Extraordinary Means

Extraordinary Means is an honest and surprisingly terrifying, beautiful and tragic novel.

Knowing that Extraordinary Means is the story of two teenagers with a deadly disease falling in love, you expect heartbreak going in. You're ready for a certain tragedy. In this way, Extraordinary Means has an element of predictability. Yet Schneider still builds to this moment, this inevitability, in such a unique and confronting way as to be original and shocking. In creating a fictional disease, total drug resistant tuberculosis, Schneider is able to not only write about its impact on the teenagers that suffer from it, but about society's reaction to such an epidemic, the desperate race to find a cure, and the effects that has on these teenagers. Schneider has crafted a terrifying plot that underscores the sad fate and bittersweet romance that is Extraordinary Means. The reality of lives cut too short, of enforced isolation, of the fear people have of the disease and these kids, even the way the teachers react to the possibility of their deaths with less school work, adds an unexpected layer of desperation to this story. The lyrical prose and dark humour - yes, it's funny! - add to its beauty and poignancy. The emotion of this book is authentic and powerful, and many times I found myself awestruck or in tears. I certainly couldn't put it down.

Extraordinary Means alternates between the points of view of Lane and Sadie, who have such completely different personalities but compliment each other perfectly. Lane thought he had everything, had his whole future mapped out before he got sick, and wants nothing more than to get better and get back to that life. Even after getting sick and moving to Latham House, he works so hard at sticking to his plan. Meeting Sadie and her friends though, Lane learns to appreciate life. It's not facing the possibility of death, but the bonds he forms with these characters that teaches him the true meaning of life, and I adore that. It's so much more real and moving. Sadie on the other hand felt she was no one and had nothing before the tuberculosis. At Latham she's grown into herself and formed true friendships. Sadie has a darker outlook on life and the disease than Lane. She's given up hope, but worse, is actually afraid of getting better and returning to the 'real world'. It's such an interesting and sad contrast, that the girl who is afraid of living teaches Lane what that actually means. It's why their developing relationship is special and touching. They offer such vastly different views of life and the world that you can't help but be affected, to feel like you're being changed by this book and these characters. You will cry for these characters, you will laugh with them - a lot, I might add, as their friends are quirky and hilarious - and you will fall in love.

Robyn Schneider's Extraordinary Means is a gorgeous, one of a kind, memorable read.

Extraordinary Means by Robyn Schneider

In brief: When Lane is sent away to a special boarding school for sick teenagers, he thinks his life is over. But Latham House opens up many new avenues for him, but mainly how to live and how to love.
The good: It’s interesting, heartfelt and a lovely read for any age.
The not-so-good: Sad at times!
Why I chose it: I was interested the premise and I’ve always loved boarding school stories. Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the eARC.
Year: 2015 Pages: 352 (eARC)
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Setting: USA My rating: 9.5 out of 10 I’m kind of envious of the young adults of today. They get so many good books! So even though I don’t look much like a student any more, I’ve joined the ranks of adults reading young adult fiction. I love the hope and feeling that anything is possible with YA fiction as well as facing up to the big topics – life, love and death. Extraordinary Means covers all these things, wrapped up in a ‘what-if’ scenario that really, could be all too true.
I was first attracted to the cover of Extraordinary Means – hey, I thought, that upside down tree looks like a pair of lungs. Is this a book about CF (cystic fibrosis)? Then I read the blurb and I was enticed. The story is about a group of teenagers, who have ‘total-drug resistant’ tuberculosis (TB) and are whisked away to an old boarding school in the country where they can’t infect anyone. The hope is that they get better…but the reality is that some will (and do) die. Modern medicine has failed these young adults and their treatment is a healthy diet, gentle exercise and rest. As TB is spread by droplets (such as coughing), their teachers set them a task and leave the room. There isn’t even any homework. Sounds like fun in a way, right?
Lane doesn’t think so. Before he got TB he was a super student, ticking all the boxes to attend a top college and then move onto Wall Street. He’s super focused and incredibly studious. TB wasn’t part of his life plan and he’s appalled that studies don’t seem to be a big focus at Latham House. But he’s also intrigued by Sadie, a girl he met at camp many years ago, who doesn’t give a toss for the rules (in fact, she runs a black market for candy and alcohol). But what’s more, Sadie appears to be having fun. Against his better nature, Lane becomes involved in Sadie’s circle of friends and finds out that living isn’t simply being on one track to success. I loved this book. I adored boarding school stories growing up and Extraordinary Means ticks those boxes. I also liked the way it combined medicine with the realities that these teens faced. It’s scary enough to be a teenager, let alone one wearing a monitor 24/7 (there’s a horrifying, yet amusing scene showing what can happen when your heart rate gets a little too high and the nurses have to intervene). These characters are also separated from the families and everything they know – there’s no cars, no internet, no mobile phones. It’s kind of like a retreat into history in multiple ways – lack of technology and lack of ability of medicine to cure. Robyn Schneider is a bioethicist by trade and this shows in the way she handles the medical issues in this book. It’s brilliant and I couldn’t fault it. Everything is plausible and just that little bit scary because in 2015, we’re freakishly close to the bottom of the box when it comes to treating infectious conditions.
The feelings in this book are intense too – perhaps because the characters are facing a life or death situation and nothing is off limits. It’s refreshing in its honesty. I think the yin and yang between Sadie and Lane helps to highlight that. Lane comes to Latham House, seeing it as merely an inconvenience to his studies, determined to keep on the same track. Sadie has reflected on her condition and that it might spell death and is determined to live life to the full in whatever time is left at Latham House. The other characters all have something to help them in their fight – music, video games, friendship or religion but Lane finds that studying doesn’t offer succour. The story is almost about how Lane came to life thanks to Sadie. It’s a story that doesn’t sugar-coat life’s tragedies, but it does celebrate the joys. This is a book to be savoured and enjoyed by all age groups.

