Just going to jump right in:
Poor Rose. Her mother's preference for her brother is so obvious, and Rose handles it way better than some kids, unless being able to taste emotions in food is some sort of psychosis born from being unloved.
At first I thought the brother was autistic, or at least had Asperger's syndrome, but nah, dude's just "magic" as well, but in a different, apparently more drastic, way.
The mother is delusional, depressed, and a total fucking crackpot. She elevates her son to deity status minutes after the poor boy is born. Quote from the book: I knew, Mom said, that he would guide me. He is minutes old, lady! He's not guiding you anywhere, he's just trying to focus on your face right now and make sense of all these new sounds and shit! Although, perhaps she really could see some sort of wisdom or something in his eyes that came from the specialness of being his father's son.
At dinner one night Wonderboy decides to eat with his eyes closed after Rose dares to attempt eye contact, and the mom (rather gheyly) thinks he's trying to experience the food...deeper or something, and copies him. I swear I could have smacked her.
The dad is a robot, pretty much. Totally rebuffs his daughter's attempts at closeness. Another reason I feel sorry for her.
I really like the way Rose unveils the knowledge of her mom's affair, though, to the boyfriend and then later her mom. She does it so calm and off-hand, and totally badass.
Also, here's something weird about ME: Rose can taste emotions--yeah, I'm all for that. Very interesting character trait, and I'm on board to see how this works out for her. Then her brother can disappear and "become" objects (or whatever it is that he does) and I immediately get all NUH-UH! This is totally ridiculuous! This book is stupid. Stupid, dumb book with its retarded premise. HARRUMPH. Oh, the grandpa had a power, too? And the Dad, maybe probably? I am totally back on board!
One special character: yes.
Two special characters: FUCKING RETARDED.
But a family of special characters: back to yes.
I think that I may, in fact, be a dork.
Aimee Bender, through Rose, gives a very good explanation for the brother's disappearance--I loved that part--but she fails to explain where the specialness comes from, and I am a reader that MUST KNOW EVERYTHING!!! That is my one and only complaint with this book. Wait, my one of my two and only complaints--the mother is my other complaint. What a silly woman.
I am currently reading a book about a nun who has these experiences of God's love that may actually be caused by a small tumor, and when her doctor is explaining epilepsy to her I saw a correlation between these two very different books--what if epilepsy runs in this family? The doctor uses an example of one of his previous patients, who swore she could smell people's emotions. This IS a work of fiction, so the author could have, and very well may have, made that entire example up, but what if he didn't? What if it's entirely possible that whole areas of our brains are capable of "magical" things and sometimes a seizure or tumor can set them off? (I want to mention that I drew this conclusion because Rose's grandfather could smell the goodness in people, and that's what made me start thinking about it.)
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