Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Marisha Pessl
 Blue van Meer is the film-obsessed, erudite teenager whose head is filled with a witty pop culture lexicon, in contrast to most-90210-watching teenagers. She is the daughter of itinerant and arrogant academic Gareth van Meer, who, after the death of his amateur lepidopteran-catching wife (and Blue's mother), never manages to stay at a college for more than a semester. During Blue's senior year, however, they settle in the sleepy town of Stockton, North Carolina. She starts to attend the St. Gallway School and befriends a group of popular, rich, and ultra-mysterious teenagers called the Bluebloods: murky and rebellious Milton; flamboyant and flaming Nigel; ice-queen and pterodactyl Jade, free-loving, flower-child Leulah, and the dreamy Charles. The Bluebloods are also close friends with the film studies teacher at St. Gallway, Hannah Schneider, a perplexing woman who intrigues Blue more than she should. A drowning, a series of unfortunate events, and Hannah's own eventual death on a camping trip lead Blue to question everything she believes in.