Submarine – Book Review

Posted on June 3, 2014 by Ana Amador in Entertainment

Ana Amador

Chronicle Reporter

Submarine by Joe Dunthorne is one of the weirdest, funniest, and surprisingly original books I have read. We live in a generation where books are “all the rage” most especially young adult novels and so you’d think this would be just another book.

Though it is a coming of age story Submarine manages to skillfully use 309 pages of text to focus on the tale of one specific kid: Oliver Tate. If you think you’re weird, you haven’t met Oliver Tate; he’s blunt, hormone-driven (which leads him to some rated R situations), and outrageous in a really good, if not morbidly interesting, way.

A large part of the story is Oliver trying to fix his parents relationship and he does so in a not so discreet way by researching ways to spice up their love life, stalking his mom when she goes on a retreat with an ex of her’s, and trying to unblock their chi. At a hilarious point in the book, Oliver’s mom confronts him about the situation and tells him that his parents are adults who can handle their own problems, Oliver lets her know that he’ll be tracking their progress.

Dunthorne makes it sound as if Oliver’s girlfriend, Jordana, is Olivers main concern. Jordana is the only person you can imagine Oliver being with; she likes to burn things, loves dogs, and is even more blunt with her words than Oliver. Whether his girlfriend gets in the way of solving his parents problems or his parents get in the way of solving conflicts with his girlfriend is up to the reader. Oliver doesn’t give much insight as to  which problem is more alarming because he talks about his problems as if they were math problems (plug the number into the formula then everything will be fixed). It makes him sound devoid of emotion even though he clearly states his precise feelings towards every person he come across.

The entire book is written from Olivers point of view and thanks to that the reader gets to read every single thing Oliver is thinking, not kidding this kid thinks in many short, detailed, sentences and often gets off topic if he feels he needs to elaborate his on his anecdotes.

If anything makes Submarine stand out it’s Oliver; whose diary, I’m sorry, log entries are also included in the book. He starts out every entry with a word of the day because he loves words and spends his downtime reading the dictionary and thesaurus. Because you can read everything Oliver thinks and he has such an extensive vocabulary, you’ll find yourself looking a few of his oh-so-precious words up.

Dunthorne made Oliver a conflicted character; some of his principles are ruthless and shaky and though some of the situations he finds himself in are relatable the decisions he takes in these situations, and Oliver himself is in no way relatable to the average teen.

Oliver speaks and thinks like you’d imagine everyone does, he’s so seemingly average and even explains that to fit in with people you have to be willing to only be yourself inside your head, so that when he does let his true self show it’s hilarious (similar to when you hear a respected adult cussing or dancing).

Though it might not be as relatable as other young adult books in the market right now Submarine takes the reader through the unique, entertaining, and exceptional journey of one teen’s road to adulthood.