Ari Reviews: The Beginning of Everything

“Ezra Faulkner was the It Boy of his class: Mr. Golden Boy. He had almost everything he wanted and needed: a stable family, a drop-dead gorgeous girlfriend and was the star player in his tennis team. But after everything unravels as he resurfaces from a car accident with an injury too great to comprehend, Ezra finds himself at rock bottom…and within the range of new girl Cassidy Thrope.”

Hello and good evening! Welcome back to Ari Reviews, where tonight I decide to take on Robyn Schneider’s The Beginning of Everything. This book has been in my to-read list for the past two months, and a few days ago, I finally found myself reading it and finishing it only after a day.

As usual, I’m going to discuss the strong and weak points of the novel, as well as certain characters to be taken note of. The read more button is there for you to click if you’d like to know more. I’m going to avoid spoilers, but keep an eye for any plot-related details!

The Beginning of Everything had an interesting (although overused) plot. Golden Boy is great and then something tragic happens, which causes his fall. In his fall and exile from his previous status, he will stumble upon a quirky girl that suddenly erases all his exile-ridden angst and falls in love with her, because she’s something he’s never expected.

The book hits three out of four of the points. The only exception was how Ezra, our Golden Boy in this case, would still think back on his previous golden status even after falling in love with Cassidy. Traces of the old Ezra would still remain, and his longing for his former glory days remained.

Which is characteristically and realistically human, of course. Schneider did a nice job of portraying this side of Ezra: the one who ponders, “what if?” and due to this pondering, makes mistakes and eventually learns from them. I appreciated Ezra’s growth as a character, how he was quick to realize that he screwed up and needed to make up for it.

Now, on Cassidy…

Cassidy was a flux of a character – no kidding. She changed like the weather and was so quick to switch moods that I wondered what her true personality was at all.

(And only now do I realize that that [darn it, English] was actually the whole “goal” of the story, or so it seems. Go figure.)

Cassidy was interesting to keep tabs on, her words and emotions and actions spiraling out of control and waltzing back within the safe zone. Throughout the book, she was an enigma. It was like no one, not even Ezra, could determine who she truly was…and they almost never could.

Now, my problem with this book is how cookie-cutter the other characters seem to be. We have the popular gang AKA Ezra’s previous set of friends, and then the island of misfit toys that Ezra finds himself dabbling in. Another example are the distanced parents, that of Ezra most especially.

We hardly gain any scenes with his parents, save for the family dinners and worried chit-chat with his lipstick-loving mother. Aside from that, however, we get nothing more than a busy father and an overly concerned mother – nothing more, nothing less.

Sad to say, that can be applied to both Ezra and Cassidy as well.

Cassidy would be the ever-famous ‘manic pixie dream girl’ who suddenly weaves a spell on Ezra and flits back and forth, flirting and screaming until Ezra regains control of his life. In the novel, Cassidy seemed like nothing more than an enigma to be solved, her existence focused on the ‘whys’ rather than the ‘how’, on the mystery rather than the self.

And that upset me a bit.

Meanwhile, Ezra was the Exiled. The So-Then-What-Now kind of guy who spent most of his time wondering what he could do, the only thing helping him actually figure things out being a girl who did nothing but weave words and whisper in his ear until he snapped out of it. If anything, it seemed that Cassidy did more of the actualization for him.

He was the Redeemer – lost everything but gained things in the end of the story.

All the rest of them, however? 2D. Popular chicks and douchey guys, nerdy boys and primly proper, blazer-wearing males who sneered like Malfoy.

This book had a good plot to it, believe me. It had amazing quotes that I stuck post-its left and right to capture, and had a nicely-written, realistic ending that left me satisfied instead of agonized. The only thing that bugged me were how archetypal and stereotypical the characters – even the main ones – seemed to be.

If you’re a fan of YA and can tolerate said archetypes, then I highly suggest this book. Moving away from the cookie-cutter, it’s a really good book with more than just philosophical reasoning and such: it references pop culture and is narrated by someone so full of snark but just wants to regain control.

Ezra’s story was one of nadir and zenith, and he was able to reach his highest point. With our without Cassidy by his side, however, is up to you to find out.