Creepy and Maud by Dianne Touchell

Good Reads Summary
Creepy and Maud by Dianne Touchell

Hilarious and heartbreaking, Creepy & Maud charts the relationship between two social misfits, played out in the space between their windows.

Creepy is a boy who watches from the shadows keenly observing and caustically commentating on human folly.

Maud is less certain. A confused girl with a condition that embarrasses her parents and assures her isolation.

Together Creepy and Maud discover something outside their own vulnerability — each other’s. But life is arbitrary; and loving someone doesn’t mean you can save them.

Creepy & Maud is a blackly funny and moving first novel that says; ‘You’re ok to be as screwed up as you think you are and you’re not alone in that.’

My Thoughts
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

  Love is sort of creepy. When you fall in love, you presuppose all sorts of things about the person. You superimpose all kinds of ideals and fantasies on them. You create all manner of unrealistic, untenable, unsatisfiable criteria for that person, automatically guaranteeing their failure and your heartbreak. And what do we call it? Romance. Now that’s creepy.

Creepy went from intelligent to inappropriate to unexpectedly hilarious. Maud went from present to sad to real then sad again. You’d think a big gap exists between the two, but they’re both just different. He watches her and in doing so falls for her; it’s by watching her that he knows how non-perfect she was. I love the blurb and how romantic can be creepy, because that’s Creepy... he’s creepy. He says right sounding things, but does whatever he pleases anyway. Plus, he’s aware of all of her, drinking behind the doll house, bald spots and hair pulling, the tendency for her wrong thing-wrong time, yet falls for her just the same. There’s a truth there… somewhere.

Still, it’s a different feeling novel, and the two of them are, I want to say ‘quirky,’ but I won’t. They’re both something else. I will say it’s Creepy’s intelligent observations, unexpected inappropriate funnies that got me to like him and that’s even with him watching her! And where his voice is a mix of funny, intelligent and yes, creepy; hers is a bit darker, and at times lyrical in the telling. Yet, the gap between them was not a big one, as they’re both different from the usual. So, he sees her, watches her and so doing falls for her; she is aware of what he’s doing and a relationship develops.

I enjoyed him that as he saw one thing from her, he’d recall just one other thing. And with each bit, it’s clear how differently he considered things… except while it’s lovely/odd, his voice, hers is sad yet real. Yet, there’s really no big drama from either their sides. That as he falls for her, and as she pulls her hair, they’re both still living with parents whose marriages aren’t perfect, they’re both still going to a school that’s limiting, they’re both still living opposite each other. Bottom line, everything Creepy has to say about it and them, it’s all a mix of accurate and truthful, sad yet funny.

Thank you, DIANNE @ Oops! I Read a Book Again

thankyouthankyouthankyou,dianne!

 

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