Before the asteroid we let ourselves be defined by labels:
The athlete, the outcast, the slacker, the overachiever.
But then we all looked up and everything changed.
They said it would be here in two months. That gave us two months to leave our labels behind. Two months to become something bigger than what we’d been, something that would last even after the end.
Two months to really live.
Title : We All Looked Up
Author : Tommy Wallach
Genre : Contemporary / Young Adult
Rating : 4 Stars
Reading age : Young adult
“The best books, they don’t talk about things you never thought about before. They talk about things you’d always thought about, but that you didn’t think anyone else had thought about. You read them, and suddenly you’re a little bit less alone in the world.”
This. Book. Is. Beautiful.
I’ll be honest, I fell in love with the cover. I judge books by covers. Yep, that’s me.
The story follows 4 teenagers from the same Highschool, but different social standings, for lack of better term; Peter, the popular, good-looking jock. Eliza, the artsy girl with…loose…morals. Andy, the stoner/skater/most likely to drop out of school and serve burgers forever and ever, under achiever. And Anita the over achieving class president who never breaks the rules.
This book looks at what happens when the world announces that they are facing ‘The End’. With asteroid Ardor hurtling towards earth, only 2 months before it could possibly hit carrying with it the power of 100 nuclear bombs all going off at once, the teenagers are faced with a new reality. One where the old rules no longer apply.
Laws are thrown out the window. Consequences are something of the past, and as the dregs of society rise from the underground to run the streets. This group of kids have to find where they fit and make decisions we only hope we are never faced with.
“ ‘Karass’ A group of people linked in a cosmically significant manner, even when superficial linkages are not evident.”
The questions this book lay out before you walk a line set between eye-rolling and deep. Wallach manages to plant so many different psychological seeds and questions in such away that you hardly notice the depth until it’s already been done, and not before the thought has grown into a tree and you have no choice but to see how tall it grows.
This is the work of a truly talented author.
I find it hard to really look past the language and writing to review the story line itself. This book was fantastic. For the ability of the author even more than the story itself. I loved it. I found myself yelling at anyone who would listen about how beautiful this book is. I couldn’t stop myself, I was pulling my hair out over it! This book will open your think box so wide. Tommy Wallach thank you for writing this.
“You didn’t win the game of life by losing the least. That would be one of those—what were they called again?—Pyrrhic victories. Real winning was having the most to lose, even if it meant you might lose it all. Even though it meant you would lose it all, sooner or later.”
worms and bibliophiles 