Customer Reviews

Ready, Okay!

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Adam Cadre's first novel may be about high school kids, but it's definitely not for the immature. There are powerful themes running through the work, things that anyone who's even been near a high school should be able to identify with, dealing with drugs, sex, mental illness, cliques, etc. The prose is skillfully peppered with injokes and randomly hilarious pop culture references. Dialogue is excellent, if at times less than believable in its cleverness. The novel begins at a leisurely pace that introduces the style and narrator and quickly picks up steam to introduce loads of characters all at once, which some readers may find disorienting. Once the book starts to move at a good clip, it's extremely compelling and difficult to tear yourself away from.

It's a good book when it isn't meandering or cheesy (which is not very often), or bogged down in exposition and philosophizing (which is a bit more often). It's difficult to draw the line between Allen the main character and Adam the writer. Cadre is clearly aware of this, as he casts Allen as not only the narrator, but the author of the book.

The conclusion is pulled off better than I expected. It is built up and teased throughout the book, though kept enough in the dark that you can't exactly predict what will happen. And when it finally does happen, it hits with a surprising emotional and visceral force that left me, at least, exhausted.

I certainly have some niggling criticisms, but that's true of anything. It's a heck of a first novel, a great read, and will hopefully be a big hit.

Brimming with ideas, Ready, Okay! is both a terrific read and a thought-provoking story--Adam Cadre's first novel is well worth checking out.

Allen Mockery, the protagonist and narrator, maneuvers through an increasingly surreal Southern California teenagerhood that becomes nightmarish as the novel progresses. Allen styles himself a "deeg," short for "goodygood," unimplicated in the self-destructive lifestyles going on around him. It's that lack of participation that lets him observe the novel's various goings-on, and he maintains his ironic distance throughout; he meets tragedy and absurdity with the same self-aware flippancy. It's a flippancy that's not there simply to amuse, though. Allen's reluctance to take anything seriously seems to serve as a defense against the traumas he confronts. It's also a distancing mechanism of sorts: Allen's running commentary masks the extent to which he sees himself in the sordidness around him, "deeg" persona aside. One of the novel's main conflicts is between the "deegs" and the fallen, so to speak; the two worlds clash at various points, and there are some crossovers. (Cadre repeatedly uses that conflict to show the extent to which apparently similar people can live in entirely different worlds.) The same conflict also provides much of the novel's humor; the contrasts between the anything-goes set and the straitlaced folks set up some amusing one-liners.

The characters, in a few instances, seem more like types than people on first glance, but there's much more there than first appears. It's not so much that apparently loathsome characters disclose redeeming qualities--if anything, they turn out to be more loathsome, but they're loathsome in interesting ways. Similarly, some of the apparently virtuous characters have internal conflicts that ensure that there's more to the characters than caricature. Still, the most intriguing character is Allen himself, in that, for all his ironic judgment, he seems to retain a sense of complicity in the tragedies around him. In other words, Allen (but hardly anyone else) learns to wonder what he can do to save his fellow teens, and to lament not doing more when one of them falls.

Ready, Okay! is not for the faint of heart, or (occasionally) stomach--cruelty and squalor are prevalent, and much of the narrative involves benevolence getting either outwitted or simply overwhelmed (or, in a few cases, turning out to be something other than benevolence). The stark contrasts that the novel draws between virtue and degradation also produce some memorable images, though (maybe *too* memorable) and suggest that the real story is more about the forces that influence and prey on the characters than about the characters themselves. Certainly, there's a lingering sense that the characters who populate Ready, Okay! are at the mercy of, rather than in control of, their social world.

The writing is outstanding; Cadre effectively mixes grimness and pathos with humor. The structure of the story is somewhat episodic; the story sometimes focuses on Allen's relationships with specific people for long stretches, such that important characters disappear entirely. It's a necessary evil, though; the individual stories that comprise the plot arguably wouldn't work nearly as well if spliced among each other, particularly because individual plot strands bring out facets of Allen's characters in ways that would get obscured.

Ready, Okay! is a terrific first novel, though it leaves me wondering where the author will go from here--given the size and the weight of the themes the author tackles, the ambition here is considerable. Most of it isn't especially edifying, but it's well worth your time and cash.

This was one of the best books I've read ever read. I myself am a High School student, though not a typical one. I was completely able to believe in the potential reality of all of the characters, and enjoyed its simultaneous realism and surreality, and its simultaneous intense dark subject matter and dark comedy and levity. The combination of diametrically opposed subjects, intense plot and well-developed characters dragged me all the way through the book. Although the book was quite depressing, afterwards I am quite glad I read it. I have also read some of Adam Cadre's short stories and am quite impressed with his writing abilities and style.

