Last year, I read Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and loved it. I was hoping that Catalyst would be as good, if not better. The first half or so of the story was pretty good, but I found the second half (and the book overall) disappointing.
The blurb on the back cover is pretty vague. It describes Kate Malone, a high school senior and overachieving minister’s daughter who has her heart set on attending MIT. She believes she knows the course her life is headed on, but soon finds out that she doesn’t.
There’s a series of events that then take place, but which seem to have been created in an attempt mainly to move the plot forward, rather than develop the characters in a better way. I expected the story to be more Kate-centric; while she is the main character, I didn’t really like the way that the story veered away from her at various points.
I suppose I expected the story to be about something different, which left me disappointed when I figured out what it was actually about. Also, I was hoping that this would live up to the greatness of Speak, which it didn’t do. Nevertheless, I do enjoy Anderson’s style of writing and will continue to read her books.
