Neverworld Wake

I so loved the beginning of this book because I felt I was back in the world of Calamity Physics, a world I had been missing. Bea is like Blue in some hard to define way and her friends were like the crowd Blue hung with. Then came the calamity and it became more like the Wizard of Oz, only the wizard died under mysterious circumstances. Later it would turn out that Bea had been the man behind the curtain--you know, the one you're supposed to pay no attention to. Since I'm not a young adult, I may be the wrong reader for this book but being wrong has become what I do best. (I'll leave it to you to decide exactly in which way I fail the YA designation.)

I want to start with what annoyed me most, which I understand is totes the wrong way show more to write a review. Yet here it is: It's the mystery novel cliche of the secrets revealed one by one in that puzzle solving way. In and of itself, I don't have trouble with that technique, but it was too mechanical/predictable in this novel. Everyone had to have a secret and even the first person narrator kept a secret from us which felt to me like a betrayal -- like a secret in service to the plot rather than to the character. And it was good secret in a feminist way. A woman who has to subordinate herself to her man, propping him up (even as a narrator, but that needed to be made clearer) yet yearning to break free. And then, finally doing so. The second worst secret was Martha's and again it wasn't the fault of the secret itself. The problem was that the reader has to understand early on that the unreliable narrator is not picking up the clues. Instead we discover her unreliability and the secret at the same time.

I can pick on other annoyances. If you had to have time travel (and I don't think you did) it needed to be better integrated. Instead it was a feature found in the Bender's manual (and probably done more artfully in that non-existent book) If you can go to the future, couldn't you find out how the book would end? Who would survive the accident? Maybe you could get unstuck by going to the future one day/wake at a time. If you did, would only the last version of the previous day count?

The formal vote bothered me too which is why I loved that they reached consensus without unanimity. It wasn't even clear how that happened or why it turned out that there was consensus on our narrator at that point. Wasn't Bee's winning a foregone conclusion, though? I would have tried to undercut its inevitability were I writing this book. Also, am I supposed to understand why finding out how Jim died is relevant to getting out of Neverworld?

If I seem too negative it is because, like a YA with a crush, I expected perfection from Ms. Pessl. There's a lot to like in this book. Even when Dorothy gets back to Kansas and realizes the people she met in Oz were with her all along. I read it pretty much straight through--something I rarely do. (I may have also done that with Night Film.) The writing in the small, the individual scenes, are compelling. The relationships though not globally motivated are always locally so, even as they waver from moment to moment between intimacy and rejection, like real life relationships, especially among YAs. I retain my crush and await her next book. show less

This is one of the best books I have ever read. I adore it. “Neverworld Wake” is dark and it hurts, but it’s also piercingly smart, pulling back layers of human nature and friendship in a completely new way.
Without a doubt one of the most unsettlingly fantastic YA novels of all time.

I really liked Neverworld Wake. I liken it to the movie Groundhog’s Day but with a much more serious story. After all, this is not a story about one man stuck in a loop until he solves his romantic problems. This is a group of young adults enjoying their summer break forced into an unfathomable situation with dire consequences. It is a story about the facades we use even for our best friends and the secrets we keep even from ourselves. It is a story about death and life that is erudite and stimulating. I actually more than liked it.

Like Ms. Pessl’s other novels, Neverworld Wake is the type of novel in which it is best to enter into it cold. You need to view the story through Beatrice’s eyes, watch her former friends, hear their show more answers, and determine your own conclusions. Simultaneously, you need to experience the Neverworld as someone experiencing it for the first time with the millions of questions, disbelief, and confusion that coincide with it. Not only does this bring you deeper into the action, it also forces you to pay attention to every nuance. When you do that, you become absorbed in the more philosophical elements of the story and questions of right and wrong.

Like the Neverworld is to Bee and her friends, Neverworld Wake is not an easy novel. Answers are not given to you; Ms. Pessl makes you work for them. Plus, the subject matter is rather macabre, and the actions of the group at times are depraved. As time runs out for those in the Neverworld, suspense builds, making it read like a thriller but a much more philosophical one than one usually finds. This all makes for a story that is unlike most everything recently released. While I know it is not getting the greatest of reviews from others, all I can say is that Neverworld Wake confirms for me that Ms. Pessl knows how to write a compelling and unusual story. I cannot wait to see what she publishes next. show less

Does everyone have to give their kids stupid names? It's on display in this book. To wit - Cannon, Whitley, Kipling. Ugh. Only Martha and Bee (Beatrice) aren't eye-rolling. And mostly they all have extreme personalities with varying levels of loathing and annoyance. Of course they are all "friends", no one else can put up with them. The fact that there was no gray, but all black and white with their behaviors made it VERY easy to suspect Beatrice of duplicity. I think a better writer could have pulled it off without creating cartoons. Basically we get thrown into a Groundhog Day type situation with the five of them stuck in a sort of limbo that they can't escape. It's called the Wake and they will snap back to the car accident that put show more them there at the end of a set period. They have to vote for a sole survivor and it has to be unanimous. Anyway, it was funny that a year seems so long to these people, ah, only the very young think that. Mostly the mystery was good and reasonably compelling, although there were some dumb moments put in just to "heighten" the level of action - for example, why chase the ridiculous Whitley when you KNOW exactly when and where she will reappear? And then we get a Bobby Ewing type ending (or possibly St. Elsewhere, but the writer might be too young for those references). There are some reasonable answers to questions and there is a denouement of a kind, but for this type of convoluted and somewhat mystical tale I prefer Catriona Ward. show less

First published at Booking in Heels.

