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emendelowitz's review
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
Thank you to Edelweiss and Abrams for allowing me to read an ARC of Foster Dade Explores the Cosmos.
I don’t normally write reviews this long, but it’s been months since I’ve been this enthralled with a book. I knew at 10% in that it would probably be a favorite of the year and it’s only February. Now that I’ve finished (though this may be a touch dramatic) it’s definitely a contender for favorite book of all time. I loved everything about it and I haven’t read a book this well crafted in quite a while.
Foster Dade Explores the Cosmos by Nash Jenkins at first glance is a journalistic report from our unnamed narrator writing about Foster Dade, the previous occupant of his dorm room at an elite boarding school, and the 18 months leading up to his expulsion in 2008-2010, but it is so much more than that. At its core, Foster Dade Explores the Cosmos is a literary coming of age novel of epic proportions that gives the reader an in depth character study of the titular character, Foster Dade as he grapples with mental health, masculinity, relationships, sexuality, the mythologies created by adolescent minds and so much more.
You will come to know Foster so intimately (sometimes more intimately than one would enjoy) and he will become so real to you. He may not always make the best choices and you won’t always be proud of him, but his thoughts and emotions are so excruciatingly real that it is impossible not to become almost obsessed as I have in the last few days of reading this book. Shortly following his parents divorce, Foster enrolls in the elite Kennedy School, an east coast boarding school dominated by the wealthy and affluent. He falls in with the two center of social gravity, Jack Albright and Annabeth Whittaker, and their group of friends that has essentially accumulated from the circles that rich people tend to run in.
The late ‘00s cultural references were immaculate and truly captured the vibe, especially the playlists that are interspersed throughout the book (featuring The Killers, MGMT, Passion Pit, and Cobra Starship ft. Blair Waldorf herself, Leighton Meester). The first chapter’s epigraph being the iconic opening line of Mr. Brightside by the Killers really sets the scene perfectly.
The writing as well never ceased to amaze me, Nash Jenkins is very talented and that is an undeniable fact. The amount of time and effort put into writing this book must have been insane. The story is told by an unnamed narrator who has become almost obsessed with trying to tell the tale of the boy who has become part of the Kennedy School’s mythology. Throughout the book he pulls blog posts, emails, texts, and testimony from Foster’s classmates in order to weave this tale. By virtue of having an unreliable narrator (not sure if unreliable would be the correct word, but certainly the truth of this story is relative), Jenkins truly captured the idea of the mythologies we create and how they can become blown out of proportion to the extent that even myself as a reader have not been able to stop thinking about fictional Foster Dade. In this sense it is reminiscent of The Virgin Suicides both thematically and in terms of narration. The other two major comparisons I would make is to The Goldfinch, for its sprawling, in-depth character study and quite frankly it’s brilliant vocabulary, and of course Gossip Girl due to its incisive breakdown of the east coast elite and, the immaculate 2008-2010 cultural references.
Foster Dade Explores the Cosmos is long, very ambitious, and will put you through the emotional wringer, but it is so very worth it. This book blew me away, enraptured me if you will, easiest 5⭐️ I’ve given in a long time and I can’t wait to get my hands on a physical copy when it’s out and sell the shit out of it at work because I have a feeling Foster Dade will live in my head for a while.
Edit: almost everyone in this book uses a Blackberry, and for that reason alone I think we need more 2008 period pieces.
I don’t normally write reviews this long, but it’s been months since I’ve been this enthralled with a book. I knew at 10% in that it would probably be a favorite of the year and it’s only February. Now that I’ve finished (though this may be a touch dramatic) it’s definitely a contender for favorite book of all time. I loved everything about it and I haven’t read a book this well crafted in quite a while.
Foster Dade Explores the Cosmos by Nash Jenkins at first glance is a journalistic report from our unnamed narrator writing about Foster Dade, the previous occupant of his dorm room at an elite boarding school, and the 18 months leading up to his expulsion in 2008-2010, but it is so much more than that. At its core, Foster Dade Explores the Cosmos is a literary coming of age novel of epic proportions that gives the reader an in depth character study of the titular character, Foster Dade as he grapples with mental health, masculinity, relationships, sexuality, the mythologies created by adolescent minds and so much more.
You will come to know Foster so intimately (sometimes more intimately than one would enjoy) and he will become so real to you. He may not always make the best choices and you won’t always be proud of him, but his thoughts and emotions are so excruciatingly real that it is impossible not to become almost obsessed as I have in the last few days of reading this book. Shortly following his parents divorce, Foster enrolls in the elite Kennedy School, an east coast boarding school dominated by the wealthy and affluent. He falls in with the two center of social gravity, Jack Albright and Annabeth Whittaker, and their group of friends that has essentially accumulated from the circles that rich people tend to run in.
The late ‘00s cultural references were immaculate and truly captured the vibe, especially the playlists that are interspersed throughout the book (featuring The Killers, MGMT, Passion Pit, and Cobra Starship ft. Blair Waldorf herself, Leighton Meester). The first chapter’s epigraph being the iconic opening line of Mr. Brightside by the Killers really sets the scene perfectly.
The writing as well never ceased to amaze me, Nash Jenkins is very talented and that is an undeniable fact. The amount of time and effort put into writing this book must have been insane. The story is told by an unnamed narrator who has become almost obsessed with trying to tell the tale of the boy who has become part of the Kennedy School’s mythology. Throughout the book he pulls blog posts, emails, texts, and testimony from Foster’s classmates in order to weave this tale. By virtue of having an unreliable narrator (not sure if unreliable would be the correct word, but certainly the truth of this story is relative), Jenkins truly captured the idea of the mythologies we create and how they can become blown out of proportion to the extent that even myself as a reader have not been able to stop thinking about fictional Foster Dade. In this sense it is reminiscent of The Virgin Suicides both thematically and in terms of narration. The other two major comparisons I would make is to The Goldfinch, for its sprawling, in-depth character study and quite frankly it’s brilliant vocabulary, and of course Gossip Girl due to its incisive breakdown of the east coast elite and, the immaculate 2008-2010 cultural references.
Foster Dade Explores the Cosmos is long, very ambitious, and will put you through the emotional wringer, but it is so very worth it. This book blew me away, enraptured me if you will, easiest 5⭐️ I’ve given in a long time and I can’t wait to get my hands on a physical copy when it’s out and sell the shit out of it at work because I have a feeling Foster Dade will live in my head for a while.
Edit: almost everyone in this book uses a Blackberry, and for that reason alone I think we need more 2008 period pieces.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Homophobia, Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, and Drug abuse
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