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A review by macleodholdfast
Extraordinary Means by Robyn Schneider
3.0
I want to avoid spoilers in my review of this book, but I do need to point out that as with The Beginning of Everything, Extraordinary Means had a lackluster ending that didn't live up to the premise of the rest of the novel, and left me disappointed when I had otherwise been thoroughly invested. Now that's all I'll say on the matter.
Lane is an incoming senior in high school when he's diagnosed with total-drug-resistant TB and sent to a sanatorium for teens in Northern California to convalesce and (80% of the time) recover. The sanatorium, Latham House, is just not what Lane is looking for - its easy-going methods and hands-off approach feels like it's going to put him behind in all of his AP classes, and he's gunning for Stanford. What he discovers, however, is that his high-stress lifestyle is not conducive to recovering from TB.
The approach that does seem to work, however, still isn't the one prescribed by Latham. It's the one Sadie and her friends Nick, Marina and Charlie have developed in their lengthier stays at Latham. Sadie actually knows Lane - they went to summer camp once when they were thirteen, and Sadie hates him. She wants to completely ignore his appearance at Latham in favor of co-running the Latham black market (mostly candy and other non-TB friendly materials), taking fantastical pictures of her friends in the forest, and skipping out on the sad school activities Latham offers.
That is, until Sadie finds out she may have made a mistake about Lane, and their lives crash together.
There's an ethereal quality to the way Schneider writes about the fictional Latham House that I really enjoyed in reading this story. It's like there's a glossy finish over everything, something that makes everything extra bright and extra interesting. The book alternates points of view between Lane and Sadie, and the sharp contrast between their two perspectives was really interesting to read.
I love the group dynamic of Sadie's friends, of their heist-like behavior in the library where they steal internet against the 30-minute-a-week rules. I liked that Sadie wasn't there to "fix" Lane's behavior - that she was never his reality check, that she very much shirked the manic pixie dream girl type that I've become so sick of in YA literature.
The world and characters were really stellar to me.
However.
Well, however -
I'm unimpressed with the overall messages the book tries to get away with. Lane is forced to realize he wasn't really "living" when he was just focusing on getting into a good school, which is a slap in the face to anyone who actually does have to work that hard, who actually needs a good school to have a good future. His realization that frivolity is the answer just seems too naive and unrealistic, even in the face of a potential (80% chance) "life is short" reality.
And Sadie and Lane's relationship, like so many in YA, is borne entirely from circumstance - though they did know each other peripherally before Latham, it's the being thrust together in a sanatarium that makes them suddenly realize they like each other. As usual, there's no good reason for them to be romantically involved, with the exception of raging teenage hormones, but the book posits they have a world-ending love that changes them forever. Maybe I'm being a bit of a naysayer, but many a great relationship in YA fiction is borne of more than proximity.
I liked the world and the characters, but the overall message just didn't sit right with me. Perhaps that's because I'm no longer a teenager, but I don't typically come out of YA lit thinking "I'm too old for this," and for the majority of Extraordinary Means I didn't feel that way. So I'm a little sad that what was otherwise a great book left me feeling so full of disagreements and disbelief.
Schneider's writing is lovely, and I'll probably pick up any of her ensuing novels, but I think I just don't agree with her message.
Lane is an incoming senior in high school when he's diagnosed with total-drug-resistant TB and sent to a sanatorium for teens in Northern California to convalesce and (80% of the time) recover. The sanatorium, Latham House, is just not what Lane is looking for - its easy-going methods and hands-off approach feels like it's going to put him behind in all of his AP classes, and he's gunning for Stanford. What he discovers, however, is that his high-stress lifestyle is not conducive to recovering from TB.
The approach that does seem to work, however, still isn't the one prescribed by Latham. It's the one Sadie and her friends Nick, Marina and Charlie have developed in their lengthier stays at Latham. Sadie actually knows Lane - they went to summer camp once when they were thirteen, and Sadie hates him. She wants to completely ignore his appearance at Latham in favor of co-running the Latham black market (mostly candy and other non-TB friendly materials), taking fantastical pictures of her friends in the forest, and skipping out on the sad school activities Latham offers.
That is, until Sadie finds out she may have made a mistake about Lane, and their lives crash together.
There's an ethereal quality to the way Schneider writes about the fictional Latham House that I really enjoyed in reading this story. It's like there's a glossy finish over everything, something that makes everything extra bright and extra interesting. The book alternates points of view between Lane and Sadie, and the sharp contrast between their two perspectives was really interesting to read.
I love the group dynamic of Sadie's friends, of their heist-like behavior in the library where they steal internet against the 30-minute-a-week rules. I liked that Sadie wasn't there to "fix" Lane's behavior - that she was never his reality check, that she very much shirked the manic pixie dream girl type that I've become so sick of in YA literature.
The world and characters were really stellar to me.
However.
Well, however -
I'm unimpressed with the overall messages the book tries to get away with. Lane is forced to realize he wasn't really "living" when he was just focusing on getting into a good school, which is a slap in the face to anyone who actually does have to work that hard, who actually needs a good school to have a good future. His realization that frivolity is the answer just seems too naive and unrealistic, even in the face of a potential (80% chance) "life is short" reality.
And Sadie and Lane's relationship, like so many in YA, is borne entirely from circumstance - though they did know each other peripherally before Latham, it's the being thrust together in a sanatarium that makes them suddenly realize they like each other. As usual, there's no good reason for them to be romantically involved, with the exception of raging teenage hormones, but the book posits they have a world-ending love that changes them forever. Maybe I'm being a bit of a naysayer, but many a great relationship in YA fiction is borne of more than proximity.
I liked the world and the characters, but the overall message just didn't sit right with me. Perhaps that's because I'm no longer a teenager, but I don't typically come out of YA lit thinking "I'm too old for this," and for the majority of Extraordinary Means I didn't feel that way. So I'm a little sad that what was otherwise a great book left me feeling so full of disagreements and disbelief.
Schneider's writing is lovely, and I'll probably pick up any of her ensuing novels, but I think I just don't agree with her message.