Catalyst

Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary!
Review: The story of teenage math & science geek Kate Malone is one that I know will stay with me for a long time, even though I just finished the book this afternoon. The way this book is written enables the reader to feel the breath and body heat of the characters as they live the story. Anderson has managed to write a book with a plot that is uncommon, yet plausible, and the whole thing comes across as very real. Kudos to her for that! Now go read the book!

Rating:
Summary: Catalyst: A review
Review: Kate Malone is a straight-A student. She's the daughter of Reverend Malone and is known as the town sweetheart. Everyone adores her; that is except for Teri Litch. A school bully who is famous for her countless crimes, Kate tries to avoid Teri as best she can. Matters between Kate and Teri become inflamed when Teri and her little brother Mikey have to stay with Kate because Teri's house catches on fire. Kate is certain that this experience will be a living hell, but when an unexpected tragedy arouses Kate finds herself bonding with the ever-feared Teri Litch.
The beginning of the book pulls you into the story rapidly. It forces you to keep reading, the tension building in every turn of the page. You feel for Kate and are able to identify with the characters around her as she faces the conflict of Teri Litch. By describing the characters around her vividly such as Toby, Mitch, and Teri you paint a picture in your mind of each character as you read. Since the book is realistic in its plot and characters, you are able to find many text-self connections throughout the book like when Kate doesn't get into her college. You are able to experience her sense of disappointment much like when things don't turn out your way. Although I enjoyed Catalyst certain aspects of the book weren't as pleasing as others. Throughout the book a present tense is used that is hard to follow and forms awkward short choppy sentences. This causes your attention to be drawn away from the story and focus more on understanding the sentences. Not that there isn't suspense in the book, but at times in the middle of the story you feel as if the book is spending too much time drifting off the story line. There's a huge chunk that describes Teri and Kate going to the grocery store that wasn't important at all. Also, the conflict of Kate being excepted into a college is built up and then ended in a harsh jolt.
Catalyst pulls you into it and helps you realize the importance of life. It's definitely a worth-while book to read.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing book!
Review: When I picked this book up off the self, I was expecting a pathetic attempt to re-create the magic and greatness of Speak. But, as I started reading it, I soon discovered that this work had created a magic of it's own. It's amazingly well written and it gives the reader a sense of being inside the page. As I read this book, I felt as if I was there running every race, taking every turn, and watching everything go up in smoke, right there with Kate. The realism, the way that Anderson captured true real emotions, not just ones that authors typically make the mistake of portraying, was amazing. I don't ever before reading this book and Speak ever recall seeing that in a book. My favorite part of the book was how Kate was definitely not a stock character. She was real, yet it seemed that no one had ever written about her before. Kate is new and fresh, yet so familiar, that if you saw her walking down the street you'd stop to say hello and ask how her week was going. Kate embodies a small piece of everyone, the insecurity and the struggle between being who you are and who you want to be. Amazing book, even though it can never hold a candle to Speak, I found it wonderful and grippingly true, able to relate to any age group, gender, or social group. All in all I think that Anderson has again created an amazing work.

Rating:
Summary: Blew me away!
Review: This is the first book I ever read that said what it is really like to be under all this stupid college pressure. I could not stop reading it, and I had an AP Amer Hist test the next day!! Her characters rock and it is honest, honest, honest!! I loved the conflict between Kate and Teri and how Kate kept trying to make everybody happy. I loved Mikey too, and it still makes me cry to think about what happened. My lit teacher is letting me use it for an independant reading project.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic!
Review: This book is one of the best books that I've ever read! It deals with difficult and powerful issues. The characters are very complex and heart-touching. I'd reccomend it as a must-read for any teen.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful
Review: Powerful. Laurie Halse Anderson has created characters and situations that fill the reader with as much stress and emotion as those on the page. We're not sure we really like Kate, the high school senior who suffers from insomnia and runs so hard that she does physical damage to herself. We can sympathize with her college dilemma, but still, I'm not sure we like her. And most readers probably won't like Teri, the harsh outcast character who Kate ends up aiding. But Ms. Anderson writes with such force that we are compelled to read non-stop until we find out the heart-wrenching conclusions that these two difficult characters face.
Definitely a high school read and for any adult who remembers what being a teenager is like.

Rating:
Summary: A Letdown
Review: I have to say that Catalyst was a letdown. I read Speak, which was a good book by the same author. So i was expecting Catalyst to be at least somewhere near as good as Speak. But it wasn't, it let me down.

This book is simply the thoughts of a stressed-out girl complaining about all her problems. Kate Malone, the main character in the story, is a very smart and athletic girl. It starts out with her worried about getting into MIT, the only college she applied to. When she doesn't get in, she is screwed because she doesn't have any safety schools to go to, big surprise since she only applied to one school. However, you expect the book to move along from that point once she finds out she was rejected. But instead the book just drags along, never really solving that problem but never letting it go either.

