Everything Matters! by Ron Currie, Jr. is on the selection list for fall 2011 because it was a 2010 Alex Award winner.
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Please post a comment to leave your review of this book and whether you think it would be a good selection for the SJSU Campus Reading program and why. Thanks.
1 comment:
Given the somewhat macabre premise of this book—that a child born in 1974, even while in utero, begins hearing a voice in his head, an invariably correct voice, that reveals how and when the Earth will be hit by a massive comet in June 2010—it makes for an interesting read. The author is at his strongest when describing what it was like for Junior, the main character, growing up in working class Bangor, Maine in the final quarter of the 20th century, and there are some powerful and moving passages in the book. The structure is also innovative, creating an underlying sense of a timer, ticking away, headed toward that unavoidable cataclysm.
The plot jumps around as the book progresses, trying to be different types of stories at different times: dysfunctional family memoir, science fiction, love story, even cloak-and-dagger spy adventure. The title answers the philosophical question we are asked to wrestle with throughout the book, and we are later given the opportunity to reflect on a deeper conundrum: if you had to choose between trying to rescue your family members from some encounters with death and trying to help hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of anonymous people live longer, which would you select, and why?
The ending seemed weak to me, though you can’t say it wasn’t sufficiently foreshadowed. Given the doomsday scenario in the book, student discussions around it might be lively, but they could well turn out to be very depressing, too. Some topics that come up include sibling rivalry, the impact of drug and alcohol addiction on the individual, generational cycles of abuse and addiction, dealing with terminal illness or major disability for a loved one, and of course, the question of “so what matters?”.
Not my first choice for our campus selection, although I did notice Duke used it for its freshman class read this year. I think I liked the concept better than the overall execution, and with the blending of voices and experimental structuring the author uses to advance the tale, I suspect some readers not readily identifying with the hero’s angst might lose interest along the way—particularly in the middle.
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