Meg Rosoff - Just In Case

The inner cover of Just in Case explodes with publications falling over themselves to ejaculate praise on Meg Rosoff's second novel. "Unusual and engrossing", splutters The Independent. "Extraordinary", screams The Observer. "A modern-day Catcher in The Rye!" jizzes The Times. "Pretentious, indulgent, over-written wank!" says I. So what is it about the 2007 Carnegie winner that induced this extreme distaste in me considering all the hype?

Perhaps the clue lies in Rosoff's previous work, How I Live Now, a novel so good that every single one of her other books carries a by-line on the cover identifying her as the author of this "brilliant" book. I'll reserve judgement on it as a whole as I haven't read it in full, but my copy of Just in Case included an extract of the first two chapters of How I Live Now as a bonus and served to confirm what I'd already suspected of Rosoff upon finishing Just in Case: she's too self-consciously showy and experimental for me as a writer; every sentence of her work seems to beg for attention, hollering "Look at me! I'm written without regard for sentence structure or punctuation or speech marks (How I Live Now), or (Just in Case) I've got all these weird little elements like Fate being a character and talking intelligent babies and imaginary dogs that only some people can see - don't I stand out from your typical angst-ridden teenage whinge fest? Aren't I interesting?" Meg Rosoff's style is clearly literary Marmite.

Our protagonist is David Case, who tempts Fate after saving his baby brother from falling out of a window to certain death. Fate, being a jolly sort who likes a laugh, decides to have some fun with David throughout the book, including having him contract meningitis, amongst other such "hilarious" scrapes. Our Dave's not exactly the most well-balanced of young chaps as it is, and the near-miss with his baby brother sends him over a cliff mentally. He changes his name to Justin (as in Justin Case, hardy har har har), gets obsessed with an unconventional irritant of an older girl called Agnes who gives him his first sexual experience, befriends a somewhat more sensible lad in Peter, moves out of his parents’ house, and so on and so on yet spends the entire book unfulfilled and unhappy to the point that he can't even be bothered to come out of a coma at the end of it all (after wading through this book, I knew the feeling).

What annoyed me the most about Just in Case - aside from Rosoff's grating, OTT manner of describing every last little thing with the most over-analytical detail and constantly switching viewpoints between characters’ mid-chapter - is the manner in which David is treated by everyone around him. Agnes uses him and humiliates him publically, then expects him to just accept things as they are; his friends are flippant and blasé no matter how erratic his behaviour; his own parents don't seem to care much when their son ups and moves out and acts in a manner indicating a clear cry for help. David is not just a teenager with a few girl and growing-up problems; he is obviously suffering from undiagnosed anxiety disorder and depression - thanks to the fact that nobody around him ever seems to cotton on to this or care less, he barely wants to bother getting up and on with his life by the end. What could have been an interesting exploration of the under-discussed issue of depression in adolescents is lost amidst Rosoff introducing pointless elements such as David's fantasy dog (that a few others can see too) which add nothing to the plotline and serve only to distract from and trivialise David's problems.

Wishing for a storyline that sticks to its main character's issues and takes them seriously is wishing for a different book by a different author though. Meg Rosoff has her own unique way of writing and she has enough admirers and awards to justify her approach to her plotting and her verbosity. I like a bit of literary experimentation and pushing back the boundaries as much as the next reader, as long as it fits the style and content and doesn't feel forced and like it’s trying to be different for the sake of it. Carnegie Medal panellists and published authors be damned; I just can't see what it is about Rosoff that makes the literary world drop to its knees in admiration. I found Just in Case to be vacuous, turgid, badly plotted, babblingly wordy and borderline offensive in its offhand dismissal of mental health issues. Burn me at the literary stake for not getting what more sparkling writing talent than my own seem to think is a wonderful writer, but I'd need a hell of a lot of persuading to pick up another Rosoff novel again. Oh, and I'm one of the few people out there that can take or leave Marmite.