Sonder


Author: jjong_lemoncandy

This book is not what I was promised.

In the author's note to her book, jjong_lemoncandy tells us that Sonder contains some important life-changing messages:

-Suicide is NEVER the answer.

-No one is pure evil or pure good.

-Don't be a bystander if you see someone getting bullied.

-Love yourself.

-Be yourself.

-etc.

I expected an upbeat, heart-warming book about the trials of teen friendship and romance. Instead I got a book that was (unintentionally? intentionally?) designed to undermine the messages jjong hoped to convey. The book is only three chapters so far, but these are long chapters. Let's dive in.

The book switches POV characters, but its protagonist and central viewpoint is a teenage boy named Armin Jager. We start with Armin's story. Jjong does a good job setting up interesting character dynamics between Armin and his twin brother Mikael, and between Armin and his classmates. Armin is a ghost-- ignored by his parents, cast aside by his brother, invisible to his peers. Jjong lets us feel Armin's isolation. We want to root for him, and we wonder why everyone is so mean to him, yet so full of admiration for his brother. Armin both resents and loves Mikael. He wants Mikael's status, he wants Mikael's hot girlfriend, Christelle, and he wants his mom to talk to him the way that she talks to Mikael. But he feels powerless to change his lot in life.

Sonder takes an unexpectedly dark turn when Armin befriends an asian brother and sister duo named Lee Kimchi and Lee Haneul. This is also where the stereotypes begin. Kimchi and Haneul are both practitioners of the dark arts. I have to say, I'm tired of asians being typecast as evil wizards. (Let's get this straight guys: NOT ALL ASIANS ARE INTO WITCHCRAFT!)

Kimchi and Hanuel convince Armin that he and Mikael can switch places if he brings them a vial of Mikael's blood, one of Christelle's used tampons, and the heart of a cow.

Armin gets up to all sorts of misadventures retrieving these items. The problems start when he mistakenly steals a girl named Rosalina's tampon from a washroom at his school. This misfire has two major consequences: 

1) After Kimchi and Hanuel conduct the spell, Rosalina falls in love with Armin instead of Christelle.

2) Mikael is eaten alive by a pack of roaming wolves.

Distraught over the loss of his brother, Armin is willing to do almost anything to bring Mikael back to life. Kimchi and Hanuel tell Armin that they are practiced in the art of necromancy. However, in order for them to bring Mikael back from death, Armin has to kill all of the people on Kimchi and Hanuel's "hit list."

From here the story devolves into a nihilistic tsunami of blood. Armin poisons the school secretary's coffee because Kimchi feels that Secretary Harris is, "Cramping [his] style." He tracks down Dylan and Cole Sprouse and decapitates them with an axe because Hanuel, "Really [wasn't] a big fan of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody." He microwaves a cat because Kimchi is allergic. Etc.

Poor Rosalina, desperately in love with Armin, becomes an accomplice to his crimes, and ends up cutting out Christelle's heart with a steak knife.

Two Mulder and Scully-esque FBI agents get involved, and we spend a few thousand words learning about their impulsive sexual relationship. They can't stop doing it in restaurant bathrooms. There are some real dialogue gems here, like, "Something about the 1-ply toilet paper they use in that Wendy's... it scratches me in all the right places."

Kimchi and Hanuel enter a suicide pact. (Um... I thought suicide was never the answer?)

Through all of this, Jjong wants us to like Armin. She wants us to root for him. But it's hard for me to sympathize with Armin when he saws off a toddler's leg and then feeds it to a rottweiler.

Maybe some people are just evil, Jjong. Maybe some people don't deserve forgiveness.

I couldn't stomach this book.

0/10

Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: AzTruyen.Top

Tags: #reviews