Chapter Ten. We're now officially 1/3 of the way through the book. Connie is starting to notice patterns, and she's clearly starting to question what's going on. Becky is still in the infirmary, and the doctor issues a warning that flu may be starting early this year. In the midst of this, we get this astonishing statement about growing up, which is simply brilliant:
You're just hanging out, doing your own thing. Then you're somewhere else. Someone else, maybe. Someone who doesn't expect to sit with her family in Commons, who speaks a little bit of French, who knows the smell and the feel of the team bus practically by heart now. Or maybe that's not Springden, or even boarding school. Maybe that's just how growing up works. Hell if I know.And then, you know, I was just thinking it's been a while since Connie had a bad dream about giant mosquitoes... This time, she realizes why she recognizes the scene outside the living room window - it's the church yard on campus. The church yard where, in the first chapter, we learned that there was some sort of dead animal that needed removing. That church yard. Clearly, Izzy has read her Chekhov - do not introduce a partially rotted animal corpse in the first 1/3rd of the novel if you do not plan to have your characters investigate the partially rotted animal corpse before the final 1/3rd of the novel. I paraphrase a little.
If this were a play, we would have, I think, just finished Act 1, and are now moving into Act 2. If I recall my high school English, Act 2 is rising action, which means that things look bad for Connie in the next 10 chapters or so.
I must say, I'm really enjoying this book. A lot.
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