Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You -- Peter Cameron

When it comes to the YA, comparisons to Catcher in the Rye are pretty common.  Whether or not they make sense is another story*.  This is one of the few cases in which it does.

I'm not saying that this book is trying to be Catcher or that James Sveck is a clone of Holden Caufield -- nothing like that.  But Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You captures the confusion and the angst, the feeling of knowing it all and the feeling of knowing nothing that so many of us felt when we were eighteen.  Reading this as an adult, I found that James, like Holden, is someone who I'd want to both comfort and strangle, probably at the same time.**  If I'd read it as a teen, I would have found much to identify with.

Reading it hurt.  It hurt because I was so immediately involved in James' life, his voice and his story that I felt his pain and confusion, because I remember so clearly my own version of that pain and confusion, and because I was all too aware of how soon it would be over.  All that hurt and I didn't want it to end.

It's fitting that two*** major moments in the story involve the theater -- there's something about the dialogue that made me imagine a dramatic adaptation.  It's very spare, but snappy and rhythmic and just... I just loved it. 

It's one that I know I'll go back to, and soon.  Not just to re-read the passages I marked, but to re-read the entire thing.  I'm glad to see that it's being cross-marketed to both teen and adult audiences.  I think it'll do well in both.

*The most recent big one being a blurb by Alexander McCall Smith on the cover of Spud.  While Spud was an entertaining, funny and enjoyable book, the only thing it really had in common with Catcher in the Rye was a male teen protagonist.  I say again, it would've made a lot more sense if he'd called it "South Africa's Adrian Mole!"  Less people would know the reference, maybe, but it would be more accurate.  Yes, yes, I know.  Let it go, Leila.  Just let it go.  Okay.  Moving on.

**An true-to-life extremely bright eighteen-year-old, in other words.

***Actually, three if you count the scene with James' mother's new (soon-to-be-ex) husband.

Comments

[Brian F.]

Yes, exactly! "Reading it hurt." My brain wanted to rebel. Half of me was thinking, "This is one messed up kid" and the other half was thinking, "And yet, I'm following his thought process and it makes perfect sense to me that he would arrive at the conclusions he does." I thought it was masterful. I'm now on a hunt to read the rest of Cameron's adult stuff, most of which, sadly, is OOP.

It's generally my policy to never utter the words, "I couldn't put it down" but this is the first book in a loooong time where that came the closest to being true.

I'm glad you read it. Spread the joy!

[Andrew Karre]

I adored this book. It stands up to lots of rereading. So many gems and so many wonderful connections among them to discover. The passage where James explains to his grandmother why he doesn't want to go to college is just one:

“It’s hard for me to explain why I don’t want to go [to college]. All I can say is that there’s nothing about going that appeals to me. I don’t want to be in that kind of social environment, I’ve been with people my own age all my life and I don’t really like them or seem to have much in common with them, and I feel that anything I want to know I can learn from reading books—basically that’s what you do in college anyway—and I feel I can do that on my own and waste all that money on something I don’t think I need or want."

I could be mean and steal Brian's favorite passage, but I suspect he'll post it here shortly, so I'll be nice.

[Brian F.]

I don't have it in front of me to quote the exact passage but it's very early in the book, when James's sister is explaining to her mother that giving a child a name and then mispronouncing that name is an insidious and subtle form of child abuse. The response?

"I'm your mother. When I want to abuse you, there'll be nothing subtle or insidious about it."

[jessmonster]

This won a Mock Printz I went to last week, which was interesting because some people hated it. Apparently there was enough love. I liked it but never fell in love.

[Jennie]

If Spud is Adrian Mole instead of Catcher in the Rye, it's moving waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay up my to-read list. I enjoyed Adrian's pain so much more than Holden's...

[Danika]

The worst comparison I've seen on the blurbs on the back of the book "[Author's name here] is the JK Rowling of home design books!" ... What does that even mean?

[Barbara Shoup]

Here's my favorite part. "I knew I was gay, but I had never done anything gay and I didn't know if I every would. I couldn't imagine it, I couldn't imagine doing anything intimate and sexual with another person, I could barely talk to other people, wo how was I supposed to have sex with them?"

What an amazing book! I keep having this weird urge to go find James and...take care of him.

[Teen Troves]

I've got this in my TBR pile. I'll have to bump it up on the list!!!

-Mollie

[Aquafortis]

Okay, I respect all your opinions (and NPR's), so I'll give it a shot. I didn't find the jacket copy at all appealing, so when I picked it up in the library (I LOVE the title) I'm sorry to say I ended up putting it back on the shelf.

Oh, and I really liked SPUD. :)