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Book Reviewed by:Justin (née David) takes life terribly serious -
already teetering on the edge of acute anxiety, he is pushed
over the edge when he saves his baby brother from "flying" out
the window and becomes determined to escape the hand of fate and
change his destiny. One might be tempted to write off his fears
as simple paranoia if it wasn't for the fact that the world
Justin inhabits is clearly just a little off kilter - adults in
general, in particular his parents, are clearly out of touch,
only the youngest children seem to be able to understand what
Justin is going through; added to which, Fate interjects his own
omnisciently sinister commentary from time to time, in a style
not dissimilar to
The Book Thief.
Like Rosoff's first book (How I Live Now) Just In
Case is ostensibly a book for older teens, but it would be a
great pity if this was the only audience to discover it. Reading
Just In Case made me a little nostalgic for my younger self
- not for those hideous teenage years in themselves that I'm happy to have put behind me by a
few decades, but to a time
when the ingredients of what was to become the adult "me" were
still being mixed, and the ideas in a book had the ability to
shape my thinking by dint of their very newness. Just In Case is the
sort of book that in the right hands at the right time could do
this, offering an ironic metaphysical and philosophical
meditation on life's big topics - love and sex, faith and free
will, illusion and reality, packaged into a short and genuinely
sweet coming-of-age story.
This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in August 2006, and has been updated for the
February 2008 edition.
Click here to go to this issue.
If you liked Just In Case, try these:
by Rainbow Rowell
Published 2020
Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits - smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. When Eleanor meets Park, you'll remember your own first love - and just how hard it pulled you under.
by Shaun Hutchinson
Published 2017
From the "author to watch" (Kirkus Reviews) of The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley comes a brand-new novel about a teenage boy who must decide whether or not the world is worth saving.
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