Liar Spoiler Thread (updated)

If you’re busting to talk about Liar with other people who’ve read it this is the place for you. Here you can say whatever you want about the book without fear. Go forth, speak, theorise, argue, enjoy!

For those of you haven’t read it you really really really do not want to look at the comments below. Go here to see my arguments as to why you do not want to be spoiled. You should also avoid reviews.¹

Liar is a book that even people who normally ADORE spoilers have said they were very glad they weren’t spoiled before they read it. Like Tim Pratt for instance who said:

I’m one of those people who isn’t bothered by spoilers and sometimes seeks them out . . . but, yeah, Liar is much better unspoiled, I must admit. A real whiplash-inducing reading experience.

Listen to him and me. Read the book first and then come back here.

Are we clear?

Okay then: let the spoiler thread commence!

Update: I won’t be taking part in the discussion. You gets to play amongst yourselves without the bossy author intervening. If you have any questions for me take them across to the Liar FAQ.

You should especially avoid the Horn Book review of Liar because it’s so outrageously spoilery I cried when I read it. Though if you’ve read Liar you should definitely check it out because it’s a very interesting take on the novel. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 9:20, 3 October 2009 under Best of Blog, Liar | 43 Comments »

Comments

1. Justine Says:

I wasn’t kidding about the spoiler thing. If you haven’t read Liar GO AWAY!

If you read what’s below this you will REGRET it for the REST OF YOUR LIFE.

Borrow someone else’s copy. Read it. And only then return.

October 3rd, 2009 at 9:21 am
Jen Hubert Says:

A non-spoilery review:

http://www.readingrants.org/2009/05/20/liar-by-justine-larbalestier/

I read this so early in ARC, I tried to be extra careful NOT to give away the perfect twist!

October 3rd, 2009 at 9:36 am
Steph Bowe Says:

Oh, I just reviewed this too: http://heyteenager.blogspot.com/2009/10/liar-by-justine-larbalestier.html

It was so brilliant, and I completely didn’t see the twist coming. But I can’t bring myself to talk about the twist even though this is a spoiler thread.

October 3rd, 2009 at 9:54 am
Rebekah Says:

I have to agree with Mr. Pratt–I usually love spoilers (I even went seeking out what people said would happen the week before the Deathly Hallows came out), but enjoying Liar the first time ’round really depends on having no idea what’s going to happen. It doesn’t really work well otherwise—but what a twist. I’m still obsessed with it and I finished it on Tuesday.

October 3rd, 2009 at 10:08 am
Andrew Says:

A thought that occurred to me recently—anything that Micah insists is true is likely to be a lie. However, the reverse is also possible—anything that she says was a lie might actually be the truth.

Also—maybe she’s actually a sparkly vampire, but because of her self-loathing, insists that she’s a werewolf instead.

October 3rd, 2009 at 10:46 am
Stacy Says:

LIAR bent my brain a bit. The way of the unreliable narrator is *very* appealing to me, yet tends to leave me angst ridden at the end. What was the truth? Andrew has it when he states that anything that Micah lies about could be true. Still, I want to read it again. And again.

October 3rd, 2009 at 11:16 am
Rene Says:

Oh man, I had no idea the twist was coming. I nearly dropped the book right around page 170. Awesome.

I’m with you, Stacy, I definitely require a reread. (After, however, I lend it to my sister!) Micah dropped some hints early on that pinged my radar as important, but that didn’t make sense until after the HOLY CRAP!!!!!11!! last chapter. I’m still not sure what I think “really” happened — I have at least three possibilities, and maybe more after I reread. And I like that it’s so ambiguous.

And I’m amazed at how likable Micah is, even with all the lies.

October 3rd, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Tim Pratt Says:

I will boldly step forward with the truly spoilery: From the very beginning, when Micah told the story about being covered in fur, I thought, “Is this going to be a werewolf story? Nah, it can’t be — Justine said this was a work of psychological realism, not fantasy.” So I was doubly shocked when the werewolf thing came up explicitly later, and then I laughed my head off when the truth of *that* was thrown into question too. (Of course, in a sense, the truth of anything is always in question here — that’s one of the great things about this book.)

