Trouble is a Friend of Mine
by Stephanie Tromly, Kathleen McInerney (Narrator)
Series: Trouble, #1Unabridged Audiobook, 8 hrs., 49 min.
Listening Library, 2015
Read: May 16 – 17, 2018
Preparing to survive a typical day of being Digby’s friend wasn’t that different from preparing to survive the apocalypse.
I don’t remember exactly what I was reading, but I came across a reference to this book filling the Veronica Mars dialogue hole for the writer (or something like that — I stupidly closed the tab and moved on so I can’t get the quotation right, or credit the source…). That sounded good enough to try, and boy, oh boy, am I glad I did. I doubted it’d come close to Veronica Mars, because none of the things I’ve read compared to it have ever come close (not that I haven’t enjoyed many of those things, even in their non-Mars-ness), but that was wrong of me — there’s a strong Mars-like vibe here.
Actually, that’ll work for a very reductionistic and not very accurate summary of this book: It’s Veronica Mars, gender-flipped, narrated by the Wallace figure.
I should’ve paid more attention to the piece I skimmed, I didn’t realize until I’d started that this was a YA mystery, but it works okay for older readers. There’s a soupçon of romance — and only that. I just want to throw that out before some of you decide to bow out of this one from the start.
So, post-bitter divorce, Zoe and her mother move to a small town from NYC. Mom’s an English professor at a community college and Zoe’s trying to fit in — temporarily. Her plan is to blow this popsicle-stand and move on to a Private School, make her mark there and step on to Princeton. She just needs to nail this semester.
Enter Digby. This odd boy who always wears a suit and refuses to fit in. First, ropes her into working on an insane independent study project (which he shows no signs of ever working on), showing up in the least convenient places, and leading her into all sorts of trouble — despite her best intentions.
Digby has a dark past, the events of which shape his every move (that’s obvious, I know — but he’s self-conscious about it) and the way that everyone in town sees his every move. It’d be very easy for this past to turn Digby into some sort of Bruce Wayne-y do-gooder crusader; or angry, rebellious young man — neither ends up being the case. He’s a brilliant kid with little regard for societal norms (not that he’s not very aware of them and how to use them for his own benefit). I’m doing a horrible job describing him — while there’s all that going on, Digby is observant, quick-witted, a creative thinker, resourceful, with a sharp-tongue, an odd-sense of humor and the teenaged-boyest teenage-boy appetite.
Zoe is strong-willed (except when it comes to Digby or her father), smart, careful, cautious, determined and focused. But she wants to be more — she wants to be adventurous, popular. I just don’t think she can admit that to herself. She’s a great character with a voice that makes you just like her.
Speaking of voice, I’ve gotta give kudos to Kathleen McInerney. She narrates this tale with life, verve, and humor. This is good material and she makes it live.
In addition to Zoe and Digby, we’ve got Henry — an old friend of Digby’s, the clean-cut quarterback — and many other mainstays of high school fiction (the meangirl, the computer geek, the bully athletes). Zoe’s mother is a better-than-average adult character for YA fiction, she’s not perfect, but she’s a committed and caring mother. Her father, on the other hand, is a little more typical — over-bearing and focused on his goals for his daughter (that’s typical for a character, not a father, I want to stress). The characters and the relationships between them feel grounded and believable — which makes it easy to want to see them succeed and to buy into the outlandish situations that Digby introduces Zoe and Henry to.
I’ve gone on a lot without talking about the plot — what kind of situations are there for Digby to involve his friends in? Let’s start with the cult with a headquarters across the street from Zoe’s house, and the very creepy guys who live there. There’s drug dealing, a missing high schooler, some dumpster arson, a gynecologist who definitely needs to review the Hippocratic oath, a case the police have given up on, and high school drama. It’s actually very difficult to say the plot is about X, because Digby has an agenda that he really doesn’t fill people in on until the last minute. And he seemingly hops around from caper to caper in an ADHD-manner. Minor spoiler: it’s not the case, he as some kind of a plan.
I’ve done a lousy job selling you on this book, some of that is because it’s such a quirky, oddball of a story — and the rest is due to a sloppy job on part, so let me sum up before I make things worse. The book moves swiftly and smoothly, making you smile frequently — impressed with Digby’s dogged determination and enjoying (even while rolling your eyes at his antics). The dialogue is snappy, the characters are likeable, you’ll find yourself invested in this crazy story — even if you’re a couple of decades past the target audience. Tromly has given us a great gift in Zoe and Digby, give this a shot, you’ll have a great time.
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