Duplex

4.75 stars

3.5 stars, Metaphorosis reviews

Summary
Ryan, a smart but lazy student who mouths off to teachers, but gets away with thanks to his intelligence, is troubled by his father moving out of the house. It's worse when Dad turns the house into a duplex and rents out the other half to a new family - including a pretty intelligent new girl in Ryan's class who turns out to have problems and powers he'd never imagined.

Review
As with the previous book in this loose series, Lost and Found, Card is playing to his strengths here – intelligent, thoughtful young people. He largely pulls it off, but also as with the last book, there are some missteps. As before, the protagonist's father is far too understanding to be credible, while the mother is warped and somewhat crazy. There's clever banter, but it goes a step too far at times – e.g., when, agreeing to meet with an adult, our hero asks what kind of car she drives, and she answers, “The kind that has me sitting in the driver's seat.” She has asked him to meet her, and she's a full-grown adult, not his designated wisecracking friend. It's the kind of thing that comes off as slightly clever in print, but in real life would annoy the hell out of you.

There's a love story at the heart of the story, but the book invests a little too much in its tragic potential. While I give Card credit for his intelligent teens, the core characters are a little too mature to be credible here, and the story a little too keen to wrap up their life story within the narrow confines of the book's brief time period.

Still, it's enjoyable, engaging, and very readable. What felt odd to me was just how salutary it's evidently intended to be. Protagonist Ryan learns just a little too obviously – from his wise father – some valuable lessons about how to be a man: think about others, be patient, take care of what's needed without being told. It's all valuable stuff that should hopefully make young readers think, though they may wonder how Ryan got to his teens without his wise father apparently teaching any of this earlier. But for those aware of Card's politics, some things stand out a little more than they might for others – mostly, throwaway comments that suggest appropriate (to the author) gender roles. It's not really grating, but it's not entirely comfortable either. It's a fun book and a good one for waking young people up to maturity, but I'd hope most readers will have more progressive role models to fill in other lessons.