Book Review - Daryl Gregory's Spoonbenders

Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory
Published by: Knopf
Publication Date: June 27th, 2017
Format: Kindle, 416 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Fourteen year old Matty Telemachus rather awkwardly finds out he can astrally project. He's just thinking inappropriate thoughts about his cousin Mary Alice and discovers that when he's sexually aroused or, in this first instance, masterbating, he can leave his body behind. Which makes him wonder, is he unique or are his gifts inherited? It turns out that his family is none other than the Amazing Telemachus Family. They were the darlings of TV talk shows until they imploded on air. Which means no one in the family will talk to Matty about their past. Which makes him start digging. His grandfather and grandmother met in a government study into psychic powers. Teddy had conned his way in but Maureen was a genuine psychic. They fell in love and married, having three children. Irene, Matty's mother, is a human lie detector, Frankie is telekinetic, and Buddy can see the future. But the past is in the past and the family's powers have done nothing but destroy their lives, turning them into barely functional adults. Irene can't hold down a job or maintain a stable relationship, Frankie has used his powers for nefarious means and is now in deep with the mob, and Buddy, well, Buddy spends his time digging holes in the backyard and is practically nonverbal. In fact, when Frankie realizes his nephew has been perving on his daughter instead of taking him to task he decides to use Matty to help free himself from the mob. His genius plan is to rob the mob and then pay back his debt with their own money. No matter how "amazing" his family once was, any sane person can see that this plan is flawed. But Frankie, and the whole family, is desperate. Their mother was their rock and without her the family is spiraling. And now the CIA have come knocking. They were reviewing their files from Project Stargate and were wondering if any of the newest generation of family members had started exhibiting powers. Little do they know about Matty... Who might just be the key to solving all their problems, but not as Frankie had planned. The family is in for a reckoning and their whole world is about to change.

I feel like I've been swindled by Teddy Telemachus. If you read the actual blurb of the book you think this is going to be a romp about a gifted family. And it is not that. At all. This was a bait and switch. The best character, Maureen Telemachus, is dead and gone by the time the action starts, and the family isn't just dysfunctional but I dislike them all. Deeply. I was hoping for nostalgic television talk shows with psychic stunts, and instead this is just your basic boring Chicago mafia tale. With a whole heap of nineties historical inaccuracies. I assume the other decades also have historical inaccuracies, but I just caught the blatant ones from my childhood. A SNES doesn't have a standby light. It does have a light when the power is on. No standby light. And these inaccuracies just made me more annoyed with the book than I can adequately explain. It wasn't just that this wasn't the book I thought it would be, it was that it just wasn't a good book. Because having a deceptive blurb isn't the end of the world. In fact a book I read quite recently was nothing like I thought it would be and yet it still completely won me over. So much so that I had to order the sequel from England so that I could read it a full month early because of the US publication date not being synchronous. But all of these pale in comparison to my problem with Matty. Um, how are we supposed to feel about Matty? Because he really creeps me out. I know his cousin Mary Alice is adopted, thus skirting the whole incest vibe, but, um... Is he supposed to be the hero? Or is he supposed to embody how flawed the family is? Because as I said before and will say again, he just creeps me out. I read enough books with gifted people to know that emotion can trigger their powers, but did it have to be masterbating? And masterbating to thoughts of his cousin? Oh, and then when he can't trigger his powers near the end of the book when it's necessary to save their family Mary Alice lets him cop a feel!?! Ew, no, ick. I did not sign up for pervy incestuous teenagers trying to take down the mafia. I wish I could expunge this book from my mind because I feel dirty.