CW: Suicidal thoughts ( )

It’s ages since I had so much trouble constructing a review. Dying to know you was such a compelling read – the writing so spare, the characterisation so understated and tender, the dialogue so convincing - that I wonder why I ever try to write at all. The plot is simple – Karl, a dyslexic apprentice plumber, arrives at an aged writer’s door asking for help writing to his girlfriend. Said girlfriend loves words and wants to share his ‘inner secrects’. The writer agrees to help and a friendship ensues. For all the understated simplicity of the text and plot, it’s replete with complexity: What is the function of a word? A sentence? A work of art? How do the words we use – the art we create – communicate our most private selves? How do other people create around meanings around these concrete essences of self?
I already knew Chambers as a wordsmith, but this novel is special. Every word, every sentence is pared down to the bare essentials, eschewing the deeply descriptive style of his other YA novels, as befits a novel about words centred on a young plumber for whom writing is “torture” because it jumbles the words in his head. Beginning with an unscripted dialogue, it includes emails, poems, quotes and poetic reconstructions, all commented on by the 75 year old narrator, whose non-judgemental observations about life and meaning have created a space for Karl to just ‘be’.
Watching the two characters build a friendship across age and experience is wonderful. The narrator’s gentleness is laced with deadpan humour - Karl’s quest to write about love leads him to the internet where he observes
“…the bit I liked best was where it said it was impossible to define love because it takes so many forms and is so complicated.”
“Like plumbing a loo.”
“Exactly.”
And yet emotion spills out everywhere between the words - spills out in such a way that I can’t find a single quote to share this with you. It’s just there, falling between the characters’ words and interactions.
I absolutely couldn’t put this novel down, which is odd, in retrospect, cause it includes all kinds of banality such as the slow failure of the old man’s personal ‘plumbing’ and his fears of ‘prostrate trouble’. Perhaps it’s simply a matter of perspective. At one point the Karl and the writer are looking at an abstract sculpture and Karl observes “It’s different from every angle… You wouldn’t think something so simple could make such different shapes from different angles”. The narrator is, above all, an observer and the multiplicity of ‘angles’ he brings to his young subject and the people around Karl make for compelling reading.
This is one novel that’s going straight to my extension writers – partly for the younger kids to analyse how the writer dresses up Karl’s first draft in punctuation and paragraphs and the occasional new turn of phrase, but also because it’s such a tangible place to begin discussing the role of literature and the reasons for teaching kids about words and writing in the first place. If I can get the depression and suicide references (only a short section, handled incredibly sensitively and resolved very positively) past a head teacher, I’d love to use it as a class text – perhaps even with a group of supposed lower-ability boys, just to see what they make of it (though, maybe they identify more with the “philistines” – it might be that this is a writer’s book that glides over the head of those who do not already share an understanding of art?). Every library should have Dying to know you on it’s shelves and - more importantly - so should every school’s English faculty. ( )

"So why don't you tell Fiorella about it?"
"I don't want to tell her till she knows me better."
"How long have you been seeing each other?"
"Three months."
"Not long."
"Long enough"
"Long enough for what?"
"For me to know I want to hang on to her."

Karl is just an eighteen year old boy trying not to lose his girl. She sets him to the task of writing down answers to approximately like fifty questions about himself so she can no more about him because he can't really express himself. He's very shy and is sort of a meticulous type of person who sometimes acts beyond his years. He has this pain lost boy type of feel when you get to know him. He has a hard time talking about himself because he's very modest and he's just that sort of person. It comes with the pain of losing his father when he was just twelve years old. And you ache for him once you get to know him because he is this lost boy/ old soul type of person. He idolized his father and was "too" attached so when he died he was devastated. He kind of became his father in the things he likes, likes to do, and acts. He's also dyslexic and his father was the only one that he felt accepted him.

Being dyslectic has brought him to the door of Fiorella's (his girlfriend) favorite author an old man of about 70 who is pretty lonely right now. He sort of sees himself in him so surprising himself he agrees. Unknowingly to him he just started something that would change the course of his life and him himself.

First of all I thought this book was brilliant. The author and Karl as I got to know them seemed to me like they were kindred spirits. They had this sort of invisible bond/link right from the beginning. The author in the book well let's say narrator from now on was not so much wise but had his experience to share on with Karl but i think he learned things from him as well. He needed Karl as much as Karl needed him but more than they thought they would because it was all about the writing in the beginning but then it grew to be something more profound. There was at times this underlining weirdness coming out of this book. It was just how the book presented itself and how the characters were. Distant. Kind of weird the narrator just accepted. It just felt weird... the way they were. Such strange creatures. Karl was very mysterious. He was different then what I expected. He's so introverted and as I found later controlling. He needs to do one thing at a time. He was just again (sorry for repeating myself so much) weird. But interesting weird like you want to know more.

The river felt very symbolic. Isolation/happiness/remembering/pain/loss all wrapped into just one area. It was again a brilliant book. It gave you this calming effect after you finished like some books are able to do. It makes you think and it had characters in it that you see in you. You learn to care for them pretty easily. It gives you perspective and just leaves you silent. It's the sort of book that makes you into a better person and makes you reflect on life.

http://shesgotbooksonhermind.blogspot.com/ ( )

This is an unusual book, in that it's marketed as young adult, while it's narrator is a senior citizen who sometimes talks about his aches and pains. I loved this story about, ultimately, a special friendship between a young man and an old man. I loved both characters and was sorry to end the story.
Nevertheless, I wonder how many young adults would be attracted to this
book. ( )

Struggling through his dyslexia to try to fulfill his girlfriend Fiorella's request for a letter revealing his secret self, eighteen-year-old Karl asks Fiorella's favourite author for help, and he agrees only if Karl will submit to a series of interviews, which prove helpful to both of them. An intriguing, character driven story. ( )