Title: We All Looked Up
Author: Tommy Wallach
Publication: March 26th 2015, Simon and Schuster UK
Format: Trade Paperback, 384 pages
Source: Pinoy Book Tours (Thanks again, Dianne of Oops I Read A Book Again)
Buy it on: Amazon | Barnesand Noble | iBooks | The Book Depository | Kobo | National Bookstore / Fully Booked (PH)
Synopsis:
Before the asteroid, we let ourselves be defined by labels:The athlete, the outcast, the slacker, the overachiever.But then we all looked up and everything changed.They said it would be here in two months. That gave us two months to leave our labels behind. Two months to become something bigger than what we'd been, something that would last even after the end.Two months to really live.
Misfit Review:
Many times, I find contemporaries tiring and repetitive in
formula, while some just go beyond my expectations. We All Looked Up proved
that it will definitely go beyond my expectations indeed, but it did bring up
some casualties.
So the plot goes around as an apocalyptic few months left
for the world because an asteroid called Ardor is going to fall from the sky
and presents distress among people, especially the focus of the story, the
teens in Seattle, who try to make the coming of the end worthwhile by throwing
a party and making sure that they didn’t leave the world with any regrets.
We are plummeted into their world through four perspectives:
Eliza, Peter, Andy and Anita. I’ve always liked the idea of hearing character
voices, what they think of certain situations and what they wish would happen.
It seems kind of voyeur if you ask me, but it just makes me fall in love with
them. In all the point of views, Andy and Anita’s were my favourites. While Eliza- the one being pinned over and
talked about mostly in the novel- and Peter are indeed interesting and great,
Andy and Anita were more raw and unusual. Both Andy and Anita brought desperation
in the novel, but in different degrees. Andy is desperate to get the girl while
Anita just wants to get a break from her pressurized life. Both wish for
acceptance and both a kind of messed up in their own ways, and it brought them together
eventually. Again, I would definitely
read a novella if it featured Andy and Anita any day.
What’s also interesting about this novel is the mixture of
really amazing supporting characters, which to me is both great and kind of bad
for the most part. Bobo and his friends, Misery and Chad, they seem far more
relevant at times than Eliza or Peter were which sort of brought a conflict in
me. Nonetheless, it was still so freaking amazing to read such diverse and
honest characters, kind of broken, but still worth reading.
The novel is also not very reassuring of what’s gonna happen
in the end. You’d think that because Eliza and Peter will hook up, doesn’t mean
it’ll secure their future together and whatnot. It’s rather scary and horrible
to think about because of all the what ifs. THAT ENDING THOUGH!!!!! Help me,
Tommy. Help me. How do I move on!? I hate you!
What I really want to do now is to listen to Tommy Wallach’s
companion album for the novel. I have seen some of my friends talk about it and
I wish to listen to it and maybe cry about it. Some of the lyrics in the novel,
those made by Andy and Anita for the party, were breathtaking and if they are
in the companion, I have no more chill! Not only is Tommy Wallach a great
musician, he is also a really good author, and for a debut, that’s freaking
amazing. He definitely killed it in the humor department and making the
characters bond and counter each other was very moving and definitely enticing.
It’s not as perfect as I hoped it was, and there were moments where I feel like
I should skip a page, but it was still riveting and beautifully written.
We All Looked Up presents a reality that as humans, not just
teenagers or the like, we wish to make a difference by being an image of a
change, whether good or bad, whether it leaves an impact or not. We wish, at a
time of turmoil, that we become relevant until the end, and it couldn’t be
helped if we are merely like that.
About The Author:
Website | Twitter | Goodreads
Tommy Wallach is a Brooklyn-based writer and musician. His fiction and non-fiction works have appeared in MacSweeney's Tin House, Wired, Salon and other magazines, and he is the recipient of a MacDowell Colony Fellowship. As a musician, he has put out an EP with Deccca Records and performed at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. We All Looked Up is his debut novel.
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