"Challenging" was the first word I heard used to describe this book. I think "surreal" was the next. Following that was "impossible to describe." Even the author herself, when asked to describe the book, talked about the themes and ideas that led to its creation without attempting to describe the plot or characters.
The older I get, the more I think maybe I belong in jail.
Gerald has anger control issues. He's had them for as long as he can remember. Anger has always been his defining emotion. His retreat, his solace, his catalyst for action. His self-image.
Denton dies tomorrow. This has been a known fact since he was five. What he doesn't know is how he'll die. This book is about all the fun, and sometimes stupid, adventures Denton goes on to live life to the best of his ability.
I was lucky enough to hear A.S. King speak when she visited our Library in August 2015. Eventually, after much fascinating talk, one of the moderators got around to asking her about her newest book, I Crawl Through It. "What's it about?" We all laughed, as we had earlier established how difficult it can be to neatly summarize a King novel.
Not knowing how her family has landed in witness protection is driving seventeen year old "Meg" crazy. But she knows the two rules of being in witness protection... be invisible and don't make friends. Easier said than done, and after six placements in the last year she is bound and determined to make this placement stick as the constant moving and stress of learning new identities and back stories is tearing her family apart.
The two narrators alternate chapters telling the story of the splinters of their individual families melding into a new one. Eighth-grader Stewart and Ninth-grader Ashley are on their way to becoming step-siblings, with Stewart and his widower dad moving in with Ashley and her divorced mom--though Ashley's recently out-of-the-closet dad is still living in their backyard laneway house. They are a complete contrast of personalities and styles. As Stewart describes:
The America that we know is gone - destroyed by war and a biological disaster. The country is split in two. The dangerous East is full of human survivors riddled by mutation. Lane has always lived in the West, behind a giant wall meant to keep her safe from the feral, mutated creatures of the East. She soon learns that her father is a fetch -- hired to travel into the Feral Zone and retrieve valuable art. When he doesn't return she is forced to go into the feral zone to save him and also finish his mission -- retrieve something of value for a high-ranking official.
Tish is writing journal entries as an assignment for her English teacher, Mrs. Dunphrey. She has promised not to read any entries marked "Don't read this" and that is exactly what Tish writes before almost every entry. As Tish struggles with her abusive father and neglectful mother, she writes about those struggles in the journal. Dunphrey comments positively about how much she is writing, asks her to write some entries she can actually read, and also scolds her for not turning her journal in on time and for not completing other homework assignments.
