Impossible not to pick up a book with such a title! And having read John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, I was expecting good things – and was not disappointed.
This time, our protagonist is Aza Holmes, and although unlike the protagonist in The Fault in Our Stars, Aza does not have a life-threatening cancer, she is still somewhat unusual as a 16 year old – precocious of course, very gutsy too, and dealing with severe mental illness. Aza self-harms, probably as a displacement activity for all the fears which overwhelm her, fears which she knows are irrational (such as the fears of the microbateria inside her), but which nevertheless take over her life, just as she imagines the microbacteria taking over her body.
The plotline runs that Aza, who lost her father in a sudden heart attack, attended ‘Sad Camp’ and met Davis Pickett, son of a billionaire. When Davis’ father goes missing suddenly, there is a hundred thousand dollar reward for relevant information, and Aza, urged on by intrepid best friend Daisy Ramirez, goes to visit Davis. John Green is thankfully not one of the authors hung up on plotlines – the whodunit plot runs smoothly in the background, but forestage showcases the characters, character development, and most charmingly of all, the texture of teenaged relationships with best friends and boyfriends. This dialogue particularly between Aza and Davis (much of which is via text messages!) and Aza and Daisy, are exceptionally authentic, amusing, and often touching.
It is surprising how normal a life Aza does manage to lead despite dealing with mental illness – she has a best friend, Daisy, who is completely unlike Aza, a vivacious Star Wars fan who writes her own blog (with many followers) about Chewbacca’s love life, or ‘Chewie fanfic’. Daisy is everything a best friend should be – original, loyal, daring, fun, forgiving, understanding, fearless, and loving. When Aza resumes contact after 2 weeks of being incommunicado after a spell in hospital, she and Daisy pick up as if they had never left off, and in spite of the huge argument which preceded that hospitalisation two weeks previously. Daisy launches into speech at once, talkative as always, to Aza’s usual untalkativeness:
“Jesus Christ, Holmesy, you can sure hold a grudge against yourself. You are my favourite person. I want to be buried next to you. We’ll have a shared tombstone. It’ll read, ‘Holmesy and Daisy: They did everything together, except the nasty.’ Anyway, how are you?” I shrugged. “Want me to keep talking? “ I nodded.
p238
In the course of the novel, both Aza and Daisy have romances and boyfriends, but neither seem too hung up about these, amazingly and wonderfully. Aza of course, has extra complications although she enjoys falling in love – she wants to kiss and she initiates kisses, but then she pulls away because she starts to fret:
His bacteria would be in me forever, breeding and growing and joining my bacteria and producing God knows what.
p153
Also wonderfully, the boy is unfazed, and happy to continue giving Aza time and space to act out whatever she needs to – the maturity and equilibrium of these teenagers is truly remarkable.
In fact, Aza and Daisy, and their boyfriends too, overall, seem extremely well adjusted adolescents, not as self-centred as adolescents are popularly represented as being, and having a wider perspective than many adults seem to manage. Aza’s relationship with her mother is particularly good, both parties knowing how to love and yet make room for each other. For someone with so many mental health issues, Aza manages to keep functioning and functioning extremely effectively, maintain important relationships, and grow and develop, taking all her neurosis in stride. It is a charming read because these characters are so endearing and unpretentious. John Green’s protagonists and characters are so sound in their self-esteem that it is refreshing; and made entirely believable by the quality of this writing. Shall definitely be seeking out more books by this author – he may be writing Young Adult fiction, but good fiction is good fiction, whatever its genre.
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