THE GREAT BIG ONE

A young man struggles to be his true self against a backdrop of looming natural disasters in this contemporary novel.

Seventeen-year-old Griff is an introverted, thoughtful, and talented pianist who is used to being sidelined by his self-assured twin brother, Leo, who has more than once gone after girls he is interested in. Griff’s feelings come to a head when he falls hard for Charity, with whom he, Leo, and their goofball friend, Thomas, start a band after unexpectedly running into her at a concert. The fictional Oregon community where they live was decimated by a tsunami in the 1960s. The brothers’ participation in the Lost Coast Preppers, a group that works to develop warning systems and disaster plans, includes involvement with a radio station, an element that ties into an interesting, if at times confusing, plotline about the source of a mysterious signal they pick up. Lyrically told in the third person over three parts, this tale of first love, music, grief, and identity takes unexpected turns. Meandering phrases and sentence fragments mesh effectively with the more whimsical elements, though the style doesn’t work as well in some of the action-oriented passages. Most major characters are White; Charity is Dominican and Black.

An occasionally muddled but earnest and original coming-of-age story.