So this is the book that is "brimming with just way too much description" that I mentioned a couple of weeks back. I admit that I was impressed by some of the verbal pictures in the early chapters -- but since it turns out that the author refuses to allow anything to simply be itself, instead insisting on turning whatever into an adverbing adjective blahblah, the charm wore off but quick. Oooh, ooh -- it was like being enchanted on a first date at the movies when you notice a single tear tracing down his face when the plucky dog finally dies...only to find out that he cries six times a day, sometimes just because someone cut him off in traffic (see what I did there?).
I wouldn't be at all surprised if it were to be uncovered that Pessl has been keeping a spiral notebook for jotting down apt similes and metaphors since she was in sixth grade...and that cramming every single last one into her debut novel has been her dream since. And don't even get me STARTED on all of the annotations -- tiresome, to say the least.
OK, to the story. Smart girl with blowhard father starts hanging out with some asshole slutty friends and their pretentious film studies teacher and things get mysterious. And convoluted. And I just wanted it to END. But there were still, perpetually, more than 200 pages left.
D+
