Entry tags:

books, let's get literate! 2009

Ryan has disengaged from his life. For the past few years, he's made an art of numbing the pain of living with drugs. This is a nice way of saying that Ryan is a stoner, and has been for awhile, using marijuana to hide from the reality of cancer killing his sister. NEWSFLASH: this book is about death! It's about death and the aftermath; the sticky remainders of a world forever shifted in tone from the way it was before. It's about the ways we navigate that world, where everything looks the same but nothing actually remains so—a reality that is lacking. Ryan has been drifting through after Molly's death, finding solace in the pot provided by his friend Andy, as his father deteriorates physically and his mother just tries to keep them all together. Ryan's life is low-impact: he has low-impact friends and low-impact outlook, which involves just getting through without having to feel too much. His perspective is altered when beautiful and popular Charlotte Silano gets dumped by her horse and ends up in a coma.

The event snaps Ryan back to the reality of losing his sister when Andy drags him to the hospital to see her and the crowds have already gathered. He leaves once, but in the end keeps going back as all the other people drop away, drawn by the ability it gives him to work through some of his issues. One of Charlotte's teammates, Betty, also visits and the two make a tenuous connection with one another after an explosion between them over Ryan's drug abuse and his general attitude toward life. Throughout the story Ryan struggles with finding his way after the shock of Charlotte's accident snaps him out of her own version of Deadville; stoned and barely getting by and realizing very quickly that the drugs could take him deeper but not sure he wants to end up that person. While spending time with Charlotte, he drifts farther and farther away from Andy and drugs and closer and closer to the place and the person he might have arrived at if cancer hadn't taken his sister, closer to Betty. With this shift Ryan begins to realize that he's worthy of something—that he isn't just a stoner with a grudge against the world, with the one friend he has dragging him to a place of empty hopes and complete disengagement, a friend that takes advantage of his money and his intelligence all the while demeaning him. The story is about Deadville, in all its forms, for people alive and dead: the place where we go as we decided whether to truly live, or die; to go on, or to give up.

My first question is: why did I not hear about this book from the kidlitosphere (does anyone else feel like they're trying to hard when they use that? Because I do but I'm going to own it since I wrote it to begin with)? I am serious! BOOK BLOGGERS, YOU HAVE LET ME DOWN. I get all my recommendations from you! You let me know when something is awesome, when I need to read a book immediately and this time, it did not happen. I picked this book up by chance instead and I'm alarmed. I could have missed it! Very few people read and reviewed this title and I don't know why: is it the slimness, perhaps suggesting the novel has little depth to offer? Is it the lack of sparkling vampires? The fact that is about death (although books about vampires contain death, because well, vampires, so am I barking up the wrong tree here?)?

I, in my completely normal, free from the specter of death for the most part life, did the math on the amount of pot in this story. On a really bad day, I could start out with 100% Happiness, which would fall to 97% immediately because I always have to get up before I'm ready. By the end of that day (since it's a bad day), the percentage of Happiness would have fluctuated, but would still be around 50%, because as I said: I AM A PRETTY LUCKY PERSON. I do not suffer much, or have much strife to overcome. If, for every lost point I pulled out a blunt and went to town, guys! GUYS. I do not think I would still be functioning. I would not even have to fail a drug test. They would just look at me and go, "Oh DEAR." and call the cops and then I would be in prison for a very long time. Therefore, when I was thinking about Ryan and how he, in the aftermath of losing his sister through that murderous growth known as cancer, for years falls back on drugs I realized in a SUDDEN FLASH: holy shit that is a lot of pot.

Ryan is doing some quality numbing of some heartache and woe! Also, he has attached himself to habits and people that are not so great. Oh, the ways in which I did not like Andy! They were many and varied and centered on the fact that Ryan was doing Andy's schoolwork with him with his clearly superior brain while at every opportunity, Andy would take a moment to make sure that it was boring that Ryan was smart. He didn't care about anyone's well-being, he was racist, and selfish and generally unlikeable, no matter how Ryan felt about him in the end. I don't think we're supposed to like him: he has big dreams he's never going to accomplish, he's rude, vengeful, and disingenuous. The only time I felt sorry for Andy was when Ryan was contemplating his MASSIVE GIRTH and how I got the vibe that somehow his size made him pitiable. Let me unpack this!

The heavy guy likes eating contests. The dude likes to shovel food. He eats on other people's dimes, or in this case, entire bank accounts. He is largely defined by his weight. Now, I'm certain that the author wasn't making a statement about fat people here, but boy did I get tired of Andy, as much as I loathed him, being defined by his size. Yes! That's awesome. Gyms and health and activity and healthy eating—ALL SUPER FINE, as in the book that are positive goals toward feeling again. But Andy did plenty of other shitty things to Ryan that I find it pretty terrible that most of Ryan's inner dialogue aimed at Andy refers to his monstrous eating habits and his size. How about the anti-intellectualism, Ryan! Or the bullying for homework in exchange for lots of free drugs? Or the obvious disregard for health as Andy understands Ryan's metabolism but gives him drugs that fuck him up! In other words: ignore me! I am picky and bitter when characters describe other characters using their weight, more than once in a story.

Otherwise, I really loved this book! It's very simple and straightforward. Charlotte defines much of the book even though she's in his coma, characters growing around her with her as the center and impetus. Thad, a boy in the hospital that Ryan meets while visiting Charlotte, was a nice addition as well: a second chance for Ryan to care instead of numbing those feelings because he wasn't adult enough to process them in other, healthier ways. The sections with the parents were either hilariously apt or heartbreaking. No one in this book is perfect or entirely self-aware, each character a facet we can recognize in ourselves, although the popular kids were as predictable as the seasons—and in the end, does Charlotte herself change Ryan? I loved this, I won't lie! It was so well-done.

The writing was interesting, too: Ryan's voice smacked with wit not shared with the world, and when it finally comes out we see a charming, intelligent kid with lots to offer, no longer allowing himself to be mute. Most of all, this book proves anyone, with the willpower to accomplish something, can say, "Enough." and come back from the brink.