The Tragedy Paper

Back before I read either book, I decided that the blurb for The Tragedy Paper was very similar to the concept of Thirteen Reasons Why. Now, after reading both novels, I think the comparison is a good one. Though not entirely identical, the set-up and structure for both novels is nearly identical side by side, especially in the beginning stages of The Tragedy Paper; afterward, their stories diverge a bit.

In general, I would actually say that The Tragedy Paper is very derivative of other works of fiction, sometimes to the point of blatant copy-catting. For instance, the first and last lines of The Outsiders are very iconic, and Elizabeth LaBan lifted them wholesale, and the end result was that I closed the book with a bad taste in my mouth, since I consider what she did to be one step away from plagiarism. I hope that, should this author continue to write books, she will be less obvious in where she gets her ideas and inspiration from, as it was very off-putting for me.

Okay, so I don’t feel like this book is very original, and I was a bit annoyed. I do, however, think The Tragedy Paper is a good book. It was simple and quick to read, and I thought the characters were all likable and wanted to root for them. I’ve also always been a fan of stories about rich white kids at boarding school doing preppy things—I don’t know what that says about me as a person, but there you have it.

As with Thirteen Reasons Why, LaBan’s narrative follows two timelines. There is the book’s narrator, in this case Duncan, and then there’s another character who tells a story via voice recording, in this case Tim, an albino who graduated from the Irving School the previous year. There is obviously a connection between Duncan’s life and Tim’s, but it isn’t revealed until the very end.

This story wasn’t particularly complex, and The Tragedy Paper is high on character interaction and low on pretty much everything else. That sort of novel really tends to work for me, so I found the entire reading experience to be breezy and engaging. I have seen some reviewer’s complain that this is boring, so potential readers should keep that in mind. I wouldn’t say, however, that this was a particularly heavy or ultra-serious read. Yes, important issues were raised, but not in a way that was dark or depressing.

I found The Tragedy Paper to be a worthwhile debut novel from an author who I think shows a lot of promise. Though I’ve read books like this before many times, and was able to see how LaBan patched together others’ ideas to create this book, I still enjoyed the text altogether.

There was just something about this book that drew me in and kept me hooked. Maybe it was dual POV's or maybe it was the fact that we were hearing a story within the book. The book is in two different views: Duncan and Tim, and I found both boys to be wonderful characters.

?The suspense in this book kept me going and had me on the edge of my seat. I had to know what happened. Throughout the book you get hints that something terrible happened the previous year and by those points you just can't put the book down simply because you have to know. When I got to the point where everything was revealed however, I didn't want to read it because I knew the book would soon end and I really didn't want that to happen.

Like Duncan I found myself hooked, needing to know exactly how things would play out. From the beginning I knew it wouldn't be good but I really was expecting the worst. When it came to that point I was expecting this whole disaster that Duncan is somehow the cause of since he blames himself throughout the whole book but in the end it shows us that we all make choices and we have to live with them, perhaps for the rest of our lives.

I liked almost every character in this book. That rarely happens. I think Mr. Simon was my favorite. Even though he's just the teacher who assigns the Tragedy Paper I felt that he played a bigger role in this story than any of the characters even realized. Then there was Tim, he was the outcast. He was intelligent and kind. Vanessa I wasn't really too pleased with. What was up with how she acted nice toward Tim one minute and then the next it was like she couldn't bother to be seen with him? She was almost as bad as her boyfriend Patrick who I did not like at all. He was self-centered, egotistical and just a complete jerk. Duncan had to be my second favorite character out of all of them. He was so torn up about what had happened the previous year that he felt like he owed it to Tim just to listen to his story, this went so far that it began to completely take over his life. All in all the characters all had surprising depth.

This is a book that will stay with me for a long time. As soon as I finished I wanted to go back to page one and re-read the book all over again. This book shows us that tragedies don't always have to have a tragic ending. They don't have to be bleak and foreboding, they can be full of hope as well.

The Tragedy Paper is set in elite Irving School and centers around two 17-year-old boys: Duncan and Tim, an albino. Beautifully narrated trough two very different points of view, Elizabeth LaBan shows us what are young adults capable of doing to be accepted.
"A tragedy is a play or literary work in which the main character - that would be the tragic hero - suffers greatly and is brought to ruin. Usually this suffering and ruin come about because of the main character's own flaw or weakness and his or her inability to deal with the lot he or she has been given."

Duncan is a typical, marginal student: never part of the popular crowd, shy around girls. His problems revolve about correcting embarrassing, tragic mistakes he made last year and hooking up with the girl he likes. I didn't enjoy reading about Duncan very much, I thought he was too dramatic and exaggerating things. His problems looked so trivial, especially compared to Tim.
Tim was to me a real star of The Tragedy Paper. I never read any book before where main (or side) characters is albino and I was shocked to read about all the problems they have blending into normal life. Of course, I was aware about people staring and that they are probably avoided or teased a lot, but I didn't know about health issues albino's have. Like, for example, that they have eyes sensitive to light and have to wear sunglasses or they can go blind.

Chapter alternate between Duncan and Tim and I could not get to the next chapter about Tim fast enough... Although this book is not the genre I usually read, it was a real page-turner to me and I devoured it in a day. Still, I was annoyed a lot because I thought that Tim's and Duncan's actions and choices were stupid most of the time and that they sacrificed too much to get approval from the popular crowd. This is one of the reasons why I don't read ya contemporary books, I usually can't relate to characters or their decisions.

The Tragedy Paper by Elizabeth LaBan was intense, beautifully written, emotional, tragic story about growing up. Although it was not my cup of tea, I would recommend buying this to young adults (male and female) to show them that being accepted by popular crowd is not the most important thing in the world.

I recommend this book to fans of: young adult contemporary novels with school setting and male main characters. Be warned, the romance/love story although exists, is not main focus of this book.