I spent some time after I read it trying to enumerate possible “true” readings of the text, and the ending: Micah is a killer werewolf, Micah is a crazy murderer, Micah is institutionalized for unrelated reasons and just making up the whole story to pass the time, etc… but I soon decided that was a silly endeavor. If there is a “true” reading, I’d rather not know about it — rather more than half the magic here comes from the fluidity, the uncertainty, and the capital-M-Mystery of everything.

And yet somehow, even though we can’t believe a word she says, Micah is a wonderfully compelling character.

October 3rd, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Eliza Evans Says:

I’m kind of in the camp that the only bit that I can truly believe is when she says that she’s being held down and has to take pills.

Liar reminded me a lot of Catcher in the Rye, that way.

October 3rd, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Shaun Hutchinson Says:

I have to agree that the beauty of this book is that Justine has truly created a book for us. Meaning that many authors talk about how they don’t like to explain their books because they want the readers to interpret that any which way they want, there’s still a bit of finality to things. Like you’re not going to get to the end of Hunger Games and wonder what really happened. But here, this book, it really truly belongs to every person. I don’t think there will ever be a consensus on what actually happened because every single person is going to interpret that actual events of this book differently. Not just its meaning, but the actual physical events. In that respect, and in may others, this book is bloody brilliant.

As the werewolf bits came out, I kept reading waiting for that to be a lie too. But really, this book is almost like a Choose Your Own Adventure. Depending on which things you believe and which you don’t, the possibilities are endless.

Liar is definitely in the top three books I’ve read this year. And it’s been a good year for YA.

October 3rd, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Sarah Rees Brennan Says:

Oh look, at last somewhere I can spoil.

I love Liar partly because I love a good murder mystery, and since there will never be a solution we all get to have our own.

And as far as I’m concerned Zach’s a good murder victim – not likable enough that it breaks my heart he died. He did Micah and Sarah both wrong. Cheating on your girlfriend, messing around with messed-up girls, let being ripped apart be a lesson to YOU, young man.

Then there’s the Night in Question. Could Zach have provoked Micah (or someone else) in some way? Did he mess her around one too many times? Did he leave her? Did he do something to hurt or scare her?

And then there’s an alternate view of Micah as a victim and Zach as a hero: if Zach saw Micah’s crazy parents forcing her into a cage, and tried to help her, and Zach’s dead, Micah is lost, and the parents got off scot free…

Liar is not just a choose your own adventure story, but in many ways the quintessential detective story. We’re the detectives. And when it comes to murder, you can never really be sure. Not beyond a shadow of a doubt. You can’t be there, at the murder scene. You can’t trust what anyone tells you. Even with Micah behind bars, we’ll never know anything for certain.

October 3rd, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Aja Romano Says:

I have been literally begging all my friends to read this book so that i could discuss it with them, so thank you, SO MUCH, for this thread.

i’m really glad SRB (who, talk about spoilers, you should all go read The Demon’s Lexicon right now if you have not already) brought up the cage. That’s the main thing i really felt was a gateway into the truth of this story, whatever truth there can be. Liar is clearly a story about someone who is incredibly damaged psychologically and emotionally, and I kept thinking about the cage–how her parents had forced her into it, how they had tried to disguise it; how they seemed to keep placing her into situations where she felt her only option was to run away, and how strongly the theme of getting out of her environment at all costs seemed to pop up throughout the story. Beyond that telltale moment where she reveals the truth about being held in a secure facility and forced to take pills, I felt like the cage was the most revealing piece of information she gave us, quite possibly a metaphor she created to disguise a childhood so abusive she can’t even face the truth of it herself. Especially, her relationship with her mother seemed particularly closed-off somehow, overshadowed by the intense, volatile, conflicting feelings she has of her father. In the first paragraph of the book we learn that her mother doesn’t trust her father, and the distance between both father-mother and mother-daughter seems really important. Micah has tried to repress her own emotional need for affection from her parents in order to prevent them from hurting her, while her mother seems to have detached herself from any real responsibility for providing emotional care to her daughter–perhaps in order to shield herself from her husband’s lies and abusive behavior? Or perhaps because she, herself, is a victim of abuse and has had to shut down just like her daughter.

