"Outside a dog a book is man's best friend, inside a dog it is too dark to read!" -Groucho Marx========="The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." -Jane Austen========="I don’t believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book."-JK Rowling========"I spend a lot of time reading." -Bill Gates=========“Ahhh. Bed, book, kitten, sandwich. All one needed in life, really.” -Jacqueline Kelly=========

Monday, August 1, 2011

Review: The Freak Observer by Blythe Woolston


I love it when an author uses a theme around which they build the plot of a book.  That is what Blythe Woolston has done with The Freak Observer. The central theme is physics and she adeptly brings it into the story in ingenious ways that are both surprising and satisfying.  Now before you stop reading because you think to yourself I don't know anything about physics, let me say the book isn't about physics it just uses some of its theories and terms. In fact, the heading of the first chapter is a question on classical lessons on pressure and force that the main character, Loa, presumably saw on her physics test. Clever hook!

Loa has missed a lot of school because grief over the death of her sister several months earlier and the recent death of a friend Esther. Her Physics teacher gives her an extra credit assignment to explain what a Freak Observer is in physics. She discovers that it is a hypothesized self-aware entity that pops into existence in its universe, also known as the Bolzmann brain. In a lot of ways Loa is the freak observer in her own life. She observes how the death of her sister and her friend affect others and herself.

I really, really liked this book, which won the William C. Morris Debut Author Award last year.  At times I felt like I was reading music or being swept into the stratosphere by the prose.  Other times I was overwhelmed by the grief and isolation that Loa was experiencing like the time she trips up the stairway at school and spills her books everywhere.  No one stops to help or even acts as if they notice her.  She feels invisible, the grieving girl that might be contagious if one acknowledges her.

The only thing I don't like about the book is the cover.  The picture of the human heart is very off-putting.  I understand why they selected it as it relates to an event in the first chapter but it is just too creepy looking and not really relevant to the whole story. (Are you paying attention publishers?) A better picture would show an old fashioned orrery.
My family used to work like an orrery. We would have got a prize in a science fair, our gears turned so smoothly and all the parts fit together perfectly. Asta was in the middle, where the sun ought to be. The rest of us kept to our orbits. --p. 53
Smithsonian Orrery

4 comments:

  1. What a convincing review - I was looking forward to your thoughts on this book and now I simply must read it! I'm putting it on my library list and rummaging around for a brown paper bag to make an old-school cover so I don't have to look at that heart!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree the human heart on the cover is off putting but the story and the characters sound great. I'll have to check this one out sometime.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Why yes, we are listening. I'm so glad you love the book. Working with Blythe has been a highlight for me.

    The cover . . . . That cover has been very polarizing for the entire year the book's been out. I'm on the opposite pole. The cover is what I wanted from the moment I acquired the book, so obviously I'm partial. But I do agree that it's not immediately easy to look at. To me though, it takes on a certain raw beauty after a while. Not for everyone, I guess. Instead of a paper bag, though, may I suggest taking off the jacket? The designer (bless her, she was very accommodating of all my requests on this book) embossed another, much less medical, icon of the book on the board under the jacket.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you for responding, Mr. Karre: How wonderful that you are indeed watching! As I haven't yet purchased my copy of the novel, I wasn't aware of the alternate embossed cover within; I shall do as you bid me in this case.
    I do agree that for some audiences the cover image would morph from grizzly to aesthetically admirable over time, and I cannot dispute your choice on content relevance as I've yet to read the novel. I wonder: Will you continue with this image when the novel goes to paperback or consider another cover?
    Anne - thanks for the heads-up on Mr. Karre's post. I'm truly looking forward to reading this one!

    ReplyDelete

I look forward to your comments and interactions! Join in the conversation.