Wow. Yeah. Wow. This is an incredible read. I’m not really sure how to write about it without giving anything away. I will just say this though…the characters are so well-written and dimensional that you don’t just sympathize with them, you empathize with them. This novel really makes you feel. At one point I had to stop reading because the scene was so powerful I just wanted to digest it. And it was in a high point of the book where you should’ve wanted to keep going to find out what happened next. I found myself doing that more with this book than usual. In fact, it took me four days, at least, to read this book and it’s only 312 pages, so it’s not like it was WAR AND PEACE or anything. Some books you devour because they’re so good and others you savor because they’re so good. The was a savorer.
One of the great things about this novel is that it’s got this whole other world – the world of comic books and graphic novels – that you the reader get to experience. I mean, what a great thing to have in a novel because there are all the comic book kids who will really identify and yet, those of us who have never read a comic book in our lives still get it and learn something new too.
Author Tom Perrotta called it “A captivating, darkly entertaining first novel.” And yeah…that sums it up really well. It is entertaining, but it’s also dark. And for those of you who have asked that I make note of things like that here on this blog, I would say this is a book for a teen, not so much a pre-teen…unless you (the parent) read it first because you know your kids and know if they’re ready for this or not. I personally would let my kid read it (which is easy to say because I don’t have any), but like I’ve said before, my mom thought it was important to let me choose what I read and I think that’s a good move. So…yeah, it’s a little dark, but even if your comfort zone is low in regards to dark (mine is very low), this book is worth it.
Oh, and by the way, did I mention that Barry Lyga and I have the same agent ? That’s how I came across this book. He’s got a really cool site that you should check out.
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