More on Special Topics

At 2:47am, I finished Special Topics in Calamity Physics. To paraphrase Maxwell, it was "good to the last word".

Roughly 500 pages long, the book does take its time getting to the climax, but getting there is half the fun. The story revolves around Blue Van Meer and her father Gareth. They move around a lot, her father being a college professor always on the look-out for a new location. On the road, they read to one another, and thus, Blue is brilliant.

The premise of the book is that he decides to "stay put" for her senior year of High School. She is invited by a young teacher, Hannah Schneider, to Sunday dinners at her house with a few other students referred to as "The Bluebloods".

I'll admit, it took me about four months to read the first 250 pages; I couldn't convince myself to pick up a book. I read the last 250 pages in three days. I couldn't put it down.

The aspect I enjoyed the most was that every time I thought I knew what was going to happen, there was another twist and the whole thing was a question mark again.

The end was definitely more contemporary novel than classic; it was as if we were left standing in the background, no resolve, no "happily ever after", just the end.

And I loved it.