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    Mathilda Savitch: A Novel
    Mathilda Savitch: A Novel
    Mathilda Savitch: A Novel
    Audiobook8 hours

    Mathilda Savitch: A Novel

    Written by Victor Lodato

    Narrated by Cassandra Campbell

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    I want to be awful. I want to do awful things and why not? Dull is dull is dull is my life. Like now, it's night, not yet time for bed but too late to be outside, and the two of them reading reading reading with their eyes moving like the lights inside a copy machine. When I was helping put the dishes in the washer tonight, I broke a plate. I said sorry Ma it slipped. But it didn't slip, that's how I am sometimes, and I want to be worse. Awful is easy if you make it your one and only.

    Fear doesn't come naturally to Mathilda Savitch. She prefers to look right at the things nobody else can bring themselves to mention: for example, the fact that her beloved older sister is dead, pushed in front of a train by a man who is still on the loose. But after a year of spying and provocations, she's no closer to the truth than she was the day it happened. When Mathilda finally cracks Helen's e-mail password, a secret life opens up, one that swiftly draws her into a world of clouded motives and strange emotion. Somewhere in it lies the key to waking her family up from their dream of grief. To cross into that underworld and see what her sister saw, she has to risk everything that matters to her.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateSep 15, 2009
    ISBN9781400183302
    Author

    Victor Lodato

    Victor Lodato is the recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships and has won numerous awards for his plays, including an award from the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays. This is his first novel. He lives in Tuscon, Arizona and New York.

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    Reviews for Mathilda Savitch

    3.5/5

    159 ratings37 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This wasa very interesting read. I found the book a bit slow at the beginning, however once I got past the first two chapters, I slowly become engrossed. The main character is a young girl, Mathilda, who has to deal with not only her older sister's death, but also her parents, specifically her mother, in their reactions to the sister's death. At times I felt really sorry for Mathilda. Her mother pretty much seems to ignore her, while the dad seems primarily focused on the mother. Mathilda also seems focused on finding out everything she can about her sister - reading her emails, going through her things in her room, retracing her last steps, etc...At times I couldn't figure out what Mathilda was trying to achieve. It seemed to me her biggest objective was getting her mother's attention, however at times, I found her actions unbelievable. Towards the end of the book, I had a hard time staying interested. Something was missing and I can't put my finger on it, however I was not bowled over by this book.
    • 4/5
      Mathilda Savitch is the name of the main character in this Young Adult novel and I was instantly gripped by her voice and emotion. Mathilda's older sister was killed when she was pushed in front of a train and while her parents grieve in their own ways, they've drifted apart from each other. Mathilda is sick of it and attempts to shock them back into reality by being bad. She also tries to find out as much about her sister Helene as she can, and hopefully learn something about why she was murdered. Mathilda does find a number of hidden secrets which slowly lead her closer to the truth.I was surprised that a male author could write the thoughts and dialogue of a teenage girl so well and I thoroughly enjoyed the voice of Mathilda. The best friend relationship she has with Anna was incredibly written, and at times it left me shaking my head with wondrous disbelief. At times amusing, and at times poignant, this is a coming of age story as much as it is about a family coming to terms with their grief. Although it had an ambiguous ending, it would be terrific to discuss in a book club and I thoroughly recommend Mathilda Savitch to female Young Adult / Adult readers.
    • 4/5
      Mathilda Savitch comes complete with a fresh, insightful voice from our teenage narrator. The book's family dynamic is dysfunctional, as all three remaining members fail to cope with daughter/sister Helene's suicide. This coming of age novel might also be good for the young adult sector, dealing as it does with communication walls between a teenager and adults. We see teenagers expressing loss in complex ways, adults silent with grief. Yet we also see that humor lives on, and that it can sustain us. The novel shows very vividly the differences in suffering, as the book does a good job with characterization. I loved the author's voice and found the novel quite good.
    • 5/5
      Mathilda Savitch, the narrator and the book, grabs you from the beginning. Mathilda’s beautiful and willful older sister, Helene, has been dead for a year. Pushed in front of a train, Mathilda believes, at sixteen. Highly observant and intelligent, Mathilda is witness and victim to her parent's, and her own, grief; and her mother’s almost total inability to cope. Mathilda tries to write about it, but “when you have a sister who died, it screws up all your tenses.”Mathilda is both adult-like in her observations, “old women with dogs and no husbands is a pretty serious business when you think about it,” and definitely still a child, “the dead do most of their business at night. They don’t have bedtimes like the rest of us.”As Mathilda gets closer to the truth over Helen’s death she becomes both more frantic and childlike, and more grown up. A stunning story.
    • 4/5
      Mathilda's older sister Helene died mysteriously about a year ago and her parents are still having a tough time dealing with it, basically shuffling through life. Mathilda isn't ready to sit still and decides to learn as much as she can about her sister by going through her possessions and e-mails. She wants to shock her parents by being "awful."After finishing the book, I'm not entirely sure what some of the plot points were doing there (the terror stuff especially). It seemed to be more of Mathilda wandering around learning about her sister, her family and herself. In my opinion, the plot is secondary to the voice of Mathilda herself, especially her innermost thoughts. I enjoyed reading her honest thoughts about the world around her and what she thought about her new knowledge about her sister's death. The ending was very abrupt but I enjoyed the strange meandering of Mathilda anyway.
    • 4/5
      i loved this book so much at first i thought it was going to be a 5 star, but i wasn't as happy with the middle and end. i thought mathilda was a delightful narrartor. funny. witty. insightful. just loved her. I just wanted a little something else to happen? overall though, great book!
    • 2/5
      Very dark. Had promise in a lot of different ways, but ultimately it disappointed. It felt like a first novel.

