About the Book
-
Author:
- Blythe Woolston
- Genre:
- Contemporary
- Voices:
- Cis Boy
- Cis Girl
- White (Non-Specified)
Cover Story: Spine-tingling
BFF Charm: Yay!
Swoonworthy Scale: 0
Talky Talk: Straight To The Gut
Bonus Factors: Fishing, Road Trip, Edward Gorey
Terrifying Factor: MRSA
Relationship Status: Unlikley Besties
Cover Story: Spine-tingling
So here’s the thing with this cover: it scares the SHIT out of me. I don’t think it’s meant to be scary – the book is about two friends who obstinately go on a fishing trip – but it still scares my pants off. I think it’s the empty hooks, just sort of dangling in the murky water, plus the font . . . I feel like this book is going to be about a psycho hillbilly with three teeth who carve up unsuspecting teenaged fishers (after they have a party on the dock, drink, and lose their virginity, obvs) and then dangle their eyeballs in his aquarium full of body parts.
Somehow, I don’t think that’s exactly what they were going for, though.
The Deal:
Polly and Odd weren’t friends. They aren’t friends now, really. They only know each other because they spent time talking at the hospital – they are the only survivors of a lethal strain of MRSA which claimed the lives of the other five people it infected. Three football players. One lunch lady. One baby. Half of Polly’s face and one of her eyes. One of Odd’s legs.
Polly’s picture-perfect plans of life after high school – graduating, going to a nice, 4-year school, settling down with her boyfriend Bridger – are all gone, and if Odd had any plans for his life, he sure as hell doesn’t have them now. So when he shows up at Polly’s door and asks if she wants to go on a fishing trip, she decides to say yes.
While the two wander through the Northwest in search of the one that got away, they finally confront their lives-as-they-exist and come to grips with whether those lives are worth living.
BFF Charm: Yay!
Ugh, guys, Polly and Odd really got me. Like, straight in the gut! What’s funny is that I’m not sure I’d have been friends with pre-MRSA Polly or Odd, but now that their friends have all ditched them? Yeah, I kind of love them.
Polly is sick of being treated like rare glass by her mother, but at the same time, she’s afraid to go out of the house and confront the stares of people around her. She’s bitter and confused and pissed off, but she still has awry sense of humor about the entire situation and she’s obsessed with watching monster movies (tv is one of the few things, it turns out, you don’t need stereoscopic vision for). I would SO pop some popcorn and watch the hell out of some Lake Placid 2 with this girl.
And Odd? Odd is, well . . . unhinged. He is a jumbled mess of need, rage, and confusion, and I just want to pet him on the head, tuck him in and tell him it’s all going to be okay. He’s such a good kid, in the best sense of the word, and even when it seems he’s gone off his rocker, he always has a very good reason.
Swoonworthy Scale: 0
At first I was a little frustrated that things didn’t turn swoony between Polly and Odd, especially because at the beginning of the book I just assumed they’d be getting together. But I think it worked out better this way – this is a story about learning to love yourself, not someone else. Just like they say in rehab (I’ve heard), first you have to take care of yourself, and then you get to take care of a plant, and then a pet and if after a few years you haven’t managed to kill any of those things, you can date someone.
Talky Talk: Straight To The Gut
Man, I was so damn weepy during this book! It’s not even a sad book, as it goes, but it didn’t matter! Half the pages are still damp with my tears. Woolston’s writing is evocative and lovely, but she’s not afraid to make her teenagers sound like teenagers, either. There were so many times I “DUBS TRUE” fist-pumped while reading this book that I can’t list them all, but here are two:
Fishing is all about lies, and not the ones people tell about the monsters that got away. Fishing is about the lies we tell to the fish and the lies they choose to believe.
and
On the field they crash together, some fast shuffling, then the whistle. Number 36 is down, not down flat-on-the-back down. He’s down on his knees like he’s waiting for the executioner’s ax. People move like ants when you flip over a rock, organized but frantic.
Bridger says, “Don’t worry. He’s OK.”
