A story about true love lasting through time, space and multiple lifetimes sounds a bit suspect. The notion of “the one”, the person you know is meant for you the moment you look into their eyes because they’ve been ordained for you seems ridiculous these days. It’s the mantra of serial killers and swoony adolescents…isn’t it?
However, when such a story starts off with a main character regurgitating food into bushes, then it’s quirky enough to pique this reader’s interest. Romantic love isn’t on anybody’s mind here and the person vomiting resents the notion that two teens of the opposite gender can’t be fast friends without there being some amorous attachment involved. I quite agree and this surprisingly robust adult notion places this story quite above that of your usual YA fiction.
The language is superior as well, at least in certain cases. When a chapter starts off with the sentence “I don’t wake up so much as detonate in slow motion” you smile both at the evocative vocabulary and at the image it provokes. Evan is a youth who thinks with words like “dichotomy”, “encapsulates” and “exponentially”. I think I’m in love! He’s going to be a senior so he’s approaching the age when he’d be considered a man in most cultures and therefore we can expect a certain elevation of language. But, still, such verbiage in a YA novel is a sweet surprise.
For her part, Shosh’s sister Stevie uses words like “transmogrified” and “fromager”, lending her a slightly more sophisticated air. Shosh herself was a wunderkind who peaked early and crashed hard. We just barely get a sense of her inner turmoil in these early chapters but her disconnect from her peers and others around her becomes painfully apparent after an unfortunate yet ludicrous accident.
In the wake of Stevie Bell’s death, the Bell family slowly but surely goes off the rails. Alcoholism, petty crime, theft—all this and more simmers beneath the surface and bubbles through it, lending this novel an unexpectedly darkened tone. All is not sunshine and light in this YA world. We are presented with the harsh lesson that life is what happens when you make other plans. People leave you, suddenly, unexpectedly, through death, desertion, divorce
If true love resurfaces here, it’s going to have an uphill battle to reach a happy ending.
However, when such a story starts off with a main character regurgitating food into bushes, then it’s quirky enough to pique this reader’s interest. Romantic love isn’t on anybody’s mind here and the person vomiting resents the notion that two teens of the opposite gender can’t be fast friends without there being some amorous attachment involved. I quite agree and this surprisingly robust adult notion places this story quite above that of your usual YA fiction.
The language is superior as well, at least in certain cases. When a chapter starts off with the sentence “I don’t wake up so much as detonate in slow motion” you smile both at the evocative vocabulary and at the image it provokes. Evan is a youth who thinks with words like “dichotomy”, “encapsulates” and “exponentially”. I think I’m in love! He’s going to be a senior so he’s approaching the age when he’d be considered a man in most cultures and therefore we can expect a certain elevation of language. But, still, such verbiage in a YA novel is a sweet surprise.
For her part, Shosh’s sister Stevie uses words like “transmogrified” and “fromager”, lending her a slightly more sophisticated air. Shosh herself was a wunderkind who peaked early and crashed hard. We just barely get a sense of her inner turmoil in these early chapters but her disconnect from her peers and others around her becomes painfully apparent after an unfortunate yet ludicrous accident.
In the wake of Stevie Bell’s death, the Bell family slowly but surely goes off the rails. Alcoholism, petty crime, theft—all this and more simmers beneath the surface and bubbles through it, lending this novel an unexpectedly darkened tone. All is not sunshine and light in this YA world. We are presented with the harsh lesson that life is what happens when you make other plans. People leave you, suddenly, unexpectedly, through death, desertion, divorce
If true love resurfaces here, it’s going to have an uphill battle to reach a happy ending.