Just in Case by Meg Rosoff
Plume, 2008. 246 pages.
Source: Personal copy
After saving his toddler brother from falling out a window, fifteen year-old David Case is fraught with worries about the “what if’s” of life. He renames himself Justin and takes up track in an attempt to hide from and outrun what he believes is Fate’s grasp. A series of events leads him away from his home and into the company of the photographer Agnes, a slightly older teenage girl he believes to be a human good luck charm, and the family of Peter, Justin’s sole friend from school. Add in an invisible dog gone missing and unnervingly huge rabbit named Alice and you’ve got yourself one wild journey down the rabbit hole.
My copy’s cover of the book has a blurb from The Times (London) proclaiming it a “modern Catcher in the Rye.” Justin did remind me of Holden Caulfield, and my mind also kept flickering back to Adam Farmer of I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier (1977), another narrator whose incessant biking reminded me of Justin’s compulsion to run. The book also brought to mind such varied works as Alice in Wonderland, Survivor and Fight Club by Chuck Palanhiuk, and even Marcus Zusak’s The Book Thief. Despite sharply recalling each of these previous reading experiences while making my way through Just in Case, the book never felt like a pastiche. The writing is lyrical, fresh, and exciting. It’s the type of book where the beauty of the language is almost a tease; you want to hurdle ahead with your reading for the story, but poetry of it demands that you slow down and savor. I read this one overnight in the dim light of a train and can’t think of a better place to have experienced this story.
Just in Case joins Rosoff’s How I Live Now (2004) as a strangely beautiful and thought-provoking YA novel of recent years. I was, however, a bit taken aback to see Rosoff described within her author bio on Penguin’s website as being “formerly a YA author.” (You’ll have to scroll past the introductory paragraphs to see the bio, but don’t scroll down further than the bio if you don’t want spoilers. The interview reveals some major plot points.) I know The Bride’s Farewell (2009) is an adult novel, but I really hope she hasn’t left behind YA forever. Can anyone shed more light on this statement?
No comments:
Post a Comment