Proceed With Caution: A Review of Blink and Caution

When I started Tim Wynne-Jones's Blink and Caution, I was wary because I'd heard so many people praise the YA novel--especially for its 2nd person narrator. For the first half of the story, I was convinced that everyone was dead wrong, and that Blink and Caution was far from a success--it was a slow, rambling, often disjointed story that overindulged in a kind of Francesca Lia Block-type wordplay. It was only once the main characters met up and their stories intertwined that the novel really picked up, and even managed to change my mind by the end--not only could I see why Blink and Caution had been lauded with so much praise by children's librarians and organizations such as Horn Book, but I actually enjoyed the story.

Despite my enjoyment of Blink and Caution, I couldn't stop thinking about it from a writer's perspective, and under that lens the book was something of a hot mess--but from a reader's perspective it completely succeeds. Here's my completely biased attempt to work through my feelings about Blink and Caution--what worked, what didn't, and why. Spoilers. Obviously.

A quick summary: Blink and Caution is a YA novel about two teenagers living on the streets of Toronto, alternating between Blink's 2nd person narration and Caution (Kitty's) 3rd person narration. The first half of the novel sets up why each character is on the streets (Blink because of an abusive stepfather, Caution because she believes herself to be a murderer) without going too far into the details, which are revealed through flashbacks throughout the novel. As the story opens, Blink accidentally witnesses a CEO of an energy corporation faking his own kidnapping. After Blink acquires the CEO's phone, he becomes drawn into the mystery, with the realization that he is the only one who knows what really happened. Meanwhile, Caution decides to run away from her abusive, cheating, thirty-something drug dealer boyfriend--after stealing about $6,000 from him. Caution avoids Merlin (the BF) with the help of her cousin, and Blink connects with the daughter of the missing CEO, until the two meet on a train and their stories intertwine.

What Didn't Work: 

The First Half of the Story.
If the set-up I just described sounds like Strangers on a Train, that's because it is: Blink and Caution meet on a train, begin sharing some of their problems, and plan to help each other come up with a solution. The problem is, imagine if Strangers on a Train had about 90 minutes of film before Guy and Bruce actually meet, going into depth about their backstories, revealing information that ultimately had no connection to the movie's main plot. Blink and Caution could easily have started when the two meet on the train; instead, the reader is treated to about 250 pages (on iBooks, anyways) of details about Blink and Caution's lives that ultimately have little to do with the second half of the story. The set up dragged the novel down, and it almost felt as if I was reading two different books: one about two characters living (separately) on the mean streets of Toronto, struggling to survive, and the other about two teens who decide to solve a mystery and end up on a road trip where they learn more about themselves, grow as people, etc., etc., etc. As a writer, I wanted to scream, "WHERE WAS YOUR EDITOR?!?" This book was a huge violation of Kurt Vonnegut's rule about writing: 'Start as close to the end as possible.' This book felt like going to a crab fest, only to be served pasta, steak, and potatoes before the crabs and Old Bay show up.

Disappearing Plot Points.
This is a HUGE pet peeve of mine when I'm reading, so I'm probably harping on it more than necessary, but this book had so many little plots that were raised and then never resolved or even mentioned again that it made me want to take a red pen and cross out massive chunks of text. (This would have been an especially bad idea because I was reading it on my ipad : ) On the very first page, we learn that Blink is sneaking into a hotel to steal food off of a room service tray. Several times it is mentioned that he is so hungry he is dizzy, on the verge of collapse, struggling to concentrate, etc., but then he proceeds to NOT eat for the next forty pages/several hours, despite several opportunities to do so. At one point he is alone in a hotel room, with a full breakfast, and instead he decides to contemplate a picture he finds in the room, and then leaves without eating anything! He then acquires a few hundred dollars, and STILL wanders around for a while before buying anything to eat. I wouldn't have carried if the author hadn't harped on it so much, but the first thing I learned about this character was that he was basically starving, and then he kept not eating despite ample opportunity.

