Kind of a Big Deal by Shannon Hale
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Synopsis:
Kind of a Big Deal is a story about a washed-up high school star who realizes that after high school, she is no longer a big deal. In fact, no one cares about who she was in high school (surprise, surprise). One day she finds herself literally sucked into a book. She becomes a character in the story and starts to experience the book in the first person. After experiencing this odd phenomenon several times, Josie finds that she doesn’t want to leave these stories because, at the moment, they’re better than her real life.
My Thoughts:
Let me start by saying that I really liked this book! But I have to be honest–I was not initially impressed. I considered giving up on it until I learned about all the characters’ backstories and became invested in their stories. My first impressions were that it was juvenile, cliche, and had very jerky pacing with confusing humor. For some reason, I assumed that the book was a flop due to poor writing, but then I realized that Shannon Hale had purposefully written it this way. Just like the main character, I had to realize that this story was not a tragedy, but a comedy, and I was not meant to take it so seriously. Of course it was juvenile–I’d found it in the teen section. Of course, it was cliche–the whole book is meant to be making fun of cliches. And of course it had jerky pacing–the main character literally is jerked in and out of stories without warning. We needed to feel that sudden lurch with her.
As for the weird humor, it just took me a while to remember that Shannon Hale can be silly. I’ve reread her mystical fairy tales so many times I’d forgotten that she was funny. This was the first book of hers that I’d read since rereading Book of a Thousand Days, and for some reason I expected it to have the same tone. Of course it didn’t, it was a completely different genre! I’ve read her random humor before in Austenland and The Actor and the Housewife, and this definitely had the same kind of flippant sarcasm. Except, in addition to the characters saying very silly things, the situations were also silly and intentionally weird. There were several parts when my first reaction was to frown and tilt my head, thinking, “What the crap?” Then I’d chuckle and read that part again because it was so random. For example, there is a part toward the end when she’s confronted with a very dangerous person and he’s going on and on about how dangerous he is and compares himself to an insect, going around unseen, hardly noticed. The main character asks him, “You really want to compare yourselves to insects?” And he shouts, “Insects are cool!” I don’t know why that made me laugh so hard except that he was in the middle of his bad guy monologue and all of a sudden he’s getting defensive about his weird bug obsession.
Overall
All in all, I enjoyed this book, though it took me a while to appreciate it. At first, I considered abandoning it, then I thought I’d only give it three stars, then I got completely sucked in and read it late into the night by the light of my lamp, curled around it in anticipation and laughing at the weird humor. This is not your average high school teen book. There is definitely a lot more to it. Personally, I want to read it again so I can fully appreciate it without my judgemental doubts I started with. I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a fun escape with some chuckles along the way.