Special Topics In Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
The average user rating for this Book is 7.9 out of 10 (based on 27 Votes).
[Anonymous] gave it a10: A wonderfully fresh voice, great use of language, and frequently funny - yet with a faint poignancy that creeps up on the reader by the end. The teenage narrator is both wise beyond her years and naive, well-travelled and out of her depth, near-adult and typical teenager. Special Topics is a surprisingly quick read: it's not a heavy 500 pages by any means.
Kate M gave it a4: Over media hyped writer who has sandwiched a 200 page clever yet not very well concluded mystery in 500 pages of pretentious literary references. So great, Marisha -- you've read a plethora of literature. Big deal - most good writers have but to thrown it into your writing to make yourself sound impressive -- how sophmoric and shame on your editor for not cutting most of it out -- a marketing ploy for sure. It is not so much a means of developing Blue's bookish personna as a clever book selling idea to pack it with references to great works in literature -- so that when these names get dropped in book reviews the work sounds more intellectual than it really is. Same with having the main character be a student at Harvard -- ah, the mere mention of this great institution gives the character more merit than she deserves. (Why not have her go to your alma mater instead? -- Barnard not good enough, huh?!!) Using great names and works of literature to beef up a so-so juvenile mystery. And as far as the barebones mystery it falls short of being a good mystery -- it isn't even a good cliffhanger -- the issues left unfinished seem just that -- they are unfinished threads of a story that the author couldn't figure out how to weave into the story -- nice for her though as she has material for a sequil (who'd want to read it.) It isn't believeable to think this doting, overbearing father would just disappear forever because he can't face his daughter for fear of her finding him a sham and that this ingenue at 17 would have the ability to lie around for a couple of weeks and then bingo get herself through the end of high school and enrolled and busy attending the top Ivy League school without a friend in the world. Very stupid if you really think about it. I was hoping to find that in the dark of the mountains Blue had confused the hanging woman to be Hannan but is able to uncover that it isn't Hannah and that she in fact escaped and that somehow with her father she brings this all about and doesn't just disappear from the story altogether. We never find out why after all these years Garaeth decides to live near Hannah either, of why Hannah includes Blue in her group -- is she tweaking Gareth or what? Cop-out ending!!
Marge gave it a9: I thought it a brilliant first novel. It will be interesting to see what else she can do.
J K gave it a10: Challenging, jet-coaster prose, probing theme. Brilliant, and one of this year's best!
Mary R gave it an8: I almost stopped reading it after the first 150 pages. I felt it was a book written by a 20-year-old for other 20-year-olds, not someone in their 50's like me. I'm glad I stayed with it though; I couldn't put it down for the last 200 pages. I admit, sometimes I just skipped over the citations and metaphors.
Richard M gave it a9: A delightfully witty and intelligent first novel. I await her sophomore effort with high expectations. Highly recommended.
Kathy R gave it a6: This book, while entertaining, was overrated and overly long.
Sara P gave it a10: I absolutely loved it. I enjoyed the literary references. I found it humorous and extremely clever. An unexpected mystery. Can not wait for her next book.
Dan C gave it a9: To the reader who quit after 125 pages I would say not only did he miss a great second half, but would have found that the first part was not, after all, just clever, chatty, adolescent chik-lit but came to be intrigal and necessary for the mystery and intrigue that followed. She fooled you. I keep playing its intricacies (horror and humor) in my mind weeks later.
TheKate M gave it a9: Unlike many readers, I appreciated the citations throughout the book. Pondering the validity of many of those cites was as stimulating as trying to determine the accuracy of the DaVinci Code's art references. The difference being this book was an engrossing story without the citations; DaVinci Code was dependent upon its references to masterpieces.
Brian L gave it a10: The best book of the year, hands down!
Julie R gave it a9: A book lover's delight!
Dan B. gave it a4: I gave this book 125 pages before putting it down. It's cleverly written, but it seems as if the author was so in love with the voice of her narrator that she thought that alone, the cleverness and cuteness, would carry the book, rather than a story. According to many reviews I just read, it seems the book gets really good later, in its second half or last third. But why would I read 250 pages of bloated, meandering, quasi-plotless text to get to something that might be good? I ended up looking at the stack of books I could be reading instead and decided I'd rather read most of them. This book is five hundred pages long, but its first hundred could have been fifty, if not less. Also, it's illustrated, that (in this case) is lame. The illustrations add nothing, are not clever--they were basically just drawings of the characters, like film stills. What does that add? Why do I need that? Am I reading a film? Sherlock Holmes, the Three Musketeers, and Oliver Twist--they can include drawings for me, give me little action snaps. But this? As it is the author laboriously describes all her characters. Why on earth do I need "Visual Aids"? Because it's "charming"? *** If you want to read a hyped up book this season, I'd say read Clair Messud's The Emperor's Children. It's also well written, *and* it bothers to interest the reader in its first third. Imagine that.
judith A gave it a7: A bit long and without enough mystery, until the end. Half way through the novel the (literary references) became annoying so I skipped them, desirous of the unfolding story, and preferring the writers own words.
Tom M gave it a10: Highly recommended. An outstanding first novel. Looking forward to more.
Kimberley M gave it a10: Pessl's writing is lively, interesting, funny, tight, brilliant, original. Story, too, is original, beautifully told. It is difficult NOT to read every other page to my lover, who is a writer himself. I cannot say enough good things about it -- a job well-done. As an author, Pessl, has my attention. She deserves it.
Ellen W gave it a9: What fun! Verbal acrobatics, literary non sequiturs at first distract, then entrance. Just enough of a thriller to keep the pages turning, but the real story is Blue's painful coming of age and her relationship with ther enigmatic father.
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