Spontaneous

by Aaron Starmer

Now a new motion picture starring Katherine Langford, Charlie Plummer, and Hayley Law!

“Truly the smartest and funniest book about spontaneous combustion you will ever read.” –John Green, #1 bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars

Mara Carlyle’s senior year is going as normally as could be expected, until fellow senior Katelyn Ogden explodes during third period pre-calc. Katelyn is the first, but she won’t be the last teenager to blow up without warning or explanation. As the national eye turns to Mara’s suburban New Jersey hometown, the FBI rolls in and the search for a reason is on. Mara narrates the end of their world as she knows it while trying to make it to graduation in one piece. It’s an explosive year punctuated by romance, quarantine, lifelong friendship, hallucinogenic mushrooms, bloggers, ice cream trucks, and Bon Jovi.
 
Aaron Starmer rewrites the rulebook with Spontaneous. But beneath the outrageous is a ridiculously funny, super honest, and truly moving exemplar of the absurd and raw truths of being a teenager in the 21st century . . . and the heartache of saying goodbye.

“Wildly inventive.” –Entertainment Weekly “Must List”

“A comically surreal novel that will blow your mind.” –People Magazine

• ISBN10: 0147517702
• ISBN13: 9780147517708
• Publish Date: 8 September 2020 (first published 23 August 2016)
• Publish Status: Remaindered
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Penguin USA
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 384
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780147517708

Reviews

[Bianca]

— An oddly enjoyable book about high school seniors mysteriously exploding. This was a pretty good read at some parts, but was mostly so-so. I really enjoyed the main character’s voice though.

[Stephanie]

More like 3.5 stars. This wasn't bad, and I definitely laughed at the dark humor (I mean, c'mon, it's teenagers randomly blowing up in the middle of doing quintessential high school things), but I didn't really "get" it. This also suffered from the 'I-definitely-know-this-is-a-dude-writing-a-girl-main-character" POV, which made me head scratch a bit.

[liz089]

DNF 39%
I just don't care, at all. Not about the characters, not about the story line.. Its kind of a weird story that seemed interesting at the beginning, but it isn't. At least, not for me.

[layawaydragon]

WTF?!?!? This was weird. Fake deep, wondering why the hell I read it. Pointless.

Nothings found out, nothing is resolved, nothing happens but a bunch of kids blow up for no reason and the protagonist does drugs and loses her virginity and fucks over her best friend.

And ya'll know me so it's not the drugs, sex, and gore that's a problem. It somehow is mind-numbingly boring, a hipster deepity

At least I finished it....I kept thinking something, anything was going to happen and move forward instead of the rutting around, but nope.

Skip it. Seriously. Waste of time. I'm not even going to properly review it because ugh.

[Sam@WLABB]

I just devoured this book! I loved the snarky narrator, Mara, and how she just shot straight from the hip. Yeah, this narrator was not trying to win over any new friends, she kept it real. I really liked the pacing of the story, which is probably why I was able to just fly through this story. A lot of wit and humor, but also a lot of meaning to green. Great read!

I got sucked in by the John Green quote (whom I love), but this book didn't do it for me.

Original, yes. I can't say I've ever read anything like SPONTANEOUS. The writing is good and very conversational. My only issue with the writing is that despite being told from a girl's POV, it felt like a guy was writing it (if that makes sense. I've read plenty of male authors writing this way, John Green's FIOS for example, that believably pulled off a female POV, but this didn't for me).

It's such a weird idea, kids spontaneously exploding, but the actual narrative here is on the boring side. Mara has a very random way of thinking, and she's prone to tangents and flashbacks that don't do much. The whole book has a meandering feel to it. Pretty much every named character gets a few pages of context and backstory, and considering that there are probably a few dozen (or more) named characters in SPONTANEOUS, it kills what little momentum there was to begin with.

There's a romance of a sort, but like everything else in this book, I was left feeling pretty indifferent by it. Maybe that's my real problem here: I didn't care about Mara or any of the many, many other characters that wandered on or off the page. I didn't find the humor all that humorous either, dark or otherwise. I don't know. The other early reviews are all very positive, so maybe this is just not the book for me. Give it a try if the other reviews intrigue you.