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Catalyst, by Laurie Halse Anderson
Jun. 12th, 2019 10:14 amYears and years ago, when this book first came out, I kept borrowing it off a friend of mine and then not actually reading it. I'd loved Speak and, later on, loved Wintergirls, but had never gotten around to reading more Anderson than that.
Catalyst is good but not as good. And reading it now as an adult, I can see why I kept shying away from it as a kid. Sexual assault and anorexia were thankfully subjects I had no real experience with, but academic stress and getting yourself into a shitty situation and continuously lying in the hopes that it would spontaneously resolve itself? Bristling with prickliness and resentment? Yeah, that sounds familiar. And unbearable.
The novel centers on Kate Malone, a driven and single-minded high school senior. She sees herself as split into Good Kate (shows up for her dad's chicken and biscuit dinners at church even though she's an atheist, takes care of her younger brother, is polite) and Bad Kate (selfish, occasionally seething with resentment, full of lusts and faults). Good Kate has applied to MIT, her (dead) mom's alma mater and her dream school. So far, so good. She was waitlisted and, as the novel opens, is now stuck in the agony of checking the mail everyday. It's particularly agonizing because, well, Bad Kate applied only to MIT, despite misleading everyone in her life into thinking she had safety schools. MIT is it for her, or it feels like her whole life is going to come crashing down around her.
Into all this comes Kate's classmate Teri Litch, whose house has burned down. She and her little brother move into Kate's house at her dad's invitation and very much not at Kate's. Kate grows to like the little brother, but at first it seems like nothing could make her like Teri, who steals from her (including the watch that Kate got from her mother), bullies her, and once beat her up. It's clear that class issues are part of this, but not, to be fair, the entirety of it; Teri genuinely and deliberately makes herself into someone pretty unpleasant to be around. For, it turns out, understandable reasons.
While Wintergirls and Speak both have prominent social issues they're tackling in a way that Catalyst doesn't--not as directly, anyway--Catalyst nonetheless feels like a cheaper, more "problem novel" take.
Spoilers below the cut.
( Read more... )
Catalyst is good but not as good. And reading it now as an adult, I can see why I kept shying away from it as a kid. Sexual assault and anorexia were thankfully subjects I had no real experience with, but academic stress and getting yourself into a shitty situation and continuously lying in the hopes that it would spontaneously resolve itself? Bristling with prickliness and resentment? Yeah, that sounds familiar. And unbearable.
The novel centers on Kate Malone, a driven and single-minded high school senior. She sees herself as split into Good Kate (shows up for her dad's chicken and biscuit dinners at church even though she's an atheist, takes care of her younger brother, is polite) and Bad Kate (selfish, occasionally seething with resentment, full of lusts and faults). Good Kate has applied to MIT, her (dead) mom's alma mater and her dream school. So far, so good. She was waitlisted and, as the novel opens, is now stuck in the agony of checking the mail everyday. It's particularly agonizing because, well, Bad Kate applied only to MIT, despite misleading everyone in her life into thinking she had safety schools. MIT is it for her, or it feels like her whole life is going to come crashing down around her.
Into all this comes Kate's classmate Teri Litch, whose house has burned down. She and her little brother move into Kate's house at her dad's invitation and very much not at Kate's. Kate grows to like the little brother, but at first it seems like nothing could make her like Teri, who steals from her (including the watch that Kate got from her mother), bullies her, and once beat her up. It's clear that class issues are part of this, but not, to be fair, the entirety of it; Teri genuinely and deliberately makes herself into someone pretty unpleasant to be around. For, it turns out, understandable reasons.
While Wintergirls and Speak both have prominent social issues they're tackling in a way that Catalyst doesn't--not as directly, anyway--Catalyst nonetheless feels like a cheaper, more "problem novel" take.
Spoilers below the cut.
( Read more... )
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