altheaann

I read Valtat's 'Aurorarama' and didn't really like it. But when I came across this, I was curious, especially because this was written in French, then translated, and 'Aurorarama' was written in English. I did think that the language in this came across as smoother, and with more clarity, but the styles are so very different that it's hard to compare.
It's peculiar that this was published as a stand-alone 'novel.' It comes across as a seemingly autobiographical essay.
A socially awkward teen develops a platonic crush-from-afar (or at least, from across the street) on a retarded girl that he sees every morning while waiting for the schoolbus. This setup is used as a jumping-off point to talk about the nuances of being an 'outsider,' and the parallells of being 'above' the norm and 'below' the norm... at least, that's how I saw it, as that's something I actually thought about quite a lot in high school, myself...
Interesting, but very, very short, and doesn't really explore its themes in too much depth.