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A review by catsobvi
Downtown Owl by Chuck Klosterman
3.0
Initially, I found this book really funny. I listened to it while commuting to work, and spent a lot of time laughing out loud. For instance, I really enjoyed when Mitch was taking the test on 1984 and we heard his answers to the questions v. what he was really thinking. Yes, I think we might call the author too clever for his own good, but for something to listen to while driving it was really entertaining at the beginning. Then it gradually gets darker and darker. This is not a bad thing, though I did start to miss the laughs later in the story.
While the characters were amusing, I did not think they were very well-drawn. They all kind of sounded the same. I frequently had problems following who was speaking if their words weren't followed by some variation of "So-and-so said." And Mitch I found to be a pretty unconvincing teenager. He was way too sharp and insightful for what he was supposed to be.
The description for the book says that it asks the question "What does it mean to be normal?" I actually thought it was more looking at others' perception of ourselves v. the reality of who we are. Towards the end of the story, we get two new narrators: Mr. Laidlaw & Cubby Candy. Both of these are frequent characters throughout the story, but we only see them from others' perspectives. In their sections, however, we get their side of things. (I'm not sure that I really liked having those sections, but I get why they were there.) Another example is Horace. He fights for survival in the snowstorm because he's worried about what his friends will think if he dies out there. And then there's the article on Grendel that describes him in a way that contradicts what the readers know about him. Throughout the story we are faced with how a character is perceived or wants to be perceived and who they actually are. I really enjoyed this aspect.
What I did not enjoy was that ending. We knew something crazy was going to happen since it started with news about the snowstorm, but was it really necessary? I kind of wanted to cry when Mitch was lamenting the loss of his sister's football talent because there wouldn't be anyone else to tell her how great she was. While it was unpleasant having 2/3 of the characters who had narrated the story for us die, what I really disliked about the ending was how out of place it seemed. What was the point? It felt like he had no idea how to end the story, so, hey, let's have a huge snowstorm and kill some people.
While the characters were amusing, I did not think they were very well-drawn. They all kind of sounded the same. I frequently had problems following who was speaking if their words weren't followed by some variation of "So-and-so said." And Mitch I found to be a pretty unconvincing teenager. He was way too sharp and insightful for what he was supposed to be.
The description for the book says that it asks the question "What does it mean to be normal?" I actually thought it was more looking at others' perception of ourselves v. the reality of who we are. Towards the end of the story, we get two new narrators: Mr. Laidlaw & Cubby Candy. Both of these are frequent characters throughout the story, but we only see them from others' perspectives. In their sections, however, we get their side of things. (I'm not sure that I really liked having those sections, but I get why they were there.) Another example is Horace. He fights for survival in the snowstorm because he's worried about what his friends will think if he dies out there. And then there's the article on Grendel that describes him in a way that contradicts what the readers know about him. Throughout the story we are faced with how a character is perceived or wants to be perceived and who they actually are. I really enjoyed this aspect.
What I did not enjoy was that ending. We knew something crazy was going to happen since it started with news about the snowstorm, but was it really necessary? I kind of wanted to cry when Mitch was lamenting the loss of his sister's football talent because there wouldn't be anyone else to tell her how great she was. While it was unpleasant having 2/3 of the characters who had narrated the story for us die, what I really disliked about the ending was how out of place it seemed. What was the point? It felt like he had no idea how to end the story, so, hey, let's have a huge snowstorm and kill some people.