"Superunknown: Of Fairytales and Grunge
By: G.C. Huxley
Published: July 7, 2014
138 pages
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. In no way does this affect either my review or my rating.
Source Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Okay, I would normally start a review out by giving by telling you what the book was about, but I'm not going to do that this time. The reason for this is because I have no idea! This book was extremely confusing. It kind of just jumped right on in without any buildup whatsoever. The prologue made you think, "Okay. So the prologue is the buildup." But then you start reading the first chapter and it seemed like the prologue was there for no reason whatsoever. (Don't worry; at the very end, and I mean the very end, of the book you find out what the whole point of the prologue was.)
So I'm just going to give a few thoughts on this book. First of all, the book is written in first person POV by a teenage girl named Emily, called Em. Em constantly said the word "whilst": "..whilst I'm in mid-thought.."; "..whilst we casually watch the students.."; "..whilst the fireworks exploding behind us.."; "..whilst almost laughing with myself.."; "..whilst typing on the keyboard..". It was in the book 36 times in a 138 page book. Now I don't know about you, but when I was a teenage girl, the word "whilst" was not in my vocabulary.
One of the main characters in the book was names Eido and Em would constantly call him "Eidiot". Now I really have no idea why, but for some reason this aggravated me. She would call him and Eidiot both to herself and to other people and when she specifically called him an Eidiot to one of the characters (who is only known as the Strange Old Man) he acted as if he heard people being called an Eidiot all the time. I honestly have no idea why, but the lack of reaction from anyone when Em referred to Eido as and Eidiot confused me. Most of these people, especially the Strange Old Man, seemed to adore and practically worship Eido. If someone I adored was called an Eidiot, I would definitely have something to say about it.
Please don't get me wrong; I didn't hate the book. There were aspects of it that I really liked. For example, this book was set in the 1990's, though sometime after 1994, as Em's friend Maddie told Em that Kurt Cobain had killed himself. I was a 90's kid. I started high school in the late 1990's, so I vividly remember (and deeply miss) the grunge age. The author mentioned numerous band from my childhood; Nirvana, Soundgarden, Green Day, Smashing Pumpkins, R.E.M. While Em and Maddie were walking down the street, they were drinking Jolt Cola (Remember that? Crazy stuff!) and passed by a movie theatre that was showing The Crow and Clerks. They went into a record store that was selling cassettes alongside CD's. I was thrilled to be reading about all of this; I taking a walk down memory lane. One of the quotes from the books said it all: "Grunge is apparently the music of now, of our generation.." Yes, it was. And I miss it.
I also must say that I was rather jealous of Em's high school; they got recess! For me, elementary school marked the end of that blissful half hour.
Overall, I did not enjoy the book as much as I thought, and hoped, that I would. It was very difficult to follow; characters would have conversations that either made no sense to begin with or would jump topics so quickly that you couldn't follow along.
Now, please keep in mind that this rating and review are of my own opinion. You may very well enjoy books with an existentialism theme. If you do, then this book is definitely for you, I, however, do not normally enjoy books with philosophical undertones. But again, that's just me. Luckily, it was only 138 pages.
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