Saturday, September 26, 2009

Someday this pain will be useful to you

In the media mix from a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I love Peter Cameron's City of Your Final Destination. It struck me that for as much as I enjoyed that book, I never sought out other books by Cameron. I decided to remedy that and signed out Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You, a young adult book and the only book by Cameron my library has.

It was really good. It is about an 18 year old kid who just doesn't fit in. He has been accepted to Brown but doesn't want to go to college. He would much rather buy an old house in the Midwest and just work odd jobs to eke out a living and just staying clear of people, especially his peers who he dreads having to spend time with in college. His best friend is his grandmother. Just a kid having a tough time.

That about sums up the story. There's not a whole lot of plot. It's mostly an elaborate character sketch. The ending is nice. The writing is superb. The characters are interesting. Just a good book.

Interestingly, a couple days after I returned it, I was sorting the books requested by our patrons from other libraries in the system. Someone had requested City of Your Final Destination and another Cameron book. Someone came in to pick them up and I expressed how much I liked City. Turns out the patron was picking them up for her daughter who had read Someday and loved it and wanted to read his other books. Funny how that works.

Having read another Cameron book, I'll likely try and get another in before the year is out.

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