A Fraction of the Whole

…by Steve Toltz.

This is a massive 700 page debut novel by author Steve Toltz and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2008. Meet the Deans. As Jasper Dean starts off “The fact is, the whole of Australia despises my father more than any other man, just as they adore my uncle more than any other man. I might as well set the story straight about both of them…”

That statement should give you a hint of the ride you are in for as a reader.

With his father, Martin Dean now dead, Jasper tries to make sense of him while writing from gaol for a reason unknown to readers. Villain or hero? Crazy or sane? He tries to understand some of his father’s schemes to try and make the world a better place. There is one main concern that plagues Jasper: is he going to end up being crazy like his father? Throughout his father’s life, Jasper did his best to keep his distance to avoid the lunacy but at the same time, appeared to have a bond with him. After all, his father tended to have good intentions to begin with but with catastrophic consequences.

Martin Dean was a difficult, paranoid and intelligent man during his time alive. He spent about four years as a child in a coma and once out of it, felt disconnected from the world and outwardly philosophical. All Martin wanted to do was leave his mark behind in this world. And trouble began when people started listening to him. Martin’s sanity is questioned throughout the book. The uncle adored by the whole of Australia, Terry Dean, was a sporting hero in his younger days and a criminal later when plagued by injury. But a Ned Kelly type vigilante who was out to get all the sporting cheats. And hence, looked at as a hero. However, Terry is eventually captured and presumed to have died in a bushfire that ravaged the prison.

Jasper takes us on this rollercoaster journey through his father’s and uncle’s lives (narrated at times by Martin) and his father’s crazy adventures, how his father comes up with a way of making everyone in Australia a millionaire, gets married to his childhood sweetheart becomes the prime minister, then becomes the most hated man in the country, flees the country with Jasper to Thailand and his own story of jetting off to Europe to search for his absent mother’s past.

All in all, it’s a fun read and keeps you hooked to know more about the characters. It has its laugh out loud moments and its “you-can’t-be-serious” ones too. It’s a riot and one hell of a ride! A great achievement by a debutante. About Australia. About being able to not take yourself too seriously. And about craziness and lunacy of human beings. And how in life, in the end, there are only a few important people who matter. I would give it a rating of 4.

Until next time,

Cheers!!!

***This review has been cross-posted on my personal blog***

Cracked Up To Be

Title: Cracked Up To Be
Author: Courtney Summers
ISBN: 9780312383695
Source: Library Copy
Rating: 4 out of 5

Synopsis:

Parker Fadley was once perfect – a straight A student, captain of the cheerleading squad, girlfriend of the hottest guy in school everyone wanted and a very popular girl. One night, everything changed and now she is a mess. Parker is now destructive to herself and others around her. She has abandoned her friends, broken up with her boyfriend and is lagging behind in her school work. Why would a girl who had it all do such a thing is the mystery.

My Review:

I picked up this book since I wanted a light right with some mystery thrown into it and it didn’t let me down. I haven’t read much contemporary YA but after reading this book, I have suddenly turned in to a fan of this genre. The summary made me think it would be an emotional novel but it turned out to be shockingly heart wrenching.

Parker is such a likeable character, although she is mean to everyone, selfish at times and very self-destructive. She is damaged but what is endearing though is her brutal honesty, wit and her inherent intelligence that shines through in certain situations. Parker has flashbacks of one night that changed everything for her and since then she has put on this facade of being strong and difficult. It’s only through these flashbacks that we understand what really happened and why Parker is hurting so much while being mean to everyone.

This novel explores the complex and difficult world of teens – homework, projects, best friends, petty disputes, teen love and parties. However, Parker’s raw emotional state and the edge on which she is balancing is real anguish. Drugs, alcohol and sex surround her and she is really holding it together for her studies when in fact she may fall apart anytime.

But teen life is also about friends and their true friendship. Amidst all her pain and suffering, she has her ex-boyfriend Chris and the new guy in school Jake who refuse to give up on her and want to help her by breaking through the barriers she has created.

