The Beginner's Guide to Living

The Beginner's Guide to Living by Lia Hills
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

After first dozen pages I was charmed. What a deep and touching insight into soul of adolescent boy who just lost his mother in a car accident.
Next pages cooled me down.
Grief. A very difficult time, very individualised, making the grieving person difficult for people around.
I had some taste of it in J. Barnes' book - The levels of life. Last part of it is a relation of author's grief after loss of his wife. A very significant part of it was a feeling of anger or at least disappointment towards all surrounding people.
And it was Julian Barnes, mature and extremely cultured person.
So what about a 17 y.o. boy?
Terrible! I got really fed up with it.
The author makes lots of effort to confront the main character with various thoughts and ideas about life and death - ancient Greek philosophers, European thinkers of XIX and XX century, Buddhists, sufis etc.
Thoughts and ideas? Rather one-liners.
As it is was not enough there is also introduction to sex and drugs. And more.
As for me too much of it.
One aspect totally ignored is Christian religion. Allain de Botton in his book - Religion for the Atheists - admits that religion offers tried ways to deal with guilt, sorrow, grief.
Parents of the main character, Will, baptised their son in Roman Catholic church. There is mention of another Catholic baptism. But all of this is absolutely superficial. Looks like some absurd ceremony to have opportunity to post some photos in Facebook.
And this impression prevailed - person living very superficial life tries to find some quick solution to the real problem.
One thing puzzled me - I found the book in the Teenagers section of the library. Definitely the title justifies such classification, but I find this title strongly misguiding.

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