malindang

This book has a really promising set-up: despite the teachings and urgings of his genius physicist father, 17-year-old Nathan has remained disappointingly average; then he survives a near-fatal car crash and in the process gets his brain rewired. The first hundred or so pages, the build-up to the accident you already know is going to occur, are like a pleasantly held breath, full of anticipation; unfortunately, once the accident happens, and Nathan—now gifted with synesthesia (one of my favorite rare-in-life-but-awesome-in-literature neurological phenomena!) and an accompanying enhanced memory—reenters the world, the book turns into a much more straightforward father-son narrative. It still contains a lot of beautiful imagery, but it's basically a coming-of-age story (it seriously almost-concludes with the protagonist losing his virginity), and it's not different enough to set it apart from the 85 billion other coming-of-age stories I've read.

2023-01-25 03:52