      Found the sexual stuff disturbing and unpleasant, which isn't always a bad thing, but it was in this case.
    • 3/5
      This book was entertaining. I wouldn't consider it a great book, but if you're bored it's worth picking up. Mathilda wasn't as terrible as the back of the book made her seem. To see the way that she purposely hurt her family by tormenting them with her sister's death was a bit heart breaking. I didn't find the book funny either, but watching Mathilda grow and finally accept her sister's death made the book worth the read.
    • 2/5
      sad as it was, I tired of her agony and travails dealing with her sister's death
    • 5/5
      Completely odd, crazy, strange -- but great writing and story development. A story of grief -- and how it affects a family. Very engrossing, while also being funny. Coming of age, love, life, families, and so much more. But do NOT read if you want a conventional story.
    • 1/5
      A terrible book. A never ending mish mash of uninteresting writing. There was not one character I could relate to or liked. The story was hard to understand and it went all over the place. When I read the first line I was expecting so very much from it, but I was disappointed. This book won the B&N Discover Great New Writers. This does not bode well for other titles they have chosen. A coming-of-age story of the most disconnected, uninspiring kind. This will definately be sold to HPB.
    • 3/5
      This book made my heart hurt - and not necessarily in the good way that gives you a sense of understanding and hope through the pain. It was just a whole lot of pain.But don't let me make you think that it wasn't a good book, because it was. It was dark, terrifying, filled with horror, heartache, pain and hurt - everything a coming-of-age story seems to need to reflect the current time. It dealt with heavy issues such as terrorism, suicide, alcoholism, neglect and sexuality, all through the perspective of a young girl who is dealing with the loss of an older sister.Mathilda Savitch is a short book, but don't let its length fool you. It was like chewing a meaty novel, it took time and I had to take several breaks before moving forward again with the story just so I could absorb what was happening. And my heart broke over and over again for Mathilda. This is definitely an adult novel, and not one easily recommended. The subject matter is just so heavy, I hesitate to encourage anyone to just run out and read it. So instead, what I'll say is - if you want to read a novel that will make you think, make you consider how your own actions can affect those closest to you, then take the time out to read this book.
    • 4/5
      i loved this book so much at first i thought it was going to be a 5 star, but i wasn't as happy with the middle and end. i thought mathilda was a delightful narrartor. funny. witty. insightful. just loved her. I just wanted a little something else to happen? overall though, great book!
    • 5/5
      Why? I was grabbed by cover silhouette of a little girl who is clearly up to no good and the first sentences: I want to be awful. I want to do awful things and why not? Dull is dull is my life. and so it goes. Mathilda is twelve, I think and her older sister has been murdered and she's trying to shock her parents out of their grief stupor. I loved it. It was irreverent, perceptive, humorous and human.
    • 4/5
      Mathilda Savitch comes complete with a fresh, insightful voice from our teenage narrator. The book's family dynamic is dysfunctional, as all three remaining members fail to cope with daughter/sister Helene's suicide. This coming of age novel might also be good for the young adult sector, dealing as it does with communication walls between a teenager and adults. We see teenagers expressing loss in complex ways, adults silent with grief. Yet we also see that humor lives on, and that it can sustain us. The novel shows very vividly the differences in suffering, as the book does a good job with characterization. I loved the author's voice and found the novel quite good.
    • 4/5
      Mathilda Savitch was a pretty unusual read. I thought it was going to be completely different from what it turned out to be. The summary in the back of the book states that Mathilda is trying to find the truth of her sister's death. It's less about her finding the truth than it is about her trying to cope with the grief brought on by her sister's death. I've read a couple of reviews that mention that the voice of the Mathilda rang false for them. To me, Mathilda was like any other teen girl who was trying to find her way. She's trying to deal with the death of her sister and with her parents zombie behavior that was brought on by the death the only way she knows how: causing mischief. Due to the fact that Mathilda was the narrator, I was able to get into