Robyn Schneider's The Beginning of Everything is a witty and heart-wrenching teen novel that will appeal to fans of books by John Green and Ned Vizzini, novels such as The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and classics like The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye.
Varsity tennis captain, Ezra Faulkner, was supposed to be homecoming king, but that was before—before his girlfriend cheated on him, before a car accident shattered his leg, and before he fell in love with unpredictable new girl Cassidy Thorpe.
As Kirkus Reviews said in a starred review, "Schneider takes familiar stereotypes and infuses them with plenty of depth. Here are teens who could easily trade barbs and double entendres with the characters that fill John Green's novels."
Funny, smart, and including everything from flash mobs to blanket forts to a poodle who just might be the reincarnation of Jay Gatsby, The Beginning of Everything is a refreshing contemporary twist on the classic coming-of-age novel—a heart-wrenching story about how difficult it is to play the part that people expect, and how new beginnings can stem from abrupt and tragic endings.
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34 of 36 people found the following review helpful.
Powerful
By Lili's Reflections
I went into this book with no expectations and I came out of it practically salivating at the mere thought of Schneider releasing a second book. This is a brutally honest coming of age story; a journey of self discovery mixed with severed heads, broken hearts, angst, a big black poodle, and wry humor that had me cackling throughout the novel. Overall, this book was a really sobering experience. This book represents life, the world we live in, how one can find themselves at the most inopportune times. This is what it's like to be a teenager and grow. And, damn, did my heart swell as I turned the last page, unwilling to say good-bye so soon.This book is perfect for fans of John Green. Schneider uses similar dialogue techniques. By that I mean that all of the characters are sort of hyper-intelligent and if you can't keep up you can get lost in their plethora of explanations for the most randomly awesome things. After watching many of Schneider's vlogs on her YouTube channel, it's glaring obvious that these characters are similar to her personality. She loves those random facts that nobody else knows and she constantly wants to share them with the world. She's fascinated with weird German words, which do make several appearances in this novel. She is also a literature buff, but hey, aren't we all? These three aspects of her combine to create her characters in really interesting ways. They're constantly spewing these facts that I never would have found otherwise and I loved every second of it. I learned from this book, legitimately learned awesome facts to spring on my unsuspecting peers when they least expect it. And the best part is that she found the perfect time to insert these tidbits, so I never felt rushed or confused. At times the explanations were slightly word-vomity, but more often than not they were simply engaging. This book is full of philosophical thoughts and it makes you question many things while it tears your heart in two and slowly stitches it back together.Ezra is officially among my favorite characters ever. And, hey, he's a good Jewish boy so I can bring him to life from these pages, introduce him to my father, and marry him without an ounce of guilt! He was hit by a car on the way home from a terrible party. This accident changed his life. He could no longer rule his school, his trusty tennis racket at his side. Never would he be able to play sports again, nor would he ever truly reclaim his position high on the popularity totem pole with the cane that helps him walk replacing his tennis racket. To put it simply, he was sort of depressed that summer. He was bed-ridden, he was missing his friends that never bothered to visit him in the hospital, he hated his ex, Charlotte, and he despised the fact that he'd never be able to play tennis again. His muscles thinned, he lost weight, his tan disappeared. Ezra pre-accident no longer existed. He returned to school to find that he was more of a spectacle than anything else, only to discover that true friends can be found in the most unlikely of people.Watching him grow and re-discover himself almost seemed like a privilege to me. It wasn't an easy journey, but it was absolutely marvelous. And it was so easy to relate to him as an 18 year old myself that I found it nearly impossible to put this book down. Ezra was used as a tool to allow Schneider to insert this unbelievably hilarious sense of humor throughout the book that constantly had me smiling. While I can imagine some people struggling to relate to our injured hero, his unique humor made me connect with him even more. And watching him accept the fact that he was once vain and terrible was astonishing. He welcomed his new life eventually, almost eagerly, and looked back at his past with disgust. He didn't envy the old him and instead realized that the old him sort of sucked. I think that such an epiphany is rare. Normally in coming of age stories the characters move on from their past and open their arms to the future. He not only came to terms with his past, but he was determined to make sure his past self never reappeared in his future. Can we get a slow clap for this boy, please?I also found the romance to be great. It happened slowly over time, the way that love should be. The road to this relationship was rocky and Cassidy did not make it easy for Ezra. They fought, they laughed, they soared and hit rock bottom. They epitomized a teenage relationship. There was no perfection, there was no simplicity, there was never any black and white. Everything was gray and a lot of things didn't work out, but that's what it's like to be in love for the first time and I'm so happy to see something real. Cassidy was a very strong character that was incredibly witty, but she had a lot of problems that were not explained until the end. When the big reveal came I still didn't believe it was a proper excuse to treat Ezra the way she did at times. She was lost, to put it simply, and while this is Ezra's story of finding himself because of his belief that Cassidy is the catalyst to his new life, she needs to find her own catalyst and discover herself, too.This book pushes the thought that one's true self is born from tragedy. You learn to live life and discover who you really are only after tragedy strikes. In truth, I can relate to that, and I think that this may be why I loved this book to pieces and found Ezra so likable and easy to relate to. If my Dad did not nearly die while I was in Kindergarten, I can guarantee you that I would not be the person I am today. I would not love books, I would not be as independent or self-assured as I am, or as focused on my education. As terrible as it is, fearing for my Dad's life during his immediate recovery set me on the path that I'm following now, just as Ezra's horrific accident changed his life. And Toby's horrific accident. It was rare for me to find people who understood me among my immediate peers due to the severely different home life I grew up with. It was always my older friends that were willing to digest the severity of anything I went through. And I'm sitting here reading about a boy who, in his own way, completely gets me. The rarity and irony of it all is tugging my heart every which way. I was rooting for Ezra just as I had to root for myself. And, gah, the reality and perfection all bundled up into less than 400 pages is astounding.From the beginning to the end, Schneider littered this book with unconventional twists that we never saw coming. The opening itself kept me riveted and refusing to put this book down. And when I turned the last page I felt the weight of the world lift off my shoulders because of my happiness for Ezra. But, at the same time, I felt this gut-wrenching hollowness settle into my stomach. Not only was I not ready to say good-bye to Ezra and his amazing cast of side characters that depict a plethora of high school cliques, but I was left wanting more. I wish I could say the ending was completely satisfying to me, but I became so invested in these characters that I'm not utterly satisfied with how this book finished. It's not even that I need more, I just need more questions answered, or more plot points summed up fully instead of being left open to interpretation. It's the stubborn nerd in me that needs to be truly satisfied. And while the ending was solid, I don't think it lived up to the rest of the book in my eyes.With that in mind, this was one of my favorite debuts ever. Through Ezra, I simply felt like Schneider understood me. Mainly because of my own personal tragedy mentioned above. It broke me apart and tore me to pieces which is what made Ezra's journey so meaningful to me. While I understand that some people may lack the intense emotions that I felt with this one because of their lack of relating to Ezra the way I did, I still think that this is a book that almost everyone needs to read.
20 of 22 people found the following review helpful.
Overblown YA novel feels like a HS summer reading assignment
By kacunnin
Robyn Schneider's THE BEGINNING OF EVERYTHING is all about tragedy. High school tennis star and BMOC Ezra Faulkner is injured in a hit-and-run accident the weekend before his junior prom. His knee is shattered, leaving him the teenage version of House - depressed, bitter, and dependent on a cane. He'll never play tennis again, his jock friends have moved on, and he can't figure out how to make his life work without them. As Ezra explains it, "everyone has a tragedy waiting for them, . . . a single encounter after which everything that really matters will happen." The car accident is Ezra's tragedy. It's also "the beginning of everything," as Ezra reconnects with Toby Ellicott, his old BFF from middle school (a quirky debate team nerd who Ezra dumped in 7th grade), and meets new girl Cassidy Thorpe, an "achingly effortless" free spirit who quotes Marvell and Shakespeare and quickly wins Ezra's heart. But this is a book about tragedy, so don't look for a happy ending. Ezra and Cassidy may be cute together (excruciatingly cute at times), but there's more to Cassidy's story than she's saying. At one point, about two-thirds of the way through this book, Ezra says of Cassidy, "I pictured her tragically; it never once occurred to me to picture her as the tragedy." That pretty much says it all.Not a whole lot happens in this novel, since it's less about plot than it is about character (and tragedy - don't forget the tragedy). Ezra gets hit by that car, his girlfriend (who cheats on him just before the accident) leaves him bleeding in the road, he misses prom (and most of the summer), and then he comes back to school to find that nothing much is left of the life he used to live. He gets close with Toby (I