"Hey, man, get down!"
"Dude, don't be an idiot!"
"It's my thicks calling to me. They're standing just off the bridge, in the little park with the totem pole. The one that looks out over Elliott Bay and downtown Seattle.
Sixteen-year-old Jonathan lives in Seattle with his "thicks," friends since preschool. Their leader was Telly, Jonathan's twin brother.
Jonathan finds himself standing on the railing of a bridge during a snowy night in Seattle. He's drunk. He slips and falls, landing twenty feet below.
"Jonathan, Jonathan,
when are you gonna fix your life?"
Telemachus (or Telly) got hit by a Metro bus on April 17 and died 27 days later. Weeks later, one of Jonathan's teachers at Taft High School entered one of Jonathan's poems in the Quatch, Washington State's best young poet competition. In October, Jonathan won, the youngest recipient in the history of the contest.
...I do have a friend: Dr. Robert Bramwell (a.k.a. "Birdwell"). He's my champion. But he's also a hemorrhoid. Because of him, I'm famous. Because of him, people think I'm a prodigy. They expect me to pull a rabbit out of a hat. Part the Red Sea.
Win the Nobel Prize.
But a letter from Dr. Jacobson (a.k.a. "Gupti the Witch") and a song request that changes everything.
"Here is one hard fact to consider:
on your present course,
you will not be promoted to
the twelfth grade in June."
Birdwell, the only one who isn't disappointed by him, finds Jonathan a job - writing . A compensatory project equal to all the work he's missed.
An award-winning journalist and World War II veteran, David Cosgrove, wants Jonathan to write about his life. David is dying in hospice care. Reluctantly, Jonathan agrees to write the book. David gives Jonathan a suitcase filled with pictures, letters, notebooks, and journals, his life during the war.
"For a long time, Jonathan,
I've needed to make peace with something.
That's where you can help."
Adios, Nirvana beautifully illustrates how Jonathan heals from the loss of his twin brother. It's poetic, raw, delicious. It's a great book for guys, but I think most will love this book.
Rating: 10 out of 10 stars