this story more than I would have had it been written in the third person. If you add the fact that Mathilda is often an unreliable person in which to get your information, then I believe you have a winner. Even though Mathilda Savitch deals with a depressing topic (the death of a family member) and the story is set to a backdrop where acts of terror are part of the norm more than they really are in this current time period, I found that the book did have some humorous parts. Mathilda is just so witty and sarcastic that it's almost impossible not to end up caring for her. She's extremely imaginative and due to this, it's heartbreaking to see her try so hard to get a little bit of attention from her grieving parents. Mathilda Savitch was an enthralling read. Some parts were a bit jumbled and tended to ramble (hence the four star rating and not five stars), but overall it was an enjoyable read. Highly recommended!
    • 5/5
      Mathilda Savitch is the story of a young girl coming to grips with the suicide of her older sister and the subsequent depression of her mother. Mathilda tries every awful trick she can think of to draw her mother's attention to her and acceptance of the family's loss. Along the way, Mathilda comes to accept the real circumstances of her sister's death and a new understanding of the daughter she wants to be. The writing is fresh and intelligent--author Victor Lodato gives his heroine a wonderfully individual voice. I gained a few new insights about the human race while enjoying this emotional drama.
    • 4/5
      A searing coming of age novel narrated by Mathilda.It has been one year since her beautiful, perfect, 16 yr old sister died in a train accident, and Mathilda is coming to terms with it through her stream of consciousness narrative, and her lively imaginative life. Her mother is unbalanced and drinks too much, her father is not really present for her. The book takes place in a future world where terrorism and fear rules people's life.Sad, haunting, beautiful told novel.
    • 3/5
      Sorry but it wasn't my favorite. I wasn't disappointed that I read it but I don't know if I could recommend it to others. The book vered off of course a few times which just made it more confusing. Mathilda seemed like she could be real, but some of the book was just too much of a stretch for me.
    • 4/5
      After her older sister, Helene's, untimely death, Mathilda (of unstated age. 13? 14?) is left to navigate her way through her rapidly deteriorating family. Her mother has become a zombie, doing nothing but staring at walls, smoking cigarettes, and avoiding the disasters on the news. Her father spends all of his time trying to placate her mother. Even her dog is old and sickly now. After a year of waiting for some semblance of normalcy, Mathilda feels she has no choice. If she is going to get any attention, she is going to have act out, get noticed, rock the boat. Through various ploys and schemes, some devious, some hilarious, others misguided and mean, Mathilda bumbles her way through adolescence and her own grief, trying to come to terms with life as it has become. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what this book reminded me of. The writing style, the parents, Mathilda herself. It was all very familiar. It wasn't until the very end of the novel when Mathilda talks about the moonlight, "And the way it floats on top of the hill, I'm telling you, it's blow-your-brains-out beautiful," that it hit me. Of course, to other readers it might have seemed obvious all along but I guess I was in a brain fog. But it struck me, Ah HA!, Holden Caulfield. Yes, she is very Caulfield-esque and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I didn't like Catcher in the Rye when I read it for school. Having enjoyed this novel, I wonder if some age and experience would change my mind. I found the inside of Mathilda's mind, as fashioned by Lodato as very engaging. Yes, we don't get any real resolve, but that's not really the point, is it? It's a journey. Mathilda is growing and we even see some growth in her parents towards the end. I took this down to 3 1/2 stars instead of 4 or more because I found the slight, underdeveloped dystopian element a little awkward. We are given hints that this takes place sometime in the future with more terrorists and terrorist attacks. It also came to me that this fear in some way plays into all of Mathilda's other fears and neurosis and that it was her way of coping with a disaster she could handle, but I couldn't really make sense of it. Maybe I missed it, maybe I wasn't smart enough to get it, but it didn't play for me. Otherwise, a solid B+ book.
    • 4/5
      I was an early reviewer for this book and I really enjoyed it! It's amazing that a man wrote this book from a 14 year old girl's standpoint! The book kept pulling me back to see what secret was going to be revealed. I highly recommend this book !
