The Great Perhaps

What happens when you go looking for something beyond the mundane and you find more than what you bargained for? This is by no means an easy topic to tackle but John Green does a magnificent job of doing just that in his book “Looking for Alaska”. It’s the story of Miles “Pudge” Halter, avid biography reader and fan of famous last words (his abiding motto is to go and find the great perhaps—as Rabelais) and his transfer to the Culver Creek Boarding School. It is at Culver Creek that he meets and befriends Chip “Colonel” Martin, Takumi and Alaska Young with whom he falls hopelessly in love with. Never mind that she is out of his league and as she puts it “totally in love with her boyfriend”. And since this is a book about teenagers, it is full of class room life and pranks (industrial blue colored dye in hair gel being involved in one) but it veers from such a simple direction once tragedy strikes.
This is an immensely likeable novel. It is one of those novels whose language just flows, is poetic and often beautiful. Add the fact that it captures perfectly the rhythm and cadence of teenage life without once resorting to cliché or is in any way condescending for their concerns. There are deeper things afoot in the novel and it is framed by Alaska herself when she poses that most existentialist of questions “how do we ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering?” As questions go, this has been the focus of countless minds and the subject of books far too numerous to recount. And author John Green is able to handle such a topic in a graceful and humorous way. If I had a quibble with this book, it would be to say that perhaps the characters are a little aware and philosophical for teenagers but at the same time, it cannot be denied that teenagers now are much more worldly and knowing than grown ups give them credit for. But that is just the tiniest quibble in this otherwise excellent novel that ends in the most satisfyingly positive way. “That part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.”

Meg Rosoff’s How I Live Now is the story of Daisy, a 15 year old American sent off to England to live with her cousins. Her first few days are idyllic and she slowly begins to make a home there and even more importantly, falls in love with Edmond. Her idyll doesn’t last however as England is invaded by an unnamed enemy and soon they are separated from each other. Over the course of the war years, Daisy learns the difficult lessons needed to survive as well as learns how to take care of those she comes to love more than herself. From a selfish and immature teen, Daisy evolves into a caring and strong person and readers’ won’t be able to help but cheer her on.
There isn’t much to say except that it is a great book. Equally honest, moving and smart, it won hordes of accolades when it was first published, and all of them are well deserved. The author captures perfectly the voice and character of a troubled young woman learning to survive things that are bigger than she is. But what is really moving about this book is the love story between Daisy and Edmond which is beautifully captured and described. One gets a real sense of the passionate urgency of young love newly awakened as well as the bruising desperation that comes from being torn apart from your loved one. It was hard to put down this book yet when I finished I kept wishing I had more to read about Daisy and Edmond.

For fantasy lovers

Recently, Kathleen Duey stopped by the store to sign copies of her book Skin Hunger which was a finalist in the National Book Award for Literature for young readers. Since its publication, Skin Hunger has been gathering praise from critics and readers alike. It is the first book in a trilogy. It tells the alternating story of two teenagers living generations apart but whose lives are somehow intertwined far more closely than they think. Sadima is a young woman living at a time when magic is feared and reviled and practitioners are hated. However, she herself has an affinity for magic and when her father dies she comes to the big city to live with Franklin and Somiss, two magicians who are working to legitimize magic and to restore it to its noble purpose. The alternate chapters tell the story of Hahp. He is the second born son of a wealthy man who sends him to the Magicians Academy where only one out of ten boys will live to become a magician. In Hahp’s time, magic is reserved only for the wealthy.
This is a deeply absorbing novel that grips you from the initial pages till the cliffhanger end. The characters are well drawn, with their flaws and their strengths and are worth rooting for. The story is never condescending and is intelligently told. You genuinely want to know what happens to Sadima and Hahp and how their lives will finally intersect. Even readers not particularly fond of the fantasy genre will appreciate the well told story of two people trying to make their way in a difficult world.

The Subject of Cool

Being cool and all that it means is the subject of Scott Westerfeld's book So Yesterday. It is written ostensibly for teen readers but an adult reader will be hard pressed not to feel a twinge or two of recognition at the characters and their predicament. The book is premised on the idea that society resembles a pyramid –divided into the Innovators, the small select few on top who are so original as to be beyond and above the average definition of cool, followed by the Trendsetters who are actually cool, keep watch on innovations and are watched by others so that what they wear and do becomes cool. Two steps down from the top are the Early Adopters who have the newest and latest in everything before everybody else but unlike the Trendsetters, find their stuff from the magazines. They are followed by the Consumers, the vast bulk of people who need to see tv, magazines and movies before deciding on what is cool. And finally we have the Laggards, those who resist all change. The story’s main protagonist is Hunter, a 17 year old Trendsetter whose work is to find the latest cool thing in the streets. Along with other trendsetters, he takes part in cool tastings or focus groups as known in the real world and they determine whether the Client’s product passes muster in the cool barometer. Things change when he meets Jen, an Innovator. Matters become complicated when his boss disappears and they stumble on a mysterious cache of the coolest shoes they’d ever seen. Worse yet is how the disappearance and shoes seem to be linked together. What follows is a hunt all across NY city to solve the mysterious disappearance of his boss and the mystery shoes and its implications for Hunter and Jen.
In So Yesterday, Westerfeld has written a fast paced and funny story of two teenagers on the brink of a huge discovery. He has written likeable characters who stumble about and make mistakes but ultimately make their way successfully. It is written in a breezy manner but underlying such manner is an examination of the way big business works and the necessarily related consumer process. The author tackles the question of who determines what people want, or at the very least think they want and the process is not necessarily a pretty one. And contrary to what we may want to believe, our choices in what we wear, what we buy or even places to patronize are not necessarily the result of free will. Underlying the breezy tone of the book is a worry that because of the need to belong, we have become too much the product of a fabricated environment which precludes original thinking. It makes for an uncomfortable thought and gives added gravitas to the think out of the box concept. It’s a clarion call to stand out and be different. We all have it in us. Somehow.