This book was given to me by the lovely Cindy over at Groundwood Books in exchange for an honest review. It does not influence in any way my thoughts on this book.
OMG!!! Guys, this is THE book you have to read this year. I mean yeah, there's Six of Crows that came out and Queen of shadows, but this book is a whole different category and it deserves all the attention it can get!
The story goes something along those lines:
Calvin is a seventeen years old boy who happens to have a schizophrenic episode, which lands him in the hospital. He is convinced that he is the character from the Calvin and Hobbes comics and that the thing that would make him better was if the author, Bill Watterson, wrote a last strips with an older Calvin without any mental illness. The way to do that? Walk across lake Erie (during winter, when the water is frozen) to prove his devotion to Bill.
This is a story of adventure and romance and all things amazing and you should read it. Why? Here's why!
The "We need diverse books" movement is something that almost everyone in the book blogging community has heard of, and this book fits right in! It focuses on a mental illness that is rarely seen in YA: schizophrenia. Not gonna to lie, I didn't know much about this illness before reading this book; I imagined people hearing voices and seeing things that would make them freak out and go crazy, I was wrong. People dealing with schizophrenia do have some kinds of hallucination, but it doesn't mean that they cannot function properly, au contraire!
In this book, schizophrenia is portrayed by the authot as if it wasn't actually an "illness" but just a different way of living and I liked that a lot.
I remind you that reality is just this game people play together, something your brain decides on, and the minute your brain gets iffy about reality, they realize everything they know about the world is just their own made-up version of it, and that would mean everyone is walking around in their own made-up world, all alone, and reality is just something we invent together to make us feel not so alone. It scares people when some of us check out of the game.
To be frank, this book was just perfect for me; I could relate in so many ways! The story takes place in Ontario, Canada, which is where I live actually, and the characters are my age.
Those of you who've been following me for a while know how I like when books and characters are real. Calvin and Susie were real. They were true, stupid, kind hearted teenagers who reminded me of myself; some things they said, I swear they could have been taking out of my own head!
I've got nothing against knowing the molecular difference between an acid and a base, but something practical once in a while? I just want to look around in the world and not be totally baffled by it, even as I recite the periodic table, you know?
Martine Leavitt, a hundred percent, hands down, nailed this book on every aspect of it: storyline, characters, setting, description, character development, subject, EVRYTHING!
Plus, the life lesson I got out of it is amazing! And not in a cheesy way or in a "you can do anything if you believe" kind of way. A "the universe is messed up deal with it" kind of lesson.
When something is hard to believe, maybe it's the universe shaking things up a bit, maybe it's saying, you haven't got me all figured out by a long shot. It's saying, I have a sense of humour, too.
This book just landed a spot on my FAV shelf and I don't know how to convince you to read it, you just HAVE to! It's coming out November 15 2015 so mark that in your calendar everyone, trust me when I say that this book is worth your time all the way!
Sophie