I also, after a week of obsessing over this book!, am reading the “farm” as analogous to the secure facility (which is also probably located upstate), the grandmother/great-aunt as analogous to the doctor/nurses attempting to care for her, her uncle as another patient, one possibly muted or silenced by his/her own illness, and the “cousins” as patients who had adjusted to treatment and were going through their paces as part of the juvenile rehabilitation system.

The werewolf thing: I literally turned the page halfway through the story thinking i was perched on top of this book’s pyramid of lies, and then suddenly everything just turned upside down. I actually felt jolted. I had *no* idea how to read Micah or which direction to pursue the narrative from that point on, it was just completely disconcerting (and AWESOME).

I still, when I talk about this book, am not sure whether I should separate it from YA fantasy in terms of genre, because I think Micah’s being a werewolf is not only a way of obscuring the truth, but also a way for her to create a coming-of-age narrative for herself, at all costs. And that involves so much of what YA fantasy is about that I feel I can’t separate it from the genre.

While I was reading Liar I kept thinking that I could never live with a character like Micah inhabiting my brain for such a long and intense period. I think trying to uncover the truth of her identity would actually drive me a little crazy!–not just because it is so difficult, but because it is so, so painful. But I’m so glad you did, because I’m extremely grateful that Liar exists. I think it is brilliantly written, and one of the most compelling portraits of a troubled teenager that I’ve ever read.

October 3rd, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Laurie Says:

I’d like to think Micah was really a werewolf, but I’m desperate for magic in everything. On the other hand, the interpretation of “upstate” being a mental facility makes entirely too much sense. It’s easy to interpret this as “Micah has a severe mental illness and her parents were ashamed of this and did horrible things to her to try and keep it a secret”.

One thing I really loved about the book, whichever interpretation you take, is the constant, repeating themes of autonomy and the loss thereof – the loss of control over one’s body, over one’s environment, over one’s entire life, and the struggle to regain it. It was very poignant and really worked.

I do have something I really want to know, though – do you, as the author, know what really happened, or is it up for debate in your own mind as well? I am not asking what happened, mind. Just whether you know.

October 3rd, 2009 at 7:55 pm
Alyce Says:

It’s so good to read everyone else’s take on events! I’ve resigned myself to the fact that there won’t be any final consensus, but actually that’s brilliant.

The one aspect that has been running through my mind for the last week is Micah’s omission. We’re told that during the trial, reporters hover around outside the school following Micah, Sarah and Tayshawn. Is this true (or more accurately, how true is it?) and if so, whos trial is it? If Zach did appear to be killed by dogs there wouldnt be a trial. If the trial did occur then you would assume that one of the three main characters would be on trial (although it is only on Micah’s say so that we assume they are main suspects)and if they were on trial they wouldnt be going to school every day.

I suppose that one small section served as a microcosm of all my interactions with Micah – at first everything seems fine and reasonable but the more you think about it the more you wonder and at the end of the day you’re not quite sure what to believe.

Made me think more than any book Ive read in ages.

October 3rd, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Alyce Says:

Also, have you seen Horn Books latest status update? Seems like a bit of passive-agressive snark headed in your direction!

October 3rd, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Emmy Says:

Is the Horn Book review online anywhere? If so, can someone please post a link?

October 4th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Pam Says:

I’m not reading any comments above mine. I’m not, I’m not. I just bought my copy of Liar with its melted Aussie cover. Can’t wait to read it, then the reviews, then other people’s comments.

October 4th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
Thomas Says:

Oh man, you guys. This thread is the best thing ever.

