![]() ![]() ![]() Most importantly, Blue is a girl after my own heart. (Then again, it also makes me feel old to realize I'm six years older than Juliet, two years older than Jane Eyre, and the same age as Elizabeth Bennet.) Also, author Marisha Pessl's first name is just one letter away from mine-and "Marissa" (or "Marisha"?) comes from Latin for "of the sea," and "Van Meer" means "of the sea" in German. It's weird-it even makes me feel a little old-to read a book where the main character is from my generation, born the same year as me, her life overlapping mine in a way. And she, precocious thing, is 16 years old throughout her senior year of high school, just as I was. Blue's birthday, 6/18/87, is less than a month away from mine. ![]() As I read the novel this month, I got a kick out of coincidental parallels between its heroine, Blue Van Meer, and myself. Calamity Physics got promoted as a brainy, erudite, mystery/coming-of-age novel narrated by a verbally dexterous teenage girl, and there are few things I like better than that. My mom, after reading the back cover and the blurbs, said "This is the book you should have written," and I see what she meant (though I have no interest in writing novels). If not for the fact that the only books I read in hardcover are Harry Potter, I would have devoured Special Topics in Calamity Physics as soon as it came out last summer. Blue Van Meer's "self-portrait"-she's the "apologetically owl-like" girl with glasses. ![]()
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