Special Topics in Calamity Physics

I cannot finish listening to this book because the language makes me want to drive my truck into a tree, and that's dangerous. ( )

I cannot finish listening to this book because the language makes me want to drive my truck into a tree, and that's dangerous. ( )

I wanted to like this book. And I almost did around the action-packed climax, until I read a few too many metaphors for the third or fourth time and the ending crawled to a slow and painfully unremarkable resolution. Suddenly the writing was not so fresh and I no longer believed in any of the characters. ( )

annoying precious. ( )

I will start this review by saying that Marisha Pessl is a very talented writer who can create beautiful images and I'm sure she'll have a long and fruitful career full of many interesting novels. Moreover, I think she has taken risks with this book and tried to make reading it a unique experience, and that should be acknowledged.

Having said that, this is clearly a flawed novel. This is the story of Blue Van Meer, the teennager daughter of a narcissist, who is on a fast track to becoming one, and who arrives at a new school and manages to make the first friends in her life who are, surprise, suprise... a bunch of narcissists themselves! While Blue oscillates between being endearing and irritating (we can sense there is still hope for her, if only she could get away from her dad and her friends and meet some normal people), this is not the case with the other characters. I am very interested in narcissism myself, having suffered some narcissistic people in my life, and it did feel like Pessl knew what she was talking about, although it seemd a bit of an overkill that so many characters were narcissistic, or that Blue's father has such obvious grandiosity delusions.

The story is narrated by Blue, including references to books, movies, about 132.758 comparisions, which are beautiful in themselves but overwhelming when you find one every couple of lines. This could be a stroke of genius on Pessl's part, as this is exactly the kind of book that overachieving Blue Van Meer would write, but I'm left with the feeling that the case is that Blue and Pessl are not so different. After two thirds of the book I just started skimming (and I do love dense books, books with footnotes, experimental literature, etc.). Please, as talented as you may be: less is more.

Another problem is that the book goes from being a coming of age tale to a murder mister 3/4 into the story. You can do coming of age, you can do mistery, you could even do both if it was clear from the beginning, but you cannot switch near the end of the book without seriously annoying the reader. Having said that, you can trace breadcrumbs that Pessl left along the book that fit into the mistery, and yet, the switch didn't work for me, and I was left wondering why on Earth had Hanna Schneider spent her weekends cooking for the Bluebloods. I know one answer is "for the attention", but really? couldn't she find nicer people?

The book ends with an exam, which suggests possible explanations and tries to wrap up the loose ends. I found this extremely irritating. I do undestrand that the book is written as an essay, is about a star student, everything revolves around academia and education, etc.etc.etc. but:

1.- I can understand the ending or make my own explanation without the author having to spell everything out for me.
2.- If a writer thinks that the novel is not self-explanatory, he or she should rework the novel, not add an explanation at the end
3.- An exam? Really?? ( )