The Patterns of Paper Monsters

Jacob Higgins's teenage rage rarely simmers below the surface for long. He despises his negligent mother and her alcoholic boyfriend, Refrigerator Man, and he's indifferent to school and his friends—though a little less casual about girls and marijuana. His antics have landed him in a North Virginia detention center, where nihilism, freedom, and redemption all take on unexpected guises. In a voice filled with confusion, yearning, and sardonic humor, Jacob narrates his improbably sweet romance with Andrea, an inmate with whom he shares rare glances, melodramatic conversation, and waxy cookies at rigidly chaperoned "socials." But when David, a mysterious, conniving adolescent, handpicks him to assist in a plot to bring about the center's demise, Jacob has to weigh the frail new optimism of his relationship with Andrea against the allure of destruction, rebellion, and escape. In her pitch-perfect debut, Emma Rathbone adroitly captures the drama, both comic and deadly serious, of growing up.

Jacob Higgins's teenage rage rarely simmers below the surface for long. He despises his negligent mother and her alcoholic boyfriend, Refrigerator Man, and he's indifferent to school and his friends—though a little less casual about girls and marijuana. His antics have landed him in a North Virginia detention center, where nihilism, freedom, and redemption all take on unexpected guises. In a voice filled with confusion, yearning, and sardonic humor, Jacob narrates his improbably sweet romance with Andrea, an inmate with whom he shares rare glances, melodramatic conversation, and waxy cookies at rigidly chaperoned "socials." But when David, a mysterious, conniving adolescent, handpicks him to assist in a plot to bring about the center's demise, Jacob has to weigh the frail new optimism of his relationship with Andrea against the allure of destruction, rebellion, and escape. In her pitch-perfect debut, Emma Rathbone adroitly captures the drama, both comic and deadly serious, of growing up.

Library Journal

If you can get past the awkward and off-putting title, this is an appealing first novel. The 17-year-old narrator, Jacob Higgins, is serving time in a juvenile detention center for a failed armed robbery. Initially angry and uncommunicative, Jacob resists the attempts of his therapist to confront his problems, which include an alcoholic mother and an abusive stepfather. But Jacob's icy front begins to thaw through his attraction to another detainee, a girl named Andrea, and through his dislike of another inmate, a truly dangerous boy named David. The best and perhaps most unlikely catalyst in Jacob's transformation is a young man who volunteers to mentor Jacob; their encounters are awkward, but it is through this mentor that Jacob begins to think about the kind of life he wants for himself. Though the novel's twin climaxes aren't handled as skillfully as possible—one is overdramatized, the other undramatized—this is a totally enjoyable debut. Rathbone is a good writer, with a real flair for metaphor.Verdict Recommended for readers who enjoy coming-of-age stories like Catcher in the Rye.—Evelyn Beck, Piedmont Technical Coll., Greenwood, SC

Emma Rathbone is a graduate of New York University and the MFA Fiction Program at the University of Virginia. She currently lives in Charlottesville.