My Dubious Thoughts on The Mezzanine

I started pretty optimistic about The Mezzanine: new class, new school year, new me.

Then you start wondering, where are the characters? Where are the actions? Where is my plot?

I miss my Macbeth, my Purple Hibiscus, the tension of wondering what is going to happen next.

I kept waiting for something to happen to keep me reading;

maybe the escalator would blow up, or perhaps he’s undercover on a secret mission in the mall.

Suddenly he gets distracted by his CVS bag,

and then you're stuck behind another unskippable cutscene of dialogue.

Slowly, while reading through The Mezzanine,

I started to laugh a little and become a little more relatable.

Sometimes, I realise that everyone has moments where they wander.

For example, I am in my eighth-period German Class.

While the teacher is speaking about conjugation (no offense to Frau Schnee),

I end up looking at the posters around the room.

Like there was one about a queen who had a beheaded head of a dead man on her lap;

I thought that queen must have been pretty badass in the past.

Howie is the epitome of this mood.

Especially during the office bathroom scene,

I found a decent amount of relatability because before our addiction to our cell phones,

we were once little kids who had to use our mom’s phone for Subway Surfers.

So when I, like many others, went into the bathroom,

the only entertainment was our own curiosity.

Checking out the different types of crappy toilet paper,

looking at the other people, guessing what they do for work, and seeing if people ignore urinal-spacing etiquette.

These thoughts are pretty worthless, or what Aurelias would say trivial,

but are interesting when there is nothing else to do.

I was enjoying this book until around 100 pages.

How long can one take this many thoughts?

The novelty is worn off,

and my impression of Howie goes from curious kid to annoying guy who won’t stop talking.

Chapters 13–15 were a drag, reminding me of the past me, the initial me who was craving plot.

In general, this book was a rollercoaster of opinions.

It started badly with my craving for plot, then turned into a sudden surge of enjoyment and relatability,

and finally became a question of, “How many more pages is this book?”