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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sad and hilarious, and a pitch-perfect narrative voice, December 8, 2009
This review is from: The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To (Vintage Contemporaries) (Paperback)
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Eric and Darren are two high school invisibles who bond over Darren's drawings and Eric's secret: Eric is the boy who couldn't sleep and never had to. Darren's observations and narrating voice are hilarious and spot-on as far as diction. The "voice" is as close to perfect as I can imagine for a teenage boy. All the side characters, in particular Darren's brother, are perfectly drawn; the high school students, the mother who just got tired of being a wife and mom and began to live as if she were neither while still married, the dad whose only real question of his sons is "Got your phone on you?", and the hectic older brother whose accents, drug use and sexual misadventures echo through his brother's life in a menacing but reassuring way.
Is it a funny book? It is an EXTREMELY funny book when Darren is commenting on his peers, or describing his own social awkwardness. I'd throw in some quotes but there are too many swear words for the review to be published in the passages I love most. And the universe Darren and Eric craft, while eye-rollingly absurd, is also very true-to-form for high school boys. I was more charmed by the drawings than the taxonomy of the created world, because the art is credibly the work of an untrained high school boy. In fact, Darren knows the limitations of his own skills. He draws people standing, looking straight ahead, and prefers to draw glasses on faces because the eyes give him trouble. But his drawings are enough to fuel and express his inner visions. When those inner visions take over his life, it's shocking and yet somehow believable.
This is a more complex novel than many of the reviews up here seem to suggest. I read it as a series of a young man's awakenings; first to the power of his own creativity, then to love and sex, then to the idea of manhood, then to his own capacity for cruelty and finally, and finally into a very sad understanding of just how corrupt the world can be. He can't awaken from this final revelation, and it makes this book tragic, not comic. There is a lot of humor, but this is not a madcap teen romp with science fiction overtones. This is a very sad story about a young man's complete loss of innocence, not because he does drugs and has sex, but because he is done a great injustice at the hands of the larger world and must do what it demands of him in order to stay alive. But telling his story is in its own way a subversive statement of bravery and faith, and offers the hope of change.
Very highly recommended.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Nerd, October 24, 2009
This review is from: The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To (Vintage Contemporaries) (Paperback)
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DC Pierson's ambitious debut novel takes 153 pages (out of 228) to find a plot, but the real reward (if any is to be found) resides in its characterization and voice. Trouble is, a lot might depend upon the reader's age. The book is tailor-written for Generation Y (we haven't reached "Z" yet, have we?) and guys especially. In fact, though he is referring to the word "mech" at the time, the book's protagonist himself utters these prophetic words: "If you are a kid of a certain age and male you will know what I mean." Likewise, if you are 20-something or younger, male, and a self-described "nerd," then you'll probably appreciate the long conversations and inner ruminations of this protagonist -- Darren Bennett -- whose idea of a fun day is to get away from the madding high school crowd, go home to his room, and draw cyborgs.
OK, so now that you're prepared for 16-year-old characters saying "like" a lot, you should know that not much happens early on beyond Darren becoming best friends with a kid named Eric who's equally interested in science fiction, fantasy, and drawing. The hitch (or "angle" as it's called in the book business)? Eric doesn't sleep. Ever. By way of explanation, Eric tells Darren, "I've never said it out loud before, but it's like, there's me and there's everyone else in the world, and everyone else is in a constant state of joining me and leaving me. When they leave, it's sort of lonely, I suppose, but I have time to think and do things uninterrupted. I go for walks." Without the escape of sleep, the world is a prison of sorts for Eric -- but in Darren's science fiction-loving eyes, it makes him not just a fellow nerd, but a miracle of the universe to be treasured. That is, until he steals Darren's first girlfriend ever. That's when the plot finally kicks in. For revenge, Darren decides to reveal Eric's "secret" to some sketchy man who once showed up at the door inquiring about some kid who couldn't sleep. Is "The Man" from a church as he claims? The military? Another dimension?
Darren's is an engaging voice and, if you like him, you should enjoy the ride in THE BOY WHO COULDN'T SLEEP AND NEVER HAD TO. For humor, there's Darren's older brother and his friends, who love to terrorize the neighborhood (and nerds, younger brothers, etc.); they are constantly high or drunk or swearing in horrible British accents while dressed as ninjas (you know, the usual teenage avocations, if some books are to be believed). If you're a plot enthusiast, "too old for this nonsense," or female, you might not take to the novel as quickly, especially when the narrator starts to play unreliable with you. Still, I was impressed with the young author's effort and ambition and, overall, give the book decent marks (reservations and fair warnings aside) for being witty in its desultory way. If it sounds your speed, then, it probably is!
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12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A perfectly voiced story of high school, October 24, 2009
This review is from: The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To (Vintage Contemporaries) (Paperback)
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I wasn't too keen on starting this book given its description, but it turns out whoever wrote that probably hasn't read the book. It's not the juvenile fiction the description makes it out to be, or the buddy story you'd expect.
The characters are in those odd years in high school where they they try on new things and drop them just as quickly, often for reasons they can't explain, even to themselves. They like this band one week when the object of their crush also likes it, but hate it when the crush also dissipates. They are still traveling from liking what the people around them like merely from exposure to figuring out their own tastes and desires.
Darren, a loner who fancies himself an artist but recognizes the pretention in it, reluctantly accepts the friendship of Eric, the weirdo kid, as they collaborate on Darren's trilogy of movies drawn from his serious of novels based on his drawings, which people think are really good. The drawings in the book are crude and two-dimensional, showing that these characters still sincerely think quite highly of their talents as well as being caught up in the idea of writing a novel or making a movie without the actual interest in novel writing or movie making. Darren, for the most part, doodles during his free time. He realizes this, but is afraid to admit it to himself.
Enter Christine, the theater chick, and also the worst archetype for a loner like Darren to adore. The slighest interest from her is enough of a hook. As he loses his virginity to her, more of his own identity starts to form. For him, it's a rite of passage and an important signifier. For her, it's just something to do because she's horny. She's in it not for Darren but for the experience. She's living in the moment while he's forming his identity around her. It's liberating to him: if he can have one girl, he can have another, but for her it's confining and limiting in new experiences. From there, the characters start to come into their own and the usual conflicts develop.
Darren makes may references to the music favored by most high schoolers from social pressure, the music favored by high schoolers with college friends as a reaction to social pressure, and the music college friends favor as a way to label themselves as unique. Their search for identity, or reaction to it, motivates their social fluidity. Darren's older brother acts out as an English football hooligan, a ninja, or hired muscle, despite spending most of his time with a church youth group. Not only is everyone looking for friends, but people from whom they can distance themselves. They still define their identities through associations and dissociations equally strongly.
Add to all of this the youthful tendency to give everything more importance than anything deserves and the child-like fantasy play where anything is possible. At the same time that the characters are developing into adults, they don't have the perspective to judge what is happening around them. Everything is an immediate crisis of the highest importance, just like kids in high school really think they are. Is it a secret government conspiracy complete with alien technology, and is the school so afraid of subversive experimental theater that they'll do anything to stop it? There are only a few interactions with adults, and every one is interpreted through these lenses.
They aren't the adult-like wise characters most stories would make them out to be. They don't have the insight or wisdom to understand what's going on or why they do anything. This is Holden Caufield or Adrian Mole. Every character is perfectly voiced and plays out their perspective well. The story doesn't moralize and avoids the common tone with such stories that are trying to illustrate some message or give insight to the teenager mind. Things don't end up well (do they ever in high school?), and the denouement, if one could call it that, is perfect for the story. It's not a neat little package, but it doesn't leave you wondering what happened either.
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