Andrew Smith (3) (1959–)

So there's a genre of book about a child protagonist who has one (or many) precocious quirks. And it sounds like it would be too twee to be acceptable, but somehow I'm addicted. And in the same vein as [b:The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time|1618|The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time|Mark Haddon|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327882682s/1618.jpg|4259809] and [b:The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet|6065179|The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet|Reif Larsen|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347685924s/6065179.jpg|6054277] we have 100 Sideways Miles. Finn Easton measures time in the distance the Earth has traveled in its orbit (20 miles/second), makes frequent references to the Knackery, and refers to his seizures as "blanking out." And he is so real and so endearing that it never feels twee.

The central premise of the book is one giant metaphor for coming of age: Finn's father, the famous writer Michael Easton, wrote a book about aliens that come to Earth through Lazarus Doors and used Finn's name for the protagonist, as well as several of his physical characteristics (his :|: scar from when a horse landed on him, his heterochromia) and personality quirks. Only these aliens are Not Human. Finn is not sure whether he is a real person or just an alien from his father's book -- and on a greater level is trying to figure out whether he's normal and how he fits into the world. I'm a sucker for a coming of age story, and this one is done well. (For no good reason, a huge network in my hippocampus is dedicated to recognizing Night Journey stories -- a coming of age genre made up by my high school English class that doesn't exist in the real world.)

Finally, it's worth noting that there are few books that allow characters of color to have a narrative of their own that doesn't revolve around their ethnicity. Julia Bishop is a refreshing counterpoint as a character of color, who's allowed to develop her own personality and her own story.… (mere)

This book was great. Well-written, bold, funny, absurd and honest.

I do have one major complaint though that I didn't really become fully aware of until I got to the end. Maybe this is the result of having a story told by an adolescent boy, I don't know. But the female characters are treated as backdrop, even his best female friend/girlfriend. She's pretty two-dimensional and while he professes to love her, we're never really shown WHY (except that she is hot and endlessly accommodating of his sometimes-sexual relationship with his best male friend.) This point I could have forgiven, except that during the epilogue it is really driven home that the real relationship is between the two male characters, who go out adventuring in what has become (SPOILER) a post-apocalyptic wasteland while she has to stay home. Boring. :/ I would have liked her to have a more active role in the outcome instead of being a bland bystander.

That all being said, the rest of it was amazing. I look forward to reading more of Andrew Smith's work.… (mere)