Everyone faces the pressure to be the best and excel but sometimes it is too much to handle and one may crack, like Parker did. This is a gripping, fast-paced read and an emotional one at that which is beautifully written with endearing lead characters.

Note: This post has been cross-posted at my personal blog Silent Thoughts.

The Corrections

…by Jonathan Franzen.

Meet the Lamberts. An American family originally from St. Jude in the mid-West of the country. Alfred and Enid Lambert, the former a retired engineer suffering from Parkinson’s disease and the latter a home-maker wanting to enjoy life after all these years, are the only two still living in St. Jude. Their adult children have long since moved out and started lives of their own. There’s Gary, the oldest who lives in Philadelphia with his wife Caroline and three children Aaron, Caleb and Jonah. On the surface, he is a successful portfolio-manager, living in the suburbs with a beautiful wife, wearing elegant suits and seeing to it that all the children have their own mobile phones and access to the latest technology. However, contrary to the signs, he refuses to admit he may be clinically depressed. Then there is Chip, the middle child, living in New York who recently lost his job as a college professor for having a relationship with a student. He is currently working on a screenplay and hopes to make it big through the same. And his mother thinks he writes for Wall Street Journal. Which he does not. Finally, the youngest is Denise. A successful chef in Philadelphia. On the surface, Denise is perfect — good looking, successful, earning a great deal of money. But behind that facade, she is battling with guilt and relationship troubles. We look at the ups and downs the Lamberts experience. The fears, the sorrows, the guilt, the sadness, the trivialness and the relationships of this one family. And through this family, the novel makes a comment on every other American family and America in general.

Despite being a massive 550 plus page novel, it is an easy and enticing read. The characters are brilliantly developed — each with their own quirks and faults and pluses — to the point where they remind you of people you may know. For instance, Enid with her backhanded compliments to her children could be a mother you have known. Alfred with his aloofness and need for privacy and patriarchal manner could be anyone’s father. Gary with his know-it-all attitude and need to feel superior is akin to many people today. Chip with his wayward ways and cynicism and love for the bottle and art is all to familiar. And Denise, trying to please, and yet, having guilt to last a life time, is reminiscent of family or friends.  The novel is also about the decline of the economic boom of the late nineties thanks to the technological advances. In some ways, it also makes a comment on the negative aspects of technology such as what can happen to children exposed to the likes of video games and computers. And sadly, in real life, we are seeing even worse today. Finally, it also makes a coment on mental health and medication and how easily people pop a pill. Is mental health just something made up by the commercialised economy?

Here are some quotes from the book that I adored:

“I’m saying the structure of the entire culture is flawed,” Chip said. “I’m saying the bureaucracy has arrogated the right to define certain states of mind ‘diseased’. A lack of desire to spend money becomes a symptom of disease that requires expensive medication. Which medication then destroys the libido, in other words destroys the appetite for the one pleasure in life that’s free, which means the person has to spend even more money on compensatory pleasures. The very definition of mental ‘health’ is the ability to participate in the consumer economy. When you buy into therapy, you are buying into buying. And I’m saying that I personally am losing the battle with a commercialized, medicalized, totalitarian modernity right this instant.” [p. 31]

Once when Gary had wondered aloud if giving Caleb so many gadgets might be stunting his imagination, Caroline had all but accused him of slandering his son. Among her favorite parenting books was The Technological Imagination: What Today’s Children Have to Teach Their Parents in which Nancy Claymore, Ph.D, contrasting the “tired paradigm” of Gifted Child as Socially Isolated Genius with the “wired paradigm” of Gifted Child as Creatively Connected Consumer, argued that electronic toys would soon be so cheap and widespread that a child’s imagination would no longer be exercised in crayon drawings and made up stories but in the synthesis and exploitation of existing technologies — an idea that Gary found both persuasive and depressing.

Those and so many more excerpts are a brilliant insight and almost a prediction of the world we live in today. Franzen novel was published back in 2001. You could be forgiven in thinking it only came out recently. The world is a scary place. But we can all make our corrections. A thoroughly enjoyable read and highly recommended. It made me laugh, it made me sad and it made me nod my head in agreement. I rate it a 5.

Until next time,

Cheers!!!