Review: Every Exquisite Thing by Matthew Quick

Every Exquisite Thing by Matthew Quick

Blurb from Goodreads:

Nanette O'Hare is an unassuming teen who has played the role of dutiful daughter, hardworking student, and star athlete for as long as she can remember. But when a beloved teacher gives her his worn copy of The Bugglegum Reaper--a mysterious, out-of-print cult classic--the rebel within Nanette awakens. 

As she befriends the reclusive author, falls in love with a young troubled poet, and attempts to insert her true self into the world with wild abandon, Nanette learns the hard way that rebellion sometimes comes at a high price.

My Review:
I am so mad at myself for waiting so long to read something by Matthew Quick!  I need to immediately read Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock and The Good Luck of Right Now, both of which have been sitting on my kindle for awhile because I loved this book, his latest, so much!  I seriously think there are probably no two books that speak more to me and how I felt when when I was a teenager than Things I Can't Forget by Miranda Kenneally and Every Exquisite Thing.  The first third, in particular, of this book felt almost as if I could have written it -- not that I have the talent but that someone spilled out my high school brain and caressed and molded it into something so beautiful so as to be Nanette's voice in this book.  Where do I even begin to tell you about this book?  It is, as the description states, about Nanette O'Hare, a high school senior who reads a book that changes her life but it is also about so much more.  I know this book won't be for everyone, but it was definitely for me.
The Bubblegum Reaper -- the book that Nanette reads at the beginning of this book -- has a very pronounced similarity to the The Catcher in the Rye -- it is ostensibly about a misunderstood teenager who wants to quit it all, it has an ending that leaves more questions than answers and, most similarly, it is written by a recluse who basically faded from public life after this book was published despite the fact that it has since attained cult-like status and driven thousands of people to try and seek out the author for answers.  Nanette, too, wants to seek out these answers and when she finds out that the reclusive author lives not more than 20 minutes away from her, she strikes up a friendship with him that changes everything.  I won't tell you anything else about the plot because this is one you should read but the star of this book is the writing -- it is lyrical and poetic but not heavy handed.  It doesn't take itself too seriously or try too hard.  I couldn't put this down and I never felt that moment, like I have felt recently no matter what I'm reading, that the book was dragging along.  It is short but mighty and now, for me, filled with so many highlights of passages that I will read and re-read every year.  My review isn't doing this book justice, at all, but you know by now that I loved it.  I rarely give books five star reviews because I rarely read five star books.  This is one of them.

I highly recommend this to pretty much everyone that's ever been a teenager and/or fallen in love with The Catcher in the Rye—sometimes I think those two things are synonymous.  This actually reminded me of several other favorites and it will star in a This & That soon but, for now, I can say that this was such an amazing read for me.  Every Exquisite Thing comes out later this month on May 31, 2016, you can purchase HERE, and I just loved this one so much.

It felt like so many years' worth of anxiety and worry were trying to escape all at once—maybe like an emotional volcano, only my mom and dad, they didn't run away to save themselves but sprinted right into my lava.  They both jumped up off the couch and wrapped their arms around me even though it meant touching each other.  We stayed like that for a long time, and it felt good—almost enough to justify everything that had precipitated it, but not quite.