Customer Reviews

Like the Red Panda (Harvest Book)

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Suicide is not exactly a funny topic. But new novelist Andrea Seigel tackles a strange death wish in "Like the Red Panda," and makes it funny too. Incisive, sharp-edged and smart, this look at the final two weeks of high school for a girl who is far and away the wisest person in her community.

Stella is brainy, pretty and wise beyond her years, about to graduate from high school. Up until this week, she was planning on going to Princeton -- now, she wants to die before she gets there. She deliberately flunks tests, ponders her teachers, and contemplates the absurdity of schoolwork (bouncing imaginary balls) and classmates (while befriending the class weirdo).

As the school year winds down, Stella visits her bedridden, emotionally abusive grandfather -- discovering that they have more in common than she thought. She also ponders the loss of her parents when she was eleven, an event that shaped her personality from then on, and the colorless life she has had with her nervous foster parents. In those two weeks, Stella decisely works on how to best leave the world, observing as it moves past her.

While "Catcher in the Rye" is referenced from time to time -- including the observation that you'd want to strangle Holden in real life -- Stella is a wholly different person. This story is a morbid comedy, where "Catcher" is more of an angry-young-man/coming-of-age tale. And it's that very mix of wit and darkness that makes "Like the Red Panda" so exceptional -- few authors could handle such a plot without making it trite or maudlin.

Rarely could cocaine/heroin ODs be considered romantic or amusing. But Stella ponders the weird romantic streak in her parents' deaths (their "hearts snapped in tandem") at her eleventh birthday party. She looks back on them -- and her life -- with a mix of honesty and affection. She's not heartless, just brutally honest about herself and the world.

Seigel does display some first-time difficulties -- she climaxes Stella's problems with her foster parents by having an awkward blowup. And Stella's relationship with her drug-dealing boyfriend seems tacked in. However, her prose is wonderfully written, with a sort of detached grace as Stella observes the little things, from sex to religion. Sprinkled in are wry observations, like the Jewish temple that her foster parents go to: services are held on Sundays, because "this benefited cross-religion plan-making on the weekends."

Stella is not a female Holden clone -- where Holden is resentful, she is quietly brutal. She's witty, wry and thoroughly engaging for smart, philosophical young women. Her foster parents are pale characters, especially when compared to her exuberant druggie parents. And her classmates and teachers are gifted with little quirks and oddities, but not to the point of being caricatures.

"Like the Red Panda" is an excellent first novel for Andrea Seigal. Rather than going into "angry young woman" territory, she opts for a funny, dark, strange journey into Stella's mind. While Seigel has some beginner's problems to iron out, her beautifully written debut is highly recommended.

Reading the description of this book, along with its dreary premise, made me want to run screaming from the Amazon page. But something kept drawing me back to this book and I found myself purchasing it. I usually stick with a bestseller, like LIFE OF PI or BARK OF THE DOGWOOD, but thought I would give this new novel a try. The title didn't hurt any either as I was curious to find out what it meant. Suffuce it to say that I have NOT been disappointed. LIKE THE RED PANDA is a truly beautiful, disturbing, funny, heart-felt book and the author of this remarkable journey should be proud of her work. With insight into the human condition and a cast of characters that are at once believable and yet almost over the top, Seigel has given us a wonderfuly warped portrait of suburbia, much like Perrotta's LITTLE CHILDREN or McCrae's THE BARK OF THE DOGWOOD. Both humorous and disturbing, this stellar novel can't help but pick up steam. Kudos to Seigel on this brilliant and wonderfully crated novel.

but hey, what is?

I just finished this book an hour ago. The last time I read a book was 3 years ago, but that was only for my English class. I've attempted to read various books since then, but have gotten bored with all of them before getting to the third chapter.
"Like the Red Panda" was EXACTLY what I needed at this time in my life.
I recommend it to anyone who has ever thought about suicide (not neccessarily as something to do, just something to think about) and those of us who are humored and at the same time bothered daily by the transparency of this world and the people in it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book in every way. The structure was easy to understand but not boring, and the detailed character description affected me the most.
Anyway, this is my first book review and it probably didn't say much, but this is a smart book and smart people will enjoy it. :)

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, which may have to do with the fact that I easily related to the novel's main character, Stella. Not necessarily in her suicidal tendencies, but more in her innate way of examining and picking up on the subtle nuances of the people and things around her. Hyper-observant and constantly finding irony in everyday life, her character was an intriguing one for me.

However, I can see where some readers may have become bored and uninterested with her character, as she is truly unique and may not speak to those who cannot relate to her situation. Alienated from the absurdities of high school, suburbia, and humanity itself, she finds herself without passion for anything, though she hints at wanting to feel passion.

This book is not for everyone, but I recommend it to those who want to see through the eyes of a character not often recognized in literature.

Stella's disenchantment with her fairy-tale surroundings is most evident when she turns a dark eye on other people. The book introduces a few unnecessary characters (the boyfriend, for example), but for the most part the characterizations of teachers and fellow students are spot-on. Then Seigel tacks on an out-of-nowhere emotional climax between Stella and her foster mother. The energy that suffused that scene was absolutely great, but I didn't know the foster mother well enough to understand where her rage was coming from. She was basically a non-entity throughout the entire novel, so I had no idea why she was so upset. The feeling I was left with: someone had to have a fight to advance the plot, and it was convenient to have it between these two.

