"Extraordinary Means" by Robyn Schneider

Life goes on... until it doesn't.

A realistic novel for Young-adults that deals with the questions of life and death, finding your own identity, contemplating on the universe... and with an ending at made me want to smack it,throw it against the wall and put it in the freezer.

When starting “Extraordinary Means”, I didn’t have the feeling of it being a drastically-emotionally moving book on the overt level. But it did touch me and made me think about the fates of me and the ones surrounding me, mostly my family, if I were to suffer from Tuberculosis.

One of the main foci especially for the first third or half of the book is how much life changes for those who have been infected. Their lives change because their illness changes those around them. Being diagnosed TB-active is not like having Cancer or even AIDS; one has to live under strict surveillance, in a restricted area, in quarantine. No one is there physically to help you, no one to hug you or hold your hands out of fear of catching the disease themselves. All old friends – and even family to a degree – become strangers for those suffering from TB. And out of that stripping away of all that they have been before, the only thing that remains is a vulnerable, weak body with a strong spirit, causing those that suffer with TB-actives to become their new family and the kindred to their newfound, more real identity.

After being on the phone with his parents – where neither side really knows how to talk to each other – the next big realization for Lane is when his girlfriend sends him her essay to apply for Stanford. In it, she describes living with TB-diagnosed Lane, caring for him, mourning for him, as if his life were already over. She may have meant it well, but I had the feeling that Lane perceived it as condescending. It must have been a big pang for him to see how she basically reduces him to the sickness and didn’t put into consideration the chance of Lane returning to school and manage a relatively normal everyday life. He broke up with her, and thus partly shed his old identity, making room for true love and a deeper relationship with Sadie.

“Extraordinary Means” is first mentioned during French class which both Lane and Sadie attend. Mr. Finnegan, the French teacher, makes them reenact a dialogue about how to help a sick person in French. Sadie begins talking about rumors of a new drug in France that might cure even TDR-TB. Mr. Finnegan claims those drugs are only used in desperate cases, and that they were “deemed an extraordinary means of preserving life”, because sometimes people died from it or might have gotten better on their own.

Over the course of the book, there seem to evolve two extraordinary means of preserving life for the protagonists, Sadie and Lane,- one being the cure, Protocillin, the new medication that is still a stretch of time away. A Stretch that could mean death for some of Latham's patients, the inner circle of the Protagonist Group included. The second one, however, is more of an emotional way of "preserving life" in Terms of fully living it and getting the best out of it. To not let the disease define oneself. For Lane, it is shedding the perfectionistic view he had carried on before enterin Latham and allowing himself to just be and to enjoy things average People of his Age did: Watching movies at School nights, falling in love, going on Dates, making friends. And for Sadie, it was letting go of her belief she would be a loner, a singleton for the rest of her days.

I loved this book. I really loved it.

And then, towards the end, it was utter humbug. I am so mad right now, and I just finished it. So my emotions might be still over the top, but it is so fucking frustrating. I thought it might be someone of the two dying, or both of them dying, or both Lane and Sadie walking off together into the sunset. But Sadie dying isn’t the worst.  The worst is Lane. His acceptance of Sadie's death came too quickly and he almost fully reverted to his over-achiever ways, despite going through such a huge development at Latham. What kind of bs is that?

Bottom Line

“Extraordinary Means” was an amazing book, for the most part, and for that point I’m rating it somewhere between 7 and 8 out of 10. I loved it – although it’s usually not my go-to type book. It’s a new genre, and if I read it when I was deeper into this genre, it might have turned out different. But the ending and especially Lane’s reaction in the end was a total blower for me.

(c) Text and Artwork by Stefan Muhr