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Book Review: The Outliers by Kimberly McCreight

The Outliers by Kimberly McCreight
HarperCollins, May 2016
ISBN-13: 978-0062359094
Available for pre-order: Hardcover, Audible, Audio CD, Kindle edition

 

High school junior Wylie has always had anxiety issues, but since her mother’s death four months earlier she is unable to even leave the house. Her father, a researcher in emotional intelligence, unsure of how to handle her problems, buries himself even further in his work. Cassie, her best friend for six years, has exhibited increasingly destructive behaviors, and due to an argument the previous month, they are no longer speaking to each other. Wylie is sinking further and further into isolation.

When Cassie goes missing, she breaks that isolation by texting Wylie with cryptic directions and demanding that Wylie team up with Cassie’s boyfriend, Jasper. Although Wylie dislikes and distrusts Jasper, and her friendship with Cassie has been seriously damaged,  Wylie overcomes her anxiety, agoraphobia, and suspicion of Jasper in order to track Cassie down. From then on, their journey only gets stranger and stranger; over and over, it turns out that things are not exactly what they seem. The story races along so fast, and with so many twists, that readers will find it hard to keep up, and impossible to put down. In many ways, I was reminded of Gone Girl, although the context and storyline are very different.

I found the major characters to be implausible, however. Wylie is the first person narrator, and she describes herself  believably as having an anxiety disorder and agoraphobia. Her attempts to cope with the combination of grief, anxiety, agoraphobia, and anger are the most solid, realistic, and overwhelming parts of the book. Her portrait is so well drawn that I couldn’t buy her ability to break through her anxiety and agoraphobia and put herself in an uncertain situation with an unfamiliar person she doesn’t know or trust in a short time. Central to the author’s concept for the book is that anxiety and emotional intelligence are closely tied together, but research on the topic shows that the exact opposite is true, and the actual story doesn’t really bear that out. While there are times when Wylie successfully reads someone’s emotions, there are many times when she doesn’t (in fact, many of the plot points depend on her misinterpretations). Jasper is practically a stereotype, he’s so predictable and two-dimensional. From the very beginning, Cassie does not seem like much of a friend– she’s an admitted liar, manipulative, and frequently expects Wylie to step in and “save ” her in difficult situations– and in this case, she also puts the two people who care most about her, Jasper and Wylie, in considerable danger. Wylie is not exactly a reliable narrator, and the events are so unlikely that I almost wonder if all of this is in her head.

Despite the implausibility of the characters and their motivations, and the questionable premise that anxiety is a result of emotional intelligence, if you decide to suspend your disbelief, you are in for a wild ride, and, given the adrenaline-inducing ending, should get prepared for another one.

Highly recommended for ages 10 and up.

Contains: suicide

 

 

 

Posted on April 23, 2016 by , Reply

Book Review: The Casquette Girls by Alys Arden


The Casquette Girls by Alys Arden
Skyscape Books, 2015
ISBN-13: 978-1503946545
Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, Audible

New Orleans, with its rich history and varied people, reeks of life, death, and mystery, intriguing both writers and readers. Anne Rice, Heather Graham, and  Poppy Z. Brite have captured the wonders and horrors well: the Big Easy is more than a colorful backdrop, it is a living, breathing character integral to their stories.

New Orleans native Alys Arden, with her debut novel, The Casquette Girls, succeeds at this as well: she knows her city, and her audience will experience much more than the glitz of Bourbon Street. While it’s being marketed as a YA title, this is a great story that will intrigue readers of all ages and from many genres. The horror burns sweeter than a midnight car bomb on St. Louis Street, the romance as bitter  and satisfying as the coffee at Café Du Monde. The mystery tugs the reader  in deeper than the voodoo shops lure tourists off the beaten paths.

Adele is a sixteen-year-old resident of New Orleans who returns from vacation after Hurricane Katrina has destroyed the city. Now home, she finds that New Orleans has become a dark and dangerous place, as bodies begin to turn up in the streets. Adele uncovers secrets in her attic, locked up for over three centuries, that unleash monstrous results into her life and town. The lives of her friends, schoolmates, and father are in peril,  and Adele soon realizes that there is much more going in the city, and with her friends, than she knew.  She encounters strangers who may be the key to survival, and finds herself torn between two boys, each with a dangerous past.

