| Genre: Mystery Main characters: Blue Van Meer, Hannah Schneider Summary: Ever since her mother’s death Blue Van Meer’s life has been a life of moving around, never spending more than two seasons in one place as her father wanted her to enlarge her horizons by getting to know as many things (people, places) as possible. Now she’s in her senior high-school year and her father plans to make her last year spent at home (before going to college) really special. He rents a huge house and the two plan to spend the full year in a single place for a change. Blue adapts to the school in the new place really well, especially after is taken by a teacher, Hannah Schneider, under her wing. Hannah sort of forces Blue into her circle (a circle formed by the most envied pupils in the school, nicknamed the Bluebloods), making her one of them, although social skills were far from being Blue’s forte. Only Hannah is found strangled to death, hanging by a tree. Her death is ruled suicide, but Blue thinks she knows better than that and starts playing detective by herself. |
Blue van Meer (named Blue after the first and only only butterfly species her mother, a butterfly aficionado, has ever caught) is, at the very beginning of the book, a quiet kid, having read way more than her share of books and having her whole world revolving around her Dad. We see her sort of as the caterpillar-turned-butterfly, as she is gradually coaxed from under her shell, getting to know people, getting to establish relationships with them, even getting a tiny little bit wild at times. Her Dad is… well, hard to put into words. A good-looking scholar very fond of appearances, a charming womanizer with an attachment problem, a very devoted father, are but a few of the things to be said of him. The Bluebloods are nothing but a bunch of rich spoiled kids, having faced no real dramas thus far and partying their lives away. Hannah is … interesting. She is presented very gradually to the reader – from the perfect looking and utterly captivating woman met in a supermarket, to the strange and seemingly depressed woman that cut her own hair (probably) in a moment of desperation. At the very first moment of meeting her the reader is shocked (I know I was) at the thought of that perfect creature going to die soon — as the story enfolds she becomes more and more unraveled, sometimes seems to be looking for death, even welcoming it.
This is a mystery book, very interesting especially after the mystery itself makes an appearance — but it’s a mystery book of my least favorite kind, the kind where the reader learns new things about the “case” as he goes along (thus making it impossible for him/her to find out “who did it” on his/her own, right after the murder, before the detective even gets to step in). It’s quite well written though, managing to keep the reader engaged every step along Blue’s digging up clues and solving the mystery (as a side note I have found Blue’s main way of discovering clues — in books — very inspired from the author’s part being very like Blue, the very essence of her :) ).
What I liked most: I found quite amusing the fact that the book is written in an doctoral paper style, complete with references and visual aids (just like Blue’s Dad taught her: “Always have everything you say exquisitely annotated, and, where possible, provide staggering Visual Aids.” :P ). Also, I have loved the idea of the “final exam” at the end, as a very original way to inform the user both about what happened next to some of the characters and about how he shouldn’t take at face value anything read before :)
What I liked least:
SPOILER
As a personal fault, I did not fully understand why did Blue’s Dad left her. At the very end the author suggest he left because he did not want to lose face — but what had he to lose face for? Was he a really Nightwatchman? The author seems to imply he wasn’t, and neither was Hannah. Or was he? Either way, I can’t help feeling he sort of overreacted by leaving his daughter, “the pear of his eye“. I know he was just the man to do such a grandly exaggerated gesture, but it seems a bit over the top even for him.
END SPOILER
Recommend it? Yes, it’s quite funny and captivating too.
Some quotes:
“I remembered what Dad said once, that some people have all of life’s answers worked out the day they’re born and there’s no use trying to teach them anything new. “They’re closed for business even though, somewhat confusingly, their doors open at eleven, Monday through Friday,” Dad said. And th trying to change what they think, the attempt to explain, the hope they’ll come to see your side of the things, it was exhausting, because it never made a dent and afterward you only ached unbearably.”
“Contrary to popular belief, person needs heartbreak an’ betrayal. Else you got no stayin’ power. Can’t play a lead for five whole acts. Can’t play two performances inna day. [...] See whut I’m sayin’? Person’s gotta get banged up. Gotta get jerked around, lived in. So he’s got something to use, see. Hurts like hell. Sure. Feels bad. Not sure you wanna go on. But that gives way to what they commonly call emotive re-zone-ance. An emotive rezonance makes it impossible fer people to take their eyes offa you, when yer onstage.”
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