Countering a Kirkus review

Chopsticks by Jessica Anthony & Rodrigo Corral is a heavily illustrated book, an app and a website. (Which is actually on tumblr.) It is the big new thing in transmedia - a story that transcends multiple media formats and has been hailed by Kirkus as "Eerie and edgy--and effective as Poe". Well, that's some pretty high praise but just the mere idea of Chopsticks was enough to get me excited to read it. The book is the story of teen piano prodigy Glory who falls for new boy next door Francisco ("Frank"). They make mix CDs for each other, chat late at night, send back and forth youtube clips and drawings, etc. The book is designed around all these exchanges plus lots of other ephemera like photos, newspaper clippings and invites pertaining to Glory's performances, notes from school, etc. There is very little text - the whole thing is about the images which take the reader through the death years before of Glory's mother, her performances and European tour and growing love for Frank. Along the way we start to see Glory fall to pieces under performance pressure and she ends up in a rest facility making plans to run away with Frank. Then the authors toss out a big twist that is straight out of any gothic title ever written and there you go. That's the story.

I'm okay with using plot tropes from a zillion years ago because if done well any story will hold a reader's attention. What bothers me about Chopsticks though is I think it excels more as "the next big thing in storytelling" then an actual story. Glory is a cipher - you never really get in her head, there are no long diary entries or letters or emails to show how she feels only brief postcards about wanting to go home and missing Frank. Nothing emotionally affecting. I wanted to be inside this character's head - I needed to be - but the authors did not give me that perspective. So I never really cared about her which I think diminishes the story greatly because if you don't care about Glory then there isn't a whole lot else to the book.

I did not download the app (it costs money and there is a limit to my reviewing curiosity) but I have been to the website. I was thinking maybe it would have a diary to read or blog posts from Glory or her father or something similar but no - in fact the site is similar to many traditional book sites. There are embedded youtube videos, but you could visit them by typing in the text from the book. There are close-ups of items pictured in the book, but nothing additional. You don't get anything more about the characters from visiting this site. (Or if you do I missed it entirely.) The app apparently plays the music Glory & Frank talk about in the book but again, I could track that down on my own. Nice addition but it doesn't get me any further insight into what makes this girl tick and when all is said and done, that's what I needed.

I think Chopsticks is very pretty but suffers from a weak story. Other than the plot twist, I'm not seeing what makes the book memorable and more importantly even with the twist I did not care about this character. So, are the critics excited about it just because it is the first book from a major publisher to crossover from print to app and website? I give them points for making the extra effort but I think we all need to remember that without a strong story in the first place, none of the bells and whistles matter.

I am a person who likes going to the web to learn more after reading a book. Heck, after finishing THE GROUP last week I went looking for Mary McCarthy's house online. (It's in Seattle!) I read author interviews all the time, I like to see where books are set, I'm curious about who characters are based on. I love the idea of transmedia. But first, the story has to work and in the case of Chopsticks, I think the term "novel" widely exaggerated.