Special Topics in Calamity Physics

By: Marisha Pessl

Narrated by: Emily Janice Card

Special Topics in Calamity Physics is a darkly hilarious coming-of-age novel and a richly plotted suspense tale told through the distinctive voice of its heroine, Blue van Meer.

After a childhood spent moving from one academic outpost to another with her father (a man prone to aphorisms and meteoric affairs), Blue is clever, deadpan, and possessed of a vast lexicon of literary, political, philosophical, and scientific knowledge. And she is quite the cineaste to boot. In her final year of high school at the elite (and unusual) St. Gallway School in Stockton, North Carolina, Blue falls in with a charismatic group of friends and their captivating teacher, Hannah Schneider. But when the drowning of one of Hannah's friends and the shocking death of Hannah herself lead to a confluence of mysteries, Blue is left to make sense of it all with only her gimlet-eyed instincts and cultural references to guide - or misguide - her.

Structured around a syllabus for a Great Works of Literature class, Pessl's debut novel is complex yet compelling, erudite yet accessible. It combines the suspense of Hitchcock, the self-parody of Dave Eggers, and the storytelling gifts of Donna Tartt with a dazzling intelligence and wit entirely Pessl's own.

©2006 Marisha Pessl (P)2007 Penguin Audio, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. All rights reserved.

Critic reviews

New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year, 2006

“Gripping and dark, funny and poignant . . . Pessl’s talent for verbal acrobatics keeps the pages flipping.” —USA Today

“A whirling, glittering, multifaceted marvel, delivered in an irrepressibly smart and flamboyant new voice. . . . Q: Is Special Topics in Calamity Physics required reading for devotees of inventive new fiction? A: Yes.” —Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“The joys of this shrewdly playful narrative lie not only in the high-low darts and dives of Pessl’s tricky plotting, but in her prose, which floats and runs as if by instinct, unpremeditated and unerring. . . . This skylarking book will leave readers salivating for more.” —The New York Times Book Review

outstanding

Wow what a story. It takes about the strangest of turns about half way through. Completely captivating and original.

surprisingly complex for a coming of age story

i am surprised at some of the low ratings on this book. i found it really complex, well written and thoroughly enjoyable. i was, from page 1, enthralled by the characters and the story. however precocious (what is the teenage equivalent of precocious? erudite??) Blue is, she's a likable narrator with quite a unique and extremely amusing voice. and as likable as she was, the rest of the cast of characters (from Hannah to Gareth to Jade) are as unlikeable...and that lent even more interest and, i found, humor to the story. Pessl really got into the heads of teenagers and showed how horrible and embarrassing and hard to navigate that time period can be. then she added a thrilling mystery to it and, well, duh, of course i loved it.

I am also a sucker for a book setup stylistically. i enjoyed the way Pessl broke each chapter into a mandatory read on a syllabus. i thrived on all the old film and film star references, the book quotes, the comparisons to things that only someone in the know (i happened to be in the know most of the time) would enjoy.

i loved the ending of this book. it took me to a place i really didn't expect it to go. i don't mind being tricked by a book, in fact, i welcome it. and this book really did it.

Enjoyed This Book, but

It was a fun book, a little too pretentious with the endless references, but glad I listened.
I almost gave up early when our protagonist cliche-ed that someone was as flat as East Texas plains.
Everyone knows East Texas has hills and piney woods, the plains are in West Texas. Kinda made me wonder if there were other errors, but it’s a novel! Not a text book.

Way too meandering

Is there anything you would change about this book?

This author doesn't just take the scenic route in this novel, she parks at the first curve for 75% of it. I will admit that once you wade through the superfluous text, there is a pretty good story with some pretty interesting characters to be found. But it's an awful lot of work for not that great a reward. By that, I am NOT referring to the open ending - that was the one part I liked, because it's not like an Agatha Christi where the answer is in the story - there is no right answer, and it is still a good story. But it's not a great story, and the endless, looping, rambling, unnecessarily distracting prose, and the whole schtick of the 'bibliography as a story line' were just hard work that only served to further demonstrate that the actual story wasn't really good enough to either outweigh all that negative, or serve as a reward for all the hard work we readers had to put in to get to it.

confusing!!

I don't recommend this book in audible form...the constant "see this" stuff is BEYOND confusing and distracting. Story was intriguing and kept me wanting more, but DANG if the "see" references completely threw me off.

Surprisingly Entertaining

I think I bought this book when it was on sale because it was long... It turned out to be really quite riveting. I loved it and I look forward to more from this author. (I think this book would have driven me completely nuts in print since it is heavily footnoted; the narrator managed to make that amusing instead of annoying.)

Left a lot untold

The finally was rushed and unsubstantiated for the most part, but great academic undertones and storytelling.

Slow to start fascinating story

Well crafted novel, prose is almost brilliant but fall short and even trips in itself in some patches. Characters well described, but it is plot driven and it took too.long to get moving. . Great fodder for book clubs.

hard to get into, but improved toward the end

story maybe could have been shaved by at least 10%. It took forever to get to the heart of the matter, although character development was crucial, and that sometimes takes time. when stuff does begin to happen, it's all very enjoyable and Blue, the main character, becomes more and more likable.

Not excellent writing but strangely gripping story

Pessl is a bit of a sloppy writer, as some here have pointed out. Her writing at times falls flat, is unsuccessful and even downright silly, but she did succeed in creating an odd story with an unreal atmosphere, in an odd place and time with characters slightly askew, and for this, I liked the book and found myself unable to stop listening. I was very interested to find out how this strange tale unfolded (and indeed haven't, since I have four hours left).