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leonors's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
It’s very hard to review this book without being harsh and judgmental.
On the back cover, we learn that “Ten-year-old Jonah lives in a world of his own. He likes colours and feathers and the feel of fresh air on his skin. He dislikes sudden loud noises and any change to his daily routine.”
Unfortunately while reading the book we barely learn anything else about him. Except that he’s incontinent: his “soiled nappy” must be mentioned more often than he himself.
In the interview to the author in the appendix, he states that he’s “opposed to writing fiction as personal therapy”, for “it’s too easy for the tone of the novel to become overwrought and self-pitying and that was the opposite of what [he] was aiming for”. Too bad that the novel reads in fact quite self-pitying: Ben, father of Jonah and first person narrator, is an alcoholic. Most of the time we’re dealing as readers with his self-pitying thoughts for everything that is going badly in his life (which is, admittedly, a lot) and his need for a drink.
And I’m not even going to open the can of worms that is Jonah’s mother.
Halfway through my read, I wrote the following note in my reading journal.
This book is really testing me and my empathy. On one side, I want to empathize with the parents, because taking care of a disabled child must be incredibly hard. On the other side, I hear the autistic community online speaking up for themselves and asking for organizations and parents to stop picturing them like the worst possible burden, and I honestly cringe at how Ben and Emma cope with Jonah being on the part of the spectrum that includes an accompanying disability. At the same time, Ben is an alcoholic, and that’s an illness, so we can’t really judge him. Emma isn’t ill, but she’s a parent of a disabled child who coparents with an alcoholic. Can we judge her for checking out? I would’t have the nerve. The way she did it, through lies and manipulation, wasn’t cool, but the way it looks she had been trying to do things right by herself for a long time, and there’s only so much a person can take.
There’s no sides to take here, the situation is ugly and it’s not what I was expecting at all, but at the same time we also need ugly to be represented, rather than always picking the narrative of the superpowers à la Rain Man. Real life doesn’t necessarily always have a happy ending or a fun quirky side. So I’ll keep reading, but boy, is it a hard ride.
Interestingly I found out later that counteracting the Rain Man stereotype was exactly the author’s goal, so I get the point, I really do. It just still irks me that the first and only time we learn something about Jonah as a person is at pages 237-241. And that’s in a moment in the story that is supposed to be about him, but before this moment we get a good 25 pages of self-pity fest in the head of his father.
What this book is actually about is a severely dysfunctional family, which would have been such with or without Jonah. The communication issues are massive. Nobody is talking honestly, everybody is assuming and reacting to their own assumptions with manipulation and blame.
Georg’s “inspired” written speech on words and how they’re supposedly just a means to lie, other that an aggravating pile of platitudes is just a projection of his own communication issues.
Again, I do get the point the author wanted to get through, about non-verbal Jonah being the most honest among them and the best one at communicating his needs, but romanticizing his mutism by juxtaposing it to the dysfunctional behavior of a bunch of inadequate adults is just cheap.
Even more so because this cheesy praise comes literally two pages after his admission that he “could abuse him like that because he couldn’t tell anyone”. Bloody awful.
Also awful, towards the end: „You know Johan, you are the world’s best listener. You never judge or contradict and I know that whatever I tell you remains sacred. Telling you my fear and secrets helps me to deal with them.”
Yeah, sure! Burden your 11 year old with stuff you should be telling a therapist, just because you can take advantage of the fact that he can’t set a verbal boundary! It’s called parentifying, and it’s abuse.
The message could have been nice per se, but because of what Ben does with it, it got rather twisted.
All in all, it’s a story that probably needed to be told, but a lot of it rubbed me the wrong way. And none of it has anything to do with wanting to read about any “special talent”.
On the back cover, we learn that “Ten-year-old Jonah lives in a world of his own. He likes colours and feathers and the feel of fresh air on his skin. He dislikes sudden loud noises and any change to his daily routine.”
Unfortunately while reading the book we barely learn anything else about him. Except that he’s incontinent: his “soiled nappy” must be mentioned more often than he himself.
In the interview to the author in the appendix, he states that he’s “opposed to writing fiction as personal therapy”, for “it’s too easy for the tone of the novel to become overwrought and self-pitying and that was the opposite of what [he] was aiming for”. Too bad that the novel reads in fact quite self-pitying: Ben, father of Jonah and first person narrator, is an alcoholic. Most of the time we’re dealing as readers with his self-pitying thoughts for everything that is going badly in his life (which is, admittedly, a lot) and his need for a drink.
And I’m not even going to open the can of worms that is Jonah’s mother.
Halfway through my read, I wrote the following note in my reading journal.
This book is really testing me and my empathy. On one side, I want to empathize with the parents, because taking care of a disabled child must be incredibly hard. On the other side, I hear the autistic community online speaking up for themselves and asking for organizations and parents to stop picturing them like the worst possible burden, and I honestly cringe at how Ben and Emma cope with Jonah being on the part of the spectrum that includes an accompanying disability. At the same time, Ben is an alcoholic, and that’s an illness, so we can’t really judge him. Emma isn’t ill, but she’s a parent of a disabled child who coparents with an alcoholic. Can we judge her for checking out? I would’t have the nerve. The way she did it, through lies and manipulation, wasn’t cool, but the way it looks she had been trying to do things right by herself for a long time, and there’s only so much a person can take.
There’s no sides to take here, the situation is ugly and it’s not what I was expecting at all, but at the same time we also need ugly to be represented, rather than always picking the narrative of the superpowers à la Rain Man. Real life doesn’t necessarily always have a happy ending or a fun quirky side. So I’ll keep reading, but boy, is it a hard ride.
Interestingly I found out later that counteracting the Rain Man stereotype was exactly the author’s goal, so I get the point, I really do. It just still irks me that the first and only time we learn something about Jonah as a person is at pages 237-241. And that’s in a moment in the story that is supposed to be about him, but before this moment we get a good 25 pages of self-pity fest in the head of his father.
What this book is actually about is a severely dysfunctional family, which would have been such with or without Jonah. The communication issues are massive. Nobody is talking honestly, everybody is assuming and reacting to their own assumptions with manipulation and blame.
Georg’s “inspired” written speech on words and how they’re supposedly just a means to lie, other that an aggravating pile of platitudes is just a projection of his own communication issues.
Again, I do get the point the author wanted to get through, about non-verbal Jonah being the most honest among them and the best one at communicating his needs, but romanticizing his mutism by juxtaposing it to the dysfunctional behavior of a bunch of inadequate adults is just cheap.
Even more so because this cheesy praise comes literally two pages after his admission that he “could abuse him like that because he couldn’t tell anyone”. Bloody awful.
Also awful, towards the end: „You know Johan, you are the world’s best listener. You never judge or contradict and I know that whatever I tell you remains sacred. Telling you my fear and secrets helps me to deal with them.”
Yeah, sure! Burden your 11 year old with stuff you should be telling a therapist, just because you can take advantage of the fact that he can’t set a verbal boundary! It’s called parentifying, and it’s abuse.
The message could have been nice per se, but because of what Ben does with it, it got rather twisted.
All in all, it’s a story that probably needed to be told, but a lot of it rubbed me the wrong way. And none of it has anything to do with wanting to read about any “special talent”.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death of parent, and Excrement
Moderate: Terminal illness, Drug abuse, Child death, and Cancer
Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Deportation, and Violence
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