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A review by angelamichelle
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
4.0
Told with gobs of asides--literary allusions, cultural references, scientific similes. Fun to wade through all the flourishes--how did the author have the energy to lavish so much whimsy and so many referents on every blessed little thing. But then, I wanted to just read the book and know what happened next in the story, so I lost patience with the whimsy and flourishes and skimmed a hundred pages or so. But THEN the ending took a surprising turn, revealing that the book really wasn't about a self-absorbed group of teenagers and that breadcrumbs from hundreds of pages ago would be picked back up.
[SPOILERS: Precocious girl and her uber-intellectual father move from one visiting professorship to another until they settle down for her senior year. She gets pulled into the orbit of an eccentric teacher and her pet group of bluebloods. Things get psycho. Turns out Dad, teacher, and other minor characters are all radicals in hiding.]
[SPOILERS: Precocious girl and her uber-intellectual father move from one visiting professorship to another until they settle down for her senior year. She gets pulled into the orbit of an eccentric teacher and her pet group of bluebloods. Things get psycho. Turns out Dad, teacher, and other minor characters are all radicals in hiding.]