BWW Reviews: ECHO OF THE BOOM Is A Decadent Depiction of Adolescence

Psychologist and educator G. Stanley Hall famously used the German term "sturm und drang," or "storm and stress," to describe the emotional tumultuousness of the adolescent mind. The term has a bellicose ring to it, as if the adolescent mind were maneuvering through a missile field or dodging through frenetic battle.

The four teenage protagonists of ECHO OF THE BOOM, Maxwell Neely-Cohen's first novel, are constantly preparing for battle. Molly lives with her survivalist father, where she learns to handle any emergency that comes her way. If Molly is the Katniss of adolescent America, Chloe is the Frank Underwood. She rules the student population of Le May High with an intricate system of technological blackmail, but her unhappiness manifests itself through vividly apocalyptic dreams. Efram has the single-minded, self-destructive goal of getting expelled from every private school in the D.C. area. Lastly, Steven becomes obsessed with death while encountering violent corruption all over the world while travelling with his ex-spy father. The characters' stories are woven together in alternating segments.

The book builds momentum quickly with all the furor of the Book of Revelation. The gorgeous inside cover art depicts fascinating battle scenes and symbols. The apocalyptic motif is continued throughout the novel. Every chapter begins with a quote from Revelation regarding the four horseman of the apocalypse side-by-side with a quote from a popular contemporary song. Quoted artists include Miley Cyrus, A$AP Rocky, and Radiohead, and their songs are perfectly indicative of the type of battles adolescents feel like they are living through everyday.

Neely-Cohen reminds us of the combative environment these characters live in, saying "They were all born after the fall of the wall, but before the fall of the towers." For them, 'sturm und drang' is not only an interior psychology, but also compounded by the world around them. That world is even more saturated by rapidly evolving technologies that obscure, rather than clarify reality. The novel counts down to a mysterious 'end,' bring their experiences to a deadly climax.

Neely-Cohen's writing is often poetic and insightful, though I sometimes felt like his descriptions were a little needlessly obscure. The four protagonists' lives are well developed and riveting. Some of the emotional resonances of their experiences become lost in Neely-Cohen's slightly distanced third person perspective. I rarely felt like they were as tangible as some of the novel's supporting characters. I empathized far more with Chloe's high school friends, for example, or Efram's gang of miscreants, than Chloe or Efram themselves. However, ECHO OF THE BOOM is excitingly satisfying and a truly compelling examination of this generation.

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