Um, a book of clever fairy tales with beautiful illustrations that grow and build around the borders as the story goes on and the complete picture also becomes a part of the twist ending? Yes please!

I don't know if it was just my brain or the writing, but starting out I was very confused with who was saying what and when and where. Or there were sentences I had to reread a few times before my brain suddenly understood the context or who was saying it. Again, it might have just been me, because later on in the book everything was fine. The writing is decent, I truly love the story and the characters. It reminded me a bit of "A List of Cages" since they both deal with extreme abuse by a family member, but I feel I enjoyed the characters a lot more in this. They were more well rounded.

I was prepared to be confused with the timeline and narrative jumps, but with the fore warnings of previous reviews I was ready for it and enjoyed this book much more. It is quite a good book with your fairy-tale setting and then your classic "banished from magical realm to our world" which is Paris during World War II. And then the strange chapters here and there where the narrator is suddenly in first person (don't worry, you'll find out who and why). It really did make for a fun read. And I'm usually wary of translations, but this one did just fine and was easy to read and understand in the English translation.

Teen librarian secret: I never read the actual book of this. Shhhhhh....

Aaaaauuuughhhhh! SO GOOOOOOOOD! The art! The characters! The story! EVERYTHING! Yup, definitely a wonderful graphic novel for all ages!

I'm trying to think what other book I read recently that dealt with Asperger's and I couldn't STAND IT! Meanwhile, this book, where the main character also has Aperger's, was so much more intriguing, genuine, and I loved reading this book with her in it! And Stanley too, he was also great. Need a teen book that deals with mental health? This one. Rare bone diseases? This one. Zoos and treating animals humanely? This book. Unhealthy relationships and abusive parents? This book.

Homelessness? This book. Sex for first timers with constant and enthusiastic consent? This book. The first time I've ever seen a YA book with a blow job in it?
This book!

Obviously it's for older teens as Alvie is 17 and is attempting to become legally emancipated, but it covers so many topics in such a good way I think any mature teen could read it.

Nope, can't do it. I can't finish it. The writing is just so... juvenile and awful. You don't use ALL CAPS like THIS to accentuate or make a point. You use italics! And this is a teen book. I'm not a prude, but the overabundance of the F-word in here was just ridiculous. This is not how teens talk. Sure, they cuss, sure stressful situations will cause cursing, but seriously, this is ridiculous. And the horror part of it made me think of the off-brand Goosebump book series I used to read called "Strange Matter" which I loved as a tween. So the age range is all over the map for this: juvenile writing and horror situations but enough cursing to rank the rating up to R.

Yay! This book definitely does not suffer from Second-Book Syndrome, a horrible ailment that occurs in many teen book series where it's mostly setup for the next book and not much action. Also, after you've waited a year for it to be released, you've forgotten much of what happened in the last book. Not so here. I was able to dive right back in and just get right back into the action and the plot. I think I just really love Shusterman and his books. They're just perfect to my tastes in writing and reading!

Weird.

The main thing I'm feeling about this book is one of confusion. I don't think I understood 20% of what was being said, or trying to be said, or trying to be done.... I just don't know. After finishing the book, I got the main gist of it, but I'm still somewhat baffled when I try to think about the "why's" of the plot's detail. It almost felt like I was reading the second book of a series as we are plunked down with the main character Lori, who is already hunting feeders, in a world where the waters have risen but it's not the distant future (that bit is pretty much, sorta-kinda, explained by the end), but boy was I floundering for most of the book to make sense of a lot of it. Also the dialogue got kinda run-on-ish. They're all teens and I think the author was doing his best to make the dialogue sound young and "hip"? Maybe?
So, if you're looking for a sci-fi book with a good dash of horror, and mutant teens, and dimensional travel and lots of fish knowledge, have I got a book for you!
Maybe.

Edit: Oh! Oh! I do want to give this book a big kudos for it's diverse characters! It did a great job!