We all looked up

"Question: How could you look the end of the world in the face and not go crazy? Answer: You couldn’t."

We All Looked Up has a wonderful cover. I think it’s one of the first things that drew me to the book. I’m pleased to say that I was not fooled by a pretty cover.

I found this story quite enjoyable, first of all, because it really makes you think. It’s about the end of the world, and what would you do if you knew exactly when it was going to end. I like how it was explored and I think it was very realistic.

The writing is so beautiful. Seriously. I would just stare in awe at a lot of paragraphs because the author really has a way with words.

"The best books, they don't talk about things you never thought about before. They talk show more about things you'd always thought about, but that you didn't think anyone else had thought about. You read them, and suddenly you're a little bit less alone in the world."

The book is narrated in 3rd person with the point of view various characters . Each character is completely different, but I really really enjoyed Eliza’s point of view most of all. I think that she was one of the most cynical voices of the lot. She had a view of the world that made her POV all the much more tragic. It made the book much more heartbreaking.

Eliza thought about all the things she’d hoped to do in her life, all the lives she’d wanted to live. She could see them now, jagged paths cut into the shadowy future, lit up in small bursts of light.

My only issue with this book is that it tried so painfully hard to be teenage. In some POVs, the word “like” was added to almost every other sentence. (I.e. “He, like, wrecked my life.” “I’d be, like,…” “Because, like…”). There was also some really obvious jargon that was meant to sound teenage (totes, totally, dude, bro) but came off as forced most of the time. There was also some chaos (and I mean chaos) at the middle of the book, where everything felt sort of disjointed and not really going anywhere. I had to force myself to get past that part.

However, once we get past that little rough patch, the book uses the wonderful and brilliant writing to end it on a very beautiful and poignant note. It’s an open ending, but in the very best way. It made the book feel almost alive.

Overall, Tommy Wallach uses wonderful prose and writing to deliver a story that’ll make you think about the preciousness of life and the importance of living.

“People talked about their days being numbered, but really, everything was numbered. Every movie you watched was the last time you’d watch that movie, or the second-to-last time, or the third-to-last. Every kiss was one kiss closer to your last kiss.” show less

I wanted to read We All Looked Up because the idea of the teens really evaluating their life, what they are doing with it, and if they are happy about the direction in the face of a comet that might collide with the earth.

The characters are pretty varied. Peter is a jock who is also pretty smart, but his history teacher was asking questions about success and failure that really started his evaluating his life goals. Eliza from one incident of kissing Peter while he had a girlfriend and being caught, she has earned the reputation of a slut. She kind of embraces it, even though she hadn't been with guys before it felt like the whole school turned against her. She found out her dad had terminal cancer and then she started sleeping with show more random guys at an all ages club. She feels like life is just suffering on top of more suffering, and it has jaded her.

Andy is a slacker type, skate boards, smokes pot, absent from school a lot. His best friend BoBo is the ring leader and because of a big breach of trust in their friendship takes advantage of Andy now. Andy is connected to Peter through Bobo dating Peter's goth little sister Misery. He also has had a long time crush on Eliza, even before her "slut" time period. Anita is the fourth character, and she is under a lot of pressure from her Dad for her grades and her future. She feels like he views her as an investment and she doesn't want to disappoint him. But she dreams of being a singer, but that conflicts so much with his Ivy League plan for her. She sees Andy outside guidance one day and she was crying and he told her that whatever it was wasn't worth it, and that has stuck in her mind.

Ardor, the asteroid, is also another connection with them all. They all notice it when it appears as a blue star in the sky, and their lives becomes even more intertwined as the news of the possibility of hitting earth becomes more and more real, and larger a possibility. Anita goes after Andy and the lyrics and softer music that he's written but doesn't normally play because Bobo is more of a screamer. While Eliza takes her photography to the next level, snapping pictures at school and around town of the changes. The thieves and drug dealers are coming above ground, homicide is up, so the police presence has been elevated. She also gets pictures of kids from her school banding together, of Peter, who is trying to make more of a difference volunteering.

