"I want you to know that I think you're right. The world does seem like a terrible place right now. But I'm going to tell you something because I think you need to hear it: you've become a very negative person. And I don't know if it has to do with me and your father, or if it's the other kids in your classes, or if it's what happened with the school paper, but you've become very critical. Of everything. I don't know when it happened-you used to come home from school so excited about whatever you learned that day, and now, now, you wear this look all the time. Like nothing makes you happy anymore. And I happen to think that seventeen is too young to be disappointed by everything."Thank you, Joe Meno. :) I believe the accent here falls on the Perhaps, not the Great.Hmmm, read this after "The Boy Detective Fails" and similaritiesflow strongly. Characters nearly paralyzed by their flaws, oldmen in rest homes grappling with their end, clouds a plenty inthis one (and in TBDF there was a page of clouds created fromtypesetting of that word).There are various deviations from the cloud-fearing man's family we first meet to reflect back upon previous generationsof Caspers. All of the Casper ghosts seem to indicate thattimid fearfulness is somehow genetically past forward, likea broken heirloom. Oddly treasured. Those stories to me didnot add much, and the "son of a gun" story stretched thingsabout as far as I could take.As for the raising of precious, precocious kids, it seemsthe lion's share falls upon a TV/radio show in both books.Parenting is absent instead we have Modern Police Cadetand more prominently in the Great Perhaps, the AirshipBrigade.And the tone for both books really is tangential to thewonder, and exaggerated fears, that comic books havefor young kids. Even with a man/family/career in shambles, nothing really feels at risk here. In TBDFI felt it was more likely that Billy Argo would goArgo-nuts, but here the AfterSchool Special warrantyfor a happy-ish ending was more solid than any ofthe clouds of doubts that shadowed the main familyand their characters. More squid would have worked for me, plenty of inkto draw upon there. I think the author actuallytiptoed into the pages here as William Banning,who in minimal appearances was one of the moreintriguing characters for me.Start with TBDF, or maybe the Hairstyle one whichI've not read yet myself, and then Perhaps try thisokay novel?
What do You think about The Great Perhaps (2009)?
The ending was better than the beginning which, IMO, is a good thing that doesn't happen often.
—wickedz
i thought this was awful, but what do i know? i did enjoy the boy detective one of meno's.
—leigoss