I knew that I was going to love this book by the time we were about three chapters in. It’s a complete morbid mind-fuck with creepy strangers and shifting time loops. I can pinpoint the very quote that made me realise I was going to love this book and it was this one:

“Each of you is, at present, lying kinda sorta dead on the side of a coastal road. This is due to a recent head-on collision with one Mr Howard Heyward, age fifty-eight, of two hundred eighty-one Admiral Road, South Kingstown, who was driving a Chevrolet Kodiak tow truck. Time is standing still. It has become trapped inside an eighth of a second like a luna moth inside a mason jar. There is a way out, of course. There is one means by show more which the moth can escape and time can fly irrevocably free. Each of you must vote during the last three minutes of every wake. You must choose the single person among you who will survive.”

This isn’t some kitchy, cute Groundhog Day type thing. But it’s not too teenager-ified. That was my fear; that Neverworld Wake would degrade into five teenagers bickering about who should survive for 350 pages. It’s not like that at all. Instead, they each have their need to be chosen at the back of their minds constantly and everything they do is a way to manipulate each other. It’s sneaky and clever and dark.

These five teenagers are trapped for a long time; the narrator doesn’t know how long, but it’s implied that it’s centuries. The time changes them as people – they learn new skills but also start to slowly descend into madness.

The ongoing experience of Recurring goes against the very heart of being human, and it is – I will tell you this without flinching – unbearable. The mind rages trying to disprove it. When it can’t, the brain breaks down with shocking ease. The psyche is fragile. It is a child’s sand castle in an incoming tide.

It’s written well. And I don’t just mean ‘…for YA.’ It’s written well, and at times it’s very poetic.

My only complaint would be that there are a few overlooked mistakes. They’re not huge and they’re not central to the plot, but if I can spot them during a first read-through, then surely an editor could have as well. It’s little things, like when all the characters state that they’ve never tried to commit suicide, but it told us several chapters back that one of them had. I actually thought at the time that it was an intentional plot point, that he was lying, but no – just a mistake. It happens a few times.

I also don’t really understand how or why it’s decided that investigating their friend’s death the previous year would help them with the vote. It’s fine, it was easy to get on board with it, but I didn’t see the thought process.

However. Whilst this would normally result in losing a good star or two from a rating, I just couldn’t do that with Neverworld Wake. This book kept me awake at night. Partly because I kept imagining The Keeper (played by Cristoph Waltz) stood in the corner watching me, but mainly because I could not get it out of my head. I was lying there, tossing and turning, unable to stop trying to unravel it in my head and figure out where it was going to go. Any book that can do that to me doesn’t deserve less than 5 stars.

So, no, it’s not perfect. But surely the way a book makes you feel is more important than a few irrelevant plot holes? Admittedly, this is not my usual shtick and normally I’d be jumping up and down with rage and a red felt tip. But I kept having to put the book down to stare blankly into space, just to process, before I could pick it up again.

It’s just that sort of book. show less

Why did Martha keep asking if anyone had committed suicide (or tried to - which, by the way, didn't seem necessary for what they were trying to do? They could've just jumped in front of the car without doing the carpet thing) when she was the one to discover Kip's body in the first few wakes? I was hoping this would turn into some weird mnemonic affect of the wake, but it seems like Pessl just forgot about what had happened earlier.

Mainly about dumb teens being (INCREDIBLY) dumb and hard-headed. HOW did it take so long for these dumb kids to accept that they were in a time loop? It seems like thousands of repetitions before everyone's on board. And The Keeper gives them ONE offer of help and then does nothing the rest of the book. I did show more like how Bee was a little bit of an unreliable narrator (her imagined motives that she gives to everyone, her desire to isolate herself, the, ugh was it real or wasn't it? ending). Though Pessl really wanted us to believe that she was this saint-like character (with everyone calling her Sister Bea and telling her how good she is), without ever actually giving us reason to believe it. So, even though we all knew why she would survive, we don't actually know why she won the vote, or how (since she didn't even vote for herself). show less

Pessl is one of the few authors that I've read all of her books. Night Film is my favorite, if that tells you anything. All of them are very different and interesting and this is no exception.

It's sort of like mashup of elements of Groundhog Day, Happy Death Day, and Before I Go to Sleep, but completely unique, smart and unpredictable. Pessl is a master at setting a tone and complex plotting. Kept my attention, fast read, and totally worth the time.

Love that she's dabbling in YA as it'll (deservedly) broaden her audience. If you're not into YA, don't let that put you off. Highly recommended.