The eating, however, pales in comparison to a much, much bigger dropped plot point: one of the reasons Caution leaves Merlin (abusive BF) is because she realizes that he has made and sold a sex tape of the two of them. To be clear: Caution is 16. This is child pornography. She realizes this is child pornography. She also realizes that some of Merlin's associates have seen the film. But other than destroying the hard copy in Merlin's apartment, we never hear about the film again, even when Merlin and the previously mentioned associates are out hunting for Caution. Aside from the horror of the film's mere existence, why wasn't Caution concerned that all of the members of this drug cartel know what she looks like? Well, that brings me to the biggest dropped plot point of all: Once Caution meets up with Blink, Merlin and the others apparently just stop looking for her and decide they don't care about the disappearance of $6,000. The whole reason Caution is on the train is to avoid Merlin, but after solving the mystery of the CEO, they head back to Toronto, unconcerned about the drug cartel, who, sure enough, never make another appearance in the novel. It's even mentioned that the $6,000 is put in a college fund for Caution, at which point I think I actually laughed at the ridiculousness of the whole thing.

The Disney Ending.
Here's the thing: I love happy endings. I hate downer endings. And this ending was too happy for even me. Blink moves in with his grandmother, who is thrilled to have him, and basically takes him in as soon as he shows up on her doorstep without a single question (such as: why didn't your mother report you missing?) and Caution is reunited with her family, who all love her, are thrilled to have her back, etc. (Later I'll address Caution's growth as a character in more detail, because it was probably the best part of the novel.) The problem with Caution's happy, loving family is it makes her guilt over the 'murder' seem overblown. The worst part, though, was that Blink and Caution are apparently dating, even though there was zero hint of a romantic bond between them before the epilogue. In fairness, they do kiss once, but it's more of a 'thank god we're alive/we just shared a deep emotional experience' type kiss than a romantic one. I thought Wynne-Jones had established that Caution viewed Blink like a kid brother who needed looking after, which was a neat piece of literary symmetry given that Caution lost her older brother, who always looked out for her, but then at the last moment they are apparently dating, because the whole ending wasn't convenient enough already.

Blink's ADHD/Panic Disorder/Schizophrenia/Whatever 
This could have gone under the tag of dropped plot points, but it was so annoying I thought it deserved its own section. From the beginning, it's very clear there is something wrong with Blink: he freezes up, forgets what he's doing/saying, struggles to keep a grip on what's going on around him, and has a mental companion he calls Captain Panic who comes out and yells at him whenever things are going wrong. It doesn't seem like Blink thinks Captain Panic is an actual person speaking to him, which means it's probably not schizophrenia, but there is something wrong with Blink--until suddenly there isn't any more. Even if it's just crippling anxiety (at one point he finds himself struggling to speak during a phone conversation, forcing each word out past the panic/confusion) it should still have been addressed, especially since it's implied that this is part of the reason Blink's stepfather abused him and his mother ignored him. At one point Blink mentally shoves down Captain Panic and seems to triumph over him, but other than that one moment his illness is never addressed and, like the drug cartel, simply disappears at the end. If the author hadn't gone to such lengths to make it clear that Blink had some kind of mental illness this probably wouldn't be bothering me so much, but he did, and then just dropped it, to which I can only say: ugh.

What Did Work 

Showing Not Telling 
In general, Tim Wynne-Jones is very good at showing instead of telling, letting the audience come to natural conclusions about how Blink and Caution feel at significant turning points in the story instead of laying it out for the reader. Two moments in particular come to mind: after speaking to the CEO's daughter, Alison, Blink has to decide whether to call her back and explain what he saw or to stay uninvolved. He works up the courage to reach out to her instead of waiting for her to call, which is the first proactive action we see him take. We understand what a big deal it is for him to come out of his shell and reach out to another person without Tim Wynne-Jones hitting us over the head with it. The other moment comes when Caution discovers that Merlin has been cheating on her and makes the decision to leave him. Her battle to open the metal horse and access his money requires forethought and physical strength, and it quickly becomes clear that this is the first thing she has fought for in a long time. Although the wordplay becomes overdone at times, this story is an excellent example of letting characters' actions and words speak for them instead of the author explaining each emotional note s/he is trying to hit.

