Janne Teller

If Nothing had been written before YA became an official genre, I think we'd call it literary fiction and it'd be read by adults who would think, "Man, life is strange. Kids are crazy," and analyze the junk out of it. It's pretty much [b:Lord of the Flies|7624|Lord of the Flies (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century)|William Golding|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165637417s/7624.jpg|2766512] in a rural Danish setting, right?

But this book is marketed towards teens, so, I could be wrong, but I don't know if it's going to do as well as it maybe should. I mean, my experience reading the book was not at all enjoyable. It's the kind of thing that's assigned in school (like, uh, Lord of the Flies) and you get through it because you have to, and when you're older you realize that it was actually pretty deep and had a lot to say about civilization and its discontents, etc. But as you're slogging through it, you're like "WHYYYYYY do I have to read this creepy existential book about strange foreign kids whose mild-mannered appearance belies their (SPOILER ALERT) homicidal rage?"

So, as a book for teens to read and enjoy generally, I say nah brah. As a book for philosophical/literary types to consume and dissect, I say heck yeah. And just for fun, here are more adjectives that describe this book: disturbing, upsetting, depressing, nihilistic, violent, bloody, gross, provocative, translated.… (mais)