thereadingcountess 's review for:

The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharp

5.0

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After reading some reviews about The Spectacular Now before beginning it myself, I already had some preconceived notions about what to expect. But that's what makes Tharp's writing so amazing...it was nothing like I expected. Sutter is everything you'd think an 18 year old alcoholic narrator would be: narcissistic, selfish, self-destructive, compulsive...you get the drill. Yet he remains hugely likable. He's charming and the reader roots for him despite (or because of?) his foibles. But The Spectacular Now is so much more than an unflinching look at the underbelly of one young man's rapid descent. Thanks to Sutter's pitch-perfect voice, it's a glimpse at familial alcoholism, the damage that secrets swept under the rug and never acknowledged can do to souls, and friendship. Some of Sutter's friends took him to task and told him to get himself right, to think about someone other than himself for once; while others went along for the ride and descended down the same dark hole with him. Who was the better friend?

Tharp allows Sutter to rise above himself in the end with Aimee, and that somehow made up for all the wrong he did in the book. He was a better man in the end, and finally thought about someone other than himself.

Or WAS he a better man in the end? Oh, how tragic, the ending.

Beginning and finishing a book in one sitting makes it a five star, right?

Highly recommended. Thought provoking and sure to stoke much conversation between myself and oldest son. Thank God for our mother-son book swaps.