Whenever I’ve belonged to a book club, there’s
always one person in the group who can’t really like a chosen
book unless she can “relate to the main character.”
Finding points of connection --- whether of shared experience or
outlook --- with a novel’s protagonist is something that most
sophisticated readers eventually grow beyond. For teens, however,
that desire for common ground with a main character is often a
given, something that young adult authors expect and consequently
write for. That’s why Lisa Levchuk’s debut novel,
EVERYTHING BEAUTIFUL IN THE WORLD, is such a big risk --- with a
substantial payoff.

For one thing, 17-year-old Edna, the protagonist of
Levchuk’s novel, is a high school senior in 1980, a year in
which many contemporary teens’ parents might have graduated
from high school. Edna is growing up in a world before Facebook,
instant messaging and cell phones --- one that today’s wired
teens might view as ancient history.

More of a hurdle, however, is that Edna is not always a
particularly likable character. Sure, she’s sympathetic
enough --- her mother is suffering from cancer and she’s
having a hard time confiding in anyone: her friends, her father,
her shrink. That kind of response to trauma is easy enough for
readers to understand, or at least imagine. What might be harder to
swallow is Edna’s refusal to visit her mother in the hospital
and, what’s worse, her blatant exploitation of her
mother’s illness to elicit sympathy from her teachers and
time to escape her school responsibilities.

When Edna plays the sympathy card, she’s not playing for
time to go visit her mother, comfort her father, or even deal with
her own grief. Instead, she’s bargaining for time with her
ceramics teacher, Mr. Howland, whose sexy looks, groovy attitude
and flirtatious style in the classroom make him a hit with all the
girls. Only Edna, however, has the guts to approach her teacher
with romantic intentions --- and then to embark on a secret affair
with her married teacher.

Today’s sophisticated readers who, unlike Edna, have the
benefit of years of parental warnings about lecherous older men
stalking young teens on the Internet will probably immediately
label her teacher a creep. Edna comes from more innocent times,
however, and, as audiences will gradually learn and appreciate, she
has her own reasons for becoming the complicated, prickly, fearful
and, yes, not particularly likable character readers first meet. In
surprisingly sophisticated first-person narration, Levchuk
gradually reveals the elements of Edna’s story through her
own questioning, sometimes self-loathing voice.

Not everyone will eventually warm to Edna. Her erratic state of
mind and often childish behavior may strike some as tiresome
immaturity rather than symptoms of larger fears and
vulnerabilities. Others, though, will come to appreciate
Edna’s complex story, to understand her doubts and her
choices, to see her for who she is even if they can’t
“relate” to her, and they’ll grow as people ---
and as readers --- as a result.

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