I’m very conflicted about this book. I really wanted to give it a higher rating, but in the end, I felt that a potentially great story was let down by execution.
As per the blurb, Grayson’s life is in turmoil since the death of his little brother, for which Grayson (”Gray”) blames himself. Aubrey Fisher, a misfit foster child, comes into his life, and they spend 24 hours together.
There are powerful themes in this book - most notably suicide ideation. This has to be handled sensitively, and it was (the Acknowledgements at the back of the book explain that many of the themes are issues that the author has dealt with in his own life).
First, the good: I really liked the character of Aubrey. Her depth of emotion seemed real to me, and I wanted to get to know her better - there was a point in the book that I cried in response to learning something about her past. The story is told in the first person from the perspective of Gray, largely through dialogue, so the fact that Aubrey felt so alive to me speaks to the skill of the author. The supporting cast of friends (Kris, Jenna, Kyle, Tim, Reefer) were also well drawn (although Tim and Kyle seemed a bit interchangeable), and I could really feel the shared history between this friendship group: the glue that holds them together amongst the inevitable bickering and tension.
I also enjoyed the plot. The story of Aubrey and Gray’s escapades in this 24 hours was engaging and satisfying. And, although the ending was largely how I expected it, the journey carried me along throughout.
But, while I liked Aubrey, she had a wisdom beyond her years that I found jarring. She has a chequered background, and some questionable current behaviour, but she somehow has a crystal clear idea of what’s important, and what people need in order to get through life in the presence of severe emotional trauma. Some of her own traumatic background is touched upon, and contributes to her depth of character, but I just found it infeasible that she would be so worldly-wise given her age and life experience.
I also couldn’t connect emotionally with Gray at all - which is a problem, given that this story revolves around Gray’s intention to kill himself in response to the death of his little brother. This is also surprising, given that the story is written from Gray’s point of view (and doubly so given how real Aubrey’s emotions felt to me). My inability to connect emotionally with Gray meant that his intention to kill himself also didn’t seem real to me - it felt like an intellectual idea to end his life rather than a driving emotional need. So my personal experience of reading the story was that Gray was never in any real danger of taking his own life, but had an interesting and transformative 24 hours with the misfit kid from school. And, while I still enjoyed reading it, I’m sure this isn’t what the author intended.
The book is structured as a series of chapters, each covering one of the 24 hours. While this is a neat device, it meant that the story seemed to drag a little near the beginning where very little was happening in each hour. At one point it also meant that Gray ended up waking someone up in the early hours of the morning in order to have a conversation with them - which seemed like it had to be crowbarred into the remaining ‘per hour’ structure of the book in order to tie up some loose ends.
The style also got a little preachy at times, and there were a few too many “You see, Timmy” moments where the moral, meaning and conclusions of the story were explained in excruciating and slightly patronising detail.
So, for me, a potentially great story let down by execution.
My rating: ★★★☆☆
No comments:
Post a Comment