And like the best of young adult fiction, the book has a deep understanding of what it means to be a teenager. Aza and Daisy inhabit a recognisably teenage world of crushes and double dates, of late night texting and Star Wars fan fiction and conversations about unsolicited dick pics. She keeps reopening a wound in a finger to “drain it” of infection. Green’s likeable, introverted, neurotic narrator suffers with invasive thoughts that centre around a fear of bacteria and infection. You begin to expect, and predict, major plot twists.īut it becomes clear that Green’s main focus is not the mystery – it’s the teenage friendships and love interests and, maybe most of all, Aza’s mental health. There are many places in the first half where it feels as though you are reading a straightforward, even conventional mystery: perhaps a teen Grisham. Early into their search, Aza begins to fall for Russell’s son Davis, who, despite his excessive privileges (including a mansion complete with a cinema) is also troubled: still mourning his mother, who died nine years ago, he now has to deal with his father’s disappearance, and the knowledge that if his dad has died he has left his fortune to his pet reptile (a tuatara, to be precise).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |