Last night I dreamed that I was sitting in a gathering of people, waiting for my turn to get up and play my violin. There was a tall guy with dark hair speaking to the crowd, and a little fat blond girl sitting across the aisle from me who the tall guy called an idiot. This struck me wrong, so I told him to stop. Not just because he’d called the girl an idiot, but because he’d yelled it, said it in a mean and condescending way. Instead of listening, though, he slapped the girl on the head. I picked up my violin and left the room. The reason I write about this dream is because I had it last night, right after I read this book, and in so many ways it’s revealing to how I feel about it. On one hand, I am a HUGE Laurie Halse Anderson fan and loved the poetic power of her words. On the other hand, I had a particular dislike for both the message of the book and the way it ended. Let me explain how my dream pertains to all of this.In the dream I was waiting, waiting for my turn to play the violin, excited for the music, but captive to the words of the tall man giving the sermon. I felt much the same way reading CATALYST. My joy for the music was like the joy I felt in discovering Kate as a character. The girl is a minister’s daughter; her mother is dead; she takes care of her father and brother; she has issues with good and bad, particularly with integrating the good and bad parts of herself. This becomes clear when she refers to herself as both Good Kate and Bad Kate on the first page. It’s genius. Here’s the quote:“On the outside I am Good Kate, Rev. Jack Malone’s girl, isn’t she sweet, she helps so much with the house, so sad about her mother, and she’s smart, too. . . . On the inside I am Bad Kate, daughter of no one, she’s such a bitch, thinks she’s all that, prays with her eyes open, lets her boyfriend put his hands all over her, Miss Perfect, Miss Suck-up, disrespectful, disagreeable, still waters run deep and dirty.” Catalyst p. 3-4Then you see that Kate is running, not just for the exercise or because she’s good at it, but as a way to run from who she is, her feelings and thoughts and traits which don’t fit into the Good Kate mold. Despite the fact that this girl had straight A’s and had applied to MIT, despite the fact that she had really good friends and was an overachiever, I very much related to the perfectionist tendencies that drove Kate to run from herself. Enter Teri: the nemesis whose house burns down (though we never learn the details of how). All we really know is that Teri comes to live with Kate because she has nowhere else to stay, that Kate and Teri don’t get along, not so much because Kate is a snob, though. More because Teri used to beat up Kate when they were younger, and because Teri flicks Kate off regularly and has a habit of being mean to her, and because Teri steals her things. Needless to say, I was not a Teri fan. And this is where the tall man in my dream comes in. I was expecting to find a reason to like Teri. She has a little brother who is two-years-old who loves her to death, a mother who’s out of it, and a father who died in prison. There are lots and lots of reasons to feel sorry for Teri. She’s bullied at school by the football team, takes vo-tech classes, and is pretty much looked down upon by everyone in her life. I could relate to the bullying thing, and have a particular love for underdogs. So imagine my shock when I just could not, not matter how hard I tried, find a way to relate to Teri. I mean, yeah, sure she was taunted and teased and targeted by the football team. But she was a bully herself as well.Now, I know a lot of people say that bullied kids turn into bullies, and I’m not going to argue with that. My guess is that the boys at Columbine would not have gunned down their classmates if they hadn’t been the targets of shameless bullying. And I agree that Teri had some horrible situations to deal with. Her home situation was a hundred times worse than mine was in high school; her situation at school was pretty bad too. Things got even worse for her in the middle of the book. So if anything, Teri had a right to be angry.But as a child who was bullied so severely myself that people threw rocks at me, and as a person who was ostracized, who had to listen to boys make animal noises as I ran past, who was systematically pushed into walls, sexually harassed, and had nasty rumors spread around about me, I was always ALWAYS aware that I had a choice how I treated others. It was the constant ill treatment I received as a child that drove me not to treat others that way. Giving in to my anger, cutting people down, acting like a jerk was not an option. I chose not to be like my tormentors. It was the only form of control I had.And Teri, no matter her circumstances, had a choice to how she treated others too. It was, in fact, the only form of control she had; and she chose to steal Kate’s watch and necklace, to hotwire her car, to steal food from the grocery store thus making Kate an accomplice to a crime. She chose to call Kate a spaz, to make fun of her inability to use a hammer, to point out her flaws, and to push her around. She chose to tear apart the house others build for her and throw paint cans at those who tried to be her friends. Now, please don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Teri had no right to be angry—she had every right to be angry, but how is the way she dealt with that anger any better than a father who screams at his children and throws things because he’s a rageaholic? I’m going to be blunt here and say, I think it’s EXACTLY the same thing.The difference is that when Laurie Halse Anderson writes about the rageaholic father in TWISTED, he’s the problem, and the one who ruins his family’s life. But when Ms. Anderson writes about the same kind of character in CATLYST, we’re supposed to pity the girl and see things from her point of view.This is where the tall man giving the sermon in my dreams comes in. He represented Teri and the way she treated those around her. Even though the author tried to make Kate stop running by having her help out Teri in the end, I didn’t feel like Kate did the right thing. She calls her boyfriend a jerk for telling the truth to Teri. Here’s what he says to her, “ . . . I know you’ve had a really hard life. But that doesn’t give you permission to make Kate feel like shit, or make fun of people, or steal from them . . .” p.222I get the impression that as a reader I’m supposed to be appalled by Kate’s boyfriend being so “mean” to Teri. But instead I’m sitting there, reading it, and agreeing with Every. Single. Word.What Kate truly does at the end is disown “Bad Kate” instead of integrating her healthy negative feelings into her identity. She doesn’t really stop running, instead she runs into another bad friendship. One where the girl treats her like crap and Kate’s expected to just put up with it. Like the fat little blond girl that gets hit on the head in my dream. I feel sorry for her.
Catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson is a sequel/companion to Speak. It's set one year after the events of Speak. This novel is narrated by Kate Malone: straight-A senior, science and math whiz, and daughter of the local reverend. Kate's also a great runner, which is good because Kate's been running from a lot of things:Kate has been the family caretaker since her mother died. She hasn't been sleeping as she waits to hear from her dream college (she runs instead). And now Teri Litch, Kate's nemesis, and Terry's little brother are living with the Malones. Kate tries to ignore all of these problems by running and keeping her head in the sand. Besides, things couldn't get any worse. Until they do.You'll have to read the book to figure out what happens next because I don't do spoiler reviews.So now we can talk about the book in technical terms: The book is broken up into elements (solid, liquid, gas) and features quotes from an AP Chem prep book. Most of them are straightforward enough to be understandable and relate to the story. Kate also makes use of scientific elements for her narration without being overly scientific (AKA confusing/boring).I greatly admire Laurie Halse Anderson. She's a great writer and she never comes off as smug or pompous in her interviews at the back of her books. Even better, Anderson is a fresh voice.That said, the voice here was not as fresh as it was in Speak. In other words, Kate's narration sounds a lot like Melinda even though they are completely different characters. That bothered me. I like that Anderson's prose is so snappy and often sarcastic, but it was weird having two disparate characters narrate in almost the same voice. Given the connection between these two books, I suppose comparisons are inevitable so I'll finish the thought: Melinda is a more likable narrator than Kate. That makes a difference.Ironically, the increased dialogue in this book (Melinda does not talk throughout most of hers) doesn't make the characters more developed. The minor characters, particularly Sara and Travis, remain flat: developed enough to be quirky but not present enough to be memorable. This might be because Kate's social circle is larger, giving Anderson more characters to fit into the narrative.The other thing to bear in mind about Catalyst is that it is not the same kind of book as Speak. Kate's path throughout the narrative, and her way through her problems, is very different than Melinda's. (If you haven't guessed yet, Kate's path involves a lot of running.) This book also has a different appeal. Speak seemed more universal, the scope for Catalyst is more narrow. Anderson does a great job of capturing the anxiety and drama that surrounds the college application/acceptance process. She also creates a compelling study of the silent, overachiever that seems to be at every high school. More importantly, Anderson shows that those achievements don't always come without a cost.Overall, Catalyst is a good book. I enjoyed it and I would recommend it. But Speak was a great book that was, overall, more powerful than its sequel.
What do You think about Catalyst (2003)?
I really loved Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and I also follow Anderson on twitter and like her as a person, but it was difficult to like this book. There were parts I enjoyed and as a whole it wasn't bad per say it was just ......pointless I guess. I think if the characters had been explored more thoroughly it would have had more potential. A good way to describe it is I felt like the first part and the last part of the book were missing. It seemed like what I was reading was the middle chunk. The beginning was slow and the ending was abrupt with no real conclusive point or meaning to it. I am hoping the rest of her books are a bit more meaty.
—Jamie Brooks
This is another emotional story written by Laurie Halse Anderson. "Catalyst" is a novel about Kate - high school senior who thinks she has all her life planned out and under control. She is a perfectionist and does everything to make sure her life doesn't steer away from her plan. Some might think that Kate is self-centered and almost obsessive, but in reality she uses this orderliness to shield herself from the deep pain caused by her mother's death. After a series of events, some catastrophic, some not that vital, Kate is forced to lower her "shield;" she finally starts to understand what is really important in life and faces her emotional issues. I enjoyed this novel. Anderson's writing, although it requires some getting used to, is superb and deeply personal. This is definitely one of the better YA books. Although I didn't come to understand Kate and Teri as much as I would like to (sometimes Anderson's writing is too subtle for me) and this book wasn't as focused as her other book I've read "Wintergirls", I enjoyed "Catalyst" enough to continue on reading this writer's other books.
—Tatiana
I picked this book up after reading "Speak" by the same author, and was pleased to find this one written in the same language style. Anderson has a unique way of writing that incorporates the main character's thoughts into the action, making it a more sensual experience. Sometimes she pauses midway in the action with a thought from the main character, intensifying the build up to the climax.Before I started reading, the title of this book interested me. I was unfamiliar with the word, so I searched it up on the dictionary. When I first found out the definition of the word, I couldn't see it's tie in with the novel. However, after reading the book, I realized that the title gives a great summary of what the book is about.cat·a·lyst (noun): a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without itself undergoing any permanent chemical change; a person or thing that precipitates an event.I really enjoyed this book's plot, human issues that they discussed, and Anderson's writing style as previously mentioned. This book deals with control, mainly the need for control in human lives. The main character of this book has her whole life planned out and everything in control, but soon realizes she may have less control of her surroundings that she actually thinks she does. This is a very relatable issue in today's world, and it was interesting to see how the main character dealt with the lack of control she had. I didn't give it 5 stars because there were some parts of the book where too much was happening at one time and keeping track of the events was difficult. Many plot twists occurred within pages of each other. It was likely written by the author to be fast paced, but some parts transitioned to the next a little too quickly.Overall this book was a worthwhile read. If you enjoy reading fictional novels with lots of action, then I recommend you check this book out.
—Shaina Chen
