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Loading... 100 Sideways Miles (original 2014; edition 2014)by Smith Andrew
Work Information100 Sideways Miles by Andrew Smith (2014)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Finn is a likable character. His friend, Cade Hernandez, is crude, but I enjoyed the depth of the friendship, and the blossoming of the new friendship with Julia Bishop. The book is amusing, and probably the depiction of epilepsy is accurate. ( ) So there's a genre of book about a child protagonist who has one (or many) precocious quirks. And it sounds like it would be too twee to be acceptable, but somehow I'm addicted. And in the same vein as [b:The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time|1618|The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time|Mark Haddon|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327882682s/1618.jpg|4259809] and [b:The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet|6065179|The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet|Reif Larsen|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347685924s/6065179.jpg|6054277] we have 100 Sideways Miles. Finn Easton measures time in the distance the Earth has traveled in its orbit (20 miles/second), makes frequent references to the Knackery, and refers to his seizures as "blanking out." And he is so real and so endearing that it never feels twee. The central premise of the book is one giant metaphor for coming of age: Finn's father, the famous writer Michael Easton, wrote a book about aliens that come to Earth through Lazarus Doors and used Finn's name for the protagonist, as well as several of his physical characteristics (his :|: scar from when a horse landed on him, his heterochromia) and personality quirks. Only these aliens are Not Human. Finn is not sure whether he is a real person or just an alien from his father's book -- and on a greater level is trying to figure out whether he's normal and how he fits into the world. I'm a sucker for a coming of age story, and this one is done well. (For no good reason, a huge network in my hippocampus is dedicated to recognizing Night Journey stories -- a coming of age genre made up by my high school English class that doesn't exist in the real world.) Finally, it's worth noting that there are few books that allow characters of color to have a narrative of their own that doesn't revolve around their ethnicity. Julia Bishop is a refreshing counterpoint as a character of color, who's allowed to develop her own personality and her own story. I want to give this book a 3.5. It was a good book that deserves better than a 3, but also I don’t think it wowed me enough to get a 4. It was a fun story with memorable characters (especially Cade, that boy was a trip and I love him). I’m a huge sucker for great literary friendships and I really did adore the one between Finn and Cade. They were obviously close and cared about each other and really we just need more friendships between male characters. It was surprisingly funny at times and more thought provoking than I expected. I can’t remember the last time I dwelled so much about our place in the universe and the atoms that make us us. The pacing of the book was decent though it did feel like the author repeated some of the same ideas a bit too often and seemed to paraphrase what he’d said previously. Story wise it did seem a little meandering at times, but really isn’t that how life is? Just events and pieces leading to an end? And this is a story about a boy realizing that he actually isn’t just a character from his father’s book so it fits. A classic coming-of-age tale of aliens, boners and pizza. It's mire than slightly weird and a little bit wound too tightly around itself, but any minor flaws are more than made up for with the most entertaining sidekick this side of a Marvel comic. You'll get some of the standard stuff (love, relationships, teenagers being unreasonably angry) along with a heaping helping of Weird (time measured in distance the Earth has travelled in the universe, a horse falling off a bridge, etc.). Recommended for anyone who's not offended by swearing and has a sneaking suspicion they live inside a book. no reviews | add a review
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Finn Easton, sixteen and epileptic, struggles to feel like more than just a character in his father's cult-classic novels with the help of his best friend, Cade Hernandez, and first love, Julia, until Julia moves away. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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