. . . Number 36’s back is hunched, his head is tucked down, and his arm swings a little with his breathing. Every little tick of the second hand is measured in pain. I can see that; the clench of the body after each ragged breath, that’s the tell.
The others stand around him like bison, massive in the front quarters thanks to the shoulder pads, but narrow in the ass for speed. You can see the calculation written in the evaporating sweat. A broken collarbone means . . . and what they can do about it is . . . and what they can do without Number 36 is . . . .
What can we do without Number 36?
A person could never tell from this moment, frozen in the yellow light, that he has a sense of humor. He wrote funny things on the whiteboards in empty classrooms and everyone, teachers and students, pretended we didn’t know who was making us smile. In this moment, he is just a hurt animal, and that’s how I remember him.
But none of that matters now, because that game is totally over and Number 36 is totally dead. His broken bone healed. It healed stronger than before. He got faster and bigger and stronger, but none of that matters. Number 36 became Case One.
Bonus Factor: Fishing
I actually don’t LOVE fishing, because (whispers) I think it’s kind of boring. ALSO you know that scene in There’s Something About Mary (no, not that scene) where she accidentally hooks him with her fishing hook? Yeah, I have done that like FIVE TIMES. Once I accidentally did it to my GRANDPA, y’all. I’m way too uncoordinated to fish.
That said, I loved reading about Polly’s fishing methods! It made me want to get out on the lake and catch some catfish! Instead I just ate a lot of fish while reading this book and then felt guilty about it.
Bonus Factor: Road Trip
You guys know I’m a sucker for a fictional road trip! (I’m a complaining bitch about real road trips, though. “Can we PLEASE change the station? Where’s the nearest Buc-ees? I HAVE TO PEE.”) I loved traveling through Yellowstone (!!) with Polly and Odd, pretending I was seeing the sights (and drinking their vodka and whiskey).
Bonus Factor: Edward Gorey
At one point, Odd decides he and Polly need to write children’s books, since their former life plans are now out the window. Polly decides the book should be about monsters and makes up little rhymes starting with each letter of the alphabet. I couldn’t help but think of the Gashlycrumb Tinies. As I threaten people that I’m about to die of ennui on a daily basis, I obviously had to make it a bonus factor.
Terrifying Factor: MRSA
YOU GUYS. Nothing in the WORLD scares me more than MRSA. It has scared me since I was a little girl and MRSA wasn’t even the name for it then and they just called it the “flesh-eating virus.” I was always a fearful child (I was convinced that acid rain would literally melt the flesh from my bones and I once stayed inside the house for an entire YEAR because I’d read in the newspaper that African killer bees were spotted in my town), but nothing scared me then, or scares me now, like MRSA. I know several people who have lost their lives to MRSA and many more who have lost their limbs and I spent the first half of this book wiping down every surface in my house with Lysol*.
(Though, as far as these things go, reading this book wasn’t as scary as watching Contagion on an airplane. Guys? Don’t do that.)
* Yeah, I know that’s why we have MRSA in the first place! BUT WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO NOW???
(Also just searching led me to like hundreds of photos of MRSA symptoms and I AM NOT SLEEPING TONIGHT.)
Relationship Status: Unlikely Besties
Book, let’s be honest. Even though I’ve talked to your mom a few times on the internet, that’s no guarantee that we were going to hit it off. When your mom sent you over to my house to play and included a postcard of floating (real) hearts and creepy dolls, it was definitely a bonus, but you still sort of looked like you might chop me up and sell my body parts on craigslist. I was wary, to say the least.
But Book, you really surprised me! I was drawn to you and your life story almost instantly, and I couldn’t wait to get to know you more. We road-tripped together, talked about big issues, swapped jokes and cringed at the idea of anyone not showering for several days straight. By the time our visit was over, I knew we’d be besties for life! But you’re not allowed to talk about MRSA anymore. Cause that shit scares me too much.
FTC Full Disclosure: I received my free review copy from Blythe Woolston and Carolrhoda Labs (TOLD you they were killing it lately!). I received neither money nor cocktails for this review (damnit!). Catch and Release was released this Wednesday and is available in stores now!
