Young adults sure love stories about other young adults falling in love and being deathly ill and then just being deathly . . . preferably with another teen who’s also deathly ill. John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars absolutely blew my mind (in the best ways possible, of course), for a number of reasons: the humor & wit!, the touching characters!, the terrible situation they find themselves in!, the friendships!, and perhaps most importantly, the pointless futility of the immediacy of now August and Hazel are forced to face.
While TFIOS is one of my all-time favorites, Mr. Green was certainly not novel in the subject matter, though the overnight sensation does seem to have caused a nice rise in popularity of this genre of teen read again. I vaguely recall the super-sappy, heart-tugging books by Lurlene McDaniel back in the day, all involving the same general teens-dying-as-they-fall-in-love plotline. They definitely did it for me . . . when I was a tween. And Mr. Green’s work does it for me as a thirty-something-year-old.
But that leaves the spate of YA novels coming out that are definitely not for tweens and, while I’m quite certain they might like to be, are also not John Green caliber, either. Extraordinary Means by Robin Schneider is exactly one of these: it’s leaning in the direction of TFIOS, but it has some squirrelly plot points that really detract from the tale.
Extraordinary Means basically follows a similar TFIOS pattern: two teens, both sick, neither is well but neither feels like they’re dying, so they play at normal. When one becomes suddenly very sick, the other freaks out and then the sick one dies. (I’m being very unemotional about this–I will say Extraordinary Means does build the characters and give them personalities!) AND as an added twist, the cure’s about to be released! BUT it’s two weeks too late! YUP–it’s that dramatic. 😦
What I Liked About the Book:
1. The camp(?) that the two main characters are at is actually kind of a fun setting and makes for the ability to draw rich moments for the characters. While you’re definitely not going to find a Dead Poet’s Society-type moment here, you do get a sense of the isolation the characters feel emotionally from others.
2. The characters have insecurities–and you’re told all about them, front and center, first person. I guess this is also a dislike for me, though, in that I’d rather see it and learn it through the characters than by having them directly point it out to me. That was one of the things that made August such an intriguing character–he wasn’t so quick to point out his own flaws, yet he knew they were there, though he’d rather never admit to them.
3. The story takes place in a closed universe, so you don’t have the over-dramatic, drawn-out comparisons between our-life-and-their-life moments that sick teen books tend to thrive on.
4. Even though sick, these teens are still alive, and the author goes through pains to make certain that the reader sees and feels each character’s unique struggles for individuality over the course of the book. While this is certainly not necessary for the story, it’s also useful information for perspective.
5. Not everyone dies at the end.
What I didn’t Love About this Book:
1. My biggest, hugest, most I-can’t-get-into-this-story aspect was the fact that, even though these teens don’t feel too sick, they know that they are sick. And sick enough to be put into a quarantine at a special hospital, where others with the same illness are dying around them. Yet they choose to leave the facility and risk a national epidemic as well as the health and well being of other people in the nearby town for their selfish purposes: to get coffee; to hang out at a town fair; to acquire booze. I understand the youth/ignorance/living forever thing, but this was just so mind-blowingly selfish, I couldn’t move past it.
2. I’m having a good deal of trouble understanding how, in an institution that knows it’s a quarantine center and, therefore, must keep a bunch of teens away from all others (I mean, that’s it’s primary purpose, right?) they’re not keeping a closer eye on the whereabouts of the patients. Also, if they have the technology to strap a bracelet on you that would allow the nurses/doctors to receive alerts about your heart rate and stuff, why wouldn’t it also have a GPS device–for your safety, of course?
3. A lot of this story was way too contrived. What, they magically knew each other at camp when they were younger? And it just happened that he stood her up at the lowest time in her life? AND now they’re finally here in the sick-kid-paradise together, both single? Hmm. Call me a cynic, but I was rolling my eyes at this plot line and, to be honest, was having some difficulty convincing myself to keep reading.
4. Another major contrivance? The vaccine! It’s only a few weeks away! Then we’ll all be well and saved! Except . . . except . . . (I’m actually trying not to spoil the plot for those of you reading it!) But the excepts seem to number quite a few, with no good reason for their being there.
5. So . . . if the teachers don’t really want to teach, and they leave the rooms constantly, and the kids don’t really want to learn, and they don’t do homework or really anything in class . . . then why are they attending classes? I know school’s mandatory, but I have to assume there’s a super-sick-with-a-contagious-deadly-disease proviso there.
6. The characters are selfish. Really, really selfish. And not selfish in a coming-of-age and realizing that you’re a great big asshat way, but more of a this-is-normal-for-a-teen kind of way. I didn’t like it, and the characters grated on my nerves.
7. The most memorable characters are actually ancillary, side characters, and the most boring vanilla ones are the main characters that we have to deal with. I was lucky enough to get ahold of the Audible version of this so I didn’t have to spend twice as long paging through the tome itself, but I still found myself rolling my eyes and getting frustrated at these really unoriginal characters.
8. Am I a bad person that I can kind of understand why a healthy man–particularly one with a young child–would get super pissed that these super sick, super contagious kids keep showing up and hanging out in town, spreading contagion? There are a few times when you get these sprinkled-in woah-is-me-I-just-want-to-be-a-normal-kid! moments. But let’s be honest: most teens I know would absolutely be willing to give up homework, lockers and gym class for what they’re living at this rest house. Not to say that they’d want to be ill with a deadly disease, and maybe that’s the point–a the-grass-is-always-greener moment–but I think here it was a bit excessive.
Overall:
Meh. The story’s not overly engaging, the plot’s a little tired and the decisions by the protagonists more than a little frustrating. Read The Fault in Our Stars. In comparison, this felt pretty sophomoric. If you’re hooked on sick teens in love lit, then go for it–that’s what you’ll get. But don’t say I didn’t warn you!
The Alpha and the Omega: The Endless Ramblings of a YA Lit Lover 