Catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson

The book I read is Catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson. The book is about a teenager Kate Malone. She is an excellent student, loves running and compares everything through science. She is the Reverends daughter. When her neighbour Teri Litch’s, house burns down, her dad is quick to react and lets Teri and her little brother Mikey stay with them. Kate and Teri don’t get along and trying to live in the same room is very difficult. Kate has applied to MIT, a college that she is determined to get accepted to, but is rejected. To make things worse a tragic accident happens to truly turn Kate’s life upside down.

In my opinion the book is very slow moving, it took a while to get to the main point of the book. The main character Kate, I think is a drama queen. As when she is rejected from MIT, she refuses to believe it, she automatically decides that it’s a mistake that they have mixed her up with another Kate Malone. She pushes everyone away including her boyfriend Mitch, who is just trying to help her. She even impersonates her deceased mother and calls the college to see why they rejected her.

Also I feel the book is very depressing as it explores death and the aftermath that follows; as we are repeatedly reminded of Kate’s dead mother and when Toby, Kate’s little brother asks about his mothers funeral, she is quick to tell him to stop. When Teri’s little brother Mikey passes away due to an electric shock, Teri is devastated at her loss and shuts down.

The book has a lot of twist and turns, like when Kate starts to take Teri’s feelings into consideration, and starts to talk to her and be friendly with her, even though Teri isn’t the nicest person to get on with. Also she is rejected from MIT and I assumed that she would get accepted, and when Mikey passed away I was stunned; I wasn’t expecting that at all. At this point in the book it gets very sad and depressing, everything seems to go by very fast. Towards the end of the book we find out that Teri has got a job in a near by diner and is still trying to cope with Mikey’s sudden death.

This book is very confusing and difficult to follow, as sometimes you don’t understand what the writer is saying. The one thing that confused me the most is when Mikey dies Teri screams ‘My son’, but we were told at the beginning of the book that Mikey is her brother, now I’m left wondering what relation Mikey really was to Teri.

Even though the book had its bad points, it had its good moments, I like the way the writer turns everything into a science equation or when she explains herself as a chemical and substance and talks about what she would do if she was that certain chemical. At the ending of the book, Teri and Kate seem to try and get along. Kate offers to help Teri rebuild her home, after Teri had destroyed it again, after the fire, in her anger over Mikey’s death.

In conclusion I felt this book was well written, but it took a while to get to the main point of the story. Also I felt that the book was full of sadness, fear and death. The main character Kate was a bit over dramatic at the fact that MIT didn’t accept her. Mikey’s death was very sad and very sudden, I didn’t see it coming. The book was also very hard to follow and it had some confusing moments. I was very disappointed with the ending, you never find out about Teri’s father or about whether Teri was really Mikey’s mother. I would recommend this book for 15-18 year olds as it mostly focuses on their age group.

By Eleanor Mc Evoy 2B2