The Most Dangerous Place on Earth

By Lindsey Lee Johnson.

 

As earlier, I want to mention that all along this book was barely 3 stars for me. Until The Dancer chapter. I thinks last three chapters are the best ones and those alone are worth reading.

I expected a character study, a generation diagnosis, a prognosis for the future, and neither of those things excite very much, unless they are delivered exceptionally well, which means the author has to have enough depth to dive in, enough wittiness and sharpness not to drawn the readers in boredom of moralization...

This, however, was neither of those. Or shall i say, it was not enough to constitute the above.

The novel does not discover anything new per se, yet it explores all too familiar mistakes and errors of youth.
Doesn't everyone make them at some stage? What is the price though?...

Molly Nicoll is a new English teacher, "idealistic", as she called. I would call her rather superficial, even shallow at times. And i do not mean this in a bad way. Maturity, insightful approach and seeing beyond the cliches does not come easy. It is rather a fruit of experience or a very special gift. It is a talent - to understand students, to recognize the shell from the seed. Molly wants to be a friend, to be a innovator, which is great, admirable, but nevertheless easier said than done...

Molly herself needs a guide through the debris of teaching and life in general. She is, in that sense, much closer to her students, than she thinks. She has a lot to learn.

The students are supposed to be somewhat of mix of typical American teenagers: the pretty ones, the goofy ones, the fun once, the careless ones...

As believable as they are, they are difficult to connect with.

To me, the whole book is really in the first and in the last three chapters. They sum up everything that is great about school years and youth in general and everything that is wrong with young people and human society at large.

Tristan is a weirdo, fat and odd, he does not fit into the fun and booze and parties, he does not fit into smart or privileged, he fits nowhere as such.

When a note surfaces written by Tristan to Callly, professing his love for her, Cally is not appreciative, she is rather disgusted. She calls upon her pals to put Tristan to his place, which leads to Tristan's suicide...
Yet, Cally, Calista as she reinvents herself, gets to walk away.
Her semi guilty conciseness turns to hippy, parties, drugs... But after all she is apparently "going on and trying, like everyone else, to live in this beautiful world"... And this is my problem!! In my books Calista Broderick is million times more callous, cruel and cold than any other wild kid in the book!
She is ultimately THE guilty party in Tristan suicide, yet she gets a chance "to try", to reinvent herself,to rebuild her environment. Tristan is gone. For ever. He is not getting a chance to come back, to try, to live, to grow up... Yet Calista is conniving enough to pose as Tristan's friend in front of his mum, and no, that is not an act of mercy or kindness, it is a sly attempt to cover her ass! For that alone I despise Calista's character!...

I will leave the curtain closed over the next few chapters. You'll make your own mind, whether you feel empathy for Damon or Abby or Nick...

The closed i felt was The Dancer, Emma. So i will allow myself to say that he chapter is the best.

Emma gifted, hard working, popular, smart and nice. Trying to grasp the "right" and the "wild" she ends up in hospital. And the part about her being confined to the bed for two weeks and yet having only one visit from her peers sums up our "social media" ghost life. There is no life online. It is simply a way of communication. A great one! But one cannot substitute a warm hug with a "like", a laughter does not equal to a smiley face or LOL, no, it does not!... It is a simplified way out. A way of not bothering to make an effort. A phone call, a text, a message... Emptiness...
And for that i commend Lindsey Lee Johnson. She has drawn quite a true picture of Bruno Jasienski's quote:
"Do not fear your enemies. The worst they can do is kill you. Do not fear friends. At worst, they may betray you. Fear those who do not care; they neither kill nor betray, but betrayal and murder exist because of their silent consent.”