The Tragedy Paper
by Elizabeth LaBan
Format: Paperback
Price: Checked out from the public library
Price: Checked out from the public library
How I heard about it: my awesome YAL conference
Basic Premise: Duncan's senior year at The Irving School starts off rough when he realizes he has the smallest room on the floor which just so happened to belong to Tim, a strange albino kid who was the center of last year's disaster. When he discovers the audio-diary Tim left behind, he discovers Tim's side of the story - what REALLY happened last year.
This seems to happen to me a lot - I read books back to back with massive similarities. I read The Shack and The Lovely Bones - both about young girls who are abducted, molested, and murdered (ugh). I read The Life of Pi and Unbroken - both with a protagonist who gets lost at sea. And now, I have read Looking for Alaska and The Tragedy Paper - both books about high school boys who attend boarding school and find their first love and go through a horrible "accident."
The Tragedy Paper is actually a dual narrative. The here and now is Duncan and the flashback follows Tim through many of the same experiences as Duncan, but both constantly allude to the disaster that happened last year. The structure sounds weird, but it worked. I liked the ebb and flow of the story, though I must say, after the tragedy of Looking for Alaska, the "tragedy" that occurred at the end of this book seemed far less tragic.
This is Elizabeth LaBan's first novel, which I believe. It was well-written but lacked the grit that most novels of this genre and topic possess. It was interesting to read about albinism, which I have only done one other time, and that was years ago with The DaVinci Code. I did a little research on the affliction, of which I have no knowledge and to which I have no exposure. It was interesting. And, unlike my last one, it's one I can give to kids.
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