Tunneling: A Novel

Here's the description from the book jacket:

"Rachel Finch is twelve years old and in love … not with a neighborhood boy, but with the Dewey decimal system, call numbers and the cellophane covers of library books . . . also with time travel, a superhero she knows only as S-Man and, above all, Franz Kafka. She considers herself a very different young girl … until she makes the acquaintance of a classmate who challenges that sense of otherness.

In this utterly inventive debut novel, we are irresistibly drawn into a world where Rachel, who many years later narrates our story, has begun to lead a double life. Severely asthmatic and deemed bookish and delicate by her family, she takes clandestine time-bending excursions with S-Man to show more rescue some of history's greatest literary geniuses. Swooping in on Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde and Chinua Achebe, among others, Rachel's rescue missions are a rollicking ride through literary history, while her day-to-day life in Teaneck, New Jersey, emotively reflects the civil rights movement in 1960s America.

Writing with a confidence, intelligence and playfulness rare for a first-time novelist, Beth Bosworth has given us a book brimming with magical realism and boundless imagination, in which literary references, great humor and political consciousness fully blossom into a significance far beyond the grasp of a twelve-year-old girl. Witty and wise, with deftly rendered shadings of the heart, Tunneling is at once boldly fanciful and remarkably down-to-earth."

This sounds like the ultimate book for me - part Thursday Next, part To Kill a Mockingbird. How can a book with libraries, New Jersey, literary references, and time travel fail to please? Sadly, the uneven writing of this book fails to live up to the wonderful summary. Bosworth seems to be deliberately obtuse in her writing and flits from place to place without allowing the reader to learn or care about what's going on. Instead of being imaginative this book is merely dull, instead of adventurous it is ponderous. I guess I can't criticize a book for not being what I want it to be, but this book just isn't something I liked reading.

"Frankly, I still don't understand why we waste so much time - entire lifetimes - learning things about ourselves that would have been useful a year, a decade, a generation ago." - p. 11 show less

After finding this on a B&N clearance shelf, I hoped it would be something I could enjoy on the same level as Jasper Fforde's books, which I'd finished. It most definately was not. I'm not saying it's a bad book, just don't go into it with those expectations. The tunnels in the title refer to the tunnels that an asmatic preteen goes through as she day-and-night dreams the adventures denied to her because of her health. Part of the reason for her asthma always acting up is because she constantly retrieves overdue library books hidden under her bed, as she lies on the dusty floorboards. There, she studies the faces of famous writers and imagines herself traveling to different places and times, always accompanied by friend William show more Shakespeare. Good read. show less

I read the first few pages and found I just wasn't getting into it. As my to read pile is huge, I'm going to bring this back to MeetUp and let someone else give it a go.

I'm afraid I haven't read this book yet, but I picked up in Daedalus (a chain remainder bookstore) because the premise sounds fascinating and it was a distinct bonus to find that the copy was also signed.

I've had this since maybe 2006. It's still on my to-read shelf. Every so often, I'll pick it up and promptly set it back down again. I keep saying that I'll get to it someday, but the fact that I still haven't after all this time says something quite strongly.