un-masking

“…I was thinking about way back in the very beginning in the Literal Heart of Jesus when Gus told us that he feared oblivion, and I told him that he was fearing something universal and inevitable, and how really, the problem is not suffering itself or oblivion itself but the depraved meaninglessness of these things, the absolutely inhuman nihilism of suffering. I thought of my dad telling me thatt the universe wants to be noticed. But what we want is to be noticed by the universe, to have the universe give a shit what happens to us—not the collective idea of sentient life but each of us, as individuals”

I was clueless The Fault in Our Stars by John Green was youth fiction when I picked it up at the library. But, I became suspicious upon cracking the spine open to its first pages of larger-than-normal font size. Then, the numerous appearance of the word “pretentious” and how the protagonist religiously watch America’s Next Top Model (ANTM) confirmed my suspicious. Then, I became extremely biased towards it—sticking up my nose at the hot guy with amazing gorgeous eyes, granted he does have a prosthetic leg because of his cancer, who falls whole-hardheartedly in love with the protagonist who has terminal cancer. Of course that would happen  because that kind of thing happens in the adult world all the time. For the first half of the book, I was the one who was pretentious. Even though the characters were dealing with cancer, I didn’t like how everything else reeked of teenager.

But, something triggered towards the middle of my reading—I became engrossed in the story. You may not need to know this, but I even read it on the toilet. Sure, I still wish the author would have written it for young adults but not in a stereotypical young-adult fashion, but I like the book nevertheless. Admittedly, I even cried even though I did not think I would when I first started the novel.

I would recommend the book for everyone, and especially for “young adults” (whatever age range that terms even means). But even if you don’t read it, I’m confident that Hollywood will not fail at bringing this story to the big screens in the near future.

“Yeah, ” Bee mimicked, “I’m bored.”

Bernadette pulled the car over, took off the seat belt, and turned around. “That’s right,” she told the girls. “You’re bored. And I’m going to let you in on a little secret about life. You think it’s boring now? Well, it only gets more boring. The sooner you learn it’s on you to make life interesting, the better off you’ll be”

I was hooked from the beginning to the end of Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple—mostly because of the moments, like the quoted above, between the eccentric, genius Bernadette and her daughter Bee. Semple crafted a satire with loveable, but troubled characters, many HAHAHHA-out-loud moments, and a stickable story—you know, as in, a story that stuck with me. Sometimes, I judge whether a book is good by measuring the tears shed, the number of times i have to put the book down to sort out my own thoughts, the numbers of hours I can read the book in one setting , or in this case, how much I did not want the book to end.

The story is constructed using multiple formats of communication that the characters use—emails, FBI documents, letters, notes, bills, etc. I’d admit, after reading the first page, I thumbed quickly through the book to see if the rest of the book unfolds in similar formats. Checked and confirmed. Very gimmicky, right?

It may be gimmicky, and I’m positive it has been done before, but because the format(s) work in this story, it felt innovative, imaginative, and relevant. Forget the conventional paragraphs and paragraphs of the mundane—the book felt interactive as I tried to fit the pieces of the story together using information from another character’s conversation.

So much of our lives are recorded via technology, and it’s fascinating to see a story emerge from those pieces of records. It also goes to show, unless you have all the pieces, the story you have a role in merely allows you to see one dimension of the story—the truth is left hanging unless all the perspectives are acknowledged. I’m pretty sure that’s not the main theme of the novel, so please don’t quote me.

And, I was not shocked to find out that the author Maria Semple wrote for a various of TV shows such as Arrested Development, Mad About You, Saturday Night Live, Ellen, etc. My prediction for a movie soon coming to theaters near you—the big screen adaption of Where’d You Go, Bernadette. 

I started the “review” with quotes, and I shall end with them as well.

Maybe that’s what religion is, hurling yourself off a cliff and trusting that something bigger will take care of you and carry you to the right place. I don’t know if it’s possible to feel everything all at once, so much that you think you’re going to burst…I felt so full of love for everything. But at the same time, I felt so hung out to dry there, like nobody could ever understand. I felt so alone in this world, and so loved at the same time.

It’s a quantum physics concept where everything that can happen, is happening, in an infinite number of parallel universes. Shit, I can’t explain it now. But I’m telling you, for a fleeting moment at lunch, I grasped it. Like everything else in my life—I got it, I lost it!)

If you don’t create, Bernadette, you will become a menace to society

You’ve gone insane, Bernadette. It’s like aliens came down and replaced you with a replica, but the replica is a drag-queen demented version of you. I became so convinced of this that one night while you slept I reached across and felt your elbows. Because I thought, No matter how good they made the replica, they wouldn’t have gotten the pointy elbows right. But there they were, your pointy elbows.