Friday, September 25, 2015

Review: Fans of the Impossible Life by Kate Scelsa

Title: Fans of the Impossible Life
Author: Kate Scelsa
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Coming of Age
Source: Balzer + Bray via Edelweiss




A captivating and profound debut novel about complicated love and the friendships that have the power to transform you forever, perfect for fans of The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

Mira is starting over at Saint Francis Prep. She promised her parents she would at least try to pretend that she could act like a functioning human this time, not a girl who can’t get out of bed for days on end, who only feels awake when she’s with Sebby.

Jeremy is the painfully shy art nerd at Saint Francis who’s been in self-imposed isolation after an incident that ruined his last year of school. When he sees Sebby for the first time across the school lawn, it’s as if he’s been expecting this blond, lanky boy with mischief glinting in his eye.

Sebby, Mira’s gay best friend, is a boy who seems to carry sunlight around with him. Even as life in his foster home starts to take its toll, Sebby and Mira together craft a world of magic rituals and impromptu road trips, designed to fix the broken parts of their lives.

As Jeremy finds himself drawn into Sebby and Mira’s world, he begins to understand the secrets that they hide in order to protect themselves, to keep each other safe from those who don’t understand their quest to live for the impossible.
Review by Nara

Fans of the Impossible Life wasn't really what I expected it to be. I was expecting a bit of a bisexual love triangle, considering the original tagline "This is the story of a girl, her gay best friend, and the boy in love with both of them". I think the tagline has since been removed, which is good, because it's really not very accurate. I mean, I guess the character does love them in the friend sense, but he's certainly not in love with the girl, and probably not in love with the gay best friend either.

I have to say, I didn't really like Sebby and Mira as characters that much. I don't know, it's not that I liked or disliked them, but I didn't really feel particularly strongly about them either way. I definitely felt sympathy for their situations- Sebby is in foster care and is struggling with being gay in a Christian household. Mira, on the other hand, is struggling with depression and the lack of support she receives from her family. I did quite like Jeremy as a character, as I can kind of understand how he was drawn to the quirkiness and "edginess", in a way, of the other two.

The book is split into three points of view: Jeremy's in first person, Mira's in third person and Sebby's in second person. I couldn't even deal with Sebby's point of view. It was such a struggle to read due to the second person POV, which isn't my favourite at the best of times, and certainly not my favourite in a book with multiple POVs. It was ridiculously tempting to just skip those chapters, but I guess pushing through was worth it, especially since his POV had the most drama. I don't think I ever got used to it though, especially going from the smooth viewpoints of Mira and Jeremy.

There were a couple of issues with the book, but I did enjoy it somewhat overall. Even just to read through all the drama the three characters go through and how they deal with it was enough to keep me pushing through the negative aspects. I'm not entirely sure I'd recommend the book to people though. Maybe if you're patient and don't mind a bit of a wild narrative.

Liked it
Ratings
Overall: 6/10
Plot: 3.5/5
Writing: 4/5
Characters: 4/5
Cover: 4/5