R is for Mount Rainier (YA Review: The Honest Truth)

Title:The Honest Truth
Author: Dan Gemeinhart
Publisher: Scholastic Press, 2015. 229 pages.  Young Adult (?)
Source: Library

Summary:
Mark is sick, really sick, and he has just one thing he feels like he has to do. He wants to climb Mt. Rainier, if he dies trying. So he runs away to do it, taking only the bare essentials and his dog.


Review:
This book caught my eye while I was shelving at the library, first because of the cover, and then the blurb, because I'm from the Northwest and Mt. Rainier is even still (after nearly 30 years), "The Mountain."

The title is good, because this mostly first-person narrative doesn't pull any punches. Cancer sucks, and Mark isn't under any illusions about that, or his long-term chances, and he tell us what he's feeling. I don't know if the author meant it that way, but when I read the list of supplies Mark is carrying to the Mountain, I really did feel like it was deliberately a suicide journey, though it might have been more about him not having any experience (not sure if the author does, either, because it's not always clear if he sees the gaps either).

This book falls squarely into the "kids with cancer" genre which seems popular these days, and doesn't lack any of the emotional force--or manipulation--of that story line. But it was a good read, and had a few elements I really liked. For one, Mark writes his journal--and notes to his best friend--in haiku. He's a little obsessive about it, but it is a nice touch, and maybe symbolic, too, given that he must also live his life inside some very strict parameters.

It is also, of course, a rather literal "journey of self-discovery," and I think works very well at that. The Mark of the final chapter is not--exactly--the Mark of the first chapter.

Recommendation:
I'm not sure why our library put this in Young Adult. It didn't seem to be to deal with any harder issues than a lot of books in the Juvvy section, and there is no sex or sexual innuendo. Only a lot of anger and sadness. The age of the protagonist is never made clear (that I caught--though there is some backstory that would allow me to figure it out, I think). I would say The Honest Truth is suitable for  kids from maybe 11 or 12 up. The reading level isn't hard, but the subject matter (in particular the sense that the narrator has given up--though that is redeemed, too) might be too heartbreaking for the littler kids (so on reflection maybe that's why YA, since if it's in Juvvy it's apt to be picked up by kids as young as 8).

Full Disclosure: I checked The Honest Truth out of my library, and received nothing from the writer or publisher in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."


And here's Mark's mountain, on a better day than when he visited!

This is the opposite side from where Mark went.

P: Progressive Book Club

 

This month's PBC book is The End of Your Life Bookclub, by Will Schwalbe, and I'm a day late again--on purpose, since that made it come on "P."

This book affected me on a number of levels.  Although the book is in no way morbid or even, in some sense, about death, it is never far from the reader's mind that this is a narrative of the dying of the author's mother.  Though Schwalbe and his mother have always talked about the books they read, in a sort of accidental development, they began deliberately reading the same books at the same time, and discussing them (usually while she underwent her chemo or they waited for doctor appointments).  So, as a middle-aged adult who has already lost one parent (also to cancer), I was a bit gob-smacked by that aspect of the book.  As when I read Bill McKibben's Long Distance: A Year of Living Strenuously which also narrates the gradual death of a parent, I was treated to all my own feelings about losing a parent, including guilt that I wasn't able to be present for my Dad in the way that these authors were for their parents.

Mary Anne Schwalbe was an amazing person who dedicated much of her life to helping people in places where most of us won't even consider going.  She was all over the world, in and out of war zones, working in refugee camps and pushing charities to help the refugees.  Through it all, she remained a caring person who connected on a personal and individual level with everyone she met (in this way she reminds me of my own mother, who would make no difference in how she'd chat with the queen or the queen's charwoman).  So I also felt a bit of a jab at how little I've done in my life to make a difference (and occasionally felt a snarky urge to point out that a lot of what the author's family could do came of their rather obviously coming from money).  Mostly it's inspiring, though.

Then there were the books.  These two and their book discussions make me want to be a better reader, to resume reading more serious fiction (the stuff that I probably too often avoid as grim and depressing).  I actually would have felt a bit better if they'd occasionally trashed a book.  I'm not sure if they did a very good job of filtering their reading list to contain only books that they could truly appreciate, or if Schwalbe just didn't discuss the failures.

In the end, the best I can do is share some random quotes that I liked.

Early on there's a discussion of print books vs. electronic that totally tickled me:

Electronic books live out of sight and out of mind.  But printed books have body, presence. . . . they'll confront you, and you'll literally stumble over some tomes you hadn't thought about in weeks or years.  I often seek electronic books, but they never come after me.  They may make me feel, but I can't feel them.  They are all soul and no flesh, no texture, and no weight.  They can get in your head but can't whack you upside it.

Another great bit, on the value of reading for children:

There was one sure way to avoid being assigned an impromptu chore in our house. . . and that was to have your face buried in a book.  Like churches during the Middle Ages, books conferred instant sanctuary.  Once you entered one, you couldn't be disturbed.

As the book progresses, I am forced to think more about what it is saying about watching a parent die.  I am struck by a line:
So often over the course of Mom's dying, I noted how people would avoid touching Mom or talking to her, addressing comments and queries to us, even when she was right there. ("Does your mother want something to drink?").
I have been there briefly, just once, when my grandmother (then pushing 90) was taken ill, and the usual suspects (the older cousins) were for some reason not available to go to the hospital.  They finally phoned my older brother, but he was away and I was staying at his house.  So I drove 30 miles to the hospital, largely to provide Grandma with transport home.  But as soon as I was there, people started talking to me instead of her (not helped by her poor hearing--but she was totally present mentally, and could hear well enough if she could see them and lip-read some too).  I knew nothing of her meds, routines. . . and had to keep saying so, directing them to speak to her.  It's a sort of infantilization of the elderly, and a giant discourtesy.

Again, on how we see our parents, compared to how others do:
A friend's father introduces himself to the waiter at the start of every New York restaurant meal by saying: "Hi, I'm Eric, and this is Susie, and we're from Vermont."  My friend cringes ever so slightly whenever his dad does this.  I cringe a little when Mom is talking to Curt, thinking that he doesn't want to chat; he's trying to concentrate; she's just another old person dying of cancer.  But this isn't true--it's just the childish embarrassment we all develop about our parents: they are too effusive, try too hard; they just aren't being cool.

And, finally, there is the harsh truth:
I'd seen so many movies where characters sit by beds as their loved ones die.  They give speeches, hold hands, and say, "It's okay--you can let go."  What none of those books and movies conveys is how tedious it is.

What Schwalbe manages to convey is how much life a person can still have and share while dying.  Showing it through the insights he and his mother brought to and took from the books they read reminds us all of the power of the written word, as well as through the effort she continued to put into her current project (a library and mobile libraries for Afghanistan) right up until her death.

A final thought: the first two books we read for the PBC were about writing.  This book is about reading.  But without reading, there is no writing--reading by those for whom we write, and reading by those of us who also write.  This is a great book for writers, because it makes us think about how we read.