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A review by kirstiecat
The Truth about Celia by Kevin Brockmeier
4.0
In some ways Brockmeier is a bit of an enigma to me. He's writing about a topic numerous other authors have written about, the disappearance of a child but the way he writes it seems so real and engaging without any sort of pretense or phony tear jerking scenes and yet one can't help but feel so drawn in to the characters and the story, to their alternate versions of history. Some of it is more fantastical in terms of its ideas and others of it are grand hallucinations the reader believes are truly happening just as the protagonist is. Borckmeier is honest and touching in his ability to write this kind of story, a delicate wonder that could easily become a stale cliché. When it seemed all words and worlds had already been explored, Brockmeier managed to transcend the limitations of already used language and make it all seem so real again.
Favorite Quotes:
pg 11 "She likes the way the joke makes a perfect ring, wrapping around on itself again and again, like a pinwheel or a revolving door, but not everyone thinks it's funny."
pg. 45 "NOTHING MAKES GOD LAUGH LIKE WHEN WE TELL HIM OUR PLANS FOR THE FUTURE"
pg. 91 "The school projector always sounded like a bicycle with a playing card pinned between the spokes, rattling softly then loudly and then softly again, and it gave the movies they watched in the classroom a stuttering sort of rhythm, a cadence of music that lay just beneath the action and came to seem inseparable from it."
pg. 106 "Janet felt an unexpected lightness inside her. There was no behavior so outlandish that it wasn't a believable human response to the world."
pg. 136 "Frank Lentini, Magician," and he headed for the front door. Just before he left, Micah took his sleeve and asked him a question: 'You're not me coming back from the future to tell me about my life, are you."
...
"No, son," he finally said. "No, I wish I was. Some tricks even a magician can't perform."
pg. 194 "...as if the words were crawling up from underneath his tongue."
pg. 207 "Sometimes he thinks that the world as we know it is as thin as a tissue of cloud-that we can pierce through it without even trying, stepping sideways out of ourselves, and end up in some other world altogether, or in no worked at all. Sometimes he thinks that the shout he heard that afternoon was the sound Celia made as the tissue closed behind her.
Favorite Quotes:
pg 11 "She likes the way the joke makes a perfect ring, wrapping around on itself again and again, like a pinwheel or a revolving door, but not everyone thinks it's funny."
pg. 45 "NOTHING MAKES GOD LAUGH LIKE WHEN WE TELL HIM OUR PLANS FOR THE FUTURE"
pg. 91 "The school projector always sounded like a bicycle with a playing card pinned between the spokes, rattling softly then loudly and then softly again, and it gave the movies they watched in the classroom a stuttering sort of rhythm, a cadence of music that lay just beneath the action and came to seem inseparable from it."
pg. 106 "Janet felt an unexpected lightness inside her. There was no behavior so outlandish that it wasn't a believable human response to the world."
pg. 136 "Frank Lentini, Magician," and he headed for the front door. Just before he left, Micah took his sleeve and asked him a question: 'You're not me coming back from the future to tell me about my life, are you."
...
"No, son," he finally said. "No, I wish I was. Some tricks even a magician can't perform."
pg. 194 "...as if the words were crawling up from underneath his tongue."
pg. 207 "Sometimes he thinks that the world as we know it is as thin as a tissue of cloud-that we can pierce through it without even trying, stepping sideways out of ourselves, and end up in some other world altogether, or in no worked at all. Sometimes he thinks that the shout he heard that afternoon was the sound Celia made as the tissue closed behind her.