The story within the story is that of the girl, Keturah, who meets Death in the woods. Much like the classic, One Thousand and One Nights, she begins telling him a story so he would spare her life. But she leaves off the ending and promises to tell it the very next day. Things happen and Death relents a bit each day, which is how she manages to stay alive. 

So, this might have been more of a romance than anything else. But I liked it for the beautiful language. It had a lyrical quality to it. 

Examples:

The ending was very much expected — Death gets the girl — but I wouldn’t have liked it any other way. Maybe I should try out the other books by this author. What do you think?

Calvin was born on the day the last Calvin and Hobbes ran. His grandfather gave him a stuffed tiger, he grew up with a best friend named Suzie, and now he's older, and schizophrenic, and maybe an epic journey will make everything better?

The author's tone is empathetic, but never pitying. There's just enough humor to the whole thing to keep it from being melodrama.

Library copy

I realized the doctor was leaving the room, and I was talking out loud to nobody. And that's why they want to put people on medication.

Calvin is a high school senior on the verge of graduation and a bright future. If only he had the ability to focus. He reaches a breaking point and has a schizophrenic episode, resulting in his hospitalization. His family and doctors seem supportive and caring, and at least one classmate stops by to visit, too, his life-long friend Susie.

Me: . . .You're you're part of it.

Susie: Part of what?

Me: Part of what's happening to me. Didn't you ever think about, you know, that you're named Susie, and you're friends with a guy named Calvin?

Susie: I always thought my parents didn't put much imagination into my name--

Me: I was born on the same day that Bill Watterson published his very last comic strip?

Susie: You've mentioned that.

Me: My gramps gave me a stuffed tiger called Hobbes I'm hyperactive and pathologically imaginative? And then, even more amazing, a girl lives two doors down and her name is Susie! Maybe once you create an idea and millions of people are loving that idea, when you get brilliance and love all mixed up like that, it makes something that has to go somewhere. It impacts reality, like a meteorite hitting Earth. Bang! I think the universe just couldn't let Calvin go.

Okay, that's not necessarily the conclusion that most people would arrive at given the evidence (Suzie, for example, doesn't buy it) -- but there's something to his logic.

Calvin decides that if Watterson's creation is what led to his problems, Watterson can fix him. To prove his devotion, he sets out on a pilgrimage that could be fatal, and Susie tags along to try to keep him safe. Hobbes tags along to . . . well, do Hobbes-like things.

This is a story about friendship, young love, the hazards of high school for the psychologically fragile, and about how a psychological diagnosis doesn't have to determine your life and future. Leavitt writes with a lean, crisp prose that keeps things moving -- even while treading emotionally rich territory.

A frequently very funny book, but I felt guilty laughing at this poor, sick kid. It was largely predictable, but satisfying nonetheless. I liked Calvin, Susie and their relationship. A sweet and imaginative tribute to Watterson and his creation.

Okay, so I dropped everything else to read this book for the book prize I'm helping to judge. But I LOVE Calvin and Hobbes, and for there to be a young adult (technically middle grade, I guess?) novel about Calvin and Hobbes made me geek out a little bit.

Calvin deals with heavy themes and a pretty lighthearted manner. Of course, I appreciated the humor from the comics, and when Calvin begins to question everything he sees provides a legitimate insight to how his disorder affects him. It was well-written, although I wish it was longer and went more intimately into the characters and their stories, because right now, we're barely scartching the surface. The love story between Calvin and Susie felt forced because I didn't know either one of them well enough to believe in it, and it felt a little more like insta-love than true love, you know? 

Also, I can't say how well the schizophrenia was handled, because I don't know anyone personally who has been disagnosed with it. I wonder if it's significant that the doctors say Calvin has auditory hallucinations, but he actually does see Hobbes on a number of occasions--all occasions, actually, even when it's just a flicker out of the corner of his eye. And the idea that you can take a trip across a frozen lake and that will *mostly* cure your mental disorder was probably not intended by the author, but that's the way it kind of came across.

Anyway, all in all, it wasn't long enough for me to develop a significant attachment to anything, although I did enjoy it while I was reading (one sitting in an airport).

Sweet merciful crap.

(For the record, I mean that Simpsons quote in the best way possible-- if a book leaves me saying that, it's a REALLY good book.)

I like verse novels, but my usual complaint with them is that for all of their (general) beauty and good usage of language, they don't really read like poetry. So, naturally, this one comes along and blows that out of the water. By far one of the heaviest books I've ever read (probably about as heart-shreddingly, mind-blowingly disturbing as Living Dead Girl, though not quite as graphic), it's also got a lot of smart commentary about the way that the most particularly gross members of society continually devalue and debase women, especially young women and most especially young women who got pulled into the sex trade. It's fascinating, beautifully written, infuriating, literary (the integration of Paradise Lost quotes is truly splendid), and overall powerful. And that ending, perfect.

Not for the faint of heart, but immensely rewarding, and somehow even better than Leavitt's Heck Superhero (one of my favorite books when I was a teen). This one's going on my shelf of honor.