Location: United States
Member Since:
May 07, 2013
Martin Thompson, Jr
Biography
I was born in 1979 in Paraguay but moved to Arizona when I was 2 and then moved to Washington when I was 7. I like landscape design and soccer. I like to read books.
Smashwords book reviews by Martin Thompson, Jr
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Paradise Squandered
on May 09, 2013
Sexual frustration, marijuana smoking, underage drinking, house parties, driving way too fast… This book honestly captures what it's like to be an angry 18 year old searching for what is real and important in life through trial and error. Paradise Squandered is a novel that revolves around the internal anxiety and inner turmoil of 18 year old protagonist Andrew Banks. The entire novel takes place the summer after Andrew graduates from high school. Even though the plot isn't very intense, somehow the reader gets sucked into Andrew’s head. The writing is excellent and very stylized. Much like Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye, Andrew is young and inexperienced and naive about a lot of things. Also like Holden, Andrew’s narration throughout the novel is very blunt and opinionated and full of slang and things that make you wonder about his mental health or outlook on life. It made me laugh sometimes. Other times I wanted to punch him in the head. This book speaks to the feelings of alienation and restlessness that I think all teens and young adults experience in life. When I first started the book, I didn't understand why the protagonist was so unhappy and why he had so many judgments that I didn't understand. I didn't like Andrew very much at first, but as the story went on I felt like I could at least understand where he was coming from. By the end of the story, I really felt for Andrew and wanted him to succeed. His character has a lot of depth, and he really seems like a good guy even though he is usually conflicted or self defeating. Andrew may be from a privileged background, but he carries a lot of baggage that the reader learns about throughout the course of reading. Stefansson’s writing is brilliant, his characters are so real, and he perfectly captures the complex problems that haunt young people as they try to progress and transition into “the real world.” This book was recommended to me by a friend of mine who knows how much I like Catcher in the Rye. I am very thankful for his suggestion and would recommend Paradise Squandered to anyone who enjoys honest coming of age style literature like Catcher in the Rye.