The plot was fast paced and the growth of the characters as well as the evolution of their relationships and realizations was driven by near certain death in double digit numbers to begin with and quickly hurling toward single.

I was pretty satisfied by the way it ended although was sad at some of the losses. A few of the characters realized their dreams and goals while others were left with regrets and what if weighing heavily on their minds.

I have read other books with the similar theme of days to live and end of the world approaching. This one was unique in that it also highlighted the decline in society and morals in time before. Yes there was a lot of unity towards the very last days but there were also really dark moments, showing the bad side of characters and others in society. I guess things like this will bring out the extremes.

Bottom Line: Interesting look at a group of high school students questioning their lives and choices in face of asteroid set to collide with earth. show less

This book started out intriguingly enough -- with the typical angst and triumphs in a high school day -- only to have it put into screaming perspective with the announcement that an asteroid (Ardor) is on a collision course with earth -- 66 and 2/3rds percent chance of impact -- in 6 weeks. The book is set in Seattle and the students we are introduced to and meant to champion include basketball star Peter & his misguided sister Misery aka Samantha, their unbelievably one-dimensional parents, Stacy, Peter's princess-y girlfriend -- who isn't "deep" enough to stay in the story, artsy and slutty-in-a-feminist-kind-of-way Eliza who eventually hooks up with Peter, Andy, perpetual slacker and pothead, Bobo his dealer friend and Misery's show more boyfriend, and Anita, former straight-A, straight-laced uber-controlled student who wants to sing and gets together with Andy. It's like an apocalyptic Breakfast Club. Initially, these young adults have some deep thoughts and responses to the impending doom, but then the inmates begin to run the asylum and it deteriorates into chases and riots and bad decision making and ultimately death for one, though he was well enough to walk on his own only a short time before his demise which isn't even from the asteroid or its aftermath. "The freak shall inherit the earth" p. 227) about sums it up. The turning point toward implausibility is when a handful of them get thrown into a detention center after being rounded up after a public demonstration that goes south. While the book does raise good questions about what one would do with a global death sentence, and what really comes down to the important things, it gets off track and mired in teen impulsivity. The adults in the novel are complete idiots, which is the point? And the ending leaves you hanging --- which may also be the point. Compared to Age of Miracles this falls short in the lasting impact category. show less

They learn that an asteroid may or may not crash into Earth in 2 months. After that, their version of normal changes forever. There's the athlete who was contemplating what he really wanted out of life, and now wants to do things that weren't part of his plan. The straight-A student who dreams of being a singer, but is stifled by her parents giant expectations, who now decides to live her own dream in the remaining days. The girl with the reputation, who wants her photography to mean something to the world. And the slacker with no backbone, who is just now finding where he belongs. All 4 of these people and their friends (and the whole world) are struggling with lives that may be cut short....

My Thoughts:
We All Looked Up is a book I've show more been wanting to read because A. I love the cover, and B. I've heard good things about it. It was an interesting read and for the most part I enjoyed it... but it didn't GO anywhere for me. There was potential for this book to make me FEEL something, and that potential just wasn't reached. I liked the multiple POV's and I liked the characters, but when it was all said and done, this book fell a little flat for me. It's about a world dealing with an impending doom... and the unknown, but for most of the book it wasn't a desperate book. There wasn't a lot of violence or fear. Which is why towards the end when things took a turn in that direction, it didn't feel right. I've read a lot of apocalyptic books, and most of them had that common desperation and human nature at it's worst element... but this book didn't lead into that until really late on. It didn't feel honest with the rest of the book.

