The Exchange

Dear Kubi,
I cried.

This was a post by Hanna, who is still trying to sort through all of her emotions. She regrets gobbling up a Snickers before she began reading this book because now she has no chocolate bar to turn to while she’s being all weepy. She has just finished reading it and now she wants you to read it, too.

(Or: The One Where Kubi Writes a Review After a Bajillion Years.)

I just finished The Big Crunch by Pete Hautman and absolutely love it. I’m still trying to figure out what exactly made me so attached to it. Bear with me as I sort through my thoughts with you.

Last night, I talked about how my woefully high expectations might have ruined the book for me. I felt as if something was missing somehow. Like I had dug a hole in my heart to make room for loving the book and then realizing that maybe the hole was too big. Hanna said that admitting this had freed me to truly enjoy it. Maybe she was right. By the time I finished reading, that hole had just about filled up without my even thinking about it.

Perhaps a lot of it also has to do with Pete Hautman’s style. It’s almost understated because he’s just describing everyday things. Walking home from school, cleaning out a garage, seeing a movie, or waiting for a text message. On the other hand, he’s also writing about people falling in love. Everything else is still ordinary but you aren’t. You look the same on the outside, but there’s a storm in your chest. Nothing is happening, then suddenly everything is happening all at once. You want the whole universe to celebrate with you, for it to freeze just so you can keep feeling that way forever. That’s what sucks, because obviously it doesn’t. The world will go on with or without you. Shit still happens, and you have to take it as it comes because that’s what real life is.

That’s what Wes and June’s story is like, most of the time. They are in love, but they have to deal with a lot of uncertainty. Hautman lets the teen romance norms fall away so what you end up with is a very real, and sometimes, very painful love story.

I don’t want to give too much away, but there are these parts in the book where Hautman plays with time and relativity and how the world slows down or speeds up depending on how you’re feeling. I’m sorry that I’m about to use a cliché to describe a book that makes it a point to break away from the clichés, but I truly felt like those paragraphs were written just for me.

Read this book.

This was a post by Kubi who is contemplating an afternoon nap.

I’m currently reading The Big Crunch by Pete Hautman. Finally, after many months of lusting after and searching for it, I found a single, battered copy in a bookstore far outside my home range. I wanted it so badly, I overlooked its heinous price and dirty dust jacket. I was also poor so I had to convince my father (who generally disapproves of my spending habits) to buy it for me. It was tough love at first, but he conceded eventually.

SO. Reading it has been interesting. I think, because I have been wanting it for so long, I set my expectations so high. I can’t remember anything like this ever happening to me before. I mean, I sometimes think about what a book will be like and have, on some occasions, been wildly wrong (Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote is a good example.) But I don’t think I’ve ever risked such a high fall the way I’ve done with The Big Crunch. I’m halfway through and I keep reminding my brain to stop over-processing things so I can just enjoy the story. What I’ve read so far is strong prose about real, fleshed-out characters. The build-up is subtle, and when Boy and Girl finally collide, it’s like a punch in the gut. There is major squee. But I have this naggy feeling in the back of my head, asking me where all the epiphanies are. Agh. Expectations are a bitch. That said, I’m still enjoying this book very much.

This was a post by Kubi who is looking forward to waking up late tomorrow.