Nothing to See Here plot summary

When Lillian gets a message from her old school friend, Madison, about a possible job opportunity, she’s excited. She shows up with no idea what to expect, but what she gets is weirder than she could possibly imagine. A request to take care of Madison’s step-kids who, by the way, have a tendency to spontaneously combust. Lillian is about to have the strangest summer of her life, learning along the way about the overlaps between obligation, duty and love.

My thoughts on Nothing to See Here

From the very first page of Nothing to See Here, author Kevin Wilson sets up a clear contrast between these women. You have Madison, who’s glamorous, successful and interesting. And you have Lillian, our first-person narrator, who seems to be in stasis. She talks Madison up before starting to tell us about herself, establishing their dynamic up-front.

Then you start to learn about Lillian’s history, in the context of explaining how she and Madison met. And you find out that she used to be furiously ambitious.

“I had spent my childhood gritting my teeth and smashing everything to bits in the name of excellence.”

You get introduced to Madison twice over, once on the first page as Lillian explains how different they are, and then again within ten pages as Lillian describes their meeting as teenagers. They were sharing a room at a fancy boarding school, which Lillian went to extraordinary effort to get into and win a scholarship for. But right away when the two meet there’s this interesting shift that happens. Madison’s childhood introduction makes a strong impression. And in the face of that, Lillian’s drive seems to wane.

Shortly after that you find out about the scandal that caused Lillian to have to leave their fancy school, and the way that all went down seems to have stripped her of her ambition entirely by the time the novel begins. It would be interesting to look more closely at why that was, but the author doesn’t really go there. And welcome to a recurring theme of this book! But more on that later.

Nothing to See Here is very funny. There’s lots of comedy in conversation between characters, and I found myself laughing out loud at dialogue more than once. Obviously, the situation is so bizarre that there’s a lot of humour to be found in that! But the author doesn’t just rely on situational comedy. Although, okay, speaking of “the situation”…

The combustible children

Let’s not beat around the bush: The kids catch fire. There’s some exploration of when this happens, and a teeny tiny detour into the question of how it might happen. By and large though, it’s kind of just accepted. It’s still very strange within the world of the story, this isn’t fantasy or anything! But the characters work around it and get on with things as best they can.

The kids in question (Bessie and Roland) are fascinating. I’d love to have read more about them, their relationship with each other, how they interpret their strange ability. They’ve obviously had quite a difficult life, which is touched on, but not explored all that much. There are hints towards the way they relate to each other, but I wanted to really dive into the way their shared power? Curse? Affliction? Their shared situation, to continue with that euphemistic language, had shaped the way they relate to each other. No such luck, unfortunately.

There’s another child who features prominently in the story; Timothy, Madison’s son with her husband (Senator Roberts). There’s a great scene between him and Lillian where he tells her about how he plays with his stuffed animals. He seems odd as well, although in an endearing way.

Basically, all of the characters seem slightly off-kilter in a way that makes them deeply intriguing. But there’s not much more than a surface-level exploration of any of them, which was disappointing.

Madison and Lillian’s relationship was another element of the story that I was deeply interested in, and wanted more exploration of. There are clearly feelings there, Lillian seems unable to say no to Madison. But are they only one-sided? Is Lillian gay, or bi? Or just super into Madison? Because there’s quite an early suggestion that Lillian’s feelings for Madison are not exactly platonic, I was hoping for another explicitly queer female protagonist. Maybe my hopes were higher in part because of the beautiful bi representation of Something to Talk About, which I read last week? In any case, no such joy here. I’m not mad about it, just add it to the list of things I wanted the book to tell me more about.

There were some points of confusion for me while reading Nothing to See Here

It was very easy-reading, but it felt like a book for a younger audience a lot of the time. And I couldn’t entirely work out why. Maybe the way the plot skimmed the surface of all of the ideas and relationships it was laying out for us? Maybe just the fact that I think “grown-up” books should be harder work? It was pretty sweary though, and the ages of the main characters (late 20s, I believe, for the most part) suggest an adult target audience.

Lillian didn’t always feel entirely consistent as a character. The clearest example of this for me was a comment she makes in the latter third of the book about not liking to be touched. Fine, a totally reasonable trait! It just felt like it could have been communicated previously in any of the many, many scenes where the kids were all over her or hogging most of her bed.

Also, I wasn’t sure exactly what the plot was a lot of the time. I wasn’t sure what Lillian wanted for most of the novel. Or, okay, ever. I wondered a few times where it was going, and when it got there, I wasn’t sure how to feel about it.

Summary

Nothing to See Here is a brilliantly weird book, with fascinating characters and a lot of layers. I just wish we’d been able to explore those layers more! I enjoyed every page, but when I turned the last one it was with a feeling of, “Oh… that’s it then?” I’d still recommend it, because it’s honestly the most delightfully strange story I’ve read in a while.