The biggest problems for me were the following things: First Up- The Science. I would think that with an asteroid 2 months away, they would be able to track it's trajectory better then 2/3 chance of hitting Earth. I would think they would know. They would also know where on the planet it would hit and start to have SOME sort of contingency plan. In this book, the president is like "maybe you'll die, goodbye". Other stuff- I hated that Eliza's dad was a major factor in her life in the beginning of the book, and then he just fell away without her even seeming to care. I hated that the other parents in the book were completely non-existent. Peter's parents were the only ones that were even present and they were such a non-factor they may as well have been wallpaper. I can't imagine wanting to spend my final moments on Earth away from my parents/family. Everyone is not like that, but I'd be willing to bet most high school kids are. I would have liked to see some people like that. I hated that the build up to the last days were SO blah. I thought the countdown to the end would be INTENSE... and it should have been. It wasn't. I hated that the couplings and uncouplings were so predictable. I hated that things that were important to the 4 teens (photography, singing, love, friendship) didn't hold through until the end in the least. I hated that they wanted to spend their last day at some giant festival. It's not like the asteroid was projected to hit Seattle... so it would be a WHILE before they died. They would probably starve to death before anything else. Panic would set in... you think being at a festival with thousands of people is going to be fun in any way when panic sets in??

What I did like about the book: SO much more than I'm making it out to be. I did actually did like this book up until it's halfway mark. I liked Eliza and how she just owned her sexuality. I loved Andy. Actually Andy is probably the only character I really did love the whole way through. I loved that he didn't know what friendship was until it dropped into his lap. I loved his positive attitude. He wasn't perfect, but in a way he felt innocent even when doing bad things. I never thought about putting this book down through all the things I wasn't wild about. I still wanted to know what would happen and I still cared about these characters.

I guess for the most part my disappointments lie in the way things turned out to be exactly as they seem. The good people are the good people... the bad are bad. There aren't shades of grey or people that you like and relate to, but happen to be flawed human beings. For a debut, I feel there's something there for this author to go on... but for a book about life and death, it didn't go deep enough.

The Ending: I don't know what to think about the ending. I'm not going to give it away, but I definitely didn't love it. I kind of knew it was coming, but I guess I was hoping I would be wrong.

OVERALL: An okay story about 4 teens at the end of the world. It had moments that I liked, but for the most part I felt like it didn't live up to it's potential. I ended up feeling conflicted about whether I would recommend this or not. I say read, but with low expectations.

My Blog:
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“Why had he assumed time was some sort of infinite resource? Now the hourglass had busted open, and what he’s always assumed was just a bunch of sand turned out to be a million tiny diamonds.”

I really was surprised by this book. I’m not sure why, but I was kind of expecting not to love this. But I did. It was amazing.

This book really got me thinking about what I would do if I had two months to live. I also felt like the characters were really realistic. I found myself entirely wrapped up in the story. It helped that the author created an album to go with it. I played the music while reading to become totally immersed.

Definitely recommend.

very good writing, first of all. usually i find it hard to read third person - the characters are too distant - but this one had all the smoothness and flow of third person and the intimacy of first person. the stories were connected well and rarely did i get confused about whose POV i was reading from. and the characters were all so real. the characters were definitely one of the strong points.

one star, though, for the vague as heck ending that is driving me nuts as well as the love square.

An asteroid is on a collision course with earth (or maybe a near collision course... scientists can't quite pin it down for certain, but it looks like there's a 2/3 chance that the Earth will be obliterated.)
The story follows four high school students in the final 12 weeks before the collision (or near collision).
There is Peter (the jock), Andy (the slacker), Anita (the brain), and Eliza (the slut). Each of 10 greater chapters has a lesser chapter devoted to each of these four characters. The author imagines what would happen in society at large and to individuals up close, if we knew that we had only 12 weeks left to live. As in the movie "The Breakfast Club," each of the four stereotyped characters turns out to be much more than they show more seem on the outside at the beginning of the book.
I would almost give this a 4 star, but cut it back by a half because I found it impossible to believe Anita would ever, even with a coming apocalypse, be attracted to Andy, and because the ending wasn't quite satisfactory to me. There were a few extras that the conclusion needed that just weren't there. Still, this teen fiction tale does a nice job of creating an impossible (Ok... highly, highly unlikely) situation, and imagining what would happen in that situation. show less