Five out of five stars, two thumbs up, for me anyway. This book is definitely not for everyone. Unfortunately, the only way to tell if it's for YOU or not is to read it. Read it, if you feel ready to vomit by chapter 5, the book is not for you. If you reach chapter 8 or 9 before this reaction occurs, hold out the rest of the way. It's an enlightening experience.

This is the kind of book you stay up late to finish, racing through the final chapters. The characters may be exaggerated, but it's to dramatic effect: it's hard for anyone who survived high school not to identify with their stories. 'Ready, Okay' excels at capturing the frustrations of being an adolescent in a time when adults often do more harm than good, and at chronicling the friendships and other bonds that shape who we become.

I pretty much couldn't put this book down after the second chapter, as the foreshadowing of an ensuing disaster sprinkled in between some beautifully drawn out, pop-culture-inspired character sketches, took a firm grasp on every spare moment I had in the day.

The picture, for a good part of the book, is very bleak with a landscape so raw and uncaring that by the second day of reading I found myself getting depressed. But, the ending was powerful enough (it didn't restore my faith in humankind mind you, but it did restore my faith in the humanity of the protagonist and one or two other characters) and the prose and witty retorts were so much fun to read, that it made the disturbing reality of the protagonist's world a minor footnote in the lasting impressions I'll have from this book.

Maybe the only criticism I really have is that most of the characters were a little too polished when it came to their dialogue. Is it believable that a group of 4 related child prodigies can speak and think at a PhD level? Sure, I guess. But when 50% of the supporting cast start quoting poets long since dead or start making insights into the human psyche that rival Freud's, you have to wonder if maybe the author's voice isn't coming through where it shouldn't.

Still, that's a really small gripe. As I'd alluded to earlier, the prose is ASTOUNDING. Where does Mr. Cadre get all his witty references and material from? Every page in this book brings a new joke or comeback that lulls the reader into a comfortable routine so that when the disturbing bits eventually do occur, the effect is particularly jarring.

Apparently, it took Mr. Cadre 40% of his life to write this book. Here's hoping it won't take quite so long for him to finish his next one.

I don't normally read modern fiction -- I'm more of a fantasy / science fiction fan. However, this book was recommended to me by more than one friend, and I just had to get it to see what it was all about.

I found the writing, for the first few sub-chapters, to be a bit uneven. But it may have been that I needed to get primed on Mr Cadre's style because, after that, the story reached into my skull, grabbed onto my brain, and wouldn't let go until I finished.

I had originally thought I would have to force myself to read this book, given the genre, but the book is too good for that. Cadre really knows how to write, and he really knows how to make characters that come alive. I look forward to his next work.

One of my friends told my without any forespeak that I had to read this book. It took me a while to get started, and I almost put it down after the first chapter, but since I had nothing else to do I kept reading. I kept reading untill my mother came in and turned off my light.

Over the past two days I have been reading this book, and it feels as though my life has been secondary to what is happening to these characters.

This is story is reviting. Maybe at first it seems like a boring teenage <i>Catcher in the Rye</i>-ish, but there is a plot. A very, very powerful one behind it. Anyone who is bored with this book, keep reading. It will not stay boring for long.

I would recomend this book only to an open-minded person. There is swearing, drinking, drugs, sex, and any who can't take that in here should not read this book.

I am so glad I read this book, and I think many other people will be too. It is one of those books you experience, and not read.

Adam Cadre nailed the cynical teenage mindset in his first novel, providing readers with an overwhelming sense of familiarity, coupled with biting humour and a very involving plot.

A touching novel; true to life (and large as life) characters add to the enjoyment. Pop culture fanatics will love it.

Ever want to know what teenagers are usually thinking these days? This book might be the best gauge for that answer. I initially read the first line in his book as a bit of teenage sarcasm, but was astounded at the book's ending.

The interweaving of characters is concise yet complete - one can almost identify with which character they were in high school, or can identify which character reminded them of which person in school. The dialogue might seem a little out-of-reach to most people (as far as how teenagers actually speak), but in this day and age, it doesn't surprise me that some teenagers actually possess the intelligence and mental capacities to think in the manner that they do in the book. That was reflected well in the book.

As adults weaning ourselves on CNN and our local news, the book may seem like it's only confirming what mass-media-hungry America thinks of teenagers. It's not, actually - it gives more of an in-depth look at them. This book gives humanity back to the teenagers that didn't deserve the reputation that they've gotten in the first place.

This book is my favorite book of all time...okay im only fourteen so that may not be saying much but i loved it. Adam Cadre' portrayed teenagers in a way i could understand. He added great insights in the form of Molly Allens tweleve year old younger sister, im pretty sure im rethinking my idea on nudists. this book should be in every library at every public,middle,and highschool. It taught me and changed me i picked it up at 1:00pm and didnt stop reading till 1:00am. Direct from a teenager i loved this book and wish i owned it.