While the plot seems to follow along standard lines for YA paranormal romance, there is much more to the story, and it is worth your time to allow the story to unfold at a smooth but suspenseful pace. Discovering the Casquette Girls themselves, and their stories, alone is worth the journey.

Arden has produced an excellent debut novel, and with writing as polished as this, we can expect to see much more from her in the future. Highly recommended.

Reviewed by David Simms

Posted on March 5, 2016 by , Reply

Book List: Breaking Cliches in Zombie Fiction

I was reading a blog post on realism in zombie fiction by Brian Parker, a writer of zombie fiction. Somewhere in the middle of it, he addressed the problem of the Mary Sue in zombie novels:

If you’re like me, you likely roll your eyes at the stereotypical protagonist in zombie fiction. You know the type, it’s some guy or girl—devastatingly handsome or beautiful, but overlooked by the rest of society—who works at a video game store. When the shit hits the fan, they come out of their shell and use their secret level-84 ninja skills to become the unlikely leader who saves their friends and/or family. Everyone in the group is an expert shot and every time they pull the trigger, heads explode. Sound familiar? More on that in a moment. Don’t forget the quintessential part of a typical zombie novel: The main character’s love interest is unattainable before the zombies appear, but once their competition is killed, the guy gets the girl and everyone lives happily ever after.

Luckily for us, there are zombie stories out there that successfully break, or at least subvert, these character and plot cliches.  Here are a few worth checking out.
 The List  by Michele Lee

This is a brief novella that can be read in one sitting, and you’ll want to do that. The story is told in first person by an unsympathetic protagonist with poor social skills who has a lot of built up resentments against the other residents of his apartment building. At the time of the story, he’s been holed up safely for quite some time, and has successfully avoided getting infected by the zombie virus. He is about to emerge and work his way through the building by taking out the now-zombified residents of the building, one at a time, in brutal and gory fashion. Despite the unsympathetic narrator, the voice is fantastic, and there is plenty of dark humor. In the interests of full disclosure, Michele is a reviewer for Monster Librarian and the editor for our companion blog Reading Bites, but that doesn’t affect my recommendation here.

 Allison Hewitt Is Trapped by Madeleine Roux

We’ve previously reviewed Allison Hewitt Is Trapped. I’m not going to claim realism here, but I also wouldn’t call Allison a Mary Sue. She’s a graduate student who works in a bookstore (no video games here– each chapter is named for a book) and is trapped in the break room with the rest of the bookstore staff and a couple of customers, with no apparent rescue in sight,  blogging about the experience on a miraculously still-existing military Internet network. I find Allison’s ability to wield a fire ax as a deadly weapon, without prior experience, to be unrealistic, but even since its publication in 2011, there aren’t enough books in this subgenre with women who are snarky, resourceful, save themselves, and can strangle their enemy with a laptop cord. The story doesn’t end exactly unhappily for her, but there’s a companion book that takes place many years later, and the zombies still are ravaging pretty much everything, so I wouldn’t say it’s a happy ending either.

 

 Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick

Never be afraid to check out YA fiction– there are some powerful works out there. Ashes is one of these. The main character and narrator is Alex, a teenage girl with terminal brain cancer and considerable camping, hiking, and general survival skills, who decides to run away to the forests of Michigan to spend her last days. While she’s there, an electromagnetic impulse hits, kills millions of people, destroys communications and technology, and turns the majority of children and teenagers into flesh-eating zombies. She is joined by Ellie, a spoiled and obnoxious nine year old who is orphaned early on, and Tom, a soldier she encounters in the forest. Oh my gosh, this is a dark, brutal, and desperate read. Anyone who thinks YA is light and fluffy can think again. I also think it’s a very realistic portrayal. Alex doesn’t suddenly discover she has super survival skills– her skills are a big part of the reason she escapes the EMP in the first place. Tom doesn’t mystically discover he has weapons skills– he’s a trained soldier. And nothing is more realistic than an obnoxious nine year old. This is the first book in a trilogy, and I really recommend it.

Posted on January 27, 2016 by , Reply
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