A review by rainbowblight
Post High School Reality Quest by Meg Eden
2.0
This would have gotten a higher rating if the rather abrupt ending hadn't left me feeling confused and duped. Turns out it was an angel. Or it was all a dream. Who the hell knows?! The only thing I do know is that I read the final pages in disbelief, feeling that what I had believed to be a unique, retro-cool story about growing up and mental health was in reality a thinly veiled Christian manifesto.
On retrospect, some parts of the novel make a horrible new kind of sense when viewed from this perspective. When Tristan is in the hospital and asks Buffy what she believes in, after a lot of thought she finally admits that she doesn't know. Unbeknownst to her at the time, Tristan is struggling with suicidal thoughts. "What do you believe, Buffy? What keeps you going?" After Buffy and her friends find Tristan hanging in his garage she will "...replay this conversation in your mind, over and over, asking yourself why you didn’t say something—anything else, if there was anything you could’ve said that would’ve made things different." Now I'm wondering if the author was implying that Buffy could have saved him if she'd talked about her belief in God, which is frankly disturbing. There are other little things, too. Buffy's life is falling apart while she consistently refuses to attend church with her parents. Would things have worked out better if she had spent her Sunday mornings on a pew? The college's chapel is a safe space. The ESOL student who describes having a religious vision "...looks so relaxed, as if nothing could ever go wrong enough to make her freak out."
This is all fine of course, but at least make it clear that's what I'm getting from the get-go so I can make an informed decision about whether or not I want to read religious fiction. Hence, I was duped and those last pages ruined the book for me.
Which is a crying shame because up until then, this book was all sorts of awesome. I loved that the narrator was like a text parser from a text adventure game. Stroke of imaginative genius. It even got me interested in checking out Zork. I got eaten by a grue. The retro feel and Buffy's love of old computer games really scratched my Outrun itch.
Buffy was a likable character and her struggles with confusing social situations rang true. I thought her treatment of the other characters was sometimes a bit too harsh. Merrill had an alarming violent steak but he did love Buffy and wasn't treated fairly by her while they were dating. Sephora had an eating disorder and problems of her own which Buffy was largely oblivious to. I'm aware that Buffy realising she wasn't the only person in the world to be in pain was probably one of the main points of the novel (although really, who knows?), but while she does feel vaguely sorry for her at times, Buffy never really treats Sephora kindly and the eating disorder is never discussed or dealt with in any level of detail.
Treatment of mental illness is another of the book's problems. Tristan kills himself, Sephora is bulimic, Aquitane is a borderline alcoholic and who knows what's wrong with Alice? The last time we see her she's face down on her desk surrounded by broken glass with dried blood on her chin. Buffy leaves and does nothing. I understand that the story is told from Buffy's point of view and we're deep inside her own paranoid, private bubble, but these are issues that seem too important to be so casually brushed aside and forgotten. Even Buffy's own mental state is never dealt with satisfactorily. She's lackadaisical about seeing her doctor and taking her meds. They say her brain scan looks strange and they're not sure exactly what's wrong with her. None of this is talked about again but that's okay because it was an angel in her head all along and when she runs away from home and screams at it to leave her alone, it complies. Maybe she really was crazy. Maybe I read this book all wrong. Maybe that should have been clearer for simpletons like me.
Now I'm off to read Microserfs, a book mentioned by the author in the acknowledgements. Let's hope it's not actually a Buddhist pamphlet disguised as a commentary on 90's geek culture.
On retrospect, some parts of the novel make a horrible new kind of sense when viewed from this perspective. When Tristan is in the hospital and asks Buffy what she believes in, after a lot of thought she finally admits that she doesn't know. Unbeknownst to her at the time, Tristan is struggling with suicidal thoughts. "What do you believe, Buffy? What keeps you going?" After Buffy and her friends find Tristan hanging in his garage she will "...replay this conversation in your mind, over and over, asking yourself why you didn’t say something—anything else, if there was anything you could’ve said that would’ve made things different." Now I'm wondering if the author was implying that Buffy could have saved him if she'd talked about her belief in God, which is frankly disturbing. There are other little things, too. Buffy's life is falling apart while she consistently refuses to attend church with her parents. Would things have worked out better if she had spent her Sunday mornings on a pew? The college's chapel is a safe space. The ESOL student who describes having a religious vision "...looks so relaxed, as if nothing could ever go wrong enough to make her freak out."
This is all fine of course, but at least make it clear that's what I'm getting from the get-go so I can make an informed decision about whether or not I want to read religious fiction. Hence, I was duped and those last pages ruined the book for me.
Which is a crying shame because up until then, this book was all sorts of awesome. I loved that the narrator was like a text parser from a text adventure game. Stroke of imaginative genius. It even got me interested in checking out Zork. I got eaten by a grue. The retro feel and Buffy's love of old computer games really scratched my Outrun itch.
Buffy was a likable character and her struggles with confusing social situations rang true. I thought her treatment of the other characters was sometimes a bit too harsh. Merrill had an alarming violent steak but he did love Buffy and wasn't treated fairly by her while they were dating. Sephora had an eating disorder and problems of her own which Buffy was largely oblivious to. I'm aware that Buffy realising she wasn't the only person in the world to be in pain was probably one of the main points of the novel (although really, who knows?), but while she does feel vaguely sorry for her at times, Buffy never really treats Sephora kindly and the eating disorder is never discussed or dealt with in any level of detail.
Treatment of mental illness is another of the book's problems. Tristan kills himself, Sephora is bulimic, Aquitane is a borderline alcoholic and who knows what's wrong with Alice? The last time we see her she's face down on her desk surrounded by broken glass with dried blood on her chin. Buffy leaves and does nothing. I understand that the story is told from Buffy's point of view and we're deep inside her own paranoid, private bubble, but these are issues that seem too important to be so casually brushed aside and forgotten. Even Buffy's own mental state is never dealt with satisfactorily. She's lackadaisical about seeing her doctor and taking her meds. They say her brain scan looks strange and they're not sure exactly what's wrong with her. None of this is talked about again but that's okay because it was an angel in her head all along and when she runs away from home and screams at it to leave her alone, it complies. Maybe she really was crazy. Maybe I read this book all wrong. Maybe that should have been clearer for simpletons like me.
Now I'm off to read Microserfs, a book mentioned by the author in the acknowledgements. Let's hope it's not actually a Buddhist pamphlet disguised as a commentary on 90's geek culture.