I was so excited to post here but reading all the comments have given me so much more to think about.

My only real thought is that there’s definitely something going on with the trial we’re not being told about. Otherwise Micah wouldn’t mention it at all. But what? It’s possible she ended up in a jail cell or asylum (if she pleaded insanity) instead of in an apartment–after all, she lies to make the world better.

I am definitely going to have to reread this.

October 5th, 2009 at 1:09 am
Angie Says:

The trial bit is the part that’s sticking with me. I can buy that she’s nuts, and that the “pills” are antipsychotics, and that “upstate” is a mental institution – the bit where she figures she’s going to take the wolf-boy up there, and then her parents leave her and there’s a bag packed convinced me that she came home raving about the wolf-boy and thinking he was there, and they packed her up and dropped her off, maybe while “playing along”?

But the trial bit gets me. I guess it depends on how much of everything you believe. If Micah and Tayshawn and Sarah were at school during the times she says they were, then maybe he was just killed by some random lunatic, and that person was on trial? But why so much attention to the school kids?

I want to think that Micah did it but I can’t make everything fit together in a way that makes sense, unless she’s making up large swathes of things from nowhere, and I do believe that Micah’s lies/psychosis is at least somewhat based on real events.

But I don’t know, I really don’t. I’m anxiously awaiting my husband reading it so that I can discuss it with him.

October 5th, 2009 at 10:09 am
Shveta Says:

I love all these comments, and I love that I don’t know what happened. This is odd, as I usually like a bit more finality. But as others have said, that’s what makes the book work. Also, Justine, I know you’re not weighing in here, but I have to say, you did an excellent job with Micah’s character. I know she didn’t reach everyone, but I really felt for her, lies and all.

And I loved the werewolf twist! I so did not see that coming, but looking back, it’s all set up to work that way–if, indeed, it’s not another lie.

The trial–does anyone think Micah actually killed Yayeko and family? Or that it was a trial for killing Zach? Or anything else? Or just another lie?

October 5th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Thomas Says:

I feel like there was definitely a trial… and I feel like it’s true when she says Yayeko visits her often, so she didn’t kill Yayeko… but I find it hard to beleive that Yayeko saying “Micah” over and over could stop wolf-Micah from attacking. So I’m not sure if she killed them or not, I guess.

My feeling is that the trial was for Zach, just because she mentioned Sarah and Tayshawn and the press, etc.

I kind of feel like maybe Micah isn’t crazy or anything, and the pills are actually birth control pills and the farm upstate is actually a farm upstate and she is actually a werewolf, and the only major lie left at the end is that she’s at college studying biology from a tiny apartment, when really she’s in jail or in an insitution somewhere (although I won’t deny the possibility that the pills are antipsychotics–it would definitely fit).

Ahh, so much to think about.

October 6th, 2009 at 12:38 am
Megan Says:

Oh man, this is definitely one of those books I’m going to have to read twice or thrice or maybe ten times just to pick up on all the inconsistencies in Micah’s story. But I loved every minute of it, and never saw the twist coming! (Though I really should have…I think I was distracted by theories like, well, perhaps she’s a mutant a la Marvel’s X-Men.) My favorite element is that the idea of Micah’s being a werewolf was presented (by her) as being a result of science rather than a supernatural element. Personally I find werewolves far more interesting than vampires – or most other supernatural creatures, for that matter – but there really aren’t many good werewolf novels that are JUST about werewolves; too many of them involve some kind of feud with vampires, which I’m quite frankly sick of. So thank you, Justine, for thinking outside of the box and letting Micah play with my mind.

October 6th, 2009 at 3:00 am
Eric Says:

What a remarkably twisty book! My head hurts.

After reading it, I suspect that Micah’s little brother is key to some of her lies. Did he ever exist? What really happened to him? Why did Micah hate him so much from the very beginning? What role did he play in the relationship between Micah and her parents?

