November 7, 2011
In Levineâs first novel, an unnamed 25-year-old heroine, ambivalent about her boyfriend and unhappy in her job at the Pet Library (lending furry or finned companionship in lieu of books) adopts Treasure Island as a roadmap for life. Taking the bookâs âCore Valuesâ of âboldness, resolution, independence, horn-blowingâ to heart, she stops cleaning up after the pets, uses her bossâs life-savings to acquire a parrot, and generally makes a huge pill of herself to everyone around her. With its three exclamation points, the novel promises irreverent fun, and certainly has an absurdist zaniness and charm, especially in the beginning. But instead of sympathizing with a slackerâs efforts, however misguided, to change her life, we grow increasingly restless as it becomes clear that the main thing sheâs resolute about is never noticing the effect she has on friends and family. The way Levineâs (Short Dark Oracles) narrator presents her actions and the cavalcade of misfortunes they bring as justified will make readers wonder if the author is sending up memoirs or 20-something self-involvement, but it doesnât feel like a sendup, and itâs hard to get behind this heroine, who seems less humorously deluded than tiresome.
November 15, 2011
A subversive and often funny exercise in style, voice in particular, with a narrator who pushes unreliability to an extreme. Hollywood might call this novel "high concept," with a premise that is as simple as it is outlandish. A 25-year-old woman with no apparent ambition or direction (but with attitude to burn) finds the inspiration that her life has been lacking in an adventure novel typically read (if read at all) by much younger boys. Why Treasure Island? Why not? For the unnamed narrator of this debut novel, the book forces her to confront the essential challenge of her existence: "How can I become a hero of my own life?" It also provides her with what she perceives to be its core values: "BOLDNESS. RESOLUTION. INDEPENDENCE. HORN-BLOWING." Her attempts to incorporate each of these values into her daily living (the horn-blowing is a bit of a stretch) quickly cost her the latest in her series of dead-end jobs, a boyfriend who is more responsible than she but no more ambitious, a best friend whose loyalty seems suspect, a therapist she can no longer afford to pay and whatever trust remains with her very different sister. But at least she gains a parrot in the process, though the bird proves to be more trouble than the narrator feels that it is worth. Though this is a short novel, and a pretty slight one, the complications compound and narrative momentum accelerates once the unemployed protagonist moves back home, with her parrot, her novel and her conviction that Treasure Island remains the key to whatever purpose her life has. Soon enough, she has made the lives of every member of her family as dysfunctional as her own. This novel might have something to say about gender roles, the relationship between literature and life or other standard themes, but mainly it's just a hoot.
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October 1, 2011
In this sassy first novel from an instructor at the Art Institute of Chicago, a woman needing a life fix hooks onto Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island as her salvation. After all, there's so much to learn from hero Jim Hawkins: courage, resolution...and horn-blowing. Clearly, this rather spoofs the whole heal-myself memoir genre and sounds like delicious good fun. And since Alice Sebold selected it for publication, you should pay attention.
Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
November 15, 2011
Boldness. Resolution. Independence. Horn blowing. These are the key qualities attributed to Jim Hawkins, protagonist of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, by the hapless, unnamed, 25-year-old female narrator of this debut novel by Levine. The underemployed slacker becomes ludicrously obsessed with Treasure Island, seeing in the novel a model of behavior that will permit her to throw off the shackles of her banal existence, starting with her part-time job in an animal-lending "pet library." Her first act is to steal cash from her employer to purchase a parrot that will sit on her shoulder spouting appropriate words of encouragement, Treasure Island-style, but that soon becomes her nemesis when it requires care and proves difficult to train. Our empathy-impaired narrator confuses irresponsibility with bravery and selfishness with self-sufficiency, and this results in a hilarious sequence of minor catastrophes befalling her friends and family, a circle of comically inept enablers. VERDICT Though it is hard to conceive of, let alone root for, such a morally bankrupt and emotionally stunted character, this highly original, farcical novel will keep you entertained in spite of (or more accurately, because of) its toxic narrator. [See Prepub Alert, 9/12/11.]--Lauren Gilbert, Sachem P.L., Holbrook, NY
Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.