When You Reach Me — Rebecca Stead
This review was written on 15 Jul 2020.
This was probably the first novel I picked up because I felt the cover was interesting, and I’m glad I did. When You Reach Me was a delightful read that picked up pace particularly late, but the wait was worth it.
This is a short novel (one shy of two hundred pages), which falls into the genre of Young Adult Fiction, but for me, it was in a totally different vein from the Percy Jacksons or the Harry Potters. For one, it had little to no elements of fantasy, romance, or adventure. It was like a small bildungsroman of a young girl, following events in her life over a period of a few months against the backdrop of a few mysterious messages she receives.
When You Reach Me is set in the late 1970s and is narrated by the aforementioned young girl Miranda, who lives with her single mother. The story kinda begins with Miranda’s best friend Sal ignoring her, and Miranda’s exasperation as she fails to get him to talk. Parallelly, her mom gets an invitation to a TV game show called $20,000 Pyramid. There’s a storyline about Miranda’s activities at school (and during the lunch break) and a sci-fi storyline with time travel suggested in intervals. It’s all these subplots brought together seamlessly which makes the novel feel extremely real. The kids showcase a wide range of traits but on the whole are shown to be mature and independent, which I liked a lot. There is no dearth of YA books where teens are shown as one-dimensional sassy, sappy, or snarky juveniles depending on the writer’s whims and wishes, and well-formed characters are such a pleasure.
The novel reminded me in some ways of To Kill A Mockingbird, which I read a few months ago. The characters act older than their age (Jem and Scout), the protagonist has a single parent (Atticus), the story moves slowly covering the little details in people’s lives, and I guess the world was indeed a lot different back then. (view spoiler)
The sci-fi elements in the book were done well and I liked how little there was of it. Time travel is explained with respect to its consequences and not its mechanism, this made sense as the story was being narrated by a twelve-year-old kid who wasn’t a nerd. It wasn’t until the very end that everything made sense, including the title. The idea of future events affecting the past which then affects the same future is inherently a bit disorienting and I accept it as long as things seem consistent. But the solution to the mystery fell flat on me, even though it was explained later how everything was connected. I just didn’t care that much about who was sending her those weird letters. I guess that’s what happens when you read too much of Agatha Christie.
The storyline about Miranda’s social life is the main thread keeping the story going ahead and it was pretty slow for the first one-third of the novel, and the chapters felt like 5-minute episodes of Miranda going about her life. But after warming up to the characters it was a breezy read. Miranda’s small developments in the way she thought about things were nice, and an explanation for Sal’s behavior is provided towards the end, which was interesting too.
All in all, I repeat what I started with. This novel was a delightful read, and if you’re tired of reading heavy classics, want to read some wonderful middle school dynamics, or really want to know who sends Miranda those messages, I’d heartily recommend When You Reach Me.