See You in the Cosmos by Jack Cheng - Book Review
Title: See You in the Cosmos
Author: Jack Cheng
Publisher: Dial Books
Publish Date: February 28, 2017
Rating: 5/5
Summary(blurb): All eleven-year-old Alex wants is to launch his iPod into space. With a series of audio recordings, he will show other life forms out in the cosmos what life on Earth-- his Earth-- is really like. But for a boy with a long-dead dad, a troubled mum and a mostly-not-around brother, Alex struggles with the big questions. Where do I come from? Who's out there? And, above all, How can I be brave? Determined to find the answers, Alex sets out on an extraordinary road trip with his dog, Carl Sagan-- named for Alex's hero, the real-life astronomer. But his destination keeps changing. And the funny, lost, remarkable people he meets along the way can only partially prepare him for the secrets he'll uncover-- secrets that will turn his universe upside down.
**This book review contains spoilers for this book. If you still want to read the review, go ahead. However, I strongly recommend you to read this book before reading my review.
I first grabbed this book in my nearby public library about a week ago, and I couldn't read it for some time but I finally got my hands on it a few days ago. Once I did start to read it, it didn't take long for me to finish the entire book, as the story was fascinating and the formatting was done in such a way that it kept me reading and enthralled.
The plot of this book is quite straightforward, but there were a lot of things happening-- first the focus was SHARF, then Las Vegas with his newfound friends Steve and Zed, then his dog going missing, then Terra, then LA, then Colorado, etc etc etc. It was easy to follow, but there were so many things happening that it felt like much more than 300 pages had passed.
There was basically nothing I disliked about this book, except one slight gone-unexplained thing-- Zed suddenly breaking his vow of silence to comfort and help Alex distraught at the his dog gone missing. However, that can be easily explained away-- like, it symbolizes how Zed breaks his vow (maybe something like making a sacrifice) for Alex's sake, so it shows human grace and understanding. So that's nothing but a minor concern, I really liked this book and as I said, there's nothing to dislike about. That Zed thing was a mere confusion.
So I'll start with the parts that I liked... and then end with those.
This book is written in an ingenious style-- Alex Petroski, a 11-year-old space-obsessed kid, wants to record human sounds and stories in his Golden iPod for intelligent beings in the universe (just like Carl Sagan did with the Golden Record), and each chapter is a recording Alex made on his gold-spray-painted iPod. There are short chapters, long chapters, and one chapter even says "No Recording Available" because Alex deleted the recording he had made. The recordings go in either script format, like a play's script, or just Alex talking about the events that had happened. Either way, there are no quotation marks used to represent speech, so it's more enjoyable than just standard format.
Also, the "talking to extraterrestrial intelligent beings" reason is a pretty genius reason for how to tell a story-- it perfectly captures Alex's naive curiosity about aliens, as well as effectively telling readers about the events in the story. It's not like the author's talking to the readers or telling the readers about the story, it's like I'm listening to the Golden iPod myself with the author just giving me access to the iPod. That's also why I like epistolary novels (novel written as a series of letters) like Love, Rosie-- the author isn't really present, and it's just me getting a look into the lives of these characters via letters (or audio recordings in this case.)
Another aspect I really liked about this book is Alex's character. His personality is very distinct-- nerdy about science, rattles on about unnecessary stuff a lot, naive and innocent, but he's trying to be brave. In short, he's an eager, innocent, kind-hearted soul. Very very likable. His eagerness to talk about 'what just happened' to the aliens on the Golden iPod is an important plot device, as it provides the entire storyline for the readers. He also rambles on and goes off on tangents quite a lot, and while some people may dislike this kind of writing style, it's similar to The Catcher in the Rye-- Alex, just a kid, is just rambling about stuff he's reminded of as he talks. Also, these long ramblings taking up entire paragraphs shows Ales's earnestness to tell others what he wants to say to them (mostly the aliens, and any new people Alex encounters.) Alex's eager ramblings put a smile on my face whenever it happened, so those were one of my favorite points in the book.
Lastly, the themes that are in this book are so well told and well communicated. Despite this being a book intended for kids, it deals with powerful topics such as innocence, truth, bravery, family, and more. Starting with the introduction of Terra, the novel takes a 'family' turn, and at the end Alex realizes that while his parents aren't around, he has so much family around him-- much more than he could have ever thought before. Through all this, however, I think the main effect that this book has for readers is a "powerful affirmation of our human capacity for grace and love and understanding" (from Gary D. Schmidt, at the back of the book). Nearly everyone Alex befriends-- from the older guy on the train to Steve and Zed to Ken Russell-- is good-hearted and helps Alex as best as they can. This kind of warmth and camaraderie between human beings is the heart of this book.
In conclusion, I loved this book-- it's the best book (and five-star review) I've read in a while. Amazing characters and lovely friendship, all throughout the book. I think it's a prime example of a bildungsroman, and the writing style was creative and ingenious.
I would recommend this book for grade 5 and up, the only limiting factor is vocabulary and the book was written for children after all. However, older people (ex. high schoolers and up) would be a better fit to read this book, as the book would impact them more (like returning to the childlike innocence).
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