On Personal Tragedy and The Beginning of Everything

 

Ezra Faulkner. Awesome name. Nice character. This was one of the few realistic YA fiction books that I wanted to read. It’s written by Robyn Schneider, who may or may not be in love with the Great Gatsby. I was captured immediately at the first couple of chapters. Basically Ezra believes that everyone gets his or her own tragedy. That no one gets to share a tragedy. Also, this tragedy is supposed to change us in some way and for Ezra his personal tragedy is a really bad car accident that shatters his knee and destroys his chances of playing professional tennis and any sport for that matter. Then he falls in love with a quirky yet extremely smart and witty girl and everything spirals out of control. I liked this story, but it tried too hard to make too many connections that didn’t quite fit in with the characters.

I understood Ezra’s way of thinking to a certain extent, because I’ve always looked at life as a sort of string of disappointments rather than tragedies. Maybe that comes with being naturally pessimistic, but it can easily be rephrased. (Life can be full of happiness that is constantly interspersed with disappointments and sadness. That doesn’t sound much better. Moving forward.) And I think that in some sense it is true that we don’t necessarily share tragedies because everyone experiences things differently and an event can have a completely different significance for the other person or people involved. It’s kind of like the tricks of memory in which a brother distinctly remembers his big sister throwing him off the first floor balcony when she distinctly remembers him agreeing to play firefighters and being lowered to the ground in a crate on a string and yes- the string did break and yes- he did fall, but no, he was never pushed. At the same time, discounting a horrible moment as something for someone else is nothing but a coping mechanism. But that’s the point isn’t it? Ezra explains his way of thinking but then admits that he got so many things wrong.

I like Ezra as a character because he opens up the story for reflection on what he thinks and how he goes about life. The only shattering thing about this story that wasn’t convincing enough was his larger than life philosophical epiphanies towards the end where we find out he is a freshman in college looking back at his senior year of high school. Ezra’s characteristics get lost in his revelations. (There are the Gatsby references and Foucault, which Ezra tries to fit into his thinking as a way to figure out things and it’s all really too much for him. The best thing the Gatsby references has going is that the dog takes on that voice, and I absolutely loved it. The author really didn’t have to take it further than that.) At the end of the story, I still don’t know who Ezra is except for a guy who learns not to detach himself from his friends when life gets hard. I still don’t know his likes and dislikes, what he decides to major in or anything. This is because he actually hasn’t figured much out and you know what? That’s okay. If it hadn’t ended with him in college, and making a grand statement on life it would have resonated better with his character arc because I don’t believe that Ezra changes that much. He still seems to be floating around in a cloud of just following along.

The thing about tragedy is that it’s supposed to make us stronger, make us better people, make us better decision makers, but it also breaks us and sometimes those breaks aren’t set right before they heal. Sometimes there are no grand statements, no epiphanies, just a relationship that didn’t work out.

If you loved this book and love Robyn or just want to learn more about her, here’s a link.https://www.youtube.com/user/robynisrarelyfunny