The Tragedy Paper by Elizabeth LaBan

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Book summary:

Tim Macbeth, a seventeen-year-old albino and a recent transfer to the prestigious Irving School, where the motto is “Enter here to be and find a friend.” A friend is the last thing Tim expects or wants—he just hopes to get through his senior year unnoticed. Yet, despite his efforts to blend into the background, he finds himself falling for the quintessential “It” girl, Vanessa Sheller, girlfriend of Irving’s most popular boy. To Tim's surprise, Vanessa is into him, too, but she can kiss her social status goodbye if anyone ever finds out. Tim and Vanessa begin a clandestine romance, but looming over them is the Tragedy Paper, Irving’s version of a senior year thesis, assigned by the school’s least forgiving teacher.
Jumping between viewpoints of the love-struck Tim and Duncan, a current senior about to uncover the truth of Tim and Vanessa, The Tragedy Paper is a compelling tale of forbidden love and the lengths people will go to keep their love.

         Even though this book sat on my shelf for over a year and even though I felt pinch of guilt for not reading it, now when I finally read it I regret nothing! The day I picked up this book and started reading it was better than any before it.

        Reason for that lay in the fact that after a whole semester of reading and discussing Shakespeare I was ready to understand all the jokes here, together with all the concepts and themes presented in his works that could be found here too. We start from the sole idea of tragedy and how it was presented in his plays. It was something to discuss and think about and when the students of Irving School got their final task. It was so interesting when you get to read both Tim's and Duncan's story, which were intertwined but at the same time different.

        I loved the switch in narration and the change of the stories, which made me to read this story even faster as I was never bored with it. It was easy to understand Tim and his voice, his fears and troubles. Just the fact that he was albino made him different and he couldn't run away from it. But also I felt for Duncan. I could see that something really bothered him and that there is more to this story, that mysterious moment that hung in the air. It took some time to understand his uneasiness with Tim's story. But when you discover the connection you see why.

        Another great thing about this book was that it was not only a tragic story, it was much more. It was a story about ending one chapter in your life, finishing high school and understanding life. It was also a nice romantic story too. Both romantic stories felt real and what I liked the most slow-building.

        At the end it was writing and narration that really grabbed me here and kept me turn the pages. I really hope to experience it again someday.

Rating: 4.5 stars.

Until the next time,