Stevie‘s review of Things I Can’t Explain by Mitchell Kriegman
Contemporary Women’s Fiction published by Thomas Dunne Books 10 Nov 15
I don’t think I ever watched a complete episode of Clarissa Explains It All, since it aired in the years when I only had access to terrestrial/non-cable TV, but I must have seen trailers for it since some of the iconic scenes referenced in this book feel very familiar. TV tie-in books for long defunct shows are nothing new for me (I have friends who wrote Dr Who novels in the decades it was off air, for a start), but it takes a remarkably skilled author to both appeal to that show’s nostalgic former audience and collect new fans – all while working in a very different medium to the original series. It may help that the author in this case is also the show’s creator.
And in this case, the author definitely succeeded in drawing me in. The book has a wonderfully chatty style that reads just as you’d expect a precocious teen to speak when she’s lived through another decade or so, with insights into the world Clarissa finds herself in broken up by anecdotes, maps, graphs and the host of other illustration methods she uses to get her point across (lists, pie charts – sometimes with actual pie – and also doodles).
After graduating from high school, Clarissa moved to New York, finding work as a journalist until the stock-market crash and the rise of online news sources left her unemployed and a bit directionless. She still hangs round the building where she used to work, because that’s where her favourite coffee cart is located – not to mention the cute guy who runs it. Then disaster strikes. Clarissa is buying a coffee to cheer herself up after another unsuccessful job interview, when her estranged parents hail her. They’re in town for an unannounced visit, and Clarissa hasn’t told them either that she lost her job, or that she split up with her boyfriend.
Fortunately, the coffee guy comes to her rescue and helps her spin a wild story where it’s him she’s dating and in which her job is going from strength to strength. Cue a whole series of madcap adventures in which Clarissa tries to win the coffee guy from his ex-girlfriend, copes with her parents’ relationship disasters and her brother’s imprisonment for fraud, and explains just what happened to all the people she knew in high school.
By a couple of chapters in, I was really rooting for Clarissa to win through and get the life she longs for and deserves. All the characters in this book feel very real, albeit in a slightly exaggerated TV Land sense of the word, and the book overall feels like a series of TV episodes. I’d love to know what’s going to happen to them all next, but at the same time the book feels pretty complete in and of itself. Definitely one to curl up with in front of the fire and savour for its illustrations as well as the words.
Grade: A
Summary:
A complete re-imagining of the 1990s television hit Clarissa Explains it All as 20-something Clarissa tries to navigate the unemployment line, mompreneurs and the collision of two people in love.
She was a smart, snappy, light-hearted girl who knew it all at fourteen and let television audiences everywhere know it. Now a woman in her late twenties, her searching blue eyes are more serious, but mostly amused by the people around her. The gap-toothed smile that made her seem younger than she really was is gone, but she still lightens up the room. Her unpredictable wardrobe rocks just like when she was a kid, but her fashion sense has evolved and it makes men and women turn their heads.
After leaving high school early, Clarissa interned at the Daily Post while attending night school. At the ripe old age of twenty- two she had it made – her own journalism beat (fashion, gender politics and crime), an affordable apartment in FiDi and a livable wage. She was so totally ahead of the game. Ah, those were the days! All three of them. Remember the Stock Market Crash of 08? Remember when people actually bought newspapers?
All of Clarissa’s charming obsessions, charts, graphs, and superstitions have survived into adulthood, but they’ve evolved into an ever-greater need to claw the world back under control. Her mid-twenties crisis has left her with a whole set of things she can’t explain: an ex-boyfriend turned stalker, her parents’ divorce, a micro relationship with the cute coffee guy, java addiction, “To-Flue Glue,” and then there’s Sam. Where’s Sam anyway?
Things I Can’t Explain is about knowing it all in your teens and then feeling like you know nothing in your twenties. It is an entertaining and must-read sequel to all fans of Mitchell Kriegman’s Nickelodeon TV show, Clarissa Explains It All.
Read an excerpt.
