Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Sometimes it takes more courage not to let yourself see. Sometimes knowledge is damaging - not enlightenment but enleadenment.
After moving across America for years with her charismatic and intensely educated father as the only constant in her life, Blue van Meer finally gets to spend a solid year in a single town to finish high school. A mysterious teacher, Hannah Schneider, bumps into her and her father while they're shopping before school starts. She strikes up a conversation with them, and soon after invites Blue into the Bluebloods, a group of assorted teens she invites to dinner every weekend. Hannah and her Bluebloods all seem to be harboring some dark secrets. Soon Blue is drawn into intrigues and mysteries that lead her to re-evaluate her father and herself.
The book's two draws are its deceptively intricate plot and its unique writing style. Blue is compulsively literate, with a nearly perfect memory for the many books she's read and all the trivia her father has drilled her in. She frequently appends citations to her own descriptions (such as referencing an encyclopedia article on a hyena after describing someone's laugh), and the prose is generally witty and refreshing, with cliches ripped out by the roots and fresh metaphors seeded in their place (like that, except a lot better).
- Arc Words: "The Nightwatchmen."
- Brick Joke: Several. For instance, early on, Blue mentions that she thinks it would be romantic if someone whispered pi to 65 decimals places into her ear. At the end of the book, one of the multiple choice answers includes "Zach is currently trying to memorize pi to 65 places".
- Butterfly of Death and Rebirth: Blue's deceased mother collects them.
- Coming of Age Story
- Embarrassing Tattoo: Milton has one.
- Femme Fatale: Hannah Schneider. Probably.
- Left Field Description: Abundant, even for the most minor of characters.
- Hot Dad: Blue's father Gareth is very handsome and charming as well as a serial womanizer.
- How We Got Here: The book begins with a murder, and spends about two-thirds of its pages building up to how it happened.
- No Ending: Played with; see Riddle for the Ages. Also discussed as the ending of the film L'Aventura.
- Parental Abandonment: Jade's mother leaves her to be raised by servants. Blue's mother dies before the book starts. Near the end, her father leaves in the middle of the night without a word.
- Riddle for the Ages: Whether Blue solved the mystery or not, as well as the answers to many other unanswered questions, is left up to the reader. Literally--the end of the book is a multiple choice exam, which presents the reader with a number of different conclusions to various mysteries.
- Something Only They Would Say: A variation: A few of the reasons of the reasons Blue thinks her dad and Hannah slept together at some point include things like Hannah's use of the simile "like butterflies" in a suspicious context, her fondness for the film L'Aventura, and other things which she describes as "her father's fingerprints".
- Well, Excuse Me, Princess!: Jade is a spoiled brat and often insults Blue, but while drunk tells her that Blue is the only Blueblood she actually really likes.