clew's reviews: a book log

Blue Avenger and the Theory of Everything, Norma Howe

Wierd writing style. YA, kind of sweet characters; hardly anything happens in the plot. The writing is self-conscious and self-referential like..
like.. Like a lot of things. Starts by micro-describing moments both quirky and bland: early Douglas Coupland. Soon refers, explicitly and in style, to William Makepeace Thackaray. Two pages later, a pseudo-advertisement for "KwikyRead©", which is both a response to the Thackaray pawn-gambit and frame-breaking, as the company being advertised appears in the book; very like Jasper Fforde.

I assume that much of this game about what writing style is usable in a YA book is the point of the book. Needs more non-self-referential stuff (characterization, event, dialogue, imagery... anything) to hang the virtuosity on, though.

ISBN: 0-8126-2654-0