Tuesday, March 24, 2015

The Alex Crow by Andrew Smith

22466277
3 Stars
 
Before starting The Alex Crow I was feeling kinda like this . . .

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Now that I’m finished, I’m feeling a little different . . .

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That’s not to say this was a baaaaaaaad book. I found it interesting and read it in a day. It just wasn’t for me. The Alex Crow is a complex story. It not only tells the tale of Ariel . . .

“Here is an immigrant kid, a second son named Ariel, who has lived, and lived, and lives again, in a place called Sunday.”

But also that of a schizophrenic named Lenny, the ill-fated voyage of the Alex Crow, the Dumpling Man, a very unusual crow, and one unforgettable summer spent at a camp for boys who have an unhealthy relationship with technology who I pictured looking a lil' something like this . . .

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The Alex Crow is a book that takes you on its journey via various narrators and through different places in time. It’s one I can’t tell you much about because the getting there is the entire point. I can say the trip was interesting one that made me think about some larger than life issues . .

“There’s not a single thing on this planet – not an organism, a sea, a river or lake, and even the weather that surrounds us, that hasn’t been changed by human beings. For good or bad, we’re in charge of the rate at which everything changes now. Every living thing and the majority of nonliving systems too. We’ve become our own God, I suppose.”

I also confirmed that although Andrew Smith’s stories always center around the a 14-16 year old boy, they are NEVER the same.

Smith took some flack in the past week or so regarding what I considered a completely benign statement about his ability to write a “quality” female character and was accused of being at most a woman hater or at minimum a perpetuator of “normalized sexism.” Why can’t he just be called a guy who writes what he wants to write? Don’t like his books, don’t buy them. As for me? I love him and will continue to read whatever he chooses to produce . . . whether they include female characters or not. Heck, it’s not often I find an author whose “misses” for me still score 3 Stars.

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