Combine this mystery with the trial that Angie mentioned, and there’s clearly a whole new level of lies that never get resolved.

I can think of 3 major possibilities:

1) The final version of Micah’s story is mostly true. She’s a werewolf, she didn’t kill Zach, and maybe she even lived happily ever after (sort of).

2) Micah killed Zach (and possibly her little brother, too), and the werewolf story is a product of her deranged imagination. This is the really dark version of the book, and it’s right up there with some of the creepiest stuff in Poe.

3) Micah killed Zach, but she’s actually telling the truth about the werewolf thing.

If Micah is lying about being a werewolf, it’s her more sophisticated lie, because she carefully set it up in the first part of the book by dropping hints while she was telling her other lies. Are any of her other lies that subtle?

Clearly, I’m going to have to re-read this book a couple of times, and try to collect evidence for and against different versions of the story.

October 6th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Karen Strong Says:

Every time I’ve settled on what I think, I change my mind. I definitely going to have to read this book again.

Maybe I’m a little slow, but I NEVER saw the werewolf thing coming. So when I was reading Part 2, I was like, WT…anyway, I have to say that it intrigued me very much. Now, I’m like, “Is Micah lying about THIS?” and I’m like, “YES!” Then, I keep reading and I’m thinking, “Damn. Maybe she IS a werewolf.” Then I read some more, “No, she’s lying…” LOL.

So, there are so many things to think about…but I do remember how she kept saying that werewolves don’t kill people but we already know that Sam “supposedly” killed Zach—so isn’t that a contradiction?

And I wondered how Micah got back to NYC to see Yayeko? I mean, did her non-werewolf Uncle take her to the train station? She didn’t have any money. How did she get back?

LOTS of questions!

Yeah, I’m going to have to read this again and see what I come up with.

Really have enjoyed reading everyone’s comments!

I agree with most of ya’ll about the end. College? I don’t think she’s in college. At least right at this moment. That could change once I post this comment, LOL.

October 6th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Rosemoo Says:

I loved loved loved this book!

And it’s REALLY hard not to have anyone to talk to about it. I’m selling it as hard as I can in the bookstore without being able to tell a HUGE part of why I love it so much.

But as much as I love things like Buffy, and I love Werewolves, I was in love with the book all through the (very non-supernatural) part one. I didn’t need the werewolf idea to fall hard for Micah. She’s so hurt, and so needy, and yet so calm and collected. She completely convinced me to love her. I was right with her from the beginning, even though I knew she was a liar from the get-go. I believed everything she told me, even as she revised entire sections of the book.

I didn’t know I could love a ‘bad-girl’ character as much as I love the stereotypical ‘bad-guy’. I mean, I loved Faith in Buffy, but not nearly as much as I love Micah. Maybe because Faith was largely originally a construct to act as a foil to Buffy, and Micah stands on her own.

Of course, I went with the whole Werewolf thing as soon as it came up, and it made me fall in love with the book all over again. I’m a sucker for Werewolves. I think they’re largely underappreciated.

One thing that threw me (and that I’ve wanted to talk to someone about) is as soon as we met the other werewolf I was convinced he was evil and going to pull one of those ‘I am the werewolf who you are destined for and killed my competition so I could have you for myself’ trope. And when it had NOTHING to do with that I fell in love with the book again.

I can’t say enough good things about this book. It’s my first favorite book in the store.

October 6th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
Dave H Says:

My wife (Angie in the comments above) made me wake her up at 2 am when I finished the book so that we could discuss it. She’s never done that before. Between us, we’ve come up with about 27 theories about the “real” truth, and a reason why each of them can’t possibly be right.

My current theory is that she wrote the whole thing in Bellevue, having been convicted for killing Yayeko’s family when she went off her meds. I think she spared Yayeko, who got through to her. She also stalked Zach after he spurned her advances, and eventually killed him.

Of course, by morning, I’ll probably have changed my mind again. And that’s the beauty of the thing. Thanks to Micah’s lies, the truth can be whatever we want it to be.

