Catalyst
Catalyst book cover

Catalyst

Hardcover – September 30, 2002

by
Price
$9.69
Format
Hardcover
Pages
240
Publisher
Viking Juvenile
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-0670035663
Dimensions
5.78 x 0.93 x 8.58 inches
Weight
14.4 ounces

Description

Chemistry honors student and cross-country runner Kate Malone is driven. Daughter of a father who is a reverend first and a parent second ("Rev. Dad [Version 4.7] is a faulty operating system, incompatible with my software.") and a dead mother she tries not to remember, Kate has one goal: To escape them both by gaining entrance to her own holy temple, MIT. Eschewing sleep, she runs endlessly every night waiting for the sacred college acceptance letter. Then two disasters occur: Sullen classmate Teri and her younger brother, Mikey, take over Kate's room when their own house burns down, and a too-thin letter comes from MIT, signifying denial. And so the experiment begins. Can crude Teri and sweet Mikey, combined with the rejection letter, form the catalyst that will shake Kate out of her selfish tunnel vision and force her to deal with the suppressed pain of her mom's death? "If I could run all the time, life would be fine. As long as I keep moving, I'm in control." But for Kate, it's time to stop running and face the feelings she's spent her whole life racing away from. Catalyst , Laurie Halse Anderson's third novel for teens, is a deftly fashioned character study of a seldom explored subject in YA fiction: the type-A adolescent. Teens will identify (if not exactly sympathize) with prickly Kate instantly, and be shocked or perhaps secretly pleased to discover that life is no easier for the honor roll student than it is for the outcast. Anderson earns an A plus for this revealing and realistic take on life, death, and GPAs. (Ages 12 and older) --Jennifer Hubert From Publishers Weekly Like its cross-country-running heroine, Anderson's (Speak) latest novel starts off promisingly, then loses its pacing about midway through. The narrator, 18-year-old Kate Malone, has placed all of her eggs in one basket: she has applied only to her late mother's alma mater, MIT. Calculus is a cinch, chemistry is her favorite subject, even physics comes easily to her, but when her MIT rejection arrives, it acts as catalyst for the slow unraveling of her delicately balanced life. A preacher's daughter, she struggles between "Good Kate" and "Bad Kate" as she singlehandedly keeps the household running (her mother died nine years ago). Anderson excels in conveying Kate's anxieties and her concomitant insomnia, and frequently intersperses evidence of Kate's sharp humor (she calls Mitchell A. Pangborn III "my friend, my enemy, my lust"). But Kate's relationships with others remain hazy. While this seems to reflect Kate's state of mind, since she slowly shuts everyone out as her MIT-less fate becomes clear, her detachment may create a similar effect for readers. This aloofness becomes most problematic in the dynamics of her relationship with Teri Litch, who once beat her up habitually. After Teri's house burns down, she and toddler Mikey Litch come to live with the Malones, and the action escalates to the point of melodrama. Yet another tragic event spurs a reconciliation between Kate and Teri, but the underlying changes in the individuals that lead up to this event remain unclear. Teens will take to Kate instantly, but as the novel continues, they may be confused about what makes her tick. Still, the universal obstacles she faces and the realistic outcome will likely hold readers' attention. Ages 12-up.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From School Library Journal Grade 10 Up-Kate Malone is a high school senior, an AP chemistry student, and a runner. She does her best running at night, when she outruns ghosts and can soar in the comfort of anonymity. Since her mother's death, she has taken care of her father (a minister) and her brother. She is waiting for acceptance to MIT, her mother's alma mater, and feels that her very life depends on it. Teri Litch, a typical school bully, punches her way through most situations and is filled with rage that threatens to affect everyone she encounters. When her house partially burns down, she and her little brother, Mikey, are invited by the reverend to move temporarily into his home. Teri's world is imposed upon Kate's as they become locked in some type of cataclysmic mix that alters both of their lives. Eventually readers discover that some of Teri's anger comes from being raped by her father and, when Mikey dies in a tragic accident, they learn that he was really her son. Anderson uses great chemical titles and subtitles for the short chapters. However, there is too much happening too fast and readers are left with many unanswered questions, and an ending that seems neat but unlikely. This title has a good premise and some moments of fine writing, but it lacks the depth of characterization that made Speak (Farrar, 1999) so compelling. Lynn Bryant, Great Bridge Middle School, Chesapeake, VA Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. Laurie Halse Anderson has received both the Margaret Edwards Award and the ALAN Award for her contributions to young adult literature. She has also been honored by the National Coalition Against Censorship in recognition of her fight to combat the censoring of literature. She is the author of the groundbreaking National Book Award finalist and Printz Honor Book Speak . She is also author of the critically acclaimed YA books Prom , Twitsted , Catalyst , Wintergirls , and The Impossible Knife of Memory . She has also authored a number of middle grade titles including The Vet Volunteers series, and the historical fiction Seeds of America Trilogy, which includes Forge , ALA Best Book for Young Adults Fever 1793 , and the National Book Award finalist and Scott O’Dell Award-winner Chains . She and her husband live in northern New York State. Follow Laurie on Twitter @halseanderson and visit her at madwomanintheforest.com. Read more

Features & Highlights

  • Meet Kate Malone-straight A science and math geek, minister's daughter, ace long-distance runner, girlfriend, unwilling family caretaker, emotional avoidance champion. Kate manages her life by organizing it, as logically as the periodic table. She can handle it all-or so she thinks. Then, like a string of chemical reactions, everything happens: the Malones' neighbors get burned out of their home and move in. Because her father is a Good Man of God (and a Not Very Thoughtful Parent), Kate has to share her room with her nemesis, Teri Litch, and Teri's adorable, troublemaking little brother. And through it all, she's still waiting to hear from the only college she has applied to: MIT. Kate's life is less and less under control-and then, something happens that blows it all apart, and forces her to examine her life, self, and heart for the first time. Set in the same community as the remarkable
  • Speak
  • ,
  • Catalyst
  • is a novel that will make you think, laugh, cry, and rejoice-sometimes at the same time.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
30%
(121)
★★★★
25%
(101)
★★★
15%
(60)
★★
7%
(28)
★
23%
(92)

Most Helpful Reviews

✓ Verified Purchase

Richie's Picks: CATALYST

... ...
But, getting back to Laurie Halse Anderson and to Merryweather High, the setting for SPEAK, and now for CATALYST... What? Yes, indeed, Laurie returns us to the land of the infamous Mr. Neck, and Hairwoman, and Andy the Beast--none of whom we get to see here. The story is set at the end of the school year following SPEAK, and Melinda, in another of Mr. Free-man's classes, does actually make a cameo appearance. So, knowing all of this ahead of time, you are possibly going to open this book and look for it to grab you by the throat and mystify you the way you were immediately mystified by Melinda Sorrentino's treatment on the bus and in the auditorium on her first day at the school.
Right?
Well, get over it! This is a whole different chemical equation:
Kate Malone, minister's daughter, star student, and runner, is a senior who lives for her acceptance letter to MIT--the only college she has bothered to apply to.
"Insomnia rocks, actually. You can get a lot done if you don't sleep. I've turned into a hyper-efficient windup Kate doll, super Kate, the über-Kate. I wish this had happened last year. It would have given me more time to study for my AP exams."
She introduces us to her family:
"Toby and I are the proton and neutron of our atomic family unit. Dad is the loosely bonded electron, negatively charged, zooming around us in his own little shell."
She introduces us to her group of friends:
"Sara slides her sunglasses across the table. I take off my glasses and put them on. The room mellows to a golden, SFP-protected glow...They are all out of focus now, but...I'd recognize these shapes anywhere. Sara Emery, my BF, is a self-described Wiccan Jewish poet. This would send most parents screaming to the therapist's office, but the Emerys are totally cool with it. I've been asking them to adopt me for years.
Travis Baird is to Sara as water is to fire: opposite and necessary. Trav is a freakazoid good guy with a taste for body art. The vice principal in charge of discipline has been aching to bust him for four years. He refuses to believe that good things can come in colorful packages.
A warm hand snakes around my waist. My knees buckle and the hand pulls me down into the very familiar lap of Mitchell A. Pangborn III--my friend, my enemy, my lust."
She introduces us to the story's outcast, a tough female named Teri Litch:
"The ugly girl, the one who smells funny, studies carpentry at vo-tech, stomps around with sawdust in her hair, and has fists like sledgehammers. Teri beat me up every year in elementary school, fall and spring. I turned the other cheek for a while, then I learned to run. Intelligent life pursues self-preservation."
And she introduces us to her "sad excuse of a motor vehicle, a Yugo named Burt."
But who or what is the catalyst here is one of the things you're going to have to read the book to find out.
...
CATALYST, which alternately had me crying and laughing, is a moving story that seeks to knock us off our little career tracks long enough to see what's really important.
28 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

The Chemistry Isn't Totally There

Kate Malone seems like a perfect teenager. As an almost-valedictorian, a star track runner, and an obsessed chemistry student, it seems certain that she's going to get into MIT-her dream, her aspiration, her goal. But then the letter of rejection comes from MIT, and Kate's life begins to unravel. In the midst of Kate's depression and denial, her neighbor's house burns down (and who would that neighbor be but Teri Litch, who has always been Kate's worst enemy) and the family comes to live with the Malones. Kate has only her father after her mother's long-ago death, but her relationship with him still remains distant during this troubled time in her life. As Kate's life becomes more chaotic that she ever dreamed, how can she reconcile herself to a life without MIT?
If nothing else, "Catalyst" takes a brave stab at delving deeper into a topic that is seldom explored. Many "young adult" books deal with depressed, addicted, or low-achieving teenagers, yet "Catalyst" does just the opposite. Lori Halse Anderson begins the books with several well-done chapters showing just how driven, obsessive, and in some ways, dysfunctional Kate really is. Readers can literally feel how much Kate WANTS to go to MIT, and Kate's frayed nerves about being admitted and her subsequent denial over not being accepted are vividly brought to life.
But after those first few chapters and Kate's "breakdown" over the MIT issue, the book loses something. It seems that as we continue reading "Catalyst," the Teri Litch situation takes up more and more of the story line, and instead of being a good complication in the story, it merely seems to distract from the issue of Kate resolving her feelings about MIT, college, and failure. I kept wating for Kate to sit down, "take stock," and come to grips with her disappointment. But that never happened. Kate and her family are in a whirl of activity concerned with the Litches from the moment their house burns down, and this activity totally cosumes the latter half of the story. The end of the book is too hurried and unrealistic, and does not seem like a satisfactory resolution to all of the problems Kate has faced during the book. Finally, the characters in this book just seemed a little too distant and surreal. I can't totally describe this, but the book seemed a little too dream-like, and Kate's confusion over MIT and then about how to deal with Teri just seemed too distant and detached.
In conclusion, it's hard to know what to say. I'd say read this book, simply for the numerous moments of excellent writing and the portrait of a teenager who is the opposite of the many typically seen in "young adult" novels. But don't expect a novel that stays excellent to the very end and has completely "down-to-earth" characters. Like I said, in "Catalyst," the story's chemistry is just not quite perfect.
21 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

A book about REAL teenagers? Couldn't be.

As a sixteen-year-old, I can appreciate Laurie Halse Anderson's writing for its honest and unabashed portrayal of adolescence. In Catalyst and Speak, Anderson recognizes the fact that high school is not necessarily the "best years of our lives" filled with fun, friendships, and happy endings. In fact, Catalyst, while not overdramatic, focuses on many of the unhappy events in the protagonist's life, many of which will impact her future as well. And the book's ending, while relatively satisfying yet abrupt, is not at all reminiscent of the conclusion found in most young adult books.
The main character Kate is like many high school "geeks" - she has a good GPA, takes advanced classes, and is on the school track team. She has a boyfriend and a close group of friends, but her life is thrown into tumult when one of her "enemies" moves into her house after a fire. The book focuses on Kate's grappling with the fact that she is not accepted into the one college to which she applied, MIT. Anderson's genius lies, however, not in plot but in character development. Avoiding stereotypes and overdramatization of relationships serves the book well and lays a foundation to which all types of readers can identify.
If you are looking for an easy read that is not wrought with petty boyfriend-girlfriend relationships and high school dramas largely focused on prom and getting your first kiss, I would recommend this book to you. It held my attention the entire time I was reading it.
And for those of you who are fans of Speak, this book contains cameos by a few of the characters.
9 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Toxic

I happened across this, and picked it up on the grounds that YA books are often good stories. I found it utterly appalling, not because of the writing (which was expressive and engaging), but because I thought the underlying messages in the story were completely toxic. The ones I noticed:

1) Girls aren't meant to be successful, even if they're bright, talented and disciplined, they'll just screw it up.
2) When you fail, you should give up instead of trying to fix it or find another way.
3) Ignoring problems is the way to deal with them.
4) If you've done something wrong, the answer is to be more nurturing. Even if you're already spending a lot of time caring for people who neither need, want, nor appreciate it.
5) An appropriate way to deal with people who treat you badly is to be more understanding and give them the opportunity to continue the behavior.

Oh, and let's not forget the boyfriend who is convinced by the events of the book that studying history is impractical, and he needs to study something 'real'.

Girls already grow up in a world of mixed messages and conflicting cultural expectations about what makes them good or valued members of society. This is a story designed to undermine ambition and sow doubts about the very things that bright and talented girls already worry about. I'm very grateful that I didn't read this as a teen, when I might have found it more persuasive.
8 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Could Be Better

Being the sister of an MIT student and having loved Anderson's previous novel Speak, I was prepared to be stunned by the author's next book, a novel about a girl who *gasp* wants to go to MIT! Maybe this was why Catalyst, a perfectly average (maybe even above average) teen novel came as something of a disappointment. While the author's wit, psychological insight and excellent writing remain, something is different.
The protagonist of Catalyst is Kate Malone. Preacher's daughter, brilliant student, lots of friends and a hot boyfriend who just got into Harvard. We should hate her--and hey! I do. I don't know where Anderson went wrong with Kate. In most respects, she's a fabulous portrait of a "perfect" person who's falling apart in the seams, breaking down from the inside. But I still can't help resenting the hell out of her--being jealous about her perfect grades, nice dad, faithful friends and great boyfriend. Anderson had a winner with Speak because the heroine, Melinda was someone almost everyone could either relate to or pity. Kate isn't relatable at all.
Catalyst is a solid effort in other aspects. While Kate lacks the witty, cynical humor characteristic of Melinda (Kate's humor is rather perkier), it's still better than the fluffy idiocy one finds in "Angus, Thongs...Snogging" and its ilk. What disappointed me about Catalyst, however was that we didn't get as comprehensive a view of all the different cliques and people that make up high school as we did with Speak. Kate was not as observant (or in my opinion, as intelligent) as Melinda. Anderson also showed a tendency to overdramatize, something which was mercifully absent from Speak. While Terry's brother's death was handled with the understated, not-too-flashy sorrow that made Speak so enjoyable, many other incidents got much more description than they warranted. Overall though, still 100% better than the average teen book.
8 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Powerful

Powerful. Laurie Halse Anderson has created characters and situations that fill the reader with as much stress and emotion as those on the page. We're not sure we really like Kate, the high school senior who suffers from insomnia and runs so hard that she does physical damage to herself. We can sympathize with her college dilemma, but still, I'm not sure we like her. And most readers probably won't like Teri, the harsh outcast character who Kate ends up aiding. But Ms. Anderson writes with such force that we are compelled to read non-stop until we find out the heart-wrenching conclusions that these two difficult characters face.
Definitely a high school read and for any adult who remembers what being a teenager is like.
2 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

A Letdown

I have to say that Catalyst was a letdown. I read Speak, which was a good book by the same author. So i was expecting Catalyst to be at least somewhere near as good as Speak. But it wasn't, it let me down.
This book is simply the thoughts of a stressed-out girl complaining about all her problems. Kate Malone, the main character in the story, is a very smart and athletic girl. It starts out with her worried about getting into MIT, the only college she applied to. When she doesn't get in, she is screwed because she doesn't have any safety schools to go to, big surprise since she only applied to one school. However, you expect the book to move along from that point once she finds out she was rejected. But instead the book just drags along, never really solving that problem but never letting it go either.
This story is very slow. Pretty early on in the story, their neighbor's house burns down, so the family, a poor messed-up family, has to live with the Malones. So a lot of the story is spent telling what happens with them living with her. The whole time I was reading it, I expected it to get better, I expected the story to pick up. But it never does. Throughout the whole book, something would happen to Kate, or to someone around Kate, and she would just get all stressed out about it. There was one point of action in the story, which was exciting for a few pages. But right after the action picked up, more time was spent telling how stressed out Kate was about that. It's basically a lot of complaining and unnecessary problems inside the narrator's mind. Even up to the last page, I was expecting something to happen, but even the ending is a letdown. It just ends, it's not a good ending at all.
It's really not too bad of a story line. But the way the story is told isn't very interesting. Sure, this wasn't a horrible book. It wasn't the most boring book I've ever read. It just isn't fantastic either. If you really like books told from a first-person view from a girl, almost in diary format, then you might like this book, but if you haven't read Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson read that one first.
2 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Unrealistic Ending

I read Catalyst right after reading another one of Anderson’s books, Shout, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Unfortunately, Catalyst was a disappointment. The book started off great, but Kate, the main character, let Teri walk all over her and did nothing to stop her. Teri stole Kate’s watch and a necklace, and treated Kate horribly through the entire book. I kept wanting Kate to stand up for herself and demand Teri return the stolen items.

Tragedy strikes Teri’s home and Teri moves in with Kate’s family, taking over Kate’s bedroom. Teri’s terrible treatment of Kate escalates.

Mostly, I disliked the ending. After all that Teri has done to Kate, stolen her property, disrespected her, and treated her like crap, Kate helps Teri. The ending did not seem realistic to me. I get that Kate’s father is a minister and Kate was raised in a religious house, but for Kate to keep doing all the good she did for Teri, only to have Teri continue to disrespect her, was not realistic.
1 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Not her strongest work, not bad either.

I love Laurie Halse Anderson's books, but this one doesn't compare in quality to her other works. Not bad, not great...just OK.
1 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

Catalyst...was good but could have been better!

Kate Malone is a straight A student whose dream is to get into MIT, which so happens to be her dead mother's alum school. Kate loves chemistry, and her boyfriend has already been accepted early decision to Harvard, so she is feeling the pressure to get in! One catch: she ONLY applied to MIT because she was so confident that she and her love of chemistry would get her in. However, her perfect world unravels beginning with a fire that destroys her neighbor's house. Her neighbor happens to be Teri Litch, a bully who Kate has always hated. Because Kate's father is a caring reverend, he lets Teri and her "brother" Mikey stay at their own house.

Laurie Anderson does a good job of showing us how obsessive Kate is. She forgoes sleep (what hardworking student doesn't?) to get her work done. She is always envisioning the fat letter, and she talks about when she gets into MIT, not if. Kate is constantly making lists to further her goals. However, when she (surprise) gets the thin envelope, she starts to think that it was a HUGE mistake and even calls MIT, pretending to be her dead mother. Her obsession goes overboard, yes, but she has to put it on the backburner when the Litches' house comes burning down.

Kate reminded me a little of myself, when I was going through the college process earlier this year, but no way was I that cutthroat! I like how Anderson showed us the impacts of the pressure to get into America's top colleges that kids today have. I went through the same thing this year and I could empathize with the anxiety. My favorite passage was when Kate's classmates, with listed GPAs and everything, all stared hungrily at her and each other, asking about college acceptances. If anything, the first 1/3 of the book was about America's youth and the agonizing pressure of being perfect and getting into the top colleges, and feeling like absolute scum when rejections come in. But it does not have to be this way.

One reader mentioned that this is not really Kate's story anymore after that, and I agree. About 2/3 of the book is really about Teri, her family troubles, and her love for Mikey. Kate agonizes about MIT heavily in the beginning, but as Teri's situation comes into light, I don't really see Kate having a clear resolution with the college issue. The abrupt ending came on as a surprise - it was supposed to be her resolution with the college issue, but I didn't see it coming. I wish that Anderson explained the many loose ends about Kate. There were a lot of question marks about Kate, especially because she shuts herself off from basically everyone. Kate and Teri never seem to click, but they are supposed to by the end of the book, and I didn't really see that coming, either.

Teri's story was nicely done, though. An unexpected twist that was well written happens near the end of the book, which, in my opinion, was the biggest event in the entire book-even bigger than Kate's rejection. I was in utter shock, but I loved it.

Kate Malone was not really the heroine in the book, in my opinion. I never really liked her, even to the end. However, do read this book because it captures the portrait of a determined young lady who has to deal with unexpected twists and turns in her life. It's just that here, the twists and turns become the book, and the real spotlight is no longer on Kate.
1 people found this helpful

Related Books