Author: Paolo Bacigalupi
Publisher: Little Brown
Rating: WARTY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review.
The Doubt Factory is blessedly told in third person - not another first person YA thank goodness, but it is told from the perspective of one of the characters, Alix who is, unfortunately, truly a dumb-ass. She's in high school - or rather a specialized one known as Seitz Academy - because you know it has to be an academy not just a high school, right? It's the law. Respect the law of YA!
Alix attends Seitz with her poor impulse-control younger brother Jonah who actually reminds me of my own kids (who fortunately don't have any such issues). One day when idly gazing out the window in a boring class, Alix notices a guy on school grounds staring right back at her. When headmaster Mulroy goes to confront the guy, he gets punched in the stomach for his trouble. Naturally Alix falls in love with this trouble-maker instantly. Security fails to find him, but it turns out that he's 'known' as a graffiti artist, who seems to only paint "2.0" on various buildings in red spray paint. No one knows who he actually is. Or why he showed up at the school.
The next day, Alix drives her brother to school in her mini - not skirt, car - but curiously, Bacigalupi kow-tows to corporate dictates and renders it in block caps every time he uses it: MINI, just like the brand owners do. It's not only that it's annoying, it's that this free advertising is distracting, and I have no idea why he does it so robotically.
It doesn't even make any sense at the corporate level, given that the mini is purportedly a small car (when it actually isn't). If you look at one, it's just as bulky as any other compact car and gets no better gas mileage than fifty or more other vehicles, none of which profess to be particularly small. Mini is a fraud in this regard, but given that your plan is to present the car as miniature, small, cute, whatever, as compared with others, even if it isn't, then why not go with lower case? Just asking!
Meanwhile, back at the story, the school is undergoing a major disruption as Alix arrives. It's cordoned off, and there's a fire truck, and the police, and a SWAT team. Rather than manage the crowd, the police make it worse, foolishly crushing everyone together. Alix discovers that the guy from the previous day is right behind her, urging her to watch the school rather than focus upon him. What happens is that the SWAT team goes in. Why it's they and not the bomb squad, I have no idea. Something happens inside, splashing the windows in what looks like blood, but it turns out it's paint, spelling out 2.0 on the window. Then the SWAT team hurries out pursued by hundreds of white rats.
Rather than call out and identify the perp to the police who are right there, clueless Alix follows him through the crowd where he grabs her and tells her that if she wants to know what he's all about, she should talk with her father, who knows the story. The weird thing is that the guy has dressed up the next day - he no longer looks like a homeless person or possibly a deranged military veteran as on the previous day. Instead, he looks like a cop - so Alix thinks. That was the weird part. I don't get what it is in Alix's history that makes her keep referring to his appearance as looking like a cop. Just exactly how many plain clothes cops is she on familiar terms with that she knows this - and why? Who knows.
At this point I'm not even remotely liking the main character, which is never a good feeling with which to imbue your readers, especially not in the first handful of chapters. Alix evidently has the same impulse control issues which her brother suffers, and worse, she has poor judgment even though she knows better. It gets even worse still when she starts fantasizing about the guy. And I'm sorry, but no, you don't get to white-wash your dangerously delusional hots for the thuggish stalker just by saying to yourself, once in a while, "You are one fucked-up bitch" or referring to him in your thoughts as "some creeper guy". It doesn't work and it needs to stop.
Yes, I get that you need to give your main character an edge, and that teens often do dumb things, but there's a difference between making a mistake and the fact that what you're doing is ditch-deep dumb never crossing your mind. There's a difference between building up a character to show that he or she is likely to pursue precisely that course of action given certain triggering circumstances, and presenting your character as mature and responsible, and then betraying everything you've told your reader by having her do something which is totally brain-dead and out-of-character.
I'm sorry but once she began fantasizing about this guy, I lost all interest in reading any further. It's entirely inappropriate, and I don't even have a problem with inappropriate if the author can justify it in some way within the framework of the novel, but this was - how did Grace put it in Avatar? This was the author just pissing down my back without even the courtesy of calling it rain.
I refuse to read novels which pretend that it's normal and just fine for young girls to fantasize about dangerous stalkers. I don't care who this character is or what his motive is, the depiction of her reaction is trash and it's inappropriate, and it's irresponsible writing, and it sends entirely the wrong message.
I don't care if he turns out to be a "nice guy" - the author has failed if he cannot find a dramatically better way to write it than to make it look like it's a wise choice for teen-aged girls to chase "bad boys" like this, who are at best a vandal and at worst, a terrorist. I don't have to put up with this garbage, and neither do you. Ditch it and find something better; something written by an author who has the first clue how to write young female characters. Of that there's no doubt in my mind.
