Lowboy

Lowboy Cover (mine is a used hardcover, no dustjacket)

I ordered Lowboy on impulse when shopping online at Better World Books. They have a Bargain Bin where you can get books for $4 with shipping and handling, similar to Amazon, but Better World Books supports world literacy. Anyway, I saw a book about a paranoid schizophrenic narrator and thought, sure!

Title: Lowboy

Author: John Wray (John Henderson) (US & Austrian citizen)

Genre: Novel

Characters: William Heller/Lowboy, Ali Lateef/Rufus White, Yda/Violet Heller, Emily

Plot: The book opens with Will escaping from two men who he calls Skull & Bones. Several pages in, you start to see the sparking and shorting electric snaps of Will’s schizophrenia. The chapters trade off between Will and the police officer who is with Will’s mother, Yda/Violet. We get both sides of Will’s story intermittently as he rides the subways, seeks out Emily, and tries to find a way to save the world from burning. The main plot motivation is if they will catch him before he becomes violent; he has a criminal history. There is also allusion to a secret Yda is hiding.

Verdict: The dialogue of Will’s mind was what I imagine a schizophrenic brain to be like (because I think about these things). Especially in the first 2/3 of the book, the plot moves pretty quickly and you are wondering what exactly he thinks he needs to do and what will happen if he can’t do it or if he will end up snapping and hurting someone. The ending fizzled out for me, though. The secret wasn’t really that surprising and, to me, didn’t mean that much to the story (though I’m good at missing symbolism and meaning and whatnot). Maybe that’s why I didn’t like the ending. It was probably symbolic. It probably meant something. <shrug> Read it if you can’t stand to skip reading about paranoid schizophrenics. Or if you’re good at finding meaning. Otherwise, spend your time elsewhere.

Skippy Dies

Hardcover Dustjacket

Title: Skippy Dies

Author: Paul Murray (Irish)

Genre: “Tragicomic”

Main Characters: Daniel “Skippy” Juster, Ruprecht Van Doren, Lori, Carl, Howard “the Coward” Fallon, the Automator

Setting: Seabrook College, a boy’s Catholic school in Dublin, Ireland

Plot: The book is split into three parts: Hopeland, Heartland, Ghostland. On the first page of the book, Skippy dies, so you get that out of the way quickly. The rest of the book spins and pivots between characters, building the story that led up to Skippy’s death then showing how the ripple effect of his death. That makes the plot sound too neat though; it’s a dizzying ride through multiple characters’ minds and secrets, riffing on the horniness of 14-yr-old boys, Catholic priest stereotypes, high school teacher mid-life crises, pill-poppers and drug pushers, nerdom and cliques, and all the insecurities that overlie them all. It’s a brutal picture of puberty and the realities of insecurities that live with you far beyond your adolescence. The adult characters show that as the film Magnolia would put it, “We might be through with the past, but the past ain’t through with us.” And to some extent, every character shares that message.

Verdict: This book is crazy. I heard about it through BookRiot and, as I recall, it was described as a smart novel set in an all-boys school with a lot of fart and sex jokes. This is correct, but I wasn’t prepared for everything else that came with it! The book keeps sinking deeper, going darker, getting grittier. It’s not a book you recommend to your mother-in-law. Or to a soccer mom. Don’t read this if you want to feel like there’s always justice in the world and everything works out alright. But if you want a challenging read that’s fast-paced, entertaining, and intense, definitely pick this up.

Counting by 7s

Paperback ARC

I picked up an ARC copy of Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan from the Family Bookshop in DeLand; I thought I recalled it being mentioned on Book Riot, and it was free with an appealing cover. Why not?

Title: Counting by 7s

Author: Holly Goldberg Sloan

Genre: Young Adult

Main Characters: Willow, Mai, Quang-ha, Patti, Jairo, Dell Duke

Plot: Willow’s parents are killed in a car crash, and she has no immediate friends or family. Dell Duke, the school counselor, and Mai and Quang-ha are with her when she finds out. She ends up living with her Vietnamese friends who must lie about their housing situation (consequently moving into Dell Duke’s apartment) to get social service’s approval for temporary guardianship. They all learn valuable lessons about compromising, opening up, pursuing dreams, etc.

Verdict: Yes, it was predictable; there was a happy ending and the pieces of the puzzle fell into place pretty neatly at every turn. However, the details of Willow’s obsessive compulsive tendencies made her character more vulnerable and realistic, especially when she chooses to ignore her previous compulsions in favor of being numb. I like that Mai and Quang-ha are Vietnamese-Mexican-American and that the book is about people of color; Willow sees Dell Duke as having his own foreign culture just as much as Mai and Quang-ha do. I think the book poses a good question about why there aren’t self-help books for young adults written about life-shattering events — but that may be my own bias in thinking there’s a need for the self-help book I want to write for young adults for a particular life-shattering event.

2014 Reading List (42)

Hugo, Victor	Les Miserables
Higgins, Dusty and Van Jean	Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer
King, Stephen	Revival
Bloom, Amy	Lucky Us
Dostoevsky, Fyodor	Crime & Punishment
Beukes, Lauren	Broken Monsters
Barry, Max	Lexicon
Wray, John	Lowboy
Murray, Paul	Skippy Dies
Sloan, Holly Goldberg	Counting by 7s
Chabon, Michael	Gentleman of the Road
Zevin, Gabrielle	The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
Yanique, Tiffany	The Land of Love and Drowning
Harkaway, Nick	The Gone Away World
Rowell, Rainbow	Landline
Harrison, Kathryn	Enchantments
Martin, George R.R.	A Dance of Dragons
Lowry, Lois	The Son
Lowry, Lois	The Messenger
Lowry, Lois	Gathering Blue
Lowry, Lois	The Giver
Lahiri, Jhumpa	Interpreter of Maladies
Snicket, Lemony (David Handler)	The Reptile Room
Snicket, Lemony	The Bad Beginning
Moore, Christopher	Lamb
Saramago, Jose	Blindness
Butler, Octavia	The Bloodchild & Other Stories
Eugenides, Jeffrey	The Marriage Plot
Martin, George R.R.	A Feast for Crows
Oliver, Lauren	Liesl & Po
Stewart, Trenton Lee	The Mysterious Benedict Society
Bradbury, Ray	From the Dust Returned
Russell, Karen	The Vampire in the Lemon Grove
Murakami, Haruku	South of the Border, West of the Sun
Brown, Eli	Cinnamon & Gunpowder
Coelo, Paulo	The Alchemist
Martin, George R.R.	A Storm of Swords
Brosh, Ali	Hyperbole and a Half
Wecker, Helen	The Golem and the Jinni
Atkinson, Kate	Life After Life
Egan, Jennifer	A Visit from the Goon Squad