Coming of Age

To end the year, I read two books which aren't especially thematically related (read: have nothing in common) but that I am grouping under the loose tie that both involve boys who are becoming adults.

The first is Peter Cameron's Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You, which I have delighted in describing as "Catcher in the Rye, if Catcher in the Rye had been good." (I had issues with CINR, most of which I now blame on my 11th grade English teacher.) Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Cameron is also the author of The City of Your Final Destination, a novel I read a few years ago about a young doctoral student who gets involved with the family of his research subject, somewhere in South America. James Sveck, of STPWBUTY, is also surrounded by a cast of eccentrics, these his upper-class New Yorker family. James, like Sveck, has a keen eye for the absurd and fake (but thankfully, whines less about it) and has devoted the summer before college to figuring out a plan to avoid going to college - which he doesn't think he will like very much - altogether.

I laughed out loud often while reading this, and agree with whatever reviewer noted that while classified as Young Adult fiction, this book can be a joy for readers of whatever age. (Well, not too young - some of the themes are a bit mature. Use discretion before buying for a niece or nephew.)

The other read of the week is one of Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody mysteries, which I continue to adore. Guardian of the Horizon was especially enjoyable, as it was written out of order and returns us to a lovestruck Ramses. Here he is 20, and kind of all over the place in terms of defining his adult relationship with his parents and their ward, and determining what is love and what is a proper course of action, etc etc. I'm stretching things a bit - mainly this is a typical Peabody book, where they end up on some fool adventure (this time a return to a lost oasis in the Sudan) and people are trying to kill them and they get captured and there are twists and turns and Emerson blusters and Amelia pretends togetherness and Ramses is, well, perfect.

And all that said, Happy New Year to all!