Andrea Seigel is a good writer - I think she'll probably be very good in three to five years. "Like The Red Panda" struck me as a bit immature. Character development is often sketched in (especially in the case of the foster parents, who seem little more than a collection of tics until the last few chapters). Also, she has a tendency to tell us too much and not show us enough; this makes some of the major characters, like Ahsley and Daniel, more plastic and convenient than they should be.

I was going to complain that I had no idea why Stella wanted to commit suicide. Then I thought about it some more. That lack of understanding is common to survivors, and in hindsight I appreciate that the author didn't spell anything out. It's never that simple when it happens. Anyway, she's tackled a difficult subject with grace and humor, and her narrator is wise enough to know that love (and/or having a boyfriend) doesn't solve everything - it doesn't even make you happy. Seigel is a cold, sweet shot of whisky compared to the Pink Ladies of the "chick lit" clique. I'm a little surprised she got published. Glad she did.

Many authors have tackled the coming of age story from various angles. Catcher in the Rye and The Adventures Huckleberry Finn spring instantly to mind, although your milage may vary. Unfortunately, the coming of age genre -- no matter how well crafted an individual story may be -- tends to become somewhat played out and predictable. The characters all seem to sucessfully overcome the problems of childhood, come to fundamental realizations about their own lives, accept responsibility, and move on to the greener pastures of adulthood. In Like the Red Panda, Seigel explores the darker possibilities. Stella (Seigel's main character) may be brilliant, funny and talented; but she just doesn't get it. Finding nothing but emptiness in her personal accomplishments, dysfunctional family, hollow love life, and future prospects, Stella decides to end it all. Throughout the book, one feels that she might snap out of her funk. Through Stella's intimate encounters, academic achievments, newfound friendship, and opportunities to bond with her alienated family, Seigel leaves the reader with a feeling that Stella is always just on the cusp of abandoning her suicidal ambition to persue a happy and productive future. Seigel goes so far as to provide a stark contrast in the form of Ainsley -- a former outcast and shadow who blossoms as her highschool days come to an end. However, this book's brilliance is that it deviates from the conventional coming of age tales by showing us that the journey from child to adult is indeed perilous. Stella ultimately abandons her promising future, refuses to accept responsibility, and is consumed by the problems of her troubled past. Although Like the Red Panda falters in places (the ending in particular seems somehow forced), it is entertaining, witty, and, above all, provides a much needed counter-point to all the Holden Caulfields scattered across the literary landscape.

I've been deployed in Iraq for the last year and I've read a lot of books for lack of anything better to do and this one stands out. I've never really been able to relate to a novel written by a female before but this was easy. I was laughing out loud and finding myself very anxious to read on til the very end. Fans of Palahniuk and Bret Easton Ellis would throughly enjot this novel.

This book reminds me why high school and suburban life are so screwed up, and I hope that everyone reads it and learns -- with something raw for anyone who ever felt misunderstood growing up, and with something enlightening for parents and the delusionally happy. Rather than going for the obvious route of the predictably dark and twisted teenager that one would expect, Seigel delves unflinchingly into the mind of a witty, relentlessly honest anti-hero. Emotionally, I feel the same perverted sense of sympathy, appreciation, and repulsion for Stella that I feel with Pechorin in A Hero of Our Time. Looking at the reviews below, I don't entirely see the simplistic comparison to Holden because they're such radically different characters -- and thankfully so -- plus, Stella has much more of a sense of humor!

Andrea Seigel has done a pretty difficult thing in writing Like the Red Panda; while it's about an overachieving teenage girl who plans to commit suicide, all the mawkish cliches are avoided. Sentimentality is sidestepped in favor of some truly emotional moments, though the protagonist, Stella Parrish, tries purposely not to linger there too long.
As a character, she's very self-conscious (beyond the point of neuroses), and has a definite idea of the way things should be versus the way things are versus the way things used to be--and when things in her life don't match up with these ideas, she makes wry, often withering observations and moves on. It's not that Stella is some kind of overly precocious, wise-ass, all-knowing teenage genius who's too cool to have genuine feelings (although sometimes it seems as though she'd prefer to be and even strives to be that way); in fact, Seigel really succeeds at portraying Stella's love for her off-and-on boyfriend, her desire to make one good friend, and her grief for her dead parents.
The plot is interesting because you're never quite sure whether Stella is actually going to go through with killing herself or not; here, too, the author succeeds at depicting a certain kind of ambivalence about life itself. There are a lot of side plots with her boyfriend, a couple of kids at school, her grandpa and her foster parents, all of which pretty much fall into place by the end of the novel. The writing is sharp and witty, but still feels like it's been written by a teenager, and definitely had more than a few moments that made me laugh out loud. Highly recommended!

Hey, I like my book, and my boyfriend says I'm my "own worst critic."