Coming of Age | Book Chatter

We the Animals
By Justin Torres
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Hardcover, 9780547576725, August 2011, 144pp.)

The Short of It:

Torres manages to inject beauty into what would otherwise be, a dark, depressing little book about love and neglect and growing-up male.

The Rest of It:

Three brothers tear their way through childhood— smashing tomatoes all over each other, building kites from trash, hiding out when their parents do battle, tiptoeing around the house as their mother sleeps off her graveyard shift. Paps and Ma are from Brooklyn—he’s Puerto Rican, she’s white—and their love is a serious, dangerous thing that makes and unmakes a family many times.

I had mixed feelings with this one. I was impressed by its fierceness. It’s brutal and honest and the images that Torres creates are unforgettable. He definitely has a way with words and it’s obvious to me, that he poured a lot of himself into these boys when creating these characters. But, the format of the novel is not like traditional novels. It’s really a collection of vignettes and one of the things that I noticed right off, is that as soon as I found myself fully absorbed, Torres moves on to the next scene which left me sitting there, wanting more.

This is a debut novel for Torres and it was beautifully written and parts of it literally made my heart ache, but I feel as if he experimented a bit with what to include and what not to include and perhaps it was too lean. At just 144 pages, I think he had room to not only scratch the surface, but really give us a feel for his narrator as the story is told from the youngest brother’s point of view.

This is one of those instances where the writing won me over. Although the structure of it didn’t work for me, I was taken with the prose and I had no trouble appreciating the amount of work that went into constructing each, and every sentence. Broken apart, each sentence could stand on its own, which made it almost like reading a poem, if that makes any sense at all.

In the end, I would absolutely read another novel by Torres and I’m glad that I had a chance to experience his writing.

Source: Borrowed

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Child Wonder
By Roy Jacobsen
(Graywolf Press, Paperback, 9781555975951, September, 27, 2011, 256pp.)

The Short of It:

A touching, coming-of-age story.

The Rest of It:

Finn and his mother live in a small apartment in Oslo, in the early 60s. She works in a shoe shop and does her best to make ends meet. They are comfortable and happy. Finn’s father died long ago in a crane accident but he left a little something behind…a daughter. Linda, age 6 and only a few years younger than Finn, comes to live with them. With another mouth to feed, Finn’s mom takes in a quirky lodger.

I’m not sure what I expected when picking this book up but I wasn’t expecting to be completely charmed by Finn. Finn is a great kid. He’s not the most popular kid but he’s not an outcast either. Living alone with his mother has given him a sense of maturity that you don’t normally see in a child his age, but he still possesses that child like wonder that makes this particular age so special.

Finn’s mother is firm, but wonderful and they watch out for each other quite a bit. When Linda comes to live with them, Finn is not sure what to think. Out of nowhere, this half-sister arrives and he immediately sees that she’s not quite right. But there is no jealously here. Just a fierce need to protect her and Finn does exactly that.

What the lodger provides, is a man’s perspective. Something Finn has never had. Although he resents having to have a lodger, he learns to live with the guy because for one, he has a TV and two, he’s nice company for his mother.

Towards the end of the story, something happens that changes the way they live and once again they are forced to readjust to their new lives. I was a bit sad when I read the ending, but as stricken as the characters are, they accept their situation and continue to grow.

There are many things that I liked about this book. It’s a very simple story and because it’s so simple, you can focus on the characters and they are really wonderfully drawn. I liked that Finn was not a babbling child but a child with a good head upon his shoulders. I liked that his mother was not perfect, but was a really good mom. I also loved the development of Linda, the half-sister.

All in all, reading this book was a pleasant experience and reminded me of what it’s like to be a child in a grown-up world.

Note from Ti: This book comes out September 27, 2011, but since I liked it so much, I decided to review it early.

Source: Sent to me by the publisher.