The Dangerous Art of Blending In
Do you ever read the jacket of a book and congratulate yourself on finding such a spectacular find and metaphorically pat yourself on the back?
That was me with The Dangerous Art of Blending In by Angelo Surmelis. I had never previously heard of it, the author was unknown, but I was enlivened to try something new after taking in the lovely, yet ambiguous cover with its rainbow of colors and messages.
It didn't quite live up to my grand and nuanced expectations unfortunately. To start off simply, I thought this book was about a small town boy struggling to find a peaceful equilibrium between his Greek Orthodox life and his identity as a new age millennial.
He likes to draw, he likes to drive, suddenly his best friend has become distractingly attractive over the summer, and he has big dreams of living in the city and making something of himself.
Sounds like a solid plot if not a bit too retired, but there was one key aspect that caught me so completely off guard that encapsulated the majority of the novel: abuse.
Now, either I'm just completely obtuse or the abuse was not clearly indicated as being a major theme throughout the entirety of the novel. It's one thing to say that his mother holds harsh words for her son and our main character, Evan Panos, on the small synopsis given on the inside of the fold, but another thing entirely to have scenes in which his mother was smashing a coffee mug across his face, attempting to drown him, or telling him to die. Repeatedly.
I've read books dealing with child abuse or domestic violence before, but this novel really went above and beyond the normal descriptions of abuse. Surmelis details Evan’s every depreciating thought, his brokenness, his idiosyncrasies reminiscent of a victim, and the lens into his life is so candid that it's disturbing and heart wrenching.
Like some other books I've reviewed in the past, this book would definitely fall under the read at your own discretion category.
I honestly wish I could have liked this book more. Despite the disturbing modality of the themes, this book had the potential to be very powerful for a lot of people. It takes on some formidable messages like abuse, family, religion, identity, healing and sexuality just to name a few but the execution was disjointed and poorly composed.
Only one character seemed like he was flesh and bones. His speech and mannerisms were akin to a pimply angst ridden hormonally driven teenager. Everyone else seemed more relatable to a lab of robots.
The dialogue as a whole was clunky and unrealistic. Some moments shifted so fast that I was left with book whiplash. The pacing was so extraordinarily off that I wanted to sit Mr. Surmelis down and show him some prime fanfiction just to give him an idea of how to do it mediocrely well.
In addition, there was not much of a resolution to speak of. If you are going to put my emotions into a meat grinder I would appreciate if you at least gave me some morsel of relief or happiness. Said morsel did not exist in The Dangerous Art of Blending In. And if it did exist, it was only big enough to feed a mouse.
Overall, this book read more like a personal diary with chunks of entries missing rather than a your run-of-the-mill young adult novel meant to enlighten and help teenagers facing some insurmountable challenges. In the afterword, Surmelis mentions how this book was essentially his therapy from his own childhood. I would never discourage anyone from writing as a means of healing, but writing as a means of healing and writing to publish are inherently discordant things.
Recommendation: Unless you loved The Child Called “It” novels, this new read for young adults is best left for those dark days or for people searching for specific psychological and traumatic material.
Score: 4/10
