Olivetti
If Toy Story and The Brave Little Toaster had a baby, it might look quite a lot like Olivetti.
Synopsis: A heartfelt novel praised by Tom Hanks in the New York Times as including "a conclusion nearly impossible to divine and yet so perfect it includes that most tactile of memories..."
Being a typewriter is not as easy as it looks. Surrounded by books (notorious attention hogs) and recently replaced by a computer, Olivetti has been forgotten by the Brindle family―the family he’s lived with for years. The Brindles are busy humans, apart from 12-year-old Ernest, who would rather be left alone with his collection of Oxford English Dictionaries. The least they could do was remember Olivetti once in a while, since he remembers every word they’ve typed on him. It’s a thankless job, keeping memories alive.
Olivetti gets a rare glimpse of action from Ernest’s mom, Beatrice―his used-to-be most frequent visitor―only for her to drop him off at Heartland Pawn Shop and leave him helplessly behind. When Olivetti learns Beatrice has mysteriously gone missing afterward, he believes he can help find her. He breaks the only rule of the “typewriterly code” and types back to Ernest, divulging Beatrice’s memories stored inside him.
Their search takes them across San Francisco―chasing clues, maybe committing a few misdemeanors. As Olivetti spills out the past, Ernest is forced to face what he and his family have been running from, The Everything That Happened. Only by working together will they find Beatrice, belonging, and the parts of themselves they’ve lost.
Review: If Toy Story and The Brave Little Toaster had a baby, it might look quite a lot like Olivetti.
I enjoyed many things about this middle grade contemporary novel with a fantastical twist. Ernest's reluctant friendship with Quinn was nice, and even the side characters had little quirks to them that made them feel three dimensional despite brief amounts of time on the page. Ernest's personal journey from feeling like he can only rely on himself to understanding the value and strength in relationship and openness with others was also nice to read.
The concept of a sentient typewriter is likely what will draw many readers to pick up this book. Olivetti's perspective on the world was honest and refreshing, and the way he views the world somehow rings true to what I imagine a typewriter might feel or think. I feel like there is so much more that could have been done with this concept, and the bright spot of a typewriter's POV in the end just wasn't enough for me to feel good about giving it a strong recommendation.
(Spoilers ahead) One reason for that is the fact that Olivetti was significantly sadder than I was expecting it to be, and I felt like the back cover copy did not do a good job preparing readers for the gravity they'd find inside. As a mother, I cannot ever fathom a situation where I up and abandon my family for days without any contact. The author, to my knowledge, is not a mother, and this was the part of the book that read the least true to me. The family was all very understanding of the mom, to a point that I felt was unhealthy, when they all were significantly traumatized by her voluntary days-long disappearance.
There was also a point at which I thought the mom was considering suicide, just as her children had found her, and the author didn't really do anything to allay those fears. Ernest was yelling up to his mom, trying to be the reason she felt okay, and I just didn't find it appropriate at all for a middle grade story to put a kid in that situation. It turned out that she was not planning to jump, but it will likely go through reader's minds before the author clears things up.
Content Considerations: Parent with cancer, child not attending to self-care like washing, changing clothes, brushing teeth, concern of parent suicide, parent abandonment.
Summary: A sentient typewriter is cool, but there are books out there that better portray the message of family and relying on others. Tom Hanks liked it.
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