association-list

This book starts on an inter­est­ing note and never lets the fact that it’s aimed at young adults drive it away from exper­i­men­ta­tion or inter­est­ing writ­ing. While the font stuff is occa­sion­ally irri­tat­ing, it never really gets in the way, and there are some moments of stun­ning book design that it affords. This car­ries you quickly through the first two thirds or three quar­ters of the book. Even­tu­ally, how­ever, the lim­i­ta­tions of the very narrow first person view­point of a fif­teen year-​​old boy start to become a drag on the book. Get­ting first person present sin­gu­lar right is a del­i­cate bal­anc­ing act as regards reveal­ing and con­ceal­ing infor­ma­tion, and it seems to me that in the inter­est of get­ting to heart of his character’s con­fu­sion, the author allows the nar­ra­tive to blind­side the nar­ra­tor far too often, so that the ending is very much like get­ting beaten over the head in a lot of places. That isn’t to say that the ending is bad, just that it doesn’t match the early sec­tions of the book. It also spends a little too much time doing Dis­as­ter Porn.