Book Review #444 - The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharp

So, my girlfriend, Cassidy, is threatening to kick me to the curb again, my best friend suddenly wants to put the brakes on our lives of fabulous fun, my mom and big sister are plotting a future in which I turn into an atomic vampire, and my dad, well, my dad is a big fat question mark that I’m not sure I want the answer to. 

Some people would let a senior year like this get them down. Not me. I’m Sutter Keely, master of the party. But don’t mistake a midnight philosopher like me for nothing more than a shallow party boy. Just ask Aimee, the new girl in my life. She saw the depth in the Sutterman from that first moment when she found me passed out on the front lawn. Okay, so she’s a social disaster, but that’s where I come in. 

Yes, life is weird, but I embrace the weird. Let everyone else go marching off into their great shining futures if they want. Me, I’ve always been more than content to tip my whisky bottle and take a ride straight into the heart of the spectacular now.

My Rating: 5/5

I had been putting off reading this book for a long time because I had made the mistake in watching the movie first. I thought that if I waited until I had forgotten most of the movie then I would enjoy the book more. The problem with this theory was that the movie was too memorable. 

The only influence the movie had on me whilst reading was that I was a little impatient in waiting for Aimee to be introduced. Other than that, I loved it as much as I was supposed to. 

Sutter is such a distinct and unique character. He was a lot deeper than most males in the young adult genre. He was a character that had a likeable personality but you wanted to punch him at the same time because of his wasted potential. 

I didn't particularly like the ending, and it wasn't because it was bad or anything. It was simply because it didn't end the way in which I thought it would or the way I wanted it to. 

Overall this book is most definitely my favourite contemporary book and my favourite (rereads aside) book I've read so far in 2014.