Review: Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You by Peter Cameron

So let me preface this review with a little bit of information. Okay . . . I'm in this amazing course that my college offers called "Writer's Craft." We meet once a week, on Wednesday nights, from 6-9. We are assigned a book to read during the week, then we go to class and discuss it, write about it, etc. Then, the following Wednesday, the author of the book we read the previous week comes into our class for a casual discussion / question and answer session. After that, they give a public reading to the school which we attend as a class. It's amazing, and we get to meet some really cool authors. Basically, this class is a booklover's dream.

So last week's assigned book was a novel I hadn't heard of before called Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You, by Peter Cameron. Let me just say, I was completely blown away. I am SO glad I was assigned to read this because I would not have heard of it otherwise. This book is now considered one of my favorite books, and I get to meet the author on Wednesday. Woohoo! I usually don't review "school books" but I loved this one so much that I decided I just had to!

My Summary: Eighteen year old James Sveck is not an ordinary guy. He's been accepted to Brown for the fall, but doesn't think he wants to go; he doesn't like people his own age. He'd rather buy a home in the Midwest, but doesn't know what else he wants to do, besides read books and educate himself. He lives in NYC with his mom and sister, and works at his mom's small art gallery, not doing much, and doesn't really like anybody but John, the gallery manager, and his grandmother. James' extremely cynical attidude and sometimes bizarre behavior lands him a twice weekly visit to a psychiatrist, whom he challenges and belittles every chance he gets. He hardly talks to anyone, especially his peers, and spends most of his time online, searching for houses and chatting up John with a fake profile he made on "gents4gents." This book takes place over a few days time in the summer, with a few flashbacks thrown in of incidents that happened earlier in the year. It is told from James' witty, sarcastic, and highly cynical perspective.

My Review: I know the plot summary might make this story seem like not much is going on, which may very well be the case, but I am in love with this book! Though there isn't necessarily a lot of action in the novel, its biting humor and fast pace make this book completely readable. In fact, I read this book in a single day, which is extremely rare for me. I just couldn't put it down. James is just so bizarre and unusual that you can't help but like him. I felt such a strong connection to him as well, and felt that I was able to relate to him in a lot of aspects. I laughed throughout this entire book, and at the same time, felt emotinally attached to the characters too. This book is angsty, realistic and satirical. It seriously cracked me up. Books like this remind me why I love reading. It's becoming engulfed in a story that you just can't stop reading, it's seeing yourself in a character, it's laughing out loud in public with book in hand -- these things make me happy, and this book provided all of those things and so much more for me. I've heard this book being compared to Catcher in the Rye, which I can see. If you're a fan of that book, you'll definitely love this because they both feature sarcstic and negative protagonists. After I finished this book, I went to the library and checked out some of Peter Cameron's other books to devour. I'll be starting with The Weekend and Andorra.

The Bottom Line: Hilarious, amazing, a new favorite - I couldn't put it down and simply cannot recommend this enough! Read it now.

Rating: 5/5! (A very enthuiastic 5, at that).