A review by amandabock
Freewill by Chris Lynch
1.0
Will is a tormented teen dealing with the deaths of his father, stepmother, and several classmates in this obtuse story. I remember hearing people talking about this book when it came out, and figured it was worth a read, since it won a Printz honor, and I've liked his other books. When I finished, I had to look at the reviews to figure out what the hell anyone liked about it. The PW review summed up my feelings precisely: "this airless novel does not reward the effort required to penetrate it."
I found the second-person narrative to be a bit off-putting in the beginning, but not insurmountable. The main question posed by the novel, can you ever know what's in the mind of another person, is potentially profound, but the probing here is clumsy and unsatisfying. I found myself hoping that he was a serial killer. THAT would have been much more satisfying; a perfect picture of a truly disturbed individual.
I found the second-person narrative to be a bit off-putting in the beginning, but not insurmountable. The main question posed by the novel, can you ever know what's in the mind of another person, is potentially profound, but the probing here is clumsy and unsatisfying. I found myself hoping that he was a serial killer. THAT would have been much more satisfying; a perfect picture of a truly disturbed individual.