Well, it’s really too bad that no one else in my book club finished this book. There would have been a lively discussion.
This book was first recommended to me by my almost brother-in-law Will years ago (three? four?) and was described to me as “Harry Potter for girls”. I bought it almost immediately and tried to read it twice during the last few years, but i was unable to make it past the second chapter.
When our book club put it on the agenda, i was pleased because i knew it would motivate me to read it. And, even better, i have been on a reading roll lately, devouring books left and right.
Despite the momentum i had going in, it was still difficult to get into Pessl’s book. Why? One of the things that was difficult for me was the length of all the sentences. Every time a new thought begins, it is interrupted and annotated and parentheticals are inserted, until you forget exactly what the beginning of the sentence was. I cannot tell you how many times i had to reread a sentence to figure out what was being said. It was exhausting. However, that wasn’t the biggest problem. I could get over long sentences if there was a plot, but the plot for this book does not seem to develop itself until several chapters in. And even then it seems weak.
Our protagonist and narrator is Blue Van Meer. Her mother died when she was very young, and she was raised by her very brilliant father, moving 2-3 times per year as he traveled to different universities as a sort of permanent visiting professor. Blue is recounting her senior year of high school, during which she tries to explain the sudden death of a quirky teacher at the school, Ms. Hannah Schneider. The book tries to hook you at the beginning with this murder mystery, but it doesn’t work well. The first 60 pages are quite tedious as we lead up to Blue’s senior year, where her father has promised they will for once stay in one place for the entire school year.
After that, the book does start to get better. There’s fitting in with the “in” crowd in a new school, rebelling a bit against Dad, a mysterious death, an infatuation with a boy, all kinds of normal teenage stuff. Once that started happening, i was hooked enough to know i’d make it to the end of the book this time. However, it all still seemed quite a mishmash of events that didn’t seem important, and you wondered why on earth you were having to sit through all of this. Can we get to the point already?
It isn’t until p. 330 (of 514) that the book suddenly, finally, becomes a page-turner. That’s when Hannah Schneider finally dies. You’ve known it all along, and now you become consumed with what happens next. Her death is ruled a suicide, but Blue starts finding clues that it was more likely murder, and the clues start adding up and making sense as she begins to solve this mystery. Many of the events that didn’t seem important in the first 330 pages now start to have a significant context, and i found myself flipping back through the book so i could find those passages and remind myself about them, and in that way perhaps i could help Blue solve the mystery.
The book ends in an open-ended fashion. That’s what makes it such good fodder for book club discussions. To any of by book club compatriots who have made it partway, i say, keep going! And let me know when you’re finished.