    • 2/5
      Mathilda Savitch only knows September 11, 2001, from movies and old television footage. In her world, terrorist attacks are frequent and “wars in desserts” ongoing. Mattie faces her life with a level of fearlessness, speaking openly about the news and practicing what she would do in case of an attack. But Mattie and her parents have been traumatized by their own tragedy - the mysterious death of Mattie’s older sister, Helene, a year ago. With no one to turn to, Mattie obsesses over letters and emails from Helene’s secret boyfriend, determined to discover what really happened to her sister.Unfortunately, Mattie is not the precocious sleuth described on the book’s jacket. She’s a very troubled girl, acting out in dangerous ways. Inexplicably for a girl her age, Mattie is interested not in typical girlish fairy tale romance but in the gritty details and power plays of adult sexual attraction. Her attitude might be explained by a history of sexual abuse but the author reveals only a fairly normal childhood, save for Helen’s manic-depression.Lodato’s writing style effectively conveys Mattie’s nervous energy and scattered thinking. But he frequently divides the speech of a single character into multiple paragraphs, making the narrative confusing and disjointed. The resolution is only slightly redemptive and is unsatisfactorily vague.
    • 2/5
      Mathilda's older sister is dead and her parents aren't handling it very well. On top of that, terror continues to be the big story across the country. I'd like to be able to give more of the plot, but after finishing this book, I'm still completely unclear as to what exactly the point of it was. Sure, Mathilda learned a little bit about her sister's final days and *seems* to have come to terms with her mother's aloofness, but Mathilda is rather strange and fickle throughout the story and the book ends abruptly. I can see this being a book that could appeal to some people, but the style was not for me. Mathilda grated on my nerves, alternately whiny and self-righteous, intuitive and down -right stupid, I found her to be completely unlikeable. People may argue that it's our flaws that make us human, which is true and I celebrate the authors who can bring a flawed character to life and make us root for them, Lodato could not. I stayed up late to finish this book solely to get it over with, it's done, the review is written and now I can move on to something I hope I will actually enjoy!
    • 4/5
      This is a realistic look at how one particular family dealt with the death of the oldest daughter. It is hard enough being 13 years old and dealing with first loves and changing bodies. But to add to that the grief and guilt experienced when your older sister dies, it is almost too much for Mathilda Savitch. On top of everything, her parents are wrapped up in their own sadness over their loss and seem to be slipping away from their living daughter.Mathilda deals with it, and she doesn't make the best choices. She doesn't even always try to make the best choices - she is just trying to survive and make sense of her senseless world. Because of her poor choices, I wouldn't call her a likable character. There were times when I distinctly did not like her. However, considering her circumstances, she is an extremely sympathetic character. As a reader, I felt sorry for her and I wanted to help her. If only she had someone to look after her! Instead, she has to muddle through and figure it out on her own. This is the story of how she does it. Along the way, she uncovers the painful realities of her sister's life and death.The book is well written and moves quickly. I wanted to keep reading, and as a result, finished rather quickly. The author has a marvelous way of putting us inside Mathilda's head. She is such a realistic character. Some people might call this a YA book because of the themes of growing up and the point of view of a 13 year old, but the lessons in this book are valuable for all ages.
    • 4/5
      This book is beyond strange. It draws you in and makes you love, hate, feel incredible sorrow for and want desperately to help this young girl, this family floundering in this uncharted territory of what happens when a beautiful young person dies very unexpectedly. Or -- was she murdered, did she commit suicide, so many questions unanswered. Mathilda needs answers. Her family is incredibly and understandably dysfunctional. Her mother, strangely detached, slipping into problem drinking, unable to cope. Her father, alternately trying to help Mathilda and trying to reclaim a wife who's becoming more and more distant. Despite all of this, Mathilda is funny. Her in-your-face philosophy of life is, alternately, hysterical and near the frayed edge of normalcy. More than a few times, I felt she had gone over the edge but then she comes back with some fairly typical teen antics.This is a girl struggling with so many issues, even a seasoned counselor would be hard-pressed to know where to start. How a book like this can be as funny as it is, is part of the beauty of this author's talent. The writing is a delight. We'll look forward to more books from this talented author.
