The Spectacular Now (Tim Tharp)

Summary: 
SUTTER KEELY. HE’S the guy you want at your party. He’ll get everyone dancing. He’ ll get everyone in your parents’ pool. Okay, so he’s not exactly a shining academic star. He has no plans for college and will probably end up folding men’s shirts for a living. But there are plenty of ladies in town, and with the help of Dean Martin and Seagram’s V.O., life’s pretty fabuloso, actually. Until the morning he wakes up on a random front lawn, and he meets Aimee. Aimee’s clueless. Aimee is a social disaster. Aimee needs help, and it’s up to the Sutterman to show Aimee a splendiferous time and then let her go forth and prosper. But Aimee’s not like other girls, and before long he’s in way over his head. For the first time in his life, he has the power to make a difference in someone else’s life—or ruin it forever.

What I Thought:
When I first finished reading this book, I couldn't believe that was the end. I literally kept flipping back in forth on my e-reader, sure that I must've lost or missed a chapter or something. Because that couldn't be the end. Sutter leaves Aimee and gets drunk before asking a bunch of other old drunkards if he did the right thing and they agree with him. "He's a hero!" they proclaim. It's kind of sad, really. It's like we saw a glimpse of Sutter's future when he was in that bar. He's going to become one of those drunken losers.

But after a little more time processing, the ending began to make sense. After I finished reading it, I went online to read other people's reviews to see if they were as confused as I felt. But two embodied it the best:
"The book ended with the main character just as he was in the beginning."

After thinking about this, I admit I can't help but disagree. I see how someone may think this. Sutter obviously is an alcoholic. Everyone knows it but no one actually says it to his face, but I'm sure everyone is saying it behind his back.

However, in the beginning of the novel. Cassidy, Sutter's soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend asks him to "for once, put someone else's feelings before your own." By the end of the novel, Sutter actually does do this. He puts Aimee's feelings before his own but it takes a lot for him to get there. It takes Cassidy, the guy she starts dating, Marcus and Sutter's best friend, Ricky, trying to give him an "Aimee intervention" where they point out his negative influence in her life. And it's definitely obvious. This girl goes off on her only friend, starts doing shots at different points in the day just because she can and getting sloppy drunk at a party that causes the intervention in the first place.

But Aimee isn't hopeless. She has this dream of her and Sutter starting a new life together in Saint Louis with her sister. They'll get a apartment in her sister's complex there and she'll start attending WashU and he'll go to community college there and they'll be happy. Sutter's never had someone whose happiness that is effected so much by himself until Aimee. Which is why he can't let her down and goes along with her plan. The ending of the book is so sad; Sutter ends up telling her to go ahead without him and after he finishes summer school and get money for their apartment, but he has no true intention of following her, he just wants her to go so that once she's begun her new life it'll be easier for her to let him go.

"This book is just like Sutter. It only cares about now. It doesn't think about solutions, resolutions, or even conclusions. Just the now."

What I will say is the book is properly named. Sutter lives in the now and remains to do so even when the book ends. I both agree and disagree with this idea. On my disagreement side, the book has plenty of endings and beginnings. The ending of Sutter's relationship with Cassidy, the beginning and end of his relationship with Aimee, the ending of his idolization of his father, the self-recognition of Sutter about some of his character flaws. Sure, he never addresses his alcohol issues but he comes to terms that he refuses to believe that he can't be loved and that he's selfish. There is no true resolutions but I think that that's what makes it realistic. If anything Sutter giving up Aimee when he doesn't want to is unrealistic. He could've very easily kept her in a long and eventually unhappy relationship, but he chose to let her go.

Compared to the Movie:
I will admit that I saw the movie only a few days before I actually decided to read the book. And in some ways I did enjoy the movie more because it was more hopeful. Aimee was perfectly chosen in Shailene Woodley. She really embodied the innocence and vulnerability of the character and especially how highly influenced she is by Sutter. She is so hopeful, I was actually glad that the part when Aimee reveals that a guy had taken advantage of her before was taken out. But in a way it made her even more vulnerable to Sutter so maybe it should've been included.

Anyway, I loved the movie more because it gave Sutter and Aimee a Romeo-and-Juliet feel. You want to be hopeful that their relationship will survive but you know if nothing changes, they are doomed from the start.

There are some scenes that are word for word came from the book.

I definitely recommend the movie, but I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the book yet. The two scenes that happened in both, I loved far more in the movie.

The first was the first time Aimee and Sutter had sex was sooo sweet and funny all at once. But at the same time it wasn't romanticized. It had enough raw and genuine moments that kept it from turning into one of those unrealistic, too romantic and perfect Hollywood-first-time-having-sex scenes. Haha, I'll admit that I watched this scene over and over. It was soooo well done.

There was also the scene when Aimee gets hit by that car after Sutter throws her out of his car on the highway. The book definitely doesn't do this scene justice but it's hard to do a scene like this with the right amount of words and description while pulling you into it at the same time. Anyway, go see this movie. I loved it so much it actually became one of my favorites. Go see it! Go read it! Just do it!