October 7th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Tasha Says:

I like the idea of her stalking and killing Zach for spurning her. But I believe more that they were friends, and did run together, but were not dating. She was just secretly in love with him in her head. I also sort of believe that she saw him get killed, and the first part of the book is her in shock and trying to hide what she saw from herself, and it drives her insane. I really really really don’t want to believe that she killed anyone. Though I can see accidentally killing her brother, if they were both young, and she just wasn’t watching him properly or something.

October 8th, 2009 at 11:57 am
ariel cooke Says:

I loved this book! For one thing, don’t we all feel like werewolves when we get our periods? Loved that part. I will have to re-read it several times before I fully understand it.

October 8th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Rebecca (allreb) Says:

I just finished the book last night. I definitely did not guess the werewolf thing ahead of time but there were enough small hints that pinged me that it made sense when I reached that reveal. And lots of things on this thread have given me interesting things to consider on rereads; I wondered, if she was in an institution and was not a wolf, what upstate was (or if it was real at all), and the idea that that is the institution makes sense to me, definitely.

But there were a few random things that have given me an off-the-wall, barely-textually-supported theory about another way it could have happened (or some of it, anyway). The first thing that really pinged me as Super Important were the birth control pills, and the terror of missing one, and how very, very, very angry her parents were about her making out with a boy, let alone having sex. Then, near the end, she says something about needing the pills to keep her body under her control (I can’t look up the the text at the moment, my best friend is reading my copy of the book and if I try to take it away from her I suspect she’ll bite my hand), but in a really desperate way. Something bad has happened with her boyfriend. And she was kicked out of home.

To me, those elements all floating around in my brain, spelled: what if Micah was pregnant? She missed her pill and it happened by accident. She freaked out — maybe it lead to some sort of confrontation with Zach that ended in murder, intentionally or not? When her parents found out, possibly they wanted her to keep the baby and she didn’t (or the other way around), and that was her desperation to keep her body under control. And then either she ran away or her parents kicked her out.

(Or maybe it really wasn’t her who killed Zach; when her parents found out, maybe one of them confronted him and it escalated?)

Obviously there’s way more happening in the book than that; it doesn’t explain the trial, or upstate and Pete, or Jordan, or anything like that, but I also can’t shake the idea entirely.

October 10th, 2009 at 11:30 am
Rebecca (allreb) Says:

OOH, OR! The comment above that she saw Zach’s death and it drove her a bit insane. What if she had killed Jordan accidentally when she was younger, and then after seeing Zach’s death she lost it a little bit and invented Pete as a sort of link between the two. We don’t know what his age is, but he’s a few years younger than she is — maybe roughly the same age as Jordan? And he acts younger — maybe the age Jordan was before he died? The two being linked in her mind could really do some mental damage. (If she was responsible for Jordan’s death, even as an accident, and has that link between the two, what if she feels responsible for Zach’s death — which we see in her revelation that her change caused Pete to change, and he then killed Zach — but didn’t actually do it? She isn’t trying to convince us that she didn’t, she’s trying to convince herself of that, but she doesn’t even believe it.)

BTW, sitting next to my friend as she gets closer and closer to the end is super fun. She keeps yelling, “What?!!!” and demanding I explain things. Which, of course, I won’t.

October 10th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Marrije Says:

I just finished the book. And now my head hurts. I have to read it all again to try & make up my mind about what happens. I’m not in favour of the Bellevue theory at the moment, I’m more of a true werewolf believer. But what about Jordan? And what happens to the teacher and her family? So much confusion. Also, this book reminds me quite a lot of “We need to talk about Kevin”, and that worries me quite a lot. Sigh. thinkety-think…

October 11th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Serafina Zane Says:

Oh man. Finished Liar last week, but just got around to the spoiler thread here–so many interesting theories. I, for one, was suspecting the werewolf thing for quite a while before the reveal—in a vague, this is fun conspiracy I don’t expect it to happen sort of way—so I may have actually cheered when she said that. It was the hearing thing, actually, that made me suspect that the most, more than the hair or anything, but there were definitely a lot of clues, looking back. I kept expecting her to say that was a lie, though, but I kind of liked that she never did.

