A review by sjj169
I Crawl Through It by A.S. King

2.0

I asked myself that question throughout this whole book. I like this author and don't get me wrong, this book is very well written.
It just makes no sense at all to me.

Four teenagers stories intertwine in this book. Stanzi who sees herself as split in two.

Do you know what a tetragametic chimera is?
We learned about it during a genetics discussion last fall.
It's some crazy thing that happens to you between when you're conceived as cells and when you're a zygote. Somewhere between sperm-meets-egg and embryo. Somewhere in there you used to be fraternal twins. And then you blended. Two into one.

Stanzi likes to dissect things. Mostly frogs. She wears her lab coat everywhere and her parents make field trips to sites where disasters happened. Sandy Hook. Columbine. Etc.

Gustav is building an invisible helicopter. He got the kit from the naked guy that sells letters and roofie spiked lemonade out of his bush.
Mama says Gustav is mad crazy. I think he is a genius. I think Mama is jealous. I think she would build a helicopter and take off as soon as she could if she could, be she can't so she doesn't and says lies about Gustav like "That boy isn't right in the head" or "He's going to end up in the looney tunes if he's not careful."

And China.
I am China-the girl who swallowed herself. I just opened my mouth one day and wrapped it around my ears and the rest of me. Now I live inside myself. I can knock on my rib cage when it's time to go to bed. I can squeeze my own heart. When I fart, no one else can smell it.
I write poems.

Then Lansdale. Who can't help but constantly tell lies. She knows she does it and still continues. Her version of Pinocchio but instead of her nose growing...it's her hair. Even though she has to cut it everyday.

Now I totally feel like an evil witch for not liking this book more than I did.

But I didn't.
It's very different and haunting and I hope hipper people than me read it and understand.
I'm just a hipster wanna be..well not really. I'm too lazy to wanna be.
I'll just have to settle with watching from the sidelines.



Booksource: Netgalley in exchange for review.



My friend Kelly did an awesome Hawkeye inspired review of this book. Kelly is my Goodreads bestie and is one of the reasons I love this site so much. Check out her review.