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    Life: An Exploded Diagram
    Unavailable
    Life: An Exploded Diagram
    Unavailable
    Life: An Exploded Diagram
    Audiobook8 hours

    Life: An Exploded Diagram

    Written by Mal Peet

    Narrated by Simon Vance

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Clem, a working-class boy living in government-assisted housing, and Frankie, the daughter of a wealthy landowner, must keep their relationship secret. If it's discovered, their world will be blown apart.

    But unknown to them, President John F. Kennedy and the Russian leader, Nikita Khruschev, are shaping up to do just that-blow the world apart-as the two leaders fight over a small island in the Caribbean Sea, leading up to the events that will later be known as the Cuban Missile Crisis.

    For Frankie and Clem, "time, like everything else, is against them."

    In his most brilliant and ambitious novel yet, Mal Peet portrays the shattering power of love and the ricocheting effect of war through generations.

    "Witty, super-smart, heartbreakingly generous, it's so good, you almost want to keep it a secret." -Patrick Ness, author of the award-winning Chaos Walking series

    "Life: An Exploded Diagram is Mal Peet's finest work to date, by turns hysterically funny, sad, poignant, bitter, and rude, but always with that unfakeable sense of deep truth." -Anthony McGowan, author of The Knife That Killed Me

    "A new novel by Mal Peet is always something to be eagerly anticipated: finely drawn characters, ambitious storytelling, a broad historical canvas, piercing social critique-and now, much more than in previous novels, a delightfully irreverent streak of humor." -Jonathan Hunt, blogger for School Library Journal's Heavy Medal blog

    "An astonishingly engaging, wonderful, un-put-downable book. His gorgeous writing makes one reread sentences over and over again for the pure joy of experiencing the language." -Carol Stoltz, Porter Square Books, Cambridge, MA

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateOct 11, 2011
    ISBN9781455829040
    Unavailable
    Life: An Exploded Diagram

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    Reviews for Life

    4/5

    92 ratings11 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Really enjoyed this. But is it YA? Perhaps inaccurately shelved at my local library.
    • 5/5
      A very powerful story, actually two stories, a love story and a war story told parallel, overlapping, intertwining and dissecting all at once. And the writing is just incredible.

