Tired of textbooks? Me too. I picked up "Special Topics in Calamity Physics" and discovered a new outlook on university curricula.
When to read? When you can't take any more textbooks or when you're avoiding them.
Your professor probably won't be offended to see the cover of the book when he glances over at you in class and notices your preoccupation. In fact, he may even applaud your extensive out-of-class research.
Weighing in at a stout 500 pages, you're sure to cultivate your newfound knowledge of this abstract study of physics.
The book is laid out in "Special Topics" and "Parts," mirroring a syllabus that includes sections like "One Hundred Years of Solitude," "A Room with a View," "Pygmalion" and "Othello."
Not to worry - the author doesn't address the respective literature, she leaves that for our English literature classes. Don't let the page count intimidate you either.
Read small amounts at a time and soon enough you will be staying up long past the "Late Show with David Letterman" to finish the book.
Meet Blue van Meer -an unusually brilliant and hyperarticulate high school senior enrolled at the prestigious St. Gallway School in gentle Stockton, New Jersey.
Blue and her father Gareth van Meer - a nationally renowned professor of economics and political science - have been darting across the country since the tragic death of Blue's mother years before.
Since her mother's death, Blue hasn't spent one consecutive school year at any school. Blue credits the constant "Sonnet-athon road trips" to her father's fleeing of her deceased mother's ever-following spirit.
Upon her arrival to St. Gallway, Blue looks forward to spending her entire senior year there and is befriended by an uber-studious and exclusive group of students, the Bluebloods.
Throughout the school year, Blue tries to fit in with her new friends and smile through their awkward encounters, while trying to shove even more facts into her already jam-packed, intellectual mind.
Once Blue makes a troubled adjustment to her new life and continues to build her relationship with her grieving father, she goes on a camping trip.
She takes the trip with the Bluebloods and its ringleader Hannah Schneider - Blue's newfound confidant and hero, as well as the graceful and alluring film studies teacher at St. Gallway.
While on the camping trip, Ms. Schneider dies and is found hanging from a tree. Hannah Schneider's death follows another suspicious death that took place at a party just shortly before.
This is the point in the book when your eyebrow raises and you start questioning whether the deaths are related or coincidental.
The story takes a sharp turn and while Blue's first-person narrative tells us what she thinks is unfolding, we make different assumptions based on her thought process and tiny, ambiguous hints the author drops.
As the suspense builds and we try to figure out how Ms. Schneider ended up hanging from the tree, our minds try to solve the "whodunit?" as we constantly get hung up on the intricate new details of the story.
The beginning of the book starts out slow, but the inimitable illustrations are enough to hold us over.
However, right before the climax, the pace picks up and you forget how uncomfortable your seat is in lecture. Before you know it, your teacher almost mistakes you for a student who is staying after class to discuss the possibility of serving as a student assistant on his upcoming research endeavor.
Book in tow, you head to the nearest Starbuck's couch and continue making guesses at who you think is responsible for the untimely demise of Hannah Schneider and drowning of Blue's classmate.
While we take guilty pleasure in the happenings of this calm East Coast town - something we in the West only imagine - our clever deductions of the murder mystery finally start making sense.
Upon Blue's valedictorian address and high school graduation, she has learned unusual things about Hannah, her mother, father and other significant people in her life. In light of Blue's coming of age, she has grown in ways no person should have for someone so young.
We can all take a little from Blue's life and what she teaches us about family, friends, life, learning and ourselves. These are all things we learn in college, but our little high school friend Blue just beat us to it in this dark and amusing novel.
If you are left with any inkling to read the book, do it. It's required reading.
Enjoy!
"Special Topics in Calamity Physics"
3 out of 5 pitchforks
Author: Marisha Pessl
Publishing company: Viking Adult
Price: $25.95
Reach the reporter at Jessica.Douglas@asu.edu
