Adios, Nirvana

September 27, 2010
The grief that drives 16-year-old poet and musician Jonathan often clashes with the forced zaniness of the supporting cast in Wesselhoeft's moving but uneven debut. Since his twin brother, Telemachus, died, Jonathan has channeled his pain into award-winning poetry, but he is also on the verge of flunking out of school. His teachers give him one chance to make up for his missing work, on condition that he agree to perform his principal's favorite song at graduation and take on a job writing the biography of David, a dying WWII veteran. The improbable plot isn't helped by characters like Jonathan's negligent and offbeat mother, who works as a bikini-clad barista and plans to turn their house into a wedding chapel, or stereotypically goofy Alzheimer's patient Agnes, whose outbursts are too often played for humor instead of pathos. Jonathan's caffeine- and taurine-fueled writing sessions and his conversations with David offer closure to his grief and a lifeline back to normalcy. But Wesselhoeft's ability to deliver genuine emotion makes the book's inconsistencies that much more frustrating. Ages 14–up.