While I buy that belief wholeheartedly, especially given that Sophie is from Brooklyn and spent time in San Francisco, I took issue with her obsession with 80s music. I know I’ve blogged before, but in many ways, the trend of having characters who love anything 80s or setting a book in the 80s for the music/pop culture rings false to me. It reads more like authorial nostalgia than it does character development or authenticity. Do teens today like 80s music? Maybe some do. But as someone who was born in the mid-80s myself and who tries to stay moderately up-to-date in pop culture, a lot of the references or significance of this stuff is completely lost on me. I think we aren’t quite yet removed enough from this era to see it or appreciate it for what it is in that historical context. I think in the case of Sophie, it wasn’t so much about her character being a fan of the music. It felt more like a way for her character to be unique, which I didn’t like. She had plenty of other qualities inherent to her character to do that for her.
Almost immediately in the story, Sophie befriends Finny in her physics class. Both geek out about string theory and the notion of parallel worlds, among other things. They’re best pals quickly, and Sophie opens up to him about the real things going on in her life, including why she’s living in Havencrest. Finny, on the other hand, gives almost nothing to Sophie — maybe because Sophie is a little self-absorbed she misses it, but I think that in many respects, Finny just isn’t a full character. What we know about him is that he’s gay and he’s easily convinced to skip school and hop a train with Sophie for a whirlwind adventure in Brooklyn to look for her father. We learn later on he’s the type of person who can establish relationships quickly, period, as he does just that with the new woman in Sophie’s father’s life. I wish he’d been a lot more developed because he was interesting. I wondered about his own life in small town Illinois, about what it was like for him to be gay in that situation, and I wondered, too, if he had any friends besides Sophie. In many ways, Finny felt like simply the gay sidekick in the story.
The Theory of Everything isn’t entirely realistic though — at least, it might not be. What makes Sophie truly unique is that she often falls into a parallel world, where she’s greeted by a shaman panda named Walt. He is friendly with her and he assures her many times that things are going to be okay.
The thing about these episodes Sophie experiences, though, is that they’re the same episodes her own father used to experience. They’re the same kinds of episodes that would happen and cause him to disappear for days at a time and to raise worries with her mother and his other loved ones. These moments of disconnecting with the real world and falling deeply into this made up one were the real reason he disappeared and never came back, as well as why Sophie and her mother left Brooklyn.
What makes Luna’s book go the magical realism direction, though, is that it’s possible these episodes aren’t a method of coping nor a mental illness. They could all be explained by physics in some capacity. Are there parallel worlds we can fall into? If so, how can we do that? If parallel worlds exist, are Sophie and her father both capable of entering and exiting them in as much a physical way as they are able to enter them in a mental way. Sophie can bring objects back with her from her episodes, only making these questions tougher to answer.
There is a lot of suspension of disbelief necessary for the story beyond the episodes. Sophie and Finny run off to Brooklyn together without either of their parents becoming too concerned — and remember, they’re 14. There’s also a really underdeveloped and somewhat random romantic interest given to Sophie mere days after her move, and the guy stays patient and understanding with her, despite the fact she flakes out on him more than once. So there is a “love story” here in terms of a romance, but it’s shallow and secondary; the real “love story” might instead be to family.
The ending is a bit unsatisfying, as I’m not sure it draws any conclusions or further considerations for Sophie beyond giving her closure in the understanding that sometimes, there simply is not closure (which is a fair takeaway for her and for the reader, even if I don’t necessarily like it).
Writing-wise, there’s nothing particularly memorable here. It suits the story, and it doesn’t get bogged down. My only qualm might be that it felt like there was too much trying to be crammed in in an attempt to give Sophie a quirkiness that she didn’t need to have because it already existed within her — starting with her name.
Despite the fact this wasn’t one of my favorite reads in recent memory, those looking for something different and fun, despite the heavier themes of grief and mental illness, will likely appreciate The Theory of Everything. I can see readers who like Natalie Standiford’s brand of quirk in How to Say Goodbye in Robot or Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters finding this a satisfying read, as would those readers who want their stories with a little bit of science-fantasy. Likewise, readers who like A. S. King’s magical realism, particularly Everybody Sees the Ants, will likely find this a great read alike. There’s probably a lot to be discussed among the two when it comes to mental illness and coping mechanisms.
Review copy received from the author. The Theory of Everything is available now.