Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl

There is no doubt the author of this book is a massive show-off. Not only is every chapter named after a great important novel, a narrative convention is to pepper the main character’s thoughts with lines from hundreds of books and texts; which is quirky, but can get fairly tedious (‘Cockatoo Mobile Library’, Lovelock, ’10). But you know what? Ms Pessl gets away with it because Special Topics is a cracking, highly original read so haters will just have to suck it up.

Blue Van Meer is our precocious main character, a gifted teenager going through a school each semester with her academic dad as he follows university work across the country. At Blue’s latest school, a mysterious teacher, one Ms Hannah Schneider, invites her to be part of a special club, The Bluebloods, who seem to hate her but tolerate her due to Hannah’s interest in her. When Hannah takes the group camping and is found hanging from a tree (not a spoiler – it’s in the first chapter and book’s back cover), the real conspiracy around Blue’s whole existence begins to unravel in the most fascinating and unexpected ways. It’s kind of like a gothic Sweet Valley High novel, with misfits instead of perky blonde twins.

And Blue for all her annoying intellectualism, has endearing flashes of being a normal teenager and not one of those totally unbelievable too-grown-up-to be-real characters, like the meltdown she has after being told she kisses ‘like a tuna’. No amount of Joyce quoting and brain power can soothe the sting of an insult like that to an adolescent.

I liked that I was about halfway through the book and I couldn’t see where the plot was heading, or exactly figure out what the character’s motivations were; usually this would frustrate the hell out of me, but Pessl’s rhythm and turns of phrase kept me hooked.

“Jade and Lu were still developing nations. And thus, while it wasn’t fantastic, it wasn’t too terrible for them to have a backward infrastructure and a poor development index. But Hannah – she should have been much further along. She should have already established a robust economy, free trade, peacefulness – it wasn’t looking good for her democracy.”

And then when the book kicks into final gear, it really barrels towards a ripping finish. You may be a little bit of a show-off Ms Pessl but I forgive you.