I Crawl Through It by A.S. King
Release Date: September 22, 2015
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Genre: Young Adult Surrealist Literature
ISBN: 978-0316334099
Source: E-ARC
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Our big explosion is coming any day now. Can’t you hear the ticking?
Four accomplished teenagers are on the verge of explosion. The anxieties they face at every turn have nearly pushed them to the point of surrender: senseless high-stakes testing, the lingering damage of trauma, the buried grief and guilt of tragic loss. They are desperate to cope—but no one is listening.
So they will lie. They will split in two. They will turn inside out. They will build an invisible helicopter to fly themselves far away from the pressure…but nothing releases the pressure. Because, as they discover, the only way to truly escape their world is to fly right into it.
The genius of acclaimed author A.S. King reaches new heights in this groundbreaking work of surrealist fiction; it will mesmerize readers with its deeply affecting exploration of how we crawl through traumatic experience—and find the way out.
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I Crawl Through It is the second novel by A.S King that I’ve read and wow. I am continuously in awe of her work. Now if I had to sort this book into a house, I’d easily shout, “Ravenclaw!” It’s so peculiar and surreal as we follow multiple points of view, following journeys of damaged human beings, in this instance, teenagers and see how they get through each day. We see what they need to see to get through PTSD, the aftermath of rape, neglect, and more.
Everyone has burdens and what I love about A.S. King’s work is that unlike in real life (for the most part), here is an adult who doesn’t diminish a young person’s pains. Instead, she writes books about teenagers and the people willing to believe in them, with them, beside them and do more than just believing. Because of this, King’s work is like a magnet and is all consuming and I cannot wait to read everything she’s published.
This story here is so poetic and moved me so. The prose is spectacular, the storytelling so fractured just like all of us and so distinct yet so freeing for interpretation all at the same time. I Crawl Through It is invigorating. It’s difficult to describe but I’d say it’s a wonderful story about dealing with what’s real with things that are not tangible.
Everyone is going to get what they need to get out of the story. For me, the letters that made sense of the scrabble board spelled out letting go, surrender, and rise above the things that hold us down.
The never-ending search for answers, for peace of mind is exhausting and takes its toll. For me, this story was so much about the (oftentimes false) safety that we create after it’s been taken away and how we escape, how we cope when it has.
This was quite the exploration of finding the openings of belief, of faith, of hope in ourselves, in other people, in the world to keep going, keep crawling through the darkness to get to the light. To keep crawling through the battlefield of our minds.
Now like I said in the beginning, this book is very peculiar. The characters are very strange because the way that most of them cope is literally who they are and if you can get on board for that surrealism, you’re ready for the ride. If this had been the first book by A.S King that I would have read, I probably would have stopped within the first third of the book, it is so bizarre. But I knew her style and was ready to dive even deeper into that style and I am so glad that I did. This surrealism is not for everyone but it is so worth trying to find out if it’s for you.
I Crawl Through It by A.S. King is available now.