Firecracker by David Iserson. 336 pp. Razorbill.
David Iserson is a writer for Fox’s New Girl. Here’s the thing about New Girl: it’s very hit or miss. When it hits, it’s so good that I startle my son by laughing out loud. (He’s not used to me laughing at anything other than his antics, I guess.) When it misses, I want my twenty-two minutes of wasted time back. So…while I wasn’t sure that I would like Iserson’s first novel, I wanted to give it a shot.
Honestly? Another reason I agreed to give it a shot? This book trailer.
I always get excited when artists I admire are fans of other artists I admire (like Neil Gaiman and Daniel Handler being featured in Strange Powers, a documentary about Stephin Merritt of Magnetic Fields/Gothic Archies/The Sixths/etc. fame). However, there’s a fine line between talking someone up because you actually like them and helping out a friend. Lots of people I enjoy are in the trailer for Firecracker (Melissa Rausch, Jack McBrayer, Jake Johnson…and other people whom I only know by their characters’ names, like Randy from HIMYM), but they may be Iserson’s friends and just doing him a favor. Only one way to find out, right? Read the book. That’s kind of the point of a trailer, and it worked: my interest was piqued.
Firecracker is about Astrid Krieger, a high school student who uses her family’s name and fortune to wield as much power as possible. In fact, having the upper hand seems to be all that she cares about — well, that and her beloved grandfather, the only member of her family who understands her because he, too, is a firecracker (or “asshole,” as Astrid oh-so-helpfully points out is what people actually mean when they call her a “firecracker”). When Astrid is kicked out of her prep school for cheating, she makes it her goal to find out which of her accomplices turned her in while struggling to survive in public school. Along the way, she learns a thing or two about friends, enemies, and herself.
The characters of this book are varied, vivid, and hilarious. I love stories, whether on the page or screen, in which each character is so explicitly himself (or herself, of course). When I say to my husband, “That’s a very Kenneth the Page outlook on life,” or “That’s something Jack Donaghy would say,” he knows just what I mean. Granted, this makes the characters a little two-dimensional, but when it works for the sake of storyline and comedic effect, it doesn’t bother me one bit. This goes for supporting characters only. If I see no growth or dimension in the protagonist, there’s a disconnect. That’s why Firecracker worked for me: the supporting cast made me laugh, from hair-eating, lisping Lucy to lovelorn Pierre, but I still got to watch Astrid screw up, learn, and grow. (Although, come to think of it, those other characters end up being much more three-dimensional than they let on at first, so there goes my theory, huh?)
This is a fun book, and a funny book, and it’s worth reading. Granted, there were a couple of things I could have done without: sometimes Astrid was such a…ahem…”firecracker” that it was tough to sympathize with her. I’m all for biting insults when they’re deserved, but someone who’s rude for no reason is difficult for me to appreciate. That being said, she was certainly realistic; I taught high school, and I can guarantee you that there are kids like her in real life. (Maybe the fact that I’ve dealt with them makes me want to escape a bit when reading for pleasure?) Also, some of the events are so out-of-this-world (and no, I’m not talking about living in a rocket ship…that’s freakin’ awesome) that they felt thrown in for shock value instead of fitting well with the plot (fire, anyone?).
All in all: touching and mean, all at the same time…and don’t we all know somebody like that?
You Can Read Me Anything 