“Gotta tell us if we’re in a comedy or a mellow drama or a whodidit or what they call a theater of the absurd,” drawls a convenience store employee toward the middle of this book, continuing: “Ya can’t just leave us standin’ on stage with no dialogue.” […]”It’s a whodunit,” Blue van Meer answers, asks if she can borrow his car.
The book is a mystery, also a coming-of-age story, also smart and bookish, like its heroine, Blue. The table of contents is a “Core Curriculum: Required Reading” list, each chapter’s title the title of another work: “Moby Dick,” “Heart of Darkness,” et cetera, and Blue’s narrative is full of parenthetical citations of books and articles she’s read, including those of her father, a political science professor who bounces from one nowhere school to another. It’s the story of Blue’s senior year of high school — a little bit The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, a little bit Prep, and totally pleasing.
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