Invisibly Breathing, Eileen Merriman

[cyphomandra]

Invisibly Breathing, Eileen Merriman.  NZ YA (set in Lower Hutt, for local readers :D ). Felix Catalan has few friends at school and his parents’ marriage is breaking up; he copes by listening to Green Day and obsessing over mathematical rituals. Then Bailey Hunter arrives at school: he’s the oldest of a large family with an alcoholic abusive father, he stutters, loves judo, and is bisexual. The two of them get together, but have to cope with bullying, the threat of discovery, and Bailey’s decompensating father. After a slightly rocky start (I feel that I have read more than enough children’s/YA in which the main character is quirky and has Strong Feelings about numbers, and Bailey is all too obviously a teenage problem character looking for a teenage problem novel) I got into this - the relationship develops well, the bullying isn’t totally over the top, Felix’s parents come across as actual people - but then, regrettably, the ending became more melodramatic and less believable).  

Bailey goes bush for five days after his dad sells the caravan that was Bailey’s sole refuge. Felix can’t make contact, and so assumes he’s being rejected (I did have issues with this - although they’re using phones and social media, Felix doesn’t seem to have any way of checking if his messages have been read, or if Bailey’s been active on-line, that might have avoided this misunderstanding), and this sets up things for Felix to break up with Bailey and Bailey’s father to brutally assault him; Felix finds him, they reconcile, but Bailey refuses to seek any official help. Bailey then voluntarily goes off in the car with his drunken father, who was waiting outside Felix’s house, and in the middle of a rather confusing scene - possibly his father intends to kill him? possibly he just wants to make an extended drunken metaphor involving cliffs? - collapses from a previously undiagnosed medical problem (related to the beating) just as the police arrive. It’s Bailey’s mother who’s notified them, rather than Felix, and then there’s a hospital sequence, a fake-out maybe-he’s-really-dead-now, and then messages between Felix and Bailey, afterward, living in separate cities.

It's not lacking in resolution, but it felt as if things were being done to increase tension (the breakup, the kidnap, the fake-out) rather than necessarily being consistent with the characters, and Felix in particular loses depth (he could at least stop lying for Bailey about what's happened). Similarly Bailey's family - other than his father - are underdeveloped. There's a confrontation between Felix and Bailey's father where neither of them say what's really going on; I would have liked to get more out of that.

Comments

[sovay]

Bailey then voluntarily goes off in the car with his drunken father, who was waiting outside Felix’s house, and in the middle of a rather confusing scene - possibly his father intends to kill him? possibly he just wants to make an extended drunken metaphor involving cliffs? - collapses from a previously undiagnosed medical problem (related to the beating) just as the police arrive. It’s Bailey’s mother who’s notified them, rather than Felix, and then there’s a hospital sequence, a fake-out maybe-he’s-really-dead-now, and then messages between Felix and Bailey, afterward, living in separate cities.

That sounds like a lot of plot all at once.

[cyphomandra]

That sounds like a lot of plot all at once.

I think you could get away with it if it didn't feel like flinging things at the characters (of course, some characters deserve to have things flung at them, but these ones not so much :D )

[yhlee]

Wait, YA where people have strong feelings about numbers is a thing? Where can I sign up?

[cyphomandra]

;D

After The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time was super successful I stumbled over quite a few number-obsessed narrators; I think it's died down now but I recently looked at one called Counting by Sevens (female genius narrator with number rituals). Most of them seem to be more about cool facts and emotional connections rather than maths as such (Felix and Bailey call each other Five and Two, which would be more sweet if I didn't keep getting Gundam Wing flashbacks).