I didn’t expect this book to be so sad, but it was. It was almost painfully sad at times, even by my depressing standards. But I’m glad that it touched on a lot of dark terrain that isn’t really thought of as belonging to YA, and I think this is a really good example of how mature YA literature can be. (I have a friend who scoffed at The Hunger Games because he believed as a YA novel, it couldn’t possibly present a true dystopia accurately or have anything meaningful to say about dystopias since, as we all know, all YA lit ends with problems neatly being solved and everyone gets along again.)
Anyway, I’d recommend this one. Susin Nielsen (a Canadian!) wrote it, and I had the chance to watch a talk with her and speak to her afterwards. I didn’t expect her to be so funny and self-deprecating!
Also, here is me undergoing Clothes Therapy (which works pretty well, I must say). And yes, you must tuck your hoodie under your sweatpants. How else are you going to look stylish while your skin heals?
aaron's random musings 