Parenthetical

I checked out three books from the library last week. I’ve finished two (Rats Saw God by Rob Thomas and Ready, Okay! by Adam Cadre) and started the third (Hey, Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland). As it happened, they’re all of a theme. Two are about school shootings (you know that from the first page). Two use my favorite structure: “Something terrible happened. Let me unfold slowly exactly what it was and how it happened.” Two involve failed loves. All are about screwed-up high school kids.

Rats Saw God was quite good. It reminded me of a Paul Fleischman book, in that the young characters are all smart (-alecky, sometimes, but that just makes me love them more), genuinely good kids who feel things deeply, and they remind me why I’m excited to work in a high school.

Hey, Nostradamus! is shaping up to be pretty good too, with allowances for Coupland’s overly self-conscious style. But Ready, Okay! absolutely knocked me flat. I finished it Sunday morning in bed and couldn’t stop crying. From the first page you know that by the last page, almost every person the narrator loves will be dead. At first the story is amusing — look at all these characters and their wacky personality quirks! But as their innocence wears away it grows darker and darker and is, finally, devastating. It was a recommendation years ago from JFP after I mentioned loving Basic Eight by Daniel Handler (who provides a blurb for Ready, Okay!), and it was perfect. If you feel like being emotionally destroyed, read both books in close succession!