liked Toby; he was almost my favorite character . . . more on that later), falls for Cassidy, goes to a debate competition, drinks a lot, has sort-of sex, and then realizes nothing is quite what it seems. That's about it. Cassidy has a secret, and it takes 326 of the novel's 335 pages to get to the reveal. And when it finally happens, when she finally tells him, it's such an absurd and ridiculous coincidence that I actually groaned out loud. "No way!" I said. "That DIDN'T happen!" But it did. And there's no way to think about this book without thinking about that particular coincidence.This book reminds me a lot of the novels we teachers like to assign for high school students to read over their summer vacations - books about teenagers learning big "life lessons" before they head off for college. An awful lot of the dialogue in this book reads as if it has been written to be used in student essays. People just don't talk this way, not even really smart people who read a lot. At one point, fairly early in the novel, Cassidy quotes Mary Oliver in her effort to get poor tragic Ezra out of his slump: "Tell me, what is it you plan to do/With your one wild and precious life?" It's a good question, and one Ezra would do well to consider. But the ultimate tragedy (you knew there would be an `ultimate tragedy,' didn't you?) is that Cassidy won't listen to her own advice. As Ezra finally realizes, Cassidy IS the tragedy.Earlier, I said that I really liked Toby, Ezra's former 7th grade friend who ended up part of the debate team and sitting at the nerd's table in the cafeteria. Toby is clever and funny and a better friend to Ezra than Ezra ever was to him. But he's not my favorite character in this novel. My favorite character is Cooper, a 14-year-old standard poodle who loves Ezra in a way that's deeper than either Cassidy or his parents. Cooper is a wonderful, lovable character whose eyes reveal a depth of feeling and understanding seldom seen in anyone, human or canine. Well, what Schneider does with Cooper's character at the end of this book is the thing that will haunt me forever, a thing more horrible even than that absurd and ridiculous coincidence I mentioned. I can forgive Schneider for the coincidence (this is fiction, after all) and for all overdone "teaching moments," but I can't forgive her for Cooper.Bottom line, this is a serviceable novel about how the things that happen to us (tragic or not) direct the course of our lives. More than that, it's about how important it is not to let life's tragedies (whether they're huge or they just seem that way) get in the way of living. As Ezra ultimately realizes (paraphrasing Oscar Wilde, because teenagers do that all the time, right?), "to live is the rarest thing in the world, because most people just exist." So Ezra learns to live through his crushed knee, his relationship with Cassidy, and Cooper. I just would have liked it better if it had been Cooper's story.
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
Sweet but tough-minded coming of age story
By Alan A. Elsner
Ezra Faulkner, a rising senior at a high school near Disney Land in California, seems to have it all. He's good looking, captain of the tennis team, popular and good looking with a fetching though manipulative cheerleader type girlfriend. Then his life is turned upside down by a car crash that leaves him limping, his sports career ended.Ezra has to reinvent himself and chooses to hook up with the nerdy, debate team crowd, discovering he has an intellectual side and emotional depths he had previously not suspected. And then along comes misfit genius girl Cassidy, who is both beautiful and in some mysterious way damaged.I don't often dive into the Y/A genre but when I do I am often pleasantly described by the way authors writing in this vein tackle tough issues unflinchingly and often very movingly. There's something about exposing a young life to awful challenges, before the characters are ready to confront some of the world's less pleasant aspects, that can make for great fiction. In this regard, I particularly want to recommend The Sea of Tranquility: A Novel which has much in common with this book. Both have protagonists who have been unnaturally hurt much too young and who grapple to find a way past their traumas.I'm struck reading in the Y/A genre how preternaturally mature and wise today's teens, as depicted in fiction, seem to be -- how sexually and emotionally knowing. At that age, by comparison, I was a babe in arms. Ezra is an attractive protagonist, his friends are supportive and appealing and Cassidy is brilliant and elusive. The jocks are ignorant peasants, the nerds brainy sweethearts, the bimbos bimboish and the adults clueless (as usual in these books).For much of this book, I felt that it suffered in comparison with Katja Millay's lovely and moving novel. But then this book surprised me with an unexpected ending that was deeply resonant and wise and which took the novel to another level.Not that all is perfect. This book begins with an act of gratuitous gore that had me wondering what the author was trying to say. And Ezra does seem to get past his accident rather effortlessly.Ezra, who tells the story, believes everyone in life has a moment of tragedy to confront that will shake them out of their preordained path and force them to reassess. The question will be, can they overcome and prevail or will they allow the tragedy to define them?Some of the answers will surprise you -- which in fiction is a good thing.