Honestly, though, with regards to the ending and the rest of the events, I really haven’t decided what my theory is. I can see a bunch of different ways it could have gone—werewolf, not a werewolf, killed Zach, didn’t kill Zach, killed Jordan, didn’t kill Jordan, made up Jordan, any combination of having killed Zach or Jordan or both or neither, in jail, in college, in an institution, et, ect, ect. But I’m not sure which one I personally believe. It’s definitely fun to theorize, and there’s definitely support for any of a variety of theories…very interesting indeed.
I do like to think Micah is actually a werewolf, though, but I like to think that about a lot of people.

October 11th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Aja Says:

i am just returning to read more comments on this post, and add more thoughts of my own:

- Someone above commented, “My favorite element is that the idea of Micah’s being a werewolf was presented (by her) as being a result of science rather than a supernatural element.”

actually, the more I think about this, I think that maybe the werewolfism, and the fact that it’s brought about by science, is a clue into the psychology of the book. Maybe the werewolfism is a result of all the pills Micah has had to take since pre-adolescence. Maybe the science that provides psychotropic medication for children is the same science that has engineered her behavior so completely that it has literally created a monster.

- The boy Micah keeps seeing in the park – I feel sure that he is a double for Micah’s brother. i have NO IDEA what that means, but I think it’s pretty vital, especially since we have no way of knowing when “Jordan” disappeared in relationship to when “Pete” appeared. If either of them were ever there to begin with.

- another theory: what if the person stroking Micah’s hair at the climax and saying her name over and over again is not Yayeko, but Micah’s mother? I say that because it’s the most intimate contact that Micah has with anyone throughout the book, and it strikes me as strange, suddenly, that it comes at that moment, from a potential murder victim, and/or from a teacher who would not normally ever get that close to a student. Yayeko seems to be a double for Micah’s mother and seems more omni-present in her life than Micah’s mother, who is distant and removed and not-really that much of a presence in this book. What if Yayeko is Micah’s mother, or if, perhaps, the lines between mother and teacher have been deliberately blurred in order to create a nurturing environment that protects her from reality?

- I keep coming back to the idea of this book as a metaphor for modern urban life, and I almost feel like maybe we’re being “lied” to by the narrative structure itself; we are told about the murder in the very beginning; it’s the werewolf theory that takes us by surprise. But what if the murder is, itself, a metaphor? Micah’s most chilling moment of truth, I think, is the confession about being forced to take meds, and I can’t help feeling like that provides the foundation for understanding where the rest of the book’s themes are coming from: behavioral change, advances in science that change us against our will or control, unfamiliarity with oneself, the sense of being forced to live dual identities, all the doubling that runs throughout the book.

What if Zach is another double for Micah herself–his athleticism, his popularity, his long-standing relationships with his girlfriend/best friend, his successful ability to juggle and integrate all the different parts of his life? Micah is a person who appears to be crowded out of an identity by a number of factors and who expresses gender, identity, and sexual confusion, along with extreme introversion. What if Zach, a self-confident, athletic male extrovert, is a representation of who Micah wants to be, an inner, dream self? What if the murder of Zach is in and of itself a metaphor for the destruction of Micah’s inner identity or “true” self?

October 12th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Micole Says:

I’m a little disturbed by how easily readers go to the narrative of unrequited female desire (i.e., “Micah wanted Zach and never really had him”); yes, the narrator is unreliable, but there are a few things that Micah never changes (that she’s biracial, that she had some sort of relationship with Zach, that she is attracted to both Sarah and Tayshawn) and I feel like that reading comes more out of our social assumptions about female desire, female jealousy, and female attractiveness than out of the text.

