So far, I find the book to be fast paced and very friendly to any reader with attention issues (it shifts topics very quickly, and the first chapter is actually divided up into parts.) It actually reminds me of Catch-22, because it has a lot of different characters, settings, and it is very much an ensemble performance made by the every one of these fictional characters. It is also very funny and has over the top scenarios. It even has the same publisher: Simon and Schuster. However, Catch-22 is told from the perspective of an omniscient third party, and this story is told from the perspective of 28 year old Isabelle Spellman.
Isabelle starts us off with a prologue featuring a very unusual car chase that involves a twist at the end, so I do not feel comfortable getting into too many details about it. 72 hours later she is being interrogated by an inspector. She needs to start her story from the beginning for the inspector, and so that is exactly what she does for the readers. She goes all the way back to the beginning. She discusses her parents and how they first met, she describes her perfect older brother David, her younger sister Rae, her New Uncle Ray, and herself and her friend Petra. I actually really enjoyed that setup, because of how much character development there was. I really feel like I got to know her family and its dynamics.
The dynamic of her family nearly destroys her as a child and even as an adult. She really doesn't "grow up" until she's 23. From the time she is a little girl, she is very jealous of her older brother David. He is perfect in every way and she cannot live up to that. She styles herself the troublemaker in the family and gets progressively worse as she ages. As a child she is only guilty of pranks. But as she becomes a teen, she is committing crimes, not doing homework, drinking, trying to sell blow...You get the picture. Her parents cannot understand what is wrong with her. But her brother David seems to instinctively know what the problem is. The problem is him. She cannot live up to him and so she acts out. Out of guilt, David becomes even more perfect. He does everything to cover for her and be the best older brother a younger sister ever had. It isn't until she is 23, and sees how much her behavior is affecting David, that she really starts to change and become a mature adult.
Certainly, in my own life, I can relate to Izzy. I also had a "perfect" older brother. Well...not as perfect as David. But he was generally considered better than me in every way possible. He was smarter, friendlier, more athletic, etc. And that is a very hard thing to live up to, especially if your parents don't like you as much as your older sibling. As an adult, it is something that I have to be aware of, and I need to realize that I am good enough as I am. As the low man on the totem pole in my own family, I need to recognize that I only need to live up to the standards that I set for myself. I saw myself as the bad one in my family, and it had consequences in other areas of my life. Izzy finds this out in the book. The more she sees herself as the darkness to her brother's light, the worse she becomes--more drunk, irresponsible, and setting a horrible example for her younger sister. Once she changes her perception of herself, that she does not have to be as bad as her brother isn't, she becomes a better person. I don't have to be the screwup in my family, and I hope that most people who are considered the screwup kid realize this as well. Valuing yourself can take you further than the value your family places on you ever will.
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