rachelmanija (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rachelmanija) wrote2009-02-05 03:43 pm
rachelmanija) wrote2009-02-05 03:43 pm
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Monster, by Walter Dean Myers
Sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon is on trial for murder. The prosecutor calls him a monster, and accuses him of being the look-out during a robbery in which a shop owner was shot dead. (Steve isn't accused of doing the shooting, but any participation in a crime involving a murder can get a person charged with murder.)
In jail and miserable, Steve alternates writing a diary with dramatizing the events in a screenplay. And that is the only perspective we ever get on the events: the diary, which Steve knows the prosecutor might read and use against him; and the screenplay, which alternately attempts to glamorize and humanize his own life.
This intense novel is remarkably readable despite the unusual format, which I normally find very hard to plow through. Given the inherent possibilities for unreliable narration, I was positive that there would be a surprise ending of some sort. There was, sort of, or at least not an ending that I expected. It turned out to be more about emotion and less about plot than I had expected; I thought it was satisfying emotionally, but I really wanted to know just how unreliable Steve's version of events was, and unless I missed something, the ending doesn't indicate that at all.
A well-written, ambitious, meaty novel, but not one I'd be likely to re-read. Since I couldn't be sure how much of what Steve wrote was genuine and how much was a clever attempt to get himself off the hook or lie to himself, I never really connected to him.
Click on the link to buy it from Amazon:
Monster
How did the rest of you interpret the ending? I took it to mean that Steve was guilty (which I had never doubted), but I'm not sure what to make of his state of mind at the end. Were the movies an attempt to really understand himself and what happened, or just more presentations of images of himself to the world, like a hall of endlessly reflecting mirrors?
The surprise endings I expected and didn't get: 1) Steve pulled the trigger himself. 2) Steve and James King were the same person!
In jail and miserable, Steve alternates writing a diary with dramatizing the events in a screenplay. And that is the only perspective we ever get on the events: the diary, which Steve knows the prosecutor might read and use against him; and the screenplay, which alternately attempts to glamorize and humanize his own life.
This intense novel is remarkably readable despite the unusual format, which I normally find very hard to plow through. Given the inherent possibilities for unreliable narration, I was positive that there would be a surprise ending of some sort. There was, sort of, or at least not an ending that I expected. It turned out to be more about emotion and less about plot than I had expected; I thought it was satisfying emotionally, but I really wanted to know just how unreliable Steve's version of events was, and unless I missed something, the ending doesn't indicate that at all.
A well-written, ambitious, meaty novel, but not one I'd be likely to re-read. Since I couldn't be sure how much of what Steve wrote was genuine and how much was a clever attempt to get himself off the hook or lie to himself, I never really connected to him.
Click on the link to buy it from Amazon:
Monster
How did the rest of you interpret the ending? I took it to mean that Steve was guilty (which I had never doubted), but I'm not sure what to make of his state of mind at the end. Were the movies an attempt to really understand himself and what happened, or just more presentations of images of himself to the world, like a hall of endlessly reflecting mirrors?
The surprise endings I expected and didn't get: 1) Steve pulled the trigger himself. 2) Steve and James King were the same person!