Review: Carrie Pilby by Caren Lissner

Teen Genius (and Hermit) Carrie Pilby's To-Do List:

1. List 10 things you love (and DO THEM!)

2. Join a club (and TALK TO PEOPLE!)

3. Go on a date (with someone you actually LIKE!)

4. Tell someone you care (your therapist DOESN'T COUNT!)

5. Celebrate New Year's (with OTHER PEOPLE!)

Seriously? Carrie would rather stay in bed than deal with the immoral, sex-obsessed hypocrites who seem to overrun her hometown, New York City. She's sick of trying to be like everybody else. She isn't! But when her own therapist gives her a five-point plan to change her social-outcast status, Carrie takes a hard look at herself—and agrees to try.

Suddenly the world doesn't seem so bad. But is prodigy Carrie really going to dumb things down just to fit in?

Carrie Pilby, a nineteen-year-old prodigy and Harvard graduate, is socially awkward and having a very hard time meeting people that she can befriend or even relate to on a basic level. She consistently looks down on others when they come across as hypocrites based on her moral code or unintelligent based on her search for fellow genius'.

At first I hard a very hard time getting into the book, because I found Carrie to be annoying with her constant judgment of others. She has strict ideals of what people should be like and when someone fails to follow her holier-than-thou code, she judges them instantly and puts them in the immoral/hypocrite pile never be spoken to again.

After you reach the middle of the book, Carrie soars! The one thing that made me continue reading was the list that her psychiatrist, Dr. Petrov, makes for her to complete. I was intrigued by the list and wanted to see If she could overcome her outcast status and finally make some friends.

Following Carrie through the list is the fun part. She finally learns to just try things and that everything isn't truly black and white or good and bad, that there are things she can experience that don't completely break her code. I think the most interesting things to see her try are; joining a church because she feels she can expose them as a cult and she finally gets a temp job where she meets people that accept her for her intelligence and unorthodox behavior.

In the end, following Carrie through her self discovery is amusing and intriguing. She is witty, sarcastic and charming in her social awkwardness. I think in the end you will fall in love with her quirkiness – I know I did.

I think Carrie grew up too fast and was too serious about life at a young age, so she did not have the same youthful experiences that others her age have had. Once she finally works on this list, she truly sees what is it like to live. And well, her Dad was right, “You're cursed. Cursed with a mind. Use it. Don't fear it. But don't let all of your thinking destroy you.”

Reviewed for Aurora Reviews (to be published shortly)