Ready, Okay!

Rating:
Summary: It is as Socrates said...
Review: Adam Cadre's first novel may be about high school kids, but it's definitely not for the immature. There are powerful themes running through the work, things that anyone who's even been near a high school should be able to identify with, dealing with drugs, sex, mental illness, cliques, etc. The prose is skillfully peppered with injokes and randomly hilarious pop culture references. Dialogue is excellent, if at times less than believable in its cleverness. The novel begins at a leisurely pace that introduces the style and narrator and quickly picks up steam to introduce loads of characters all at once, which some readers may find disorienting. Once the book starts to move at a good clip, it's extremely compelling and difficult to tear yourself away from.

It's a good book when it isn't meandering or cheesy (which is not very often), or bogged down in exposition and philosophizing (which is a bit more often). It's difficult to draw the line between Allen the main character and Adam the writer. Cadre is clearly aware of this, as he casts Allen as not only the narrator, but the author of the book.

The conclusion is pulled off better than I expected. It is built up and teased throughout the book, though kept enough in the dark that you can't exactly predict what will happen. And when it finally does happen, it hits with a surprising emotional and visceral force that left me, at least, exhausted.

I certainly have some niggling criticisms, but that's true of anything. It's a heck of a first novel, a great read, and will hopefully be a big hit.

Rating:
Summary: Emotional Roller Coaster that's Ultimately Satisfying
Review: I pretty much couldn't put this book down after the second chapter, as the foreshadowing of an ensuing disaster sprinkled in between some beautifully drawn out, pop-culture-inspired character sketches, took a firm grasp on every spare moment I had in the day.

The picture, for a good part of the book, is very bleak with a landscape so raw and uncaring that by the second day of reading I found myself getting depressed. But, the ending was powerful enough (it didn't restore my faith in humankind mind you, but it did restore my faith in the humanity of the protagonist and one or two other characters) and the prose and witty retorts were so much fun to read, that it made the disturbing reality of the protagonist's world a minor footnote in the lasting impressions I'll have from this book.

Maybe the only criticism I really have is that most of the characters were a little too polished when it came to their dialogue. Is it believable that a group of 4 related child prodigies can speak and think at a PhD level? Sure, I guess. But when 50% of the supporting cast start quoting poets long since dead or start making insights into the human psyche that rival Freud's, you have to wonder if maybe the author's voice isn't coming through where it shouldn't.

Still, that's a really small gripe. As I'd alluded to earlier, the prose is ASTOUNDING. Where does Mr. Cadre get all his witty references and material from? Every page in this book brings a new joke or comeback that lulls the reader into a comfortable routine so that when the disturbing bits eventually do occur, the effect is particularly jarring.

Apparently, it took Mr. Cadre 40% of his life to write this book. Here's hoping it won't take quite so long for him to finish his next one.

Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: One of my friends told my without any forespeak that I had to read this book. It took me a while to get started, and I almost put it down after the first chapter, but since I had nothing else to do I kept reading. I kept reading untill my mother came in and turned off my light.

Over the past two days I have been reading this book, and it feels as though my life has been secondary to what is happening to these characters.

This is story is reviting. Maybe at first it seems like a boring teenage Catcher in the Rye-ish, but there is a plot. A very, very powerful one behind it. Anyone who is bored with this book, keep reading. It will not stay boring for long.

I would recomend this book only to an open-minded person. There is swearing, drinking, drugs, sex, and any who can't take that in here should not read this book.

I am so glad I read this book, and I think many other people will be too. It is one of those books you experience, and not read.