The Character Development  
Despite the Disney ending and the tacked on romance, Blink and Caution contains excellent character development, running the main characters on first parallel and then intersecting journeys to discover their own self worth and ultimately decide to reach out and trust others. Aside from living on the streets, Blink and Caution are ordinary teenagers--they want to be accepted but fear appearing vulnerable, they distrust adults and dislike being belittled, and they use attitude and sarcasm to cover their fear and uncertainty. During the story Blink and Caution grow from teenagers into adults, at least on an emotional level. Each becomes confident in who they are, but at the same time they aren't afraid to trust and reach out for others. The biggest change between the first and second half of the story is that Blink and Caution go from reactive to proactive. Both understanding that actions have consequences, but perhaps the biggest lesson for both is that those consequences should be faced head on instead of avoided, and each has the right to make decisions about who they are and how they deserve to be treated.

Caution's MOA (Moment of Awesome)
The best part of Blink and Caution, the part that tips this book from the trash heap to the recommend pile, is the moment when Caution not only faces down her demons, but seizes control and makes them work for her. The reason she ran away from home, the reason she hooked up with and stayed with an abusive drug dealer, is because she feels the need to punish herself for accidentally shooting and killing her brother. Spencer was Caution's world, and in addition to looking out for her and being her best friend, he also taught her to shoot. At the climax of the novel, Blink is locked in a cabin with a man (Tank) who wants to torture and possibly murder him. Caution uses her knowledge of the woods (also taught by her brother) to effectively block Tank from chasing them or communicating with his friends. And then she grabs a shotgun and threatens Tank until he lets Blink go. Not only does she grab a shotgun, but she demonstrates her skills as a shooter, terrifying Tank into obeying her every command. The entire time, Caution wants to drop the gun and run screaming from the situation, but she maintains her cool and rescues herself and Blink, only to completely melt down after they escape. I wanted to stand up and cheer when Tank said she didn't have the guts to pull the trigger and she blew away the lamp next to his head. From that moment, Caution finally releases all the pain and anger she's kept inside and allows herself to feel, and, by extension, return to her family. The brilliance of the writing cannot be overstated here: the reader feels every ounce of Caution's fear and panic at holding a shotgun, and every ounce of her courage and determination to save her friend. The Strange Familiar said it best: "Courage is when you've lost your way but you find your strength anyways."

That's my thoughts in a nutshell. Again, I would recommend reading Blink and Caution, especially if you enjoy strong writing, but I'd also say that skimming a bit in the first half wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. And if you do pick it up, give yourself at least 30-40 pages before you put it down--Blink's 2nd person narration, coupled with his mental struggles, make the book VERY confusing and difficult to read, until you get used to his way of thinking and seeing the world. Ultimately though, I think it's worth it. Best book ever? Nah. Worth a read? Definitely.

--Cates

P.S One final thing I decided to not include in the actual review: I appreciated that Tim Wynne-Jones did not use Caution's story as a way to preach about the evils of firearms. Personal opinions aside, it just wouldn't have belonged and would have taken away from Caution's character development. In the Afterwords, Wynne-Jones reveals that his best friend was shot and killed by his younger brother in a freak accident, and the emotional fall-out for everyone involved was his initial inspiration to write Blink and Caution. I thought it was a great decision to focus on the characters and to keep politics out.

If You Are a Non-Conformist, Copy and Paste This Into Your Profile

The first time I saw Alice Dorset, she was thumping her way across the music room of our school, lugging a saxophone case bigger than she was, wearing her (knee-length) kilt hemmed so long it fell almost to her ankles, and muttering fluently to herself in what I later learned was Arabic.  Insecure little middle-schooler that I was, I was naturally terrified out of my mind.  Here was someone of my own age group that was so aggressively quirky that she didn’t even have an L.L. Bean backpack.  Not only that, but there was not a scrap of North Face anywhere on her person.  As I rapidly learned, these were sins unforgivable to a certain select group of girls in our class, which made a point of ignoring her or teasing her; the rest of the grade just tried not to get involved, in case she really did bite like the rumors said. 

 I’d love to say that my best friend and I fell in platonic love at first sight and hit it off from the start, that we discovered we had a great deal in common in our first conversation and that night we became blood brothers.  Not so.  I only sought out Alice and tried to become her friend specifically because I had declared private war on that one particular select group of girls, and I figured that this was a soldier I could easily convert to my cause.  To my frustration and annoyance, the quiet submissive weird Alice refused to be dominated by me, and utterly refused to become like me.  I am relieved and happy to say that through nearly continuous exposure to her over the seven years of middle and high school and as many visits as we can swing while in college, I have become something like her. 

