Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marissa Pessl

I heard so much about Special Topics in Calamity Physics before I bought it that I had very high expectations. There was so much buzz about this book that it could have been disastrous, but really it was a pretty good book. It had its moments of feeling a little too gimmicky, but overall it was a good story with entertaining characters and a nice mystery to boot.

In Special Topics in Calamity Physics, you meet Blue Van Meer, very studious and very smart daughter of a self-absorbed scholar. Blue and her dad travel from college town to college town, her father working his way through girlfriends and Blue working her way through schools. Eventually they end up in Stockton, North Carolina at the very preppy St. Gallway school where Blue becomes entangled in a mystery, in a small group of the “elite” students, and in her first true romance. Blue’s experiences with this group of kids, the “Blue Bloods,” and their mentor, Hannah Schneider, the electric and odd film teacher, change her forever. Blue’s relationships with these new people divert her from fawning over her father, but also bring her deep into a mystery – why do they even involve her at all, why is Hannah so interested in her, and who is the man who drowns in Hannah’s pool? Blue and to some degree, the BlueBloods, try to decipher the truth behind Hannah, and eventually behind Hannah’s death.

The shtick here is that Blue Van Meer is writing this story as a report in one of her college classes, and thus annotates it madly with references to books real and imagined, includes drawings, and even has a final exam at the end. Blue writes this way, mostly due to her father telling her once to “exquisitely” annotate her works. It can be fun to follow along with the literary and pop culture references she includes, but if you don’t like footnotes and that sort of thing, just stay away.  Occasionally, Pessl uses these affectations to hide the fact that some of her secondary characters are thinly written as well. It occasionally leaves you wanting more meat and less fluff.

Overall, I can see why the book got such good reviews – the idea, the gimmick are fresh and those literary types love to be able to laugh and think – ha I got that lit geek reference (I’ll admit it, I did it once or twice myself. ) It’s a fun read, and Blue Van Meer is a character that sticks with you for a while.  It’s a very good first novel, and I hope Pessl continues to grow and write even more.

Rating: 4 Purrs for some truly creative and bittersweet moments and some fairly memorable train wrecks as the Blue Bloods.