Book Review: What I Was, by Meg Rosoff

Count me amongst Meg Rosoff's fans: I appreciate her off-kilter view on the world, her odd protagonists, and the room she leaves in her novels for the reader to think while events unfold.

What I Was is Rosoff's third novel and the second with a male narrator. This narrator tells his tale from the vantage point of old age, though his story concerns a brief period in his life while a student at a sub par boarding school in the 1960s. St. Oswald's is the type of institution that takes boys who have failed elsewhere. It is a grim establishment with gates, gray food, cold dorms, rats, and cruel boys. It's not surprising, then, that the narrator--Hilary--becomes distracted by Finn, a boy his age who lives by himself in a hut on an island.

Finn is entirely self-sufficient and no one knows he lives alone in his hut by the sea. Hilary visits as often as he can, bringing food and supplies, enduring Finn's silences because Hilary simply can't help himself. He's attracted to Finn, wants to be Finn. Hilary sneaks out of school, violates curfews, and lies to his roommates--all to be with Finn. Hilary's movements don't go unnoticed, however. One of his roommates is as attracted to Hilary as Hilary is to Finn.

What I Was is a quiet story of adolescent obsession until events come to a head. Finn falls seriously ill and Hilary must decide whether or not to alert authorities, a violent storm floods the hut and kills Hilary's schoolboy stalker. And Hilary learns something about Finn that he (and the reader) never suspects.

Hilary is not a sympathetic narrator. He's distant--to himself and to others. But he does narrate the truth and his story is one worth reading. What I Was is highly recommended for teen and adult readers.
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Other Blog Reviews:

BookLove
In the Tower
Monsters and Critics
Lewiston Public Library
Slacks for Ella Funt

Alternate Endings

Don't miss this Boston Globe article in which Meg Rosoff, Gregory Maguire, Jeanne Birdsall, and Chris Bohjalian propose alternate endings to the Harry Potter series. Rosoff's is the funniest, but they're all quite good, especially as we are all now waiting.

Will this be a very quiet weekend?

Book Reviewing

Meg Rosoff explains why she only reviews books she likes in the Guardian Book Blog. She sums it up with this story:

• "A journalist friend told me about reviewing an Elmore Leonard novel negatively, then meeting the author a few months later at a literary festival. The critic found him dignified, charming, and modest, writing and speaking with as much care and professionalism at 84 as he'd done for the past 50 years. The flaws of the novel seemed suddenly insignificant, my friend told me, and he felt ashamed."

There's something about those negative reviews. I avoid them too, even if I'll mention a book I didn't like in the comments.

Meg Rosoff's next

Meg Rosoff talks about writing her next book (due to her publisher September 2008, though there must be another one due out this year if I understand the article correctly) on the Guardian books blog. She's terrified, which makes sense considering how good her first two novels were. Here's what she has to say:

• "The real issue is terror. Terror that the characters will turn out cute, the plot banal, the dialog clunky and embarrassing. Terror that this one will be the egregious misjudged atrocity, the one about which the critics say, 'I frankly marvel that the author of X could have written so many pages of vapid drivelling nonsense,' or, more pithily: 'there isn't a single convincing moment in the entire story.' Of course you only get that sort of review once. The book after The Atrocity is met with a huge echoing silence... that... lasts... forever."