A review by nicothyun
The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno
5.0
I love the book. I wished I could explain my fondness for this book in-depth but my proficiency of the language fails me in my task. So I am just going to fawn over it as best as I could. The Boy Detective Fails is the kind of coming of age which is superficially sweet but promptly laced and doused in dark humour and a sort of cynical sensibility. The book is supposedly meant to target teenagers but it could just as easily be read by an young adult. I guess the characters' endearing pursuit for 'truth' and their quest for identity makes it easily relatable and beautiful in that quirky way.
It was really a charming read (for a 16 year old) for I used an afternoon to read and solve the codes in the book.
Frankly speaking, I was initially frustrated with the book because I couldn't find any rationale, motives or answers behind the cases. I couldn't believe that the answers were that simple and so delightfully cruel. And in that vain pursuit for deeper motives and truth, I re-read the chapters in hope that I could figure out their real intentions. The search led me further away from the answer' for I kept searching and in a way it was creepily analogous to the Boy Detective's pursuit for truth regarding his sister's suicide.
I confess I still don't have the answer and the truth. I think the beauty of this book is that everything doesn’t have to be explained and that there are questions without answer. I suppose it really related to me in the sense that I have always demanded for an answer and when I fail to find one, I become lost. Maybe, the moral is that some things are just the way it is and that no amount of probing and inspecting would change that; I should just accept it as it is.
It was really a charming read (for a 16 year old) for I used an afternoon to read and solve the codes in the book.
Frankly speaking, I was initially frustrated with the book because I couldn't find any rationale, motives or answers behind the cases. I couldn't believe that the answers were that simple and so delightfully cruel. And in that vain pursuit for deeper motives and truth, I re-read the chapters in hope that I could figure out their real intentions. The search led me further away from the answer' for I kept searching and in a way it was creepily analogous to the Boy Detective's pursuit for truth regarding his sister's suicide.
I confess I still don't have the answer and the truth. I think the beauty of this book is that everything doesn’t have to be explained and that there are questions without answer. I suppose it really related to me in the sense that I have always demanded for an answer and when I fail to find one, I become lost. Maybe, the moral is that some things are just the way it is and that no amount of probing and inspecting would change that; I should just accept it as it is.