The Patterns of Paper Monsters [Paperback]

Emma Rathbone (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 9, 2010

Jacob Higgins's teenage rage rarely simmers below the surface for long. He despises his negligent mother and her alcoholic boyfriend, Refrigerator Man, and he's indifferent to school and his friends--though a little less casual about girls and marijuana. His antics have landed him in a North Virginia detention center, where nihilism, freedom, and redemption all take on unexpected guises. In a voice filled with confusion, yearning, and sardonic humor, Jacob narrates his improbably sweet romance with Andrea, an inmate with whom he shares rare glances, melodramatic conversation, and waxy cookies at rigidly chaperoned "socials." But when David, a mysterious, conniving adolescent, handpicks him to assist in a plot to bring about the center's demise, Jacob has to weigh the frail new optimism of his relationship with Andrea against the allure of destruction, rebellion, and escape. In her pitch-perfect debut, Emma Rathbone adroitly captures the drama, both comic and deadly serious, of growing up.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A contemporary Holden Caulfield does time in a juvy center in Rathbone's singular debut. Seventeen-year-old Jacob Higgins is three months into his sentence for armed robbery, passing time at a northern Virginia juvenile detention center. Fueled by sarcasm and possible sociopathic tendencies, he endures "Olympic trials of boredom and grudging acquiescence," receives visits from his alcoholic mother, develops a budding romance with a girl he occasionally runs into, and wonders about the diabolical plans of a mysterious boy from an upper-class neighborhood. Rathbone's extraordinary and imaginative command of language surprises at every turn, from a woman described as "a pile of a person who smells like someone's weird house" to an air vent blowing "glacial wind swept up from prehistoric ice dunes." Though laxly plotted and a bit disappointing at the end, the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest meets Napoleon Dynamite sensibility is reason enough to stick with this story of one messed-up kid's ambivalent mosey toward getting it together.
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Review

"No matter how loudly I praised The Patterns of Paper Monsters, no matter how many classic coming-of-age stories I compared it to, the unforgettably sarcastic and broken and endearing narrator, Jacob Higgons, would no doubt roll his eyes and show his teeth in a smile that was more of a snarl and say, 'Can't you do better than that?' And I would want-as I wanted so many times when reading this debut novel-to slap him upside the head and strangle him into a hug. And you will feel the same way, utterly charmed and disgusted, ultimately moved, when you read what promises to be one of the best books of the year by one of our best new writers, Emma Rathbone."
--Benjamin Percy, author of The Wilding, Refresh, Refresh, and The Language of Elk



"Patterns of Paper Monsters is a dispatch from the teenage wasteland of a juvenile detention center, fervidly delivered by Emma Rathbone's irreverent, perceptive, and achingly funny young hero, Jacob Higgins. He refuses to succumb to the numbness and absurdity of his incarceration, in turn holding a jagged mirror shard to adolescence, failed relationships, and life in modern America. A voice that is at once heartbreaking and hilarious, and startlingly true."
--Lydia Peelle, author of Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing

"There is a new and seductive electricity in the voice of Emma Rathbone's brilliant young narrator, Jake Higgins. Listen to him! Unafraid, unsentimental, and destructively smart, The Patterns of Paper Monsters masterfully turns sadness into ecstatic, shocking laughter."
--Patrick Somerville, author of The Cradle

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Reagan Arthur / Back Bay Books; 1 edition (August 9, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031607750X
• ISBN-13: 978-0316077507
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #570,901 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Best Books I've Read Lately, September 24, 2010

By 

Sharon Harrigan (Charlottesville, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Patterns of Paper Monsters (Paperback)

I started to underline the funny lines to pull out for quotes, but I had to stop, because I was underlining the whole book.

Patterns is a coming of age novel about a seventeen-year-old boy from the wrong part of Northern Virginia. His father abandoned him early in life, his mother is an infantile alcoholic, and his stepfather is a chronically unemployed wife beater. All the present action takes place in a juvenile detention center, where Jacob is being held for attempted armed robbery of a convenience store. Pretty grim stuff. But Rathbone manages a tricky feat: she makes the book a delight to read, a rollicking adventure, a hilarious romp through the twisted mind of a teenager with a sharp wit and enough attitude and energy to power a whole novel.

The book is framed as journal entries Jacob writes every evening, and the action covers the last few months of Jacob's time as a prisoner, ending with a short narrative of what happens to him after he gets out. It's written in the first person and present tense, which gives it an immediacy that pulls the reader in. Jacob uses a lot of sensory information, which makes us feel like we are in the room with him.

As with most first person narratives, the driving force of this book is the voice. It's defiant and judgmental of people and things that don't seem authentic, sincere, or fair. It's confessional, unrepentant, sarcastic, clever, and honest. It is never self-indulgent or self-pitying. Because of Jacob's honesty and perceptiveness, he gains our sympathy (also, because the story is in the first person). Because he is a nonconformist bent on seeing the world in his own way, he allows himself a lot of word play and inventiveness, which makes his journal entries surprising, refreshing, and very funny.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book club pick!, October 18, 2010

By 

Megan D. Kasten "soccer mom" (Charlottesville, VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Patterns of Paper Monsters (Paperback)

Despite the disparate tastes of our book club, this out-of-left-field pick received unanimous critical acclaim from our living room skeptics.

Those of us with teenaged boys found the verbally precocious, yet emotionally immature voice of the protagonist to be spot on. The contrast of the spare, stark plot with the attention to minute trivial detail seemed a subtle metaphor for the simple and excruciatingly dull existence of an intelligent kid consigned to a life in the confines of a juvenile detention center. The author does not dust sugar on the grim situation, yet gives us Jacob's quirky inner dialogue to lighten what could have been a hopeless tale. And his tentative attempts at moving toward adulthood are very touching.

This opener gives me high hopes for what comes next.

And yes, I know I'm from Charlottesville, but no, I don't personally know the author, so I don't have any skin in this game. I just liked the book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good book, September 7, 2010

By 

T.Laco (NH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Patterns of Paper Monsters (Paperback)

It's a good book. Parts are funny, parts are sad, there's a resolution (of sorts). The author is stunningly amazing at writing the mind of a sarcastic 17-year-old in juvie. I liked it.