      "But the window - if that's what it is - is utterly and intensely black. Blacker than any night sky in the darkest part of the universe. Darker than death. The whole middle of the painting is a terrifying void. But the fruits and the vegetables, those humble and edible object, have their backs to that void. They bathe in the brevity of light, casting their modest shadows onto the stone. They say, they insist, that they briefly exist.
      'Here we are,' they say, 'Death is the default. There's no avoiding it. It's the background into which we will inevitably melt. We will rot and so will you. But in the meantime, eat, see, smell, taste, listen, touch. Look how commonplace and how beautiful we are.'
      And they really were. Are."
    • 2/5
      I didn't hate this book, but I didn't like it much either. It was only a little engaging. I can't imagine there is a teen-- no matter how old-- that would care to read this book.
    • 4/5
      Read this since it made SLJ's Battle of the Books and liked it. Hope it gets more visibility.
    • 5/5
      What an ambitious novel this was. At first I had a difficult time getting into this book, but I'd read such positive reviews, I stuck with it. I'm glad I did. The beginning is hard with the dialect and the switching perspectives. But once working-class Clem and rich girl Frankie met, I was hooked, so much that I didn't mind when the book turned into a history on the Cuban Missile Crisis (because, of course, I wanted to know how it would all come together in the end). The author describes the history of the time with such seemingly authentic detail, I (almost) want to seek out the books he lists in the back as references. All the characters are so richly imagined, provide contrast to one another. The chapter titles are brilliant, providing a bit of wry humor.Was this a love story? Was it a history lesson? The book was both, and it makes you think about how close we probably come to war and yet how far it seems from our daily lives. An intriguing, thoughtfully constructed story.
    • 3/5
      A man in his fifties reminsces about growing up in rural England, his first love, the Cuban Missile Crises.
    • 5/5
      I'm positive Mal Peet suffers from multiple personalities because I was hard pressed to realize that the first part of Life and the second part were written by the same author.I almost didn't read Life because of a bad review I read, but that would have been a grand shame, because it is one of my Top 10 of 2011, which hopefully I'll get to next week. Part One: Putting Things Together recounts Clem Ackroyd's life from his birth in 1945 through the early 1960s in England. His father, George, was in the military during World War II and didn't meet Clem until he was 3 years old. Before that, Clem grew up with his mother, Ruth, and grandmother, Win. Peet is a knowing observer, talking about Ruth and George's sexless marriage, their rise from poverty to lower middle class, their mindless, unworldy existence. As he ages Clem, he adroitly contrasts his teenage lust with his parents. Clem, a typical teenager, is a sex crazed boy in love with Frankie, daughter of the local manor owner--a couple both of whose parents would frown upon from a 'class' standpoint. But they are truly in love. Peet's cadence in this narrative shifts from totally laid back to highly energized as Clem and Frankie's passion escalates. Peet's various characters are unique, extraordinary and loveable.But, in Part Two: Blowing Things Apart, Peet abruptly shifts to the Cuban Missile Crisis, where he describes (at times tongue-in-cheek, hopefully) President Kennedy and his military advisors, Premier Khrushchev and Fidel Castro. In his Author's Note, Peet states "Clem Ackroyd is an unreliable historian", so I'm sure there's some 'Author's License' in the depiction of these world leaders. However, it is riveting. In this second part there are occasional reversions to Clem and Frankie, but few and far between.How Peet masterfully intertwines these two stories is not something I want to reveal to you. You must read it for yourself. And, if you're like me, you may be surprised, saddened and surprised, by Part Three: Picking Up the Pieces. I could not put Life: An Exploded Diagram down. I chuckled. I smiled. I frowned. My emotions ran the gamut. Do yourself a favor. If you're looking for that great end of year book, pick up Life: An Exploded Diagram by Mal Peet.
    • 3/5
      This is the story of Clem, a working class boy, and his love affair with Frankie who is the daughter of a wealthy landowner. Despite obstacles they contrive to meet and, with the threat of the Cuban Missile crisis hanging over them, they are determined to 'go all the way'.The first section of the book is the story of Clem's mother and grandmother so it takes a while to get into Clem's story and when you do, it is interrupted by the story of Kennedy and the missile crisis.
    • 3/5
      Teen fiction (for people who don't read teen fiction). A curious amalgam of war novel and historic romance, this is a slower-paced book (the lovers don't actually meet until p. 137) but thoroughly enjoyable. The narrator's voice is intelligent with occasional malaprops: "as cunning as a lavatory rat" (p. 235) and "brain choked on an anagram" (p. 364). I would suspect these were deliberate choices by the author, but the effect is imbalanced rather than humorous--the book would have been better without.
    • 5/5
      I think I may have found a new favourite author.Is this a coming of age novel? A romance? A history lesson? Yes, it is all of that, and they're all tied up together into this book with an amazing historical scope and an ambitious exploration of how Big History, the Cold War, effects the lives of kids in provincial Norfolk. But, you have to go further than that, because the Cold War doesn't make sense without reference to the Second World War, and neither do these kids make sense without reference to their parents and grandparents. This is a book to get deeply involved in. It's long, and not a quick read, but it's nourishing. It gives as much as you give it, which is all you can ask of a novel. The descriptions, in particular the similes, are fantastic.So what's it about? Working class grammar school kid falls for the rich daughter of his father's boss. But, actually, you don't even meet these characters until about half-way through. If I had one criticism, I would have to keep it to myself because it kind of gives away the ending. But if you've already read this, you'll know what I mean. I didn't think the actual violence, when it finally arrived, was as well tied-in as it could have been. It was almost meaningless, when it could have had more resonance. But perhaps that's the point - history doesn't always makes sense. The 20th century isn't a novel.Once you've read this, try Waterland by Graham Swift.
    • 3/5
      A man in his fifties reminsces about growing up in rural England, his first love, the Cuban Missile Crises.