I read several good reviews of this book, but none of them said that it was a blatant rip-off of Donna Tartt's "The Secret History". It's about a teenager and her not-quite successful academic father. Now, I'm the daughter of a not-quite successful academic father, so I'm a good judge of the territory, and this just doesn't make the grade. The stylistic tic adopted by the narrator is to copiously footnote her story with real and imaginary books. However, she doesn't footnote correctly, and I find it hard to believe that a professor's child who goes to Harvard would be so careless. The prose style is sloppy and the plot diffuse, as if the author is simply describing things that really happened without asking herself if something really happening is reason enough to include it in a novel.

The narrator, Blue, is not very interesting, but that's par for the course in a roman a clef by a young author. What's unforgivable is that the rest of the characters are so underdeveloped. The group of students Blue meets in her senior year ought to be unforgettable, otherwise why are we reading this? Not only are they generic (the smart one with glasses, the rich pretty one who's rude, etc.), but the entire town is generic. Blue is supposed to have moved dozens of times as her father went from college to college, but she has no insight into American small towns, and you get no sense of this one. Worse, there is no sense of time: when is this happening? A novel about senior year is necessarily a novel about the popular music and fashion. Not here, however. This book is *illustrated*, and you can't even tell from the pictures what decade this is supposed to be.

Bland and boring.

Solid 4.75 Stars

I first heard about this author late last year through Goodreads, I read her 2nd novel, Night Film. it was one of my top 5 reads for 2015. So I thought I should read her debut novel, and I would be surprised if this is not in my top 3 when this year ends.

Blue Van Meer is a teenage girl who travels around the country with her widowed father, moving from one classroom to the next as a college professor. They finally settle for her last 2 years of high school in North Carolina, at a tony prep school that should prepare her for Harvard upon graduation. Once there, an interesting story unravels as she befriends an eclectic group of fellow students.

Pessl is a very talented writer, the literary references in this book are at sometimes overwhelming. For those of you that have read The Secret History by Donna Tartt, this is a must read.

I tried with this book. I gave it 150 pages, and at this moment in time I just can't get into it. The constant literary allusions and pop culture references, mixed with the didactic and wordy writing style kept pushing me out of the story. I'd skim whole paragraphs just to find the important, plot-moving parts of the sentences. I held out hope for this one because I chose it for book club (sorry, friends!) and it's been on my shelf for 2+ years, so I felt like I had to conquer it. But it's only day 3 of 2017, and I don't want to start off my year forcing myself to read a book I'm not enjoying—even if that means quitting on the first book of the year. Now I'm on to better reads!

Marisha Pessl's debut is a pretty strange book. She's got talent, sure, and impressive willingness to just plow straight on into a much fuller realization of this enigmatic plotting than I was expecting. The latter being both gratifying (immediately) and limiting (in the long run). After that fairly crazy -- gratifying and limiting -- conclusion, and all the post-modern flourishes, there's just not really that much there, it seems. Really fun, nonetheless. Will I be interested in reading Pessl's follow-up, whenever it comes? Certainly.