Release Date: May 31, 2016
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Pages: 272
Genre: Contemporary, Young Adult, Romance
*I received this book as a NetGalley ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Summary
Nanette O'Hare is an unassuming teen who has played the role of dutiful daughter, hardworking student, and star athlete for as long as she can remember. But when a beloved teacher gives her his worn copy of The Bugglegum Reaper--a mysterious, out-of-print cult classic--the rebel within Nanette awakens.
As she befriends the reclusive author, falls in love with a young troubled poet, and attempts to insert her true self into the world with wild abandon, Nanette learns the hard way that rebellion sometimes comes at a high price. -Goodreads Descripton
The Rundown
Wow. *Takes calming breath* And wow.
My mentor taught me how valuable note taking while reading is. As a result, I have quite a collection of composition notebooks full of quotes or thoughts or questions I have from all of the books I've read over my years as a YA librarian. Every Exquisite Thing may now hold the record for most pages of notes taken (over 20!) and it's in the best possible way.
I don't even know where to begin with telling you how much I love this book! This will definitely be one that I'll buy so I can highlight and scribble in it. Pristine books are boring to me anyway. And this isn't a pristine book. This is a book that should have notes in the margins and coffee stains and finger prints and all other signs of book love because the story itself isn't neat. It's messy, uncomfortable, tragic, hopeful, and will leave readers thinking about it long after the last page.
Nanette, a popular soccer star from a wealthy family, becomes obsessed with an obscure novel called The Bubblegum Reaper and finds out from her teacher that the author, Nigel Booker, actually lives not far from her school. Nanette meets the aging writer for coffee hoping to have her lingering questions about the book answered. Booker refuses to speak of his writing if they are to be friends, so Nanette accepts his offer. She's been so unsure of so much in her life like "Why am I expected to go to college next year?" and "Why do I play soccer?" and "Why do I feel so disconnected with everyone in my life?" that, at the time, a friendship with Booker seems perfect.
Booker introduces Nanette to the works of Charles Bukowski, Pablo Neruda, and more importantly, the poems of Alex Redmer, another young fan of his. Booker believes that Nanette and Alex will hit it off, that "all eighteen-year-olds need to be in love." The two do hit it off over a bond of solving the mystery of the origins of the characters in the Bubblegum Reaper. Before it can fully bloom into love, tragedy hits. Though brilliant, Alex is troubled and sick, something Nanette doesn't see fully until it's too late. Alex sees himself as the champion of the outcasts and is at war with those he calls "pretty boys." His quest to defend Oliver, a middle school student he saved from being bullied by the pretty boys, lands Alex in reform school after he punches the father of one of the boys picking on Oliver.
Suddenly Nanette is without Alex. Booker refuses to continue his friendship with Nanette, or any young person, because he blames himself and his book. He tells Nanette that he only meant for teens to figure out their feelings for themselves, but he never wanted the violence. An already lonely and isolated, Nanette retreats even further into herself at the loss of these two significant friendships. Her parents decide to send her to a therapist to help.
June, Nanette's therapist, starts a new chapter in Nanette's story by encouraging her to refer to herself in the third person, to "kill the I," to help get outside of her head and see herself as somebody else. For most of the last half of the book, we go from a first to third person narration. It's a little strange to get used to (especially in conversation scenes) but it's an interesting therapy tactic and doesn't disrupt the flow of the story in the slightest.
While in therapy and distant from Booker and Alex, Nanette improves her relationship with her parents, who were separating when Nanette had her "break down" and walked away from soccer. After so many nights in with books and Scrabble games with her mom and dad, Nanette thinks she could pretend at being "normal." She sees it as an experiment as she falls in with her old teammates, goes to parties, and starts dating. She obviously hates the whole thing, but plays along because, "You sometimes pay a high price for individuality." (Ch. 28).
Nanette's parents and therapist feel like she's making progress until the night of the prom, when she just can't take it anymore. She's just exhausted. Tired of the parties. Tired of misogynistic music and shallow movies and the whole act. She runs to Booker's house where she demands that he tell her what happened to Wrigley (the main character in The Bubblegum Reaper). She's angry that she still can't get a direct answer from him and he tells her, "That's what you learn when you grow up. No one knows the answers." (Ch. 35).
The realization that she treated Booker like the end all be all with literature hits her hard and fast. Nanette feels like it's time to finally be herself just before graduation. As she sits there, she marvels at how her honesty mended her parent's relationship with each other and with her. Even if they can't always be exactly what the other needs, their relationship as a family is a million times better than it was at the start of the book.
She also notes how few people really got to know her in high school, but thanks to June pointing out that there are seven billion people in this world and she's bound to find others outside of her hometown, away from Alex and Booker, who will want to know and understand her as much as she wants to do with them.
As Nanette leaves graduation, she sees someone placed a copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde on the seat of her Jeep. There's no note, just a highlighted quote: "Behind every exquisite thing, there was something tragic." She reads it that night and the big picture gets a little less fuzzy as she recognizes that she and Alex saw something of themselves in someone else's work and it became a destructive obsession. As she thinks about Alex and Booker and Oliver and June and her parents she starts to feel better that it's okay to just be herself. That it's okay to do the unexpected. As for Wrigley and The Bubblegum Reaper? It doesn't matter as much now as she's in the pursuit of being present and finding out what happens to her own story.
Like I said: wow. Just wow. If you're still with me after reading probably the most detailed summary I've ever written I hope you're still interested in reading this book. This made me feel like I did the first time I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. Or the first time I saw the movie SLC Punk! Or the first time I listened to Taking Back Sunday. Or the first time I read Hunter S. Thompson or William S. Burroughs (like Nanette, I was much weirder on the inside than I was on the outside as a teenager). Weird is good. Weird is okay. Weird is beautiful. Just don't get so caught up in your own head that you forget to participate in life. To quote SLC Punk! (one of my all time favorite movies. Like desert island movie): "We can do a hell of a lot more damage in the system than outside of it." I'm not sure why, but that quote kept playing in my head as I neared the end of this story! I needed this book right now, even at almost 30. It so perfectly summed up the constant question of adolescence of "where do I fit in? Do I fit in?" And Booker is right, even when we're grown ups, we still don't always have the answers. But it's important to be there and as true to yourself as possible. I think? I hope!
For another great read that deals with the question of "Should we meet our heroes?" check out Looking for Jack Kerouac by Barbara Shoup!
Rating: 5 Stars. You totally must read this book!
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