Title: Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands Author: Chris Bohjalian
Published: July 8, 2014
Genre(s): Realistic/Contemporary
Page Count: 288
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands is the story of Emily Shepard, a homeless teen living in an igloo made of ice and trash bags filled with frozen leaves. Half a year earlier, a nuclear plant in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom had experienced a cataclysmic meltdown, and both of Emily's parents were killed. Devastatingly, her father was in charge of the plant, and the meltdown may have been his fault. Was he drunk when it happened? Thousands of people are forced to flee their homes in the Kingdom; rivers and forests are destroyed; and Emily feels certain that, as the daughter of the most hated man in America, she is in danger. So instead of following the social workers and her classmates after the meltdown, Emily takes off on her own for Burlington, where she survives by stealing, sleeping on the floor of a drug dealer's apartment, and inventing a new identity for herself - an identity inspired by her favorite poet, Emily Dickinson. When Emily befriends a young homeless boy named Cameron, she protects him with a ferocity she didn't know she had. But she still can't outrun her past, can't escape her grief, can't hide forever - and so she comes up with the only plan that she can.
I wanted to love this book. (Though, in fairness, I want to love every book.) I certainly like premise, and I found that Chris Bohjalian’s prose was very good. Yet when it came to characterization, Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands doesn’t pass muster. The book’s narrator, Emily, did not have a plausible voice or character, and I’m afraid that single complaint cast a fairly dark cloud on all other aspects of the text.
The main problem with Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands, is that it’s so clearly written by a middle-aged man attempted to adopt the persona of a “troubled” teen girl. While read this, I never once forgot that Bohjalian was behind Emily’s narration, never found myself believing in the authenticity of the protagonist. And while Bohjalian is well-versed in pop culture and the more stereotypical side of teen speak, the entirety of this book just came off as trying too hard. The author tries so, so hard to create a believable teenage voice that in the end he just goes overboard. (And it also didn’t help that he generalized on occasion; apparently all 16-year-old girls listen to Taylor Swift and Katy Perry.)
Bohjalian, like many male authors, also falls into the trap of believing that in order to write a “strong female character”, the only necessary ingredient is 1 large helping of “tragic backstory”. Accordingly, Emily’s story is one unfortunate event after another. She has alcoholic parents, no close friends, then she’s on the run, prostituting herself to men three times her age, doing drugs, and cutting. Tragedy after tragedy fills the pages of Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands. It’s almost like the author was checking off items on the “troubled teen” checklist that they hand out to authors at writing conferences—I think that Emily even refers to herself as a “troubled teen” at some point in the book. But who was Emily herself? All these things are happening to her, and she’s suffered, but those aren’t personality traits that go towards the creation of a well-rounded character. Emily had backstory, but she didn’t have character development.
Another aspect of this book that I had problems with was how absolutely disorganized the story is. It’s made clear that Emily is writing this as a sort of journal after the events have occurred, and she really jumps around on the timeline, so much so that you can read 50 pages and feel like no real progress has been made in uncovering the story. Additionally, there is also a lot of breaking of the fourth wall, as Emily’s pretend journal is addressed directly toward the reader. I, personally, don’t like this, though there’s nothing inherently wrong with the technique itself. I prefer for the wall to remain unbroken.
At the same time, I do very much enjoy the story itself, though its protagonist and presentation left much to be desired. Emily’s parents work at a nuclear power plant and then there’s a meltdown caused by operator error—probably her dad’s fault. Because she’s so “troubled” and because public opinion is not in her favor, Emily goes on the run, where her life becomes extremely depressing and tragic. I obviously didn’t love Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands, but it definitely has it’s good points. The premise is quite promising, if only something more had been done with it.
Altogether, I feel like this book didn’t manage to deliver on its promises. What with the inauthentic teenage voice and the lack of characterization, Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands was never going to be one of my favorites. I saw a few good points and a hint of potential over the course of this novel, but in all honesty, I didn’t see anything truly special from Chris Bohjalian. This book is just sort of decent in a vague sort of way.
