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A review by briarhoes
Thanks for the Trouble by Tommy Wallach
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Lately, there's been a popular trend of recommending books based on tropes found within it, or, conversely, recommending against them based on those tropes. I've found this often when searching for books to read: people will say either that I should read them because it has enemies to lovers, or that I shouldn't read it because it has a toxic male lead, and so on. What I've found in my lifestyle of reading pretty much anything I come across, though, is much simpler than that, and at the same time more complicated:
I will forgive any cliche, or trope, or overused character/plot device, if the story is written well.
This book has things that, if you presented them to me as their bare essentials, I would crinkle my nose up at and be uninterested. Things like a manic pixie dream girl, one of the clearest examples I've ever seen. Things like a suicide being thoughtfully accepted and treated as the fairest choice for someone to make. Things like an immortal girl, hundreds of years old, taking the form of a beautiful teenaged girl.
I forgive the book of all of these things, because it's beautiful.
I've learned a lot about grief in my life - much shorter than Zelda's, but longer than Parker's - and I've found that everyone on Earth spends their days trying to make sense of it. No one is safe from it, and you can't escape it by delaying the inevitable. If you try, you're still grieving, but for the life you're going to lose rather than that you've lost. I've heard songs, read books, watched movies, heard poetry, all of it trying to make sense of the magnitude of loss and wondering how to avoid it at all. This book takes the approach of suggesting that perhaps we shouldn't avoid it, because immortality brings its own grief, of losing everyone around you. And if no one is ever lost, no one ever changes, and no one new ever comes. What we love and enjoy about life, what makes it worth living, is that it is ever changing. If it stops, if our lives stretch out before us with no end, why bother doing much of anything at all? What would be the point, where is the drive? Reading this book, I think I finally understand why vampires are often so lazy, not doing anything with their endless time. Why would they? It's endless. We all need something to look forward to, something to break us from the monotony. I fall into a rut when I'm unemployed for a month and lose all of the structure in my life, so why would it be different than an immortal being?
This book contains cliches, but it also contains within itself proof of why these cliches came to be known as that in the first place. There's a reason the same thing seems to pop up everywhere, and it's because they're relatable. They're ever-present. They represent something, or they serve a purpose. It doesn't matter if something has cliches, it matters if it uses them well. What matters, really, is what everything forms in the end.
I've suffered great loss in my life so far, but so has everyone else. So will everyone else, by the end of it. And none of it will be 'more' or 'less' than anyone else's. Our biggest tragedies are still just ours.
--
"Did you throw them away?"
Tap.
"I figured. I thought about doing it myself a million times before. I really did. But to take them all down, to really commit to that, it felt like killing him all over again. That's the thing about letting someone go. It's a kind of murder. Or more like a murder-suicide. You have to kill the person in your memory and then you have to kill the version of you that needed that person. It's big, Parker. and I just haven't been big enough to do it."
I will forgive any cliche, or trope, or overused character/plot device, if the story is written well.
This book has things that, if you presented them to me as their bare essentials, I would crinkle my nose up at and be uninterested. Things like a manic pixie dream girl, one of the clearest examples I've ever seen. Things like a suicide being thoughtfully accepted and treated as the fairest choice for someone to make. Things like an immortal girl, hundreds of years old, taking the form of a beautiful teenaged girl.
I forgive the book of all of these things, because it's beautiful.
I've learned a lot about grief in my life - much shorter than Zelda's, but longer than Parker's - and I've found that everyone on Earth spends their days trying to make sense of it. No one is safe from it, and you can't escape it by delaying the inevitable. If you try, you're still grieving, but for the life you're going to lose rather than that you've lost. I've heard songs, read books, watched movies, heard poetry, all of it trying to make sense of the magnitude of loss and wondering how to avoid it at all. This book takes the approach of suggesting that perhaps we shouldn't avoid it, because immortality brings its own grief, of losing everyone around you. And if no one is ever lost, no one ever changes, and no one new ever comes. What we love and enjoy about life, what makes it worth living, is that it is ever changing. If it stops, if our lives stretch out before us with no end, why bother doing much of anything at all? What would be the point, where is the drive? Reading this book, I think I finally understand why vampires are often so lazy, not doing anything with their endless time. Why would they? It's endless. We all need something to look forward to, something to break us from the monotony. I fall into a rut when I'm unemployed for a month and lose all of the structure in my life, so why would it be different than an immortal being?
This book contains cliches, but it also contains within itself proof of why these cliches came to be known as that in the first place. There's a reason the same thing seems to pop up everywhere, and it's because they're relatable. They're ever-present. They represent something, or they serve a purpose. It doesn't matter if something has cliches, it matters if it uses them well. What matters, really, is what everything forms in the end.
I've suffered great loss in my life so far, but so has everyone else. So will everyone else, by the end of it. And none of it will be 'more' or 'less' than anyone else's. Our biggest tragedies are still just ours.
--
"Did you throw them away?"
Tap.
"I figured. I thought about doing it myself a million times before. I really did. But to take them all down, to really commit to that, it felt like killing him all over again. That's the thing about letting someone go. It's a kind of murder. Or more like a murder-suicide. You have to kill the person in your memory and then you have to kill the version of you that needed that person. It's big, Parker. and I just haven't been big enough to do it."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Car accident and Death of parent
Moderate: Suicide
Minor: Sexual content
A suicide takes place in this book. I have been suicidal and have lost a sibling to it, and I did not feel triggered due to its context in the story.