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A review by monty_reads
The Other Normals by Ned Vizzini
2.0
2.5 stars.
I'm such a huge fan of Ned Vizzini's work, and I was so saddened by his death in December, that it's a serious bummer to feel like his final book really isn't very good. Peregrine ("Perry") is a stunted, nerdy kid who plays a lot of Creatures & Caverns, a game obviously indebted to Dungeons & Dungeons. He has no luck with girls and few friends – one, really, another C&C player – and his parents decide to send him to a summer camp. It's at this point that the book turns into an ineffective fantasy. Perry finds himself magically transported to the world of the Other Normals, sort of a parallel offshoot of Earth, only with centaurs and sluglike creatures. He gets embroiled in a plot to save their queen, and the remainder of the book sees him bouncing back and forth between Earth and the Other Normals.
It all seems very half-hearted, not as perceptive about teens as It's Kind of a Funny Story, nor as believably fantastic as Be More Chill. The stuff at the camp is simultaneously overwrought and uninteresting, Perry is a serious whiner of a protagonist, and in the fantasy elements Vizzini doesn't appear to fully understand what makes fantasy work, which means it all comes across as trying too hard.
It's all very depressing to have this be the final word in Vizzini's career on this Earth. I find it more satisfying to believe that in some other parallel offshoot of Earth, The Other Normals proves to be just a minor hitch in Vizzini's long, productive career.
I'm such a huge fan of Ned Vizzini's work, and I was so saddened by his death in December, that it's a serious bummer to feel like his final book really isn't very good. Peregrine ("Perry") is a stunted, nerdy kid who plays a lot of Creatures & Caverns, a game obviously indebted to Dungeons & Dungeons. He has no luck with girls and few friends – one, really, another C&C player – and his parents decide to send him to a summer camp. It's at this point that the book turns into an ineffective fantasy. Perry finds himself magically transported to the world of the Other Normals, sort of a parallel offshoot of Earth, only with centaurs and sluglike creatures. He gets embroiled in a plot to save their queen, and the remainder of the book sees him bouncing back and forth between Earth and the Other Normals.
It all seems very half-hearted, not as perceptive about teens as It's Kind of a Funny Story, nor as believably fantastic as Be More Chill. The stuff at the camp is simultaneously overwrought and uninteresting, Perry is a serious whiner of a protagonist, and in the fantasy elements Vizzini doesn't appear to fully understand what makes fantasy work, which means it all comes across as trying too hard.
It's all very depressing to have this be the final word in Vizzini's career on this Earth. I find it more satisfying to believe that in some other parallel offshoot of Earth, The Other Normals proves to be just a minor hitch in Vizzini's long, productive career.