Just In Case

July 24, 2006
Rosoff's (How I Live Now
) intriguing, stylized novel explores the nature of fate and one teen's attempt to escape his own destiny. After witnessing his baby brother's brush with death, 15-year-old David Case becomes obsessed with his own mortality and decides to trick fate—and thus prolong his life—by changing his identity. He renames himself Justin Case, exchanges his wardrobe for thrift-shop clothes and befriends an imaginary greyhound, but his efforts to become someone else do not prove effective in quelling his fear that something horrific lies just around the corner. In the meantime, an eccentric young woman photographer discovers him and (much to the hero's horror) turns him into a poster child for "doomed youth." An omniscient, third-person narrative coupled with brief commentaries from all-seeing Fate give the story a surrealistic if not allegorical quality. Children seem older and wiser than their years; adults—especially Justin's mother, who is shockingly blasé about the alterations in her son—are cast as naïve and out of touch. Geared to mature readers with a philosophical bent and an appreciation of irony, the novel shows how, by focusing on his inevitable end, Justin Case almost misses the opportunity to enjoy the gifts fate has to offer: namely, survival, love and friendship. Ages 14-up.

September 1, 2006
Gr 9 Up -Fifteen-year-old David Case, scared out of his acceptance of dailiness by his baby brother -s near calamity at an open window, changes his name to Justin and allows several new people into his life. He is befriended by a somewhat older -and definitely more worldly -girl when he enters a thrift shop to remake his sartorial presentation. Angela is easy to fall in love with, but frustrating for Justin and suspicious for readers. Peter Prince, on the other hand, a new friend who urges Justin to discover how very good he is as a distance runner, lives up to his surname. Justin -s baby brother, Charlie, knowing and telepathic since birth, worries that Justin won -t ever recover from the shock of having to haul him back from his experiment with flight. Justin -s other companions on the journey through the six months between that momentous occasion and Christmas include an invisible dog, Peter -s psychologically perceptive sisters, and their male rabbit, Alice. The crisis that flings Justin and Angela literally into bed together is a horrific plane crash at the local airport. As he runs from her gallery show of photos of him in shock in the disaster -s aftermath, he collides with a woman from whom he contracts meningitis, nearly allowing Fate to talk him into dying. Only Charlie -s visit to the hospital pulls Justin back from the existential abyss at which he has perched for six months. Rosoff writes of these characters and Justin -s interior and exterior adventures with beautiful grace and wit. Even sensitive teens usually have more psychological armor than Justin, but Rosoff -s made him a compelling hero, not a nerd." -Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA"

Copyright 2006 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2006
Gr. 9-12. After rescuing his baby brother from an open window's ledge, 15-year-old David Case concludes "just two seconds were all that stood between normal everyday life, and utter, total catastrophe." Convinced that Fate is toying with him, David tries to elude detection by creating a new identity, starting with his name and his wardrobe. Eventually, he refuses to return home and plunges into an affair with an older girl. In frequently inserted passages, Fate actually speaks, and it's clear that David's fears are warranted. Rosoff's second novel, following the Printz Award winner " How I Live Now "(2004), is an explosive, challenging story that sometimes reads more like metaphysical meditation than coming-of-age narrative. Starting with the wordplay of David's new name (Justin Case), the author's experimentation with story elements to further philosophical questions is sometimes distracting, and readers may feel distanced by characters who occasionally seem more like archetypes and intellectual vehicles than flesh and blood. Even so, many teens will relish Rosoff's wild, unsettling, often poetic plunge into subjects of cosmic proportion, such as faith, time, free will, illusions, and the boundaries of love and sex: "Could sexual feeling be totally one-sided? While he ached with lust, was she thinking about shoelaces?" Balancing ruminations on the connections between everything are the solid friendships: "The answer isn't in your head, it's out here, with us," David's young friend tells him angrily. Readers will want to ponder the provocative questions that wrap around their own hopes and terrors.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)