This story is very slow. Pretty early on in the story, their neighbor's house burns down, so the family, a poor messed-up family, has to live with the Malones. So a lot of the story is spent telling what happens with them living with her. The whole time I was reading it, I expected it to get better, I expected the story to pick up. But it never does. Throughout the whole book, something would happen to Kate, or to someone around Kate, and she would just get all stressed out about it. There was one point of action in the story, which was exciting for a few pages. But right after the action picked up, more time was spent telling how stressed out Kate was about that. It's basically a lot of complaining and unnecessary problems inside the narrator's mind. Even up to the last page, I was expecting something to happen, but even the ending is a letdown. It just ends, it's not a good ending at all.

It's really not too bad of a story line. But the way the story is told isn't very interesting. Sure, this wasn't a horrible book. It wasn't the most boring book I've ever read. It just isn't fantastic either. If you really like books told from a first-person view from a girl, almost in diary format, then you might like this book, but if you haven't read Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson read that one first.

Rating:
Summary: The Chemistry Isn't Totally There
Review: Kate Malone seems like a perfect teenager. As an almost-valedictorian, a star track runner, and an obsessed chemistry student, it seems certain that she's going to get into MIT-her dream, her aspiration, her goal. But then the letter of rejection comes from MIT, and Kate's life begins to unravel. In the midst of Kate's depression and denial, her neighbor's house burns down (and who would that neighbor be but Teri Litch, who has always been Kate's worst enemy) and the family comes to live with the Malones. Kate has only her father after her mother's long-ago death, but her relationship with him still remains distant during this troubled time in her life. As Kate's life becomes more chaotic that she ever dreamed, how can she reconcile herself to a life without MIT?

If nothing else, "Catalyst" takes a brave stab at delving deeper into a topic that is seldom explored. Many "young adult" books deal with depressed, addicted, or low-achieving teenagers, yet "Catalyst" does just the opposite. Lori Halse Anderson begins the books with several well-done chapters showing just how driven, obsessive, and in some ways, dysfunctional Kate really is. Readers can literally feel how much Kate WANTS to go to MIT, and Kate's frayed nerves about being admitted and her subsequent denial over not being accepted are vividly brought to life.

But after those first few chapters and Kate's "breakdown" over the MIT issue, the book loses something. It seems that as we continue reading "Catalyst," the Teri Litch situation takes up more and more of the story line, and instead of being a good complication in the story, it merely seems to distract from the issue of Kate resolving her feelings about MIT, college, and failure. I kept wating for Kate to sit down, "take stock," and come to grips with her disappointment. But that never happened. Kate and her family are in a whirl of activity concerned with the Litches from the moment their house burns down, and this activity totally cosumes the latter half of the story. The end of the book is too hurried and unrealistic, and does not seem like a satisfactory resolution to all of the problems Kate has faced during the book. Finally, the characters in this book just seemed a little too distant and surreal. I can't totally describe this, but the book seemed a little too dream-like, and Kate's confusion over MIT and then about how to deal with Teri just seemed too distant and detached.

In conclusion, it's hard to know what to say. I'd say read this book, simply for the numerous moments of excellent writing and the portrait of a teenager who is the opposite of the many typically seen in "young adult" novels. But don't expect a novel that stays excellent to the very end and has completely "down-to-earth" characters. Like I said, in "Catalyst," the story's chemistry is just not quite perfect.

Rating:
Summary: Little Chemistry in "Catalyst"
Review: For a book that repetitively stresses the unpredictibility and violence of chemical reactions (in order to draw parallels with Kate Malone's life), surprisingly little actually HAPPENS, chemical or otherwise. In the final chapter Kate still runs. Kate still eats breakfast foods with her stock group of "quirky" friends. Kate still has inane internal monologues about "quantum futures", meant to amuse, but merely annoy. How has she changed? Isn't she still moaning about MIT? So what if she's willing to take a sledge hammer to a house. How has her life changed, for the worse or better?

The author fails to show a change in mindset, or even the promise of one. In the eighth-grade-level chem-speak metaphors Anderson is so fond of beginning her chapters with (Isn't Kate supposed to be in AP?), Kate would be a buffer. She SLOWS the rate of reaction. Even when plausible catalyzing agents are added, such as the Liches moving into her room, the rejection letter, a character's death, etc. Kate does nothing. Teri steals from her and she does nothing. Even the realization that Mikey is not who the Liches claim takes place off stage. We are not privy to Kate's thoughts or insights. She talks about her car or her brother or MIT...AGAIN. All the tension is sucked right out of that plot point in favor of the banal.

The ending came as a surprise only because I was certain there had to be more to the story than that. It's entirely possible the narrator (an uneven Samantha Mathis) in the audio version ruined the cadences of Anderson's writing, so I'll reserve judgment on her until I read "Speak". She seems to have a handle on the turbulent thoughts and desires of the adolescent mind, but she would be better off plumming the depths of the teenage psyche rather than merely skimming the surface as she did in "Catalyst".

Rating:
Summary: Below Expectations
Review: This is about a high school senior who is placing all her hopes for the future on getting into MIT, but doesn't get in and is at a loss. Kate is an interesting character to watch develop. The dry humor and honest portrayal of high school make it enjoyable to read. It was also nice to see a protagonist with deeper thoughts than whether she would be asked to prom. If you have read the book "Speak" by the same author, don't expect the same from Catalyst; it doesn't measure up to Speak. I would recommend it, but it is probably not appropriate for anyone under 14.