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This Is All - Aidan Chambers

**spoiler alert** (I have marked this as spoilerish in content, but wish to reiterate here that this review contains MAJOR spoilers.)

If I could, I would give this book 3.5 stars; however, since that isn’t an option, I will give it 4. I try very hard not to grade a book down when the ending doesn’t go my way. Some of the best books I have read have had disappointing/ambiguous/depressing endings, but ones generally in keeping with the tenor of the narrative. But I do not enjoy cheap narrative tricks (i.e., contrived “twists”, Hollywood tearjerker sleights of pen, or saccharine big-red-bow endings).

Unfortunately, Book Five of this narrative involved a rather unrealistic big-red-bow sequence of serendipities; jobs, income, dwellings, office help, and even rent waivers fell from the sky and into Will’s and Cordelia’s laps. After so much struggle, their starting a life together felt somewhat effortless. These were college-age kids trying to strike out on their own. Where was the ramen, so to speak? Where was the initial financial struggle that couples even a decade older face? Simply put, where was the realism? Perhaps Chambers knew that he was running low on real estate, that his epic adolescent tome was already several inches thick and in need of an ending, so he had Cordelia apologize on his behalf for rushing through this part of the narrative. Unfortunately, in doing so, he forfeited some of the overarching realism that made this story so endearing.

Book Six, however, was when this book jumped the Heinian shark for me, and an otherwise unique narrative inspired by a timeless Japanese classic became a hackneyed tearjerker. Let me preface this by remarking that this story was a bold endeavor from the get-go–a male author taking on the psyche of a teenage girl. Chambers did the feminine adolescent mind justice throughout much of this book, with a few minor missteps here and there. However, Book Six was where he made his most egregious miscalculation. In killing off Cordelia and finishing the story from Will’s point of view, he essentially broke the promise of the first five books–that this was Cordelia’s story, her psyche, her gift to her child. She was not allowed to finish her own story; instead, she was disposed of (literally) at her beloved Uffington White Horse and we were left with nothing but Will’s closing statements. We experienced some of the most pivotal moments of her life–her wedding, her baby’s naming, and her few months of motherhood before death–through her husband’s eyes. Thus, both narrator and reader were robbed of something vital.

Cordelia’s voice carried us through nearly 800 pages of teenage angst, heartache, joy, musings, and relationships. It strikes me as strange that, in the final pages, the author took away her voice and replaced it with that of a man.