This book was a great read, and it delivered on what was promised in the synopsis. It was darkly funny, there were some great friendships and ill-fated love, and there was even miraculous second chances for the lucky few.

Extraordinary Means featured one of my loves in books that I used to read when I was younger: boarding school. However, unlike Malory Towers in the Enid Blyton books of my youth, this is no ordinary boarding school, nor is it voluntary. Latham House is a boarding school for sick teens, all of whom have been diagnosed with incurable tuberculosis (TB) and have been sent there to avoid spreading the disease to their friends and family. Some people get better and their disease goes into a kind of remission, meaning they can go home. Some others don’t have it so lucky, and they eventually succomb to the effects of the disease. Lane, our protagonist, is sent to Latham House, and it’s there that he meets Sadie and her misfit friends.

The subject matter of Extraordinary Means was certainly dark and sad, as you’d expect from a story about kids with TB, but I found that I just couldn’t stop laughing while reading this book. It’s rare for me to actually laugh aloud when I’m reading a book – the Harry Potter books are the rare exception to this rule. I’ll cry at the drop of a hat, but laughing not so much. Which is odd because I laugh all the time when I’m not reading! That aside, Extraordinary Means was extraordinary in the way the characters sought to find the humour in life and enjoy their time at Latham House. Lane, Sadie and their friends didn’t allow themselves be mentally dragged down by TB, and their antics were certainly fun to read.

I adored the relationship between Lane and Sadie, who’d actually known each other years before they met again at Latham House. Once they got over their misunderstandings, they were such an adorable couple. This book is recommended for fans of John Green, and while I’m wary of making such recommendations, they do have qualities that remind me of Augustus and Hazel Grace from The Fault in Our Stars. They’re so cute together, and their interactions are swoonworthy, but they don’t let their relationship take them away from their friends. Charlie, Nick and Marina don’t just fall by the wayside for Lane and Sadie. Friendships are equally as important as love in this book, and I think that’s an important message to get across.

The ending was not my favourite in some respects. I’m a happily ever after kind of girl, and while Extraordinary Means fulfilled that to some degree, in other ways it was most definitely not a happy ending. Of course, that’s life, and we don’t all get a happily ever after, so in that respect I can’t fault it. I think I was just lulled into a false sense of security by the humour in the book, so I forgot about the TB element a bit, and then there were two incidents close to the end of the book which got to me a bit. I won’t spoil it and say what they were, but it all left me feeling a little unsatisfied in the end, as did the rather open ending. I wanted to see where things went for Lane, and I don’t think I really got that closure. Of course, that’s just me!

Overall, I quite enjoyed this book. I found Extraordinary Means to be entertaining and thought provoking. A uniquely funny book, with sad parts in between, I highly recommend it!

Surprising and full of pathos, this novel is well written, gripping and frighteningly possible.