Anyway, one of the big questions of the book for me is “Who is the implied audience?” Not Justine’s audience, which is the reader; but Micah’s audience, the “you” whom at first seems to be a narrative convenience, but later on seems increasingly specific. I’m inclined to think that it’s a therapist or psychiatrist — she says she’s lied often to therapists and psychiatrists, and they always believe her — although it doesn’t answer any other questions for me. I mean, in addition to the narratives people have suggested above, there’s also: Micah really is a werewolf; she didn’t kill Yayeko but drew the attention of authorities by proving that she was a werewolf; she’s been taken into custody and is being experimented on (thus the pills and the restraints). I don’t particularly favor that one, though.

Something else I’d like to throw out there: there are three people in Yayeko’s apartment; there are or were three people in Micah’s family. How sure are we that Yayeko’s apartment and the people in it really exist?

October 12th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Lila Says:

Hmm, I guess I’m going to disagree with what some others said. I didn’t find it at all surprising that Micah said she was a werewolf. I was unspoiled, and now that I’m finished I don’t think spoilers would really have affected my appreciation of the book. As for what “really happened”, well, it’s a work of fiction. There’s no “really”. Especially since the author intended more than one interpretation to be viable. In a case like that, I don’t bother trying to figure out which interpretation is more believable. I don’t really even have a personal preference for a particular interpretation. But it’s fun trying to pick out themes that might be present regardless of which interpretation you choose. Anyhow, in general I find this author’s books to be very engrossing while I’m reading them, and once I’m done I feel… somewhat above average about them. I mean, I pretty much like them. Same goes for this one.

October 12th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Jessica Says:

I am so glad I wasn’t spoiled for this book, because although I did think “werewolf” pretty much immediately, I really didn’t expect to turn page 169 and find Micah avowing that she was one. Also, I LOVED that before page 169, you have a coherent story–just one–and then bam! the “corrections” and “clarifications” start flying faster and faster, until there are several stories just piling over each other.

I don’t really have any one theory that I like better. There are two slips, or statements, that Micah makes, and the fact they are glossed over is either in their favor, or means they are the most obvious lies–the statements she makes about the pills and being strapped down, for one, and the trial for two.

But even then, I WANT to believe Micah, that she’s a werewolf, and that she didn’t kill anyone on purpose. (I did see the reveal about Jordan coming, oddly. Maybe because I have a little brother? J/K)

I have to read this book again.

October 13th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
mb Says:

I’m with Lila — the werewolf thing didn’t surprise me. I caught a lot of the “slips”, too, so the many retractions also didn’t surprise me. But I’m not sure it has to be about the surprise.

My favorite thing is the way Micah keeps reminding us that fiction is also lying, that politeness can be lying, that a lot of daily living and surviving in the world is lying. It leaves open the possibility that Micah is the most honest person in the story, because her lies aren’t pretending to be something else.

October 16th, 2009 at 8:19 am
Ariel Says:

While I was reading the story, I kept being reminded of He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not, a French film starring Audrey Tautou. Have any of you seen it? I want to talk about it in relation to the book but I don’t want to spoil the movie!!

My most current theory is that there really is a “family illness”, but that it isn’t being a werewolf, it’s having a serious psychiatric illness, like schizophrenia. If I remember my freshman psych correctly, many people have their first psychotic break around puberty…much like Micah’s first manifestation. The farm upstate could really be a farm upstate where her family has segregated themselves to hide the illness…or convinced themselves that it is really a gift. But who knows?

Oh! This just came to me, but what if Micah and Jordan are somehow the same person? As in, she “killed” him when she started having violent episodes? That would tie in with the having a “boy name”, pretending she was born a boy, all that stuff.

October 17th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Jacob Says:

What page is the part where Micah talks about pills and being strapped down on? Because I don’t remember that.

November 2nd, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Summer Says:

Wow, I’m gonna have to re-read before I start theorizing!

November 6th, 2009 at 10:34 am
Summer Says:

Jacob:

The first time is on page 232.

November 20th, 2009 at 9:57 am

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