By far the single most important thing that Alice taught me was how to love being young, how to love being alive, and how to love being a part of our own generation.  At the time when we met, I was a snarky, rebellious little seventh grader with an artistically ripped-up uniform and Sharpie-colored nails, heavy eyeliner and a loud mouth, illegal black-spiked jewelry and an ugly attitude, my half-inch of hair gelled into aggressive spikes that sent my message to the world: Don’t touch me.  Don’t come near me.  I scorned popular bands as cheap and passé, I dismissed activists as sob-story moralizers, I whined loudly and often about the utter injustice of having to attend school, having to go to class, having to listen to the evil propaganda passed down by the administration to try and make us into automatons.  I made it a personal point of pride to lambast High School Musical in every conversation I ever had—never mind that I’d never even seen the film and therefore had no grounds to comment on it at all.  I hated everything so loudly and vehemently that I forgot to like things as well.  I read classical books that bored me to tears so that I could loftily dismiss people’s questions about popular literature with the excuse that I was reading real material and had little time for such things as Clique or Pride and Prejudice.  I sloughed though Stephen King novels that disgusted and horrified me just so that I could shock people by carrying them around.  I must have been quite a sight, a tiny four-foot six-inch twelve-year-old with ballpoint tattoos and a cinderblock-sized copy of Christine tucked under one arm.   

Well, I think you know where this story is going.  Because Miss Giant Saxophone and Schizophrenic Muttering didn’t give a crap about any of that.  I had all the show and glam of being a nonconformist, but Alice Dorset was the genuine article.  She listened to bands I’d never heard of—and accompanied them with the soundtrack to Rent.  She wore pink because (heaven forbid) she liked the color, not because it was what a person was supposed to wear—or not.  She was familiar with a lot of the popular trends in our class, and chose to reject them or conform to them by turns, depending on what she herself thought.  Not what anyone else was supposed to think of her; it was entirely possible for her to love both Gossip Girl and Twin Peaks, all at once.  She taught me how to stop being afraid to love things, how to listen to music and read books that would earn me scorn or approval and how to take both in equal measure.  It was Stravinsky and Britney Spears, Ernest Hemingway and Jodi Piccoult, and it was perfect. 

I knew I was way, way too cool in our class to hang around with the likes of her, but the truth was that she was far too cool for the likes of me.  It’s because she loved being in our generation.  She was a terrible influence on my individualism, to say the least.  By the time we were powering through tenth grade together, I had let my hair go dirty-blond and curly, I didn’t bother with make-up because it was easier without, and I wildly, joyfully read the books that were popular, saw the films that Hollywood prepackaged, and listened to music that had nothing to do with deep inner pain or raging against the fascist regime.  Worst of all, I admitted that I genuinely liked reading and writing in English and American History class and doing experiments in Biology and even (heaven forbid) learning new concepts in Trigonometry. 

What I realized along the way is that I love being young, I love being stupid (Or is it that I love being smart?), and I love finding things to love.  It didn’t matter that Linkin Park was a bunch of whiny white boys—their instrumental harmonies kicked ass.  Maybe cartoons were for babies—but if that was true than our brilliantly artistic baby shows trump our overdone melodramatic adult shows any day.  I read every single Harry Potter book and cheered for Team Ginny the entire way.  I actually watched High School Musical—and discovered I still hated it.  I dared to admit to myself that I actually liked music by Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson.  I even tried watching American Idol—and hated that too, and so dropped it because I could.  It may be stupid of me, but I love my own generation dearly.  Someday I want to say to my kids, I was a Potter Girl.  I was a Little Monster.  I was an otaku.  I was a Twi-tard, God damn it, and I was proud of that fact no matter how many people tried to tell me I should be ashamed of myself for wanting to enjoy a popular series of novels. 

That is one thing that I think this generation could use a little less of: disapproval.  You can’t mention Mahatma Gandhi’s groundbreaking peaceful revolution without someone piping up that he refused his wife painkillers for religious reasons.  It was with vindictive joy that the world found out that Mother Teresa occasionally doubted God just like every single other human being on the planet.  Every single American president, every folk hero, every great writer or artist or any person that ever achieved the tiniest measure of fame has a whole laundry list of grievances that the world holds against them, and these are what we hear when their names come up.  No one talks about how President Clinton raised the standard of living for the entire two-hundred-million-person nation, but “Monika Lewinski” is a household name.  You can’t compliment Pope John Paul for giving over half of the money of the entire Catholic Church to humanitarian aid while essentially ending homophobia for the single largest centrally organized religion in the entire world without someone digging out the fact that eight centuries ago one of his predecessors approved the killing of “infidels.” 

So what if Stephenie Meyer can’t write as well as, say, J.K. Rowling?   Does that mean that we should start yelling at ten-year-old kids when they admit to liking her books?  Maybe Bill Gates lives in a mansion and pollutes the atmosphere, but anyone who hasn’t given three billion dollars to AIDS relief can just shut the hell up about him.  Lady Gaga is a sell-out of the highest order—but then so is every single artist ever to make it onto an MP3 player.  And she teaches young girls that they can be freaks if they so desire, while cheerfully conforming to or rejecting the standards of Madonna and Freddy Mercury.  That’s what Alice is as well, because she didn’t stand against anything, because she was too busy standing for gay rights and free market ideals, pro-life laws and anti-death-penalty ones as well.  I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer long after vampires were so last year, and Avatar the Last Airbender when I was a full decade above the target audience’s age. 

If you’re wondering who those rabid fan girls are who scream themselves hoarse at rock concerts and weird conventions, you’re looking at one of them.  The door to my room has a “Hipster and proud!” bumper sticker because I love the paradox.  I own tee-shirts declaring my love for Fight Club, for The Hunger Games, for The Who and Guns ‘N Roses, for The Bridger Chronicles and Death Note.  For the past four years I’ve attended the largest anime and manga convention on the entire east coast; last year I even participated in a fan panel on Axis Powers Hetalia.  I attracted stares walking around downtown Baltimore dressed all in black with two broadswords strapped across my back, a hand-drawn blue and white demon mask on my head, and an enormous red and brown flame painted across most of the left side of my face, but I loved every moment of it. 

Perhaps our generation has its standards set too high.  We are the children of the flower children, the reaction decade of the reaction decade of the reaction decade of the 1960s.  From our aging-hippie parents we learned to hope for a perfect world filled with perfect people, and to scorn anything short of that.  We learned from middle-aged white-collar suburbanites who were married-with-kids never to trust anyone over thirty, that there was no need to live in organized society, that monogamy was a restriction on true love, that contraceptives would save the world, that being your own person was the most important thing.  Best of all, we get to watch Vietnam happen all over again in Afghanistan, as people scream at each other on the news and reveal that still not enough has changed when it comes to women and minorities and gays and the poor, because it’s all still happening.  Is it any wonder that we grew up cynical, in the wreckage and ruin and tattoo regret and lingering drug addictions that came from the joyously rebellious sixties?  I conformed to that attitude for two long, and then I found out that life is too short not to love something about everything. 

Either way, Alice was there to quash my inner rebel, to teach me how to let my eyes adjust rather than curse the damn dark.  I was a forty-something in the body of a twelve-year-old; nowadays, I’m a twelve-year-old that just happens to look nineteen.  She taught me frivolity, and carelessness.  She taught me to channel my inner genius towards fan fiction and cosplay rather than just Charles Dickens and world domination.  She taught me to ignore the bad and look for the good; maybe the world isn’t perfect, but that’s why we protest about it.  Maybe people shouldn’t do the things they do, in which case we should all stop bitching and start throwing flowers instead.  Here’s to you, Alice Dorset, for making me nothing like you, and nothing like anyone else either.    

Kyoya Ootori said it best: “You’re an idiot if you think that a little capriciousness ever harmed a truly serious man.  I wouldn’t be who I was if I didn’t know a few incredible pointless people.”  And to think.  I wouldn’t even know who Kyoya Ootori was if not for Alice. 

Note: Alice’s real name has been slightly altered for the purpose of this blog post.