The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider

The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider

The Stats
My rating: * * *
Published: Jul. 2014
Ebook, 352 pages

The Review
Honestly, three stars is a bit generous. I'm gonna go with that because that's what I rated it when I first finished it and it's been a week or so now so I don't want to doubt my immediate reaction, you know?

To start with, I was a bit lost in one of the predominate themes of this book: tragedy. It's even mentioned on the cover: "everyone gets a tragedy." The presentation of this concept was a bit lost on me, as the first example of this personal tragedy was the narrator's best friend Toby getting a severed head of another rider on a Disneyland ride landing in his lap. This situation wasn't made to be any less ridiculous than it seems, and stuck out as a weird parody of the the idea that Schneider seemed to be trying to convey. I personally didn't follow some of the other motifs throughout the book either. They seemed like they were supposed to hold more importance. Coyotes, The Great Gatsby, and his relationship with his dog Cooper, appear over and over but the climactic run-in with a coyote served little purpose except to get Cassidy (love interest) back in the story for a bit. I really didn't understand the relevance of coyotes, and I've never read the Great Gatsby so I'm assuming I'm missing a lot with those references.

The way Schneider dealt with the main character Ezra REALLY annoyed me sometimes. His "tragedy" is a debilitating accident that forces him to leave his main hobby, tennis. The problem I have isn't that he immediately assumes his "cool" and "able" friends won't want to hang out with him anymore. That's an acceptable response to me, the problem is that Schneider kept hinting that he was wrong but never discussed it fully. His friends would still invite him to stuff, but he thinks they think he's a loser now. He does absolutely nothing social with the popular crowd and still wins prom (or was it homecoming?) king- without even going to the dance. However, Schneider never fully explains his social issue with being popular post-accident.

These kind of social changes that take place are aided by the love interest Cassidy who is a typical spunky heroine that is so peculiar but still traditionally beautiful that the male is infatuated immediately. Cassidy helps him realize more about himself in the end (I don't want to spoil this because it was honestly the only worthwhile part of self-analysis that happened).

Well after starting with the bad, I'm going to explain why I don't think this is a bad book per-say. It was refreshing to read a book about a boy main character, that's definitely not something that's super common in the world of teen romance-centric novels. If that's your thing and you want something new, Ezra's perspective on a lot of social things is really refreshing. I do think Schneider did POV well. I was fine following the kind of vapid trip through his senior year because his thoughts were always entertaining, and the plot wasn't too dull; parties, cute dates with Cassidy, encounters with the jocks and cheer squad etc. Overall, because I think I've been a bit confusing: I wouldn't go out and tell people to read this book but I wouldn't be like "don't read it, it's a waste of time" because it isn't. It was fun to consider some of the topics Schneider brings up, and she has an acceptable mastery of teen-language that I enjoyed.