[SIX]∎ Libro Cassie Draws the Universe P S Baber 9781450243797 Books

Cassie Draws the Universe P S Baber 9781450243797 Books

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Cassie Draws the Universe P S Baber 9781450243797 Books

This book takes place in Kansas, my home state, and immediately paints an extremely bleak and depressing picture of the landscape and the people, so we didn't get off to a very friendly start. However the more I read the better I felt about the story. Cassie, the main character, is an intelligent and thoughtful girl at an emotional cross roads, and I became rather invested in her story. I really enjoyed the excerpts from her notebook, and the poetry was beautiful. The writing was well done and even a bit poetic itself, if a little unpolished at times. As I approached the end of the book, however, I noticed an uncomfortable trend, and the author deals you a terrible blow, which seemed entirely inappropriate to me. I really felt betrayed by that ending, and I don't mind saying I was a bit miffed.


Tags : Cassie Draws the Universe [P. S. Baber] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Cassie Harper is a disillusioned high school senior who is daily losing ground in a battle against her own nihilistic inclinations. When a beautiful new girl from California comes to town and attempts to befriend a reluctant Cassie,P. S. Baber,Cassie Draws the Universe,iUniverse,1450243797,FICTION Literary,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction-Literary,GENERAL,Literary,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Cassie Draws the Universe P S Baber 9781450243797 Books Reviews

A combination of Catcher in the Rye, A Clockwork Orange, Silence of the Lambs, Girl Interrupted, "Cassie Draws the Universe" is opera. It is opulent, grand and brilliant in strange ways, executed with a low grade fever.

Cassie, a seventeen-year-old high school senior, will frustrate anger, impress and scare you. There are no soft edges with this girl, whose father died in war before she was born. Or so we're led to believe. Cassie is a scarred, damaged, nihilistic genius. Her only friend is blond, beautiful Amy, an activist, athlete and the daughter of the new English teacher in town.

Amy pushes herself on Cassie because she senses the sadness in the girl and Amy, who lost her mom and brother in an accident, needs to help other people in order to help herself grieve. Theirs is a complex friendship. Amy's father, a frustrated poet, is author P.S. Baber's most uncomfortable creation. Amy, though admitting he can be a Fascist, claims he's a great dad. Mr. Cole, in fact, is a monster, a petulant child in an adult's body. His relationship with Cassie (he always calls her Miss Harper) is soaked in tension. Both refuse to back down in an argument but somehow Cassie feels he's the only one who understands her.
Terrible things happen in this book, all of it described down to the smallest detail. There is gross unfairness, violence and stunning vengeance. People lie and deceive and squash dreams. This is not just about the boredom of teenagers in a small Kansas town surrounded by flatland. The conflicts go much deeper and can be extrapolated in a larger sense.

There is also pontificating by Cassie that makes her sound much older than seventeen, which sometimes is a fault. There are excerpts from her notebook (she's a writer), many of which indicate imagination and illness. Like the best writers, Cassie creates her own universe. But in Cassie's universe, the reader is not always welcome.

Ultimately "Cassie Draws the Universe" is about a victim who is knowingly self- destructive, about power in the classroom, about dangerous trust. You will read of astronomy, evolution, baseball, philosophy, and God, lots of words about God, all pouring from Cassie, spouting hard, implacable beliefs. This book will frighten, challenge and fool you, keep you guessing and turning pages. Mostly, it will exhaust you. But in a good way.

Reviewed by Joe DelPriore for IndieReader
From the first page, you know that Cassie Draws the Universe is a dark tale. It opens with a dead body. Who's body? You don't know. And you won't until near the end of the book. On the second page, you are introduced to Cassie. And before you know really anything about Cassie, you know that this story is about "all the terrible things that happened to her, and the terrible things she did as a result."

It is impossible to start reading this book and think that it will have a happy ending. If you are looking for happy fun times, do not read this book. As in any story that is written primarily as one giant flashback, you know where you'll end up. But the interesting thing is the journey the protagonist takes to get to that ending.

Cassie is a teenager being raised by her hard-working mother, because her father died before she was born. The book is written from her perspective, and her perspective is unusual. She sees the world through a sort of magical filter. Her mother is too tall and big to fit through her door and has hands the size of tennis rackets. Is that likely? No. But Cassie's mind is the lens through which she sees her world.

She keeps a journal that is full of stories and is a highly intelligent, extremely talented writer, but is also a self-imposed loner, and has no friends in school. That is, until Amy moved into town. Amy is the daughter of the new English teacher Mr. Cole. And she is immediately drawn to the complex Cassie. They form a close relationship and Cassie begins to see Mr. Cole as a sort of father figure and mentor.

From here out, the story becomes emotionally difficult and heartbreaking. There are minor and major incidents that help form the plot, and therefore, your perception of Cassie. The story is dark, complex, engaging, and wonderfully written. It is also an impressive attempt at demonstrating what a psychotic break would be like, as experienced from inside the mind of that individual. As one would expect, this is not a light read. Even so, it was impossible for me to put down once I started it, and I couldn't stop thinking about it after I finished.

I highly recommend this book and look for future contributions from this talented author.

Also reviewed at C-Spot Reviews
This book takes place in Kansas, my home state, and immediately paints an extremely bleak and depressing picture of the landscape and the people, so we didn't get off to a very friendly start. However the more I read the better I felt about the story. Cassie, the main character, is an intelligent and thoughtful girl at an emotional cross roads, and I became rather invested in her story. I really enjoyed the excerpts from her notebook, and the poetry was beautiful. The writing was well done and even a bit poetic itself, if a little unpolished at times. As I approached the end of the book, however, I noticed an uncomfortable trend, and the author deals you a terrible blow, which seemed entirely inappropriate to me. I really felt betrayed by that ending, and I don't mind saying I was a bit miffed.