Will never called his mom "mother" until after she died. But three days later, it's "my mother" this and "my mother" that. Maybe it's less painful than calling her "Mom". Now that she's dead and all.Now that she's dead and all, Will is painfully confronted with the fact of her--and his own--mortality. What's it mean to die? To live? Will finds new love just days after, and throws himself into the search for answers. In philosophy, Western and Eastern, in love, in other people. In the woods outside of Melbourne. He can feel himself changing on his search, but is this good? Or is it bad? Will Ellis has left home to find answers, and he is lost.Reading this book reminds me of something a friend told me regarding Grendel: The book isn't great, but the thinking is. That's a bit how I felt about The Beginner's Guide to Living. I like the ideas; I love the ideas. The philosophy. The search. It's a character-driven, though-driven book--there's not a whole lot of action in the traditional sense. A philosophical journey. Or, if you want to reduce it to a few short sentences:Boy's mother dies. Boy gets screwed (in more ways than one). Boy talks about philosophy.I'm not sure how I felt about the character of Will. He's a pretty good protagonist, I suppose. I didn't always agree with him, but perhaps that's a good thing. The whole romance between Will and Taryn seemed a little odd at first--I mean, he meets her at his mother's funeral--but eventually it levels out until it's simply natural. Will and Taryn disagree and they come from completely different backgrounds, but they just... fit. Two pieces of a puzzle. It's a little strange timing, but it's an interesting relationship to read about, and Will's in no mood to be all sappy and crap. The relationship is really interesting, I think, because the characters are all so real. Most of them are completely normal people. Taryn's family is a little, erm, different. (I absolutely adore her sister.) It's a bit like looking in through a glass, even though it's a first-person narrative. I suppose that's Lia Hills' skill, separating Will from the world in a particularly unique and effective way. If a parent (or other adult) challenging the book in the public library system picked it up, they could make a strong argument. It's got a fair bit of sex and drugs. I had no idea there was so much sex in Melbourne, Australia. But really, it's so much more than a love story. It's a life story. It's about a kid trying to find his way through life, and yeah, he screws up. A lot. Constantly. But he learns. And it's got a lot of brilliant ideas that I personally believe everyone should have exposure to, just because, well, I believe in the benefits of thinking in the strange and philosophical ways that Will is exposed to. Read it for the thinking. Read it for the philosophy. Or read it for a good love story. It's not fast-paced. It's not plot-driven. But it's some brilliant ideas, and certainly something to chew on.
The Beginner’s Guide to Living is a book that you may not appreciate until you finish reading it and have a chance to sit back and reflect. While I was in the process of reading, I wasn’t impressed. There are a few passages that just seem weird, as if there is no real purpose for their inclusion. There’s a moment in the book, for example, when Will is taking a bath and farts in the tub. What the heck is that about? Why did the author feel the need to mention it? Again, super weird.Luckily, Hills compensates for these occasional odd moments. There’s a wealth of wisdom and insight to be found on these pages, and a couple of lines are so heartbreaking that they just stopped me in my tracks. For example, there is a point in the novel when Will asks his dad what he feels is the worst thing about the death of Will’s mom. His dad answers simply, “That I didn’t die first.” After I read this, I was so overcome with emotion that I had to put the book down for a minute or two.There are also some observations and statements that struck me as incredibly profound. Will is full of grief and rage and despair, and his life is nearly unbearable; making it through a single day without his mother seems impossible, let alone the rest of his life. Taryn is one of the only people who can reach him through the haze of grief, and Will observes, “The fact that I love her makes it possible to exist.” This sentence may be one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever read.One thing that didn’t appeal to me, at least initially, is the fact that the book’s structure seems very loose. I wasn’t able to discern much of a story arc, at least in terms of major action. Will mostly just writes in his journal, meditates, reads and questions, and while these things are all well and good, they’re not what I think of as the components of a solid plot.This really bothered me at first, but my opinion changed after I reached the last page and took a moment to really think about what I’d read: a story about how losing someone sets you adrift. In the real world, there is no rhyme or reason to grief, no clearly defined path from Point A, devastation, to Point B, healing. It makes sense, then, that there isn’t an easily identifiable plot to The Beginner’s Guide to Living. The structure mirrors the reality of the grieving process, blind and aimless and desperate. It’s actually kind of brilliant that Hills wrote the book this way, and I have a greater appreciation for it as a result.This review can also be found on my blog, Angela's Library.
Do You like book The Beginner's Guide To Living (2009)?
“God, Mum, where are you? Are you disappointed I’m crap at all this? You never told me what to do when you died, but you should’ve, because it’s the only thing we can be sure of. Death gets us all in the end.” (Page 5 The Beginners Guide To Living.)There is a saying in Philosophy about ‘active laziness’. It alludes to those who are perpetually busy. Life is always hectic, there are always a million things to do and they all need to be done now. People who live with the condition of active laziness, create this state of living so that they need never be still or quiet enough to contemplate their own mortality.I am a fast reader. I always have been. But I deliberately read The Beginners Guide To Living slowly. I immersed myself in the pages of this novel, let the poetry of the words rest in my mind, re-read the passages I loved, the passages that made me think about my own life. I often put the book down and wandered away, deep in thought about what I had read. I began to ask questions of myself. I realised, with some difficulty, that I am an actively lazy person.My heart ached for Will. His grief, his confusion, his need to understand and make sense of a world without his mother. His memories, his questions, his dreams…often resulted with ME in tears.So much of Will’s experience and the experiences of the characters surrounding him forced me to contemplate my own belief system. If I am honest, this self reflection made me uncomfortable. Something Lia said whilst we talked, (that repeated in my mind often while I was reading) was her belief that as a writer, part of her job is to force someone to ‘sympathise with something they might not want to sympathise with.’ I had no trouble sympathising with Will, however, it was a struggle for me to think about things I actively avoid thinking about. My own mortality.The Beginners Guide To Living is a beautifully lyrical novel. Not a word is without purpose. Lia Hills offers an intimate window into the grief of a seventeen year old boy. I use the word intimate with great deliberation, because there is an intimacy to this novel that lingers long after closing the cover. I suspect it shall never leave.The Beginners Guide To Living is so many things, a universe of thought captured as ink upon page. At the very least, it is an exploration of what it is to die and more importantly, what it is to LIVE.
—Tye Cattanach
This book was nominated in the NZ Post Children's Book awards, but it is set in Australia. It's about a 17 year old boy whose mom dies unexpectedly and the first few month of he and his dad and brother coping with her death. I wanted to read it because my mom died when I was 15 and I was surrounded my grieving males that were difficult to understand. I think this book gives reasonably good insight into what the experience of losing a parent in your teen years feels like. I related to and enjoyed his search through eastern and western philosophy to try to get a grip on what it means to be alive. It was a bit heavy with metaphors and the girl he meets and starts dating seemed wise beyond her years (too much so to be believed), but overall a really nice read.
—Kristylemmon
It took me a long time to get into this and buy into Will, but when I did, I really, really liked this story. It's about grief and death, but it's about hope and living, too. There's love and philosophy, and as much as it could come off as a kid being too smart for himself, it's not at all. It's Will pushing grief away, rather than dealing with it. Hills has a fantastic and poetic writing style, and this book mixes it up with flashbacks and images that make up Will and his mother's story lines. There's also a hard and fast romance, and while I felt Taryn could become a manic pixie dream girl, she didn't, as proven by the end of the story. I was so pleased their relationship was able to sustain itself after all they went through. And yes, there's grief sex, which is something I'm not a fan of, but it works here and it's actually important to Will's grieving. There's a really smart line about being naked with yourself to understand yourself and your purpose. Lots of philosophy to consider here and a lot of musing about the meaning of life and the meaning of death. It's not a fast read, despite being a thinner book, and it's one worth savoring. This reminded me a LOT of CK Kelly Martin's I KNOW IT'S OVER with flavorings of MY BEATING TEENAGE HEART. Smart male voices that don't become too emotional but offer us enough emotion to really connect with them. Unrelated: I have the US hardcover and think the cover is atrocious and misleading and completely devalues the power of the story inside. A girl and a guy making out in a shadowy, illustrated grave yard sure get at the depth here. Sigh.
—Kelly