    • 4/5
      Grief has many faces, and in this book, for our narrarator Mathilda, the face of grief is anger and guilt. Mathilda's older sister Helene died almost a year ago, pushed in front of a train by a stranger who has never been caught and punished for the crime. As Mathilda and her parents work through their own unique stages of grief, some shocking truths come out that Mathilda has to face and deal with and that start her on the path of healing and maturity and forgiveness, including forgiving herself. My heart broke for Mathilda, and I cringed at many of the choices she made, but I also realized by the end of the book how strong Mathilda was and that she would survive. This book is part mystery/part drama and is a real page-turner.
    • 5/5
      Mathilda Savitch is an engaging debut novel by Victor Lodato. The protagonist is Mathilda, a young girl in her early teens trying to make sense of, and cope with, the sudden violent death of her older sister Helene the previous year and her withdrawn, grief stricken parents. Described as having an 'artistic temperament', Mathilda decides that it is time her parents stop going through life like zombies and makes it her mission to snap them awake and find out why her sister died. In the process, we follow Mathilda as she tries to exert control over her environment through disruptive behavior, pulling hairs from her head to control errant thoughts, building a bomb shelter in her basement, and hacking into her dead sister's email account to try and make sense of her sister's death.Told through the voice of Mathilda, the story manages to ricochet through a myriad of topics beyond the usual adolescent issues. Mathilda provides her candid, unfiltered and refreshingly unique insights on everything around her, including the war on terror, religion, dream interpretation and my personal favorite, the concept of infinity. At times hilarious, the story contains a lot of thought provoking clarity around guilt, grief and a child's fear of a world that is unpredictable, unreliable and downright irrational. Mathilda's determination to face situations head on, even as she admits she is scared and has her doubts that she is doing the right thing, makes her such a lovable character. A great page turner that I highly recommend.
    • 5/5
      This book had me from the very first line and it did not let me go until the very end. Mathilda is such an engaging character and the "voice" of her narration throughout the book is mesmerizing. I have already recommended this book to a few people and I will continue to do so. It was funny and heartbreaking all at once.
    • 4/5
      I liked this book and was hooked after the first line, "I want to be awful." Mathilda is an interesting narrator and the way she plainly explains her feelings and thoughts about her sisters death and her own coming of age are often sad and funny all at the same time.
    • 4/5
      Mathilda's older sister died a year ago, and her family has fallen apart. Her father tries to carry on numbly, but is "disappearing," while her mother sinks into drinking and despair. Mathilda grieves for her sister, but is too lively to let life go on as it has become for her family. So she begins to shake things up, wearing her dead sister's clothes, contacting her sister's boyfriend, and sending email messages in her sister's name in a desparate attempt to understand and deal with the situation, as well as perhaps change it.Victor Lodato's beautifully controlled narrative voice carries the story and makes the reader fall completely in love with Mathilda, who is a good and clever girl trying to negotiate her life and grief in a household that's sunk into tragic disorder. Her heartbreaking attempts to attract her parents' attention, and at the same time understand the complexities of growing up form the most poignant moments in the book.As Mathilda begins to deteriorate into disturbing behavior and hurtful bad decisions, she reveals herself to be an unreliable narrator, and the story takes a more directed path in the larger world. Mathilda finally has a concrete, adult quest that she must successfully complete.The book is hysterically funny and desperately sad at once. Lodato captures the normal frustrations and confusion of growing up, with the incredible stresses added to Mathilda and her family. I am a complete sucker for books in the voice of young girls, and Lodato's debut novel is a wonderful addition.