The Nest by Kenneth Oppel

Sometimes we aren't really supposed to be the way we are. It's not good for us. And people don't like it. You've got to change. You've got to try harder and do deep breathing and maybe one day take pills and learn tricks so you can pretend to be like other people. Normal people. But maybe...all those other people were broken too in their own ways. Maybe we all spent too much time pretending we weren't.

I'm the language arts department head at my school, which means that I am responsible for spending our reading budget on new books for our classroom libraries. It's a job I was born to do, basically. This year, The Nest, by Kenneth Oppel, was one of the books that I chose. When it arrived this week, I was instantly attracted to the cool cover design and the mysterious blurb on the back. With all of my scheduled reading finished for December, I decided to give this one a try.

The plot of The Nest follows a young boy named Steve. Steve lives with his parents, his younger sister Nicole, and his brand new baby brother Theo. Theo was born with a genetic disorder, and is frequently in and out of the hospital. It's uncertain as to whether he will survive his infancy, and even more uncertain as to how high-functioning he will be if he does survive. To cope with the anxiety he feels about his baby brother, Steve begins having a series of elaborate dreams about a sentient wasp queen. The queen promises to fix Theo, if only Steve will help her. Steve initially agrees to help, half-believing that he is only dreaming and his answer doesn't matter anyway.

As time moves forward however, Steve begins to confuse his dreams with reality. He becomes unsure as to what's real and what's only in his head. His dreams of the wasp queen become increasingly more vivid as well, and he begins to suspect her intentions in helping his brother. She eventually reveals that she means to fix Theo by swapping him with a new, perfect baby that her wasp drones are building in their hive. Believing now that the dreams are true, and horrified at the prospect of losing his real little brother, Steve takes back his initial promise to help, which angers the queen. She threatens to use her army of drones to replace Theo without Steve's help, which thrusts them both into a final confrontation blending dreams and reality together in strange ways.

I honestly didn't expect much from this book, but I ended up being blown away by how creative it was. I was kept on my toes the whole time I was reading, always second-guessing myself about which parts of Steven's story were real and which were just dreams or hallucinations. Steve is characterized as a kid with some issues. He is a sensitive boy, and struggles with anxiety, phobias, and some compulsive behaviors. He is a bit of a hypochondriac as well, and is afraid of the wasps (real ones) than plague his neighborhood every year. By using a narrator that is inherently unreliable, and tying that narrator's fears into things that are really going on in his life, Oppel is able to keep the reader confused and engaged in the story. I would read a chapter and think, "okay, this kid is just hallucinating," then read the next chapter and think, "wait, at least some of this was real..." It was actually very cool. Even at the end of the novel, after the final conflict occurs, Oppel includes some story elements that cast doubt over what actually happened.

I really enjoyed the themes present in this novel as well, especially the exploration of what perfection means to people. Humans naturally strive for perfection, and The Nest asks interesting questions about what we would be willing to sacrifice to achieve it. When Steve is presented with the idea of replacing Theo with a perfect baby, he is sorely tempted to go along with it at first. He thinks about how much happier and less worried his family would be with a healthy baby. He thinks about how much heartache he could save everyone if Theo weren't so sick all the time. The wasp queen also offers to fix Steve as well, promising that she will remove his fears and anxiety if he agrees to swap Theo with the perfect baby. Steve longs to fit in with his peers and become "normal," so this offer strikes right at his weak point. He eventually comes to realize that he loves his brother, illnesses and all, and wouldn't want to swap him for a perfect child. He also comes to realize that everyone is flawed in their own way. This was a nice message, and it was delivered without being overly preachy or sentimental.

It only took me a few hours to finish The Nest, and I'm finding myself still turning events from it over in my mind. I'm still not sure how many of the events in it were real, and it's fun to try and figure out the specifics. This novel was extremely creative and surprisingly good, and I'm very glad to have picked it up. Those who enjoy quirky, surreal reads would do well to give this one a try.


Total Books Read in 2017: 77