Special Topics in Calamity Physics: a review by Hyperbaloo13

Book Title: Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Format: Paperback

Author: Marisha Pessl

Length/Number of pages: 514

Price: $15.00 (U.S)

Short Summary:

The daughter of a famed theorist/professor, highly-intelligent Blue van Meer moves to the sleepy mountain town of Stockton and begins attending St. Gallway School as a senior, but she never expects to become a part of a small, elite group known all around the school as the "Bluebloods." The Bluebloods are five enthusiastic teens befriended and cherished by their alluring teacher, Hannah Schneider, who seems to have some unfathomable interest in Blue. Blue and her new-found friends discover very interesting things about Hannah, leading to some very mysterious theories. An unprecedented drowning and a system of disturbing happenings never ceases to confuse Blue, and it is the effect of these events on Hannah that ultimately provokes Blue van Meer to solve the mystery she herself may be a part of.

Strengths/Weaknesses:

I thought this book was AMAZING! It has a multitude of strengths, including: very unique and interesting plot twists (and an interesting plot overall), humor, and the way the characters are defined. I really like how the author indirectly relays information about the characters. It was really easy to like Blue, which made the book that much more exciting. Another strength for this book was the way that the author made tons of allusions to different literary works but still managed to keep everything "on the same page." The allusions brought humor to the story and allowed me to get a clearer visual of what was going on.

To me, the major weakness this book had was that it took a while to get into the book, or at least to where it started to have more action. This was a really loooonnng book because it has so many pages and small print, but after I got into the story, I didn't mind so much! One other minor thing I would point out is that sometimes it seemed that there was a lot of unnecessary explanations for things, and those explanations just made the story longer than it had to be.

Cover Thoughts: Um, I didn't really see the relation the cover had to the story, but my Dad said it looked like a Physics textbook, and therefore has much to do with the title of the story.

Rated: 4.5/5 chocolate bars

Appropriateness: Well, this is kind of an opinion thing, but I'd say this book is Vampire for appropriateness because there is some language and some sexual reference.

~Hyperbaloo13