Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp by C.D. Payne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
At first I didn’t like this book. It’s loud and ridiculous. Human natures and exaggerated, especially the narrator’s. But even still, it took me about 150 pages before I understood. This is a mixture of National Lampoon and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or as a book, maybe Bruno and Boots. I look at this like an 80’s teen movie in which a teen is ridiculous, overly manipulative and yet able to pull it off. His schemes blow up in his face. Only there’s no moral here. This is pure entertainment. There’s nothing to be gained. No moral. Just the desire for ranchy teenage sex. The craziness this goes is a little too far, exaggerated. But that’s part of the fun. In a way, I dislike the ending. It wraps too cleanly, the triumph of manipulative borderline sociopathy! If only freedom was gained so easily.
The only thing missing is the hardest part; that Nick Twisp learns his lesson; and in a way he does. He transforms himself; he could no longer be himself. He sheds his mortal skin yet remains in essence himself.
Good to read. But somehow I missed the initial set-up, that this was to be an extended jaunt, though the final moment is a Republican utopia, in which the private life remains beholden as private, even while public life may be criminal, entrepreneurial and otherwise distorted. Very 80s conservative.
