Crazy Messy Beautiful

November 28, 2016
For 16-year-old Neruda Diaz, love is a mystery, maybe the mystery. He comes by his fixation honestly: he’s named after Chilean love poet Pablo Neruda, his parents are still in love, and he thinks that beautiful Autumn Cho might be the one for him. Then mystery turns tragic: Neruda’s parents’ marriage is less stable than he thought, and—like her predecessors—Autumn isn’t interested. Neruda gets to paint a mural at school, but has to work with a guy he hates, and he and a girl he barely knows have to interview each other for a class assignment. Arcos (There Will Come a Time) makes Neruda thoughtful and real, and Callie Leibowitz, that near stranger from school, is tough, funny, and interesting. Neruda is half Chilean, his Los Angeles is realistically diverse, and he’s a reflective, engaging protagonist. Arcos capably probes the mysterious without attempting to solve it as Neruda discovers the difference between crushing on someone he doesn’t know and loving someone he does, learning that friendship, too, is a kind of love. Ages 12–up. Agent: Kerry Sparks, Levine Greenberg Rostan.

Narrator Michael Crouch portrays Neruda Diaz's quest for romance as the 16-year-old imagines a love life like that of the Chilean poet for whom he was named, Pablo Neruda. The fictional Neruda has been sheltered by his loving parents, his devotion to art, and dreams of love. Crouch expresses both Neruda's innocence and his horror when his reality is shattered as he discovers that his parents' marriage is not stable, his artistic vision can be sabotaged, and his classmate, Callie, is more difficult to court than he'd imagined. Neruda's reactions are confused and sometimes hurtful as he learns that he must experience life's messiness before he can find its beauty and truth. Crouch's dramatizations of minor characters add dimension to the story. In particular, his depiction of Callie makes her passionate nature vivid and Neruda's attraction understandable. S.W. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine