Think Twice - Sarah Mlynowski
One of those reasons is that the novel’s narrative hops bizarrely from first person plural to third person. We know the narrator is one of the kids but don’t know which until the very end, as they refer to the group as “we” and “us” but talk about their self as an individual in the third person. If it sounds confusing… it is.
In addition, twenty main characters is just too many to get to know properly. At the start of the book there is a list of the twenty kids and their interests and I had to flick back every few pages thinking, who’s Mona, again? Who’s Levi? It doesn’t help that most are one-dimensional stereotypes – Isaac’s role, for example, seems purely to be a gay cliché. I think instead of twenty kids there should have been ten or twelve, which would have allowed them to be better fleshed-out as characters.
Another bugbear for me was that these supposed high school kids seem to do exactly what they want to do with very little parental authority or intervention. At times it is easy to forget they are at school at all and not in their thirties. Drugs and gambling crop up frequently and are dealt with pretty casually considering we’re talking seventeen and eighteen year olds.
There’s also the fact that these kids call themselves Espies, from ESP (Extra Sensory Perception). And they became ‘Espies’ through having routine vaccinations. Do I detect some attempted political statement here? Why is this in a YA book?
All of that said, there were elements of this novel that I enjoyed. Mackenzie’s character is by far the most complex, and there could have been a whole book about her and what she goes through. The prom section of the novel was enjoyable. Normally I find depictions of American high school proms in books or films extremely tedious but this actually looked fun (albeit dangerous). I also liked the way nature is incorporated into some important events.
With regards to the ending… some people will hate it, I’m sure. I was so bewildered at that point I was just glad to have some closure. It’s clearly designed to be funny but it just doesn’t go with the rest of the book. If I had the energy to be cross with it I would, but Think Twice, in all its weirdness and melodrama, has taken it out of me!
If mind-reading is your thing or if you’re up for a slightly unusual YA book, I recommend Think Twice – but I recommend taking it with a pinch of salt.
*This review was originally written for Cuckoo